Bighorn 50k 2014: Captain Ahab finally caught his whale....

Starting in 2008, I signed up for the Bighorn 50k four years in a row. I ended up dropping down to the 30k the first two years and just didn't show up at all the next two. Sometimes it was because I hurt myself, and other times it was because I was a bum and didn't get my training in. Either way, this was a race that was on my radar for a long time. Since 2009, my running had not gone particularly well, generally for the reasons I noted above. Starting about 18 months ago, I finally started getting some consistency going again. I started keeping an eye out for a late-year marathon or 50k to be my first in either distance. When I was unable to find a race that neatly fit into the time frame I was looking for, an idea struck me: The Bighorn 50k. I should make the race that always got away from me my first ultramarathon.

So, here we were on the afternoon of June 20, 2014. I had just picked up my bib and race packet and it's finally hitting me.... Holy shit, I am actually here and am going to do this. Leading up to the race, I was admittedly a little nervous about my fitness level. My longest run going into this was only 17 miles. It's more than enough to actually complete the event, but I was having expectations of being completely wiped out and struggling towards the end. I worked with a high school friend, Scott, on putting together a training schedule for this, and he did a great job on it. We had to take some risks to even get me to 17 miles, but because I wanted to do silly stuff like go from zero-to-ultrarunner in 7 months, sprain my foot in January, and do the Trudge in March, we simply ran out of time. But Scott's schedule was great and far better than anything I would have come up with on my own- I would have either been under-prepared or did something REALLY reckless if I was left to my own devices. So, with the minor concerns I had about how far I'd make it into the race before crashing, I was trying to focus on a single idea... There's only two ways off this course: Either I finish or they pull me.

Officially, my goal was simply to survive and reach the finish line. Unofficially, I thought that I was capable of coming in at 8-9 hours. I was admittedly having a hard time trying to gauge where I needed my expectations to me- a goal of simple survival seemed like it was setting the bar really low, but I wasn't sure how realistic my time targets were either. With this being a tough course and the questions about how long my body would last, there was a real chance of me setting myself up for disappointment if I focused too hard on the time goals. The 50K course is the 30K course with an extra 20k loop tacked onto the beginning. The 20K loop is a long 1000ft climb, followed by a 2000ft drop, followed by another 1000ft climb, while the 30k had a little bit of early climbing followed by virtually all downhill. I figured that if I was going to make any time targets, I was going to probably lose a fair amount of time on the 20k loop, and then have to make up the difference on the 30K course. After a decidedly iffy dinner at Oles and some last second sorting and prepping, I shut down for the night in anticipation for the big day. Left the hotel at 5:15 to catch the bus up to the unusually warm starting line. Once there, I met up with Ragan Driver, Chris Schabron, and Jeff & Johnna French. Everybody seemed pretty relaxed and ready to go, and it was good to see some friendly faces before taking off.

This was only the beginning- of both the race and the climb.....

Ready to get this crazy train rolling.

I was aware that the initial 20K loop was a lot of climbing, but I didn't realize exactly how tough it was going to be. I knew that we had to climb that long, somewhat steep trail shown in the above pictures.... but I didn't know that we were only seeing about a quarter to a third of that initial climb. That sucker just went on and on and on. With climbing clearly being my strong-suit, I quickly fell straight to the back of the pack. Towards the end of that initial climb, I caught up with a guy named Bob. Bob was 87 years old and had run Bighorn 17 times. Craziness. I hung with him for a bit before things started to level out and I could pick up the pace a bit. There were some great views from the top of the ridge, and that led to the first of the quad-crushing descents. I was able to make up some time on the descent and pass several people. There was one couple that I played leapfrog with for a while... I'd take them on the downhill, and they'd crush me on everything else. Grabbed a quick orange at the Cow Camp aid station and kept moving forward. The 6 mile climb out of the bottom of that loop was tough. It's not that I was getting overly tired, I was just getting sick of climbing.

After almost exactly 4 hours, I made it back to the start line. I was extremely pleased with this time because it meant that I was EXACTLY on pace for 9 hours, even after an extremely tough start to the race. Unfortunately, this is where things started going wrong.

Mistake 1: I forgot to stop and switch out my socks. Didn't matter at that moment, but it was going to become a big deal later.

Mistake 2: My fueling plan went to hell. On the website, it was advertised that the aid stations would be fully stocked with hammer products, including gels. Awesome! I interpreted this as meaning that I didn't have to carry enough gels for the entire event. I figured that I'd load up the front pockets on my pack (2 gels in each of the 4 pockets) and then resupply what I used at each station. But... they didn't have the individually packaged gels. They only had the large bottles that they could squirt into bottles or cups. This was bad. Up to this point, I had been taking one gel every 30 minutes. I was now left with 3 gels to get me through the next 18 miles. I adjusted my schedule to every 45 minutes and I wouldn't take a gel if I thought I was close to an aid station. I was very concerned about this. I've had serious bonking issues if I didn't stay on a strict fueling schedule during training runs, and this pretty much killed any plans I had.

I loaded up up on water and grabbed a fruit and sandwich and started the uphill hike that opened up the 30K course. About a mile in, my knee started really bothering me. It was felt like it was dead center in the back of my right knee, and it hurt like hell. Running was bad. Hiking level trail was OK. Climbing actually felt decent. Downhill was terrible. I tried to run in slow, short bursts early on, but it hurt too much and I was reduced to a hike full time. With most of the remaining race being downhill (much of it being very steep), it was not a fun hike. I hit Upper Sheep Creek, I grabbed a ham & cheese wrap, a cup of gel, and a watermelon. I hooked up with a gal for a few miles leading up to the Haul. She's apparently going to be a junior in HS this year, and decided to do this basically on a whim. Good for her. Also, screw her. I remember when I was young enough to go do stupid things on a whim. Good times. She lost me at the Haul, but I traded her in for a 100 miler. This was actually very good because he was moving at the perfect pace for climbing that thing. On my own, I'd probably plow through 20-30 feet before stopping to take a break. But by backing off and going on this guy's pace, I was able to hit the top in one push.

It was literally all downhill from here.... which would have been a good thing any day but today. I slowly slogged down that mountain, with my knee screaming every step of the way. There didn't seem to be any way to go about it where it felt OK. Trying to run was terrible, but hiking down it wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. Slowly cruised to the bottom while getting passed by every man, woman, and child left out on the course. About halfway down, the weather started rolling in. It started off as rain. Then the lightning came. Then the 5-10 minutes of pea-sized hail. The hail marked the start of my first real ultrarunner meltdown. I was using some very unlady-like language and I was giving Mother Nature a list of things she could go do with herself. Not a happy camper at this point. This also might have been the single worst spot on the course to have this weather. It was high up and completely exposed, so there was no shelter from the hail or the lightning. To get to a safe place, you would have had to go WELL off the course, so you were almost just as well off continuing forward. Entirely through adrenaline and a desire not to die on that mountain (yet), I was occasionally able to get some short bursts of running in. It hurt a lot, but I REALLY didn't want to be stuck completely exposed in that weather for longer than I had to be.

However, the rain had other ideas about me pushing through my knee. The rain turned that trail into complete slush. There was zero traction on the trail, and getting off to the side was only marginally better. One guy with hiking poles passed me while literally skiing down the trail. Seriously. Dude wasn't even taking his feet off the ground. So on top of trying to move gingerly on my knee, I had to slow down even more to try and stay upright. Took one crash and completely locked up my calf. Another runner was able to help me stretch out and get moving again, but trying to move in such a way as to avoid cramps was just another challenge.

By the time I reached Lower Sheep Creek, I was in rough shape. It had been over 90 minutes since I had gotten anything in my body.... I was too busy trying not to kill myself on the trail and by the time I thought about it, I was pretty sure the aid station was just around the next corner... or maybe it was over the next hill... or maybe it's in this little draw right over there... or surely that has to be the bottom. I was needing something of substance in my body, but I wasn't seeing any wraps or sandwiches like the other stations had. Figuring it couldn't hurt to ask, I got one of the volunteers and asked if they had any sandwiches. He said the station didn't, but he had a personal sandwich. I didn't want to take his personal food, but he insisted as he didn't have any plans on eating it at that point. That man was my hero. I was in bad shape and that sandwich was huge. Mr Sandwich Man- if you're reading this, I'm forever indebted to you. Seriously. If you ever need to hide a body or get a kidney transplant or anything stupid like that, I'm your man.

Mistake 3: I decided not to swap out my socks here. I was so soaked from the rain that I thought it wouldn't make any difference. In hindsight, I should have just done it anyways. I could feel some blisters coming on, but they weren't bad at that point. So I chose to keep moving. Stupid Tom. Stupid, stupid Tom.

At this point, my mantra had changed slightly. I had gone from, "There's only two ways off the course: either I finish or they pull me," to, "There's only two ways off the course: either I finish or they pull me.... and I really don't care which one anymore". I was running out of steam and was definitely not having fun anymore. It didn't help that the canyon was a lot hillier and technical than I remembered. The point where the race became a smooth, straight shot to the end was coming 2 miles later than I remembered and I wasn't happy about it. My knee was getting more and more achy with every little descent I had to do or rock I had to try and climb over, and the blisters I felt coming on were starting to hurt.

When I finally arrived at the aid station on the other side of the canyon trail, I decided to finally get my knee wrapped. It was likely too little, too late, but it was bothering me enough that it was worth a shot. While I was getting fixed up, I made an offhand comment to the medical folks that if the distances listed online were correct, that aid station marked the "finish" of my very first marathon. They thought it was really cool and were congratulating me, but I wasn't as impressed as they were at that point. My mental state had taken a big dip in the two miles since the previous aid station and it seemed like a hollow victory.

Between the trail head aid station and the last aid station, I was not in good shape. I didn't want to finish anymore, I just wanted it to be over. I wanted someone to pick me up, or I wanted to get hit by lightning, or I wanted just about anything to happen that didn't involve me hobbling 5 more miles. It didn't help that I had been on that dirt road for almost 45 minutes when a passing runner came by and said, "If it makes you feel better, you're exactly 4 miles out now!" 4 miles? That means that I spent the last 45 minutes traveling a single bloody mile? Yes friend, that helped lots! Thank you for that! That news was a definite shot to the gut.

At this point, my knee was actually much better since getting it wrapped, but my blisters were hurting insanely badly. Anytime I could find a rock or a buck rail fence or an unoccupied picnic area, I was stopping and sitting for 5 minutes. I know, and knew, that perpetual forward motion was the best strategy for getting off the course. But I was in such bad shape, especially mentally, that these brief respites were the only way I was going to keep myself going. Quite truthfully, I was shaming myself into finishing at this stage of the game. No one would have said anything to me about it if I had quit, but I knew I would be kicking my own ass over quitting with less than 5 miles to go on the easiest part of the course.

About a week before Bighorn, The Oatmeal released a new comic about the dos and don'ts of running your first marathon. This was one of the panes in that comic:

From The Oatmeal's latest comic: The DOs and DO NOTs of Running Your First Marathon

I laugh at it now, but this pane was pretty true during that last 5 miles. I was having a tough time holding my shit together at the end, and with every single person that passed me congratulating me and cheering me on, it was becoming that much harder. I couldn't talk to any of them because it was taking everything I had to keep from breaking down in the middle of the road.

Finally reached the final aid station, and sat down to take another breather. I was positive that I was still about 2.5 miles out. While sitting there nursing my watermelon, I heard one of the workers tell a passing runner that they were only 1.8 out. 1.8? I had to confirm it... yes! He really did say 1.8. This is going to sound really strange, but that was like getting a second wind. In a 32 mile race, you wouldn't think that .7 miles would matter that much, but it was mentally huge for me at that moment. It was .7 miles that I didn't have to traverse. I finished my snack and got rolling. There were even short stretches where I was "running" (and by "running", I mean that I was shuffling, just marginally faster than my normal shuffle). Sure, it still hurt like hell. But I only had 1.8 miles to go instead of 2.5! I can survive 1.8!

When I made the last turn into the Scott Bicentennial Park, I finally started to feel some pride in what I was about to accomplish. In the miles leading up to this point, I hated this and I wasn't proud and I'd probably throw my race shirts into a drawer somewhere and I'd never think about this horrible chapter of my life again and that would be that. But as I closed in on the finish, I was finally feeling some happiness and some pride in that finish. Admittedly, some of it might have been happiness over the simple fact that I survived, but that's besides the point. I finally made it. After 7 years of signing up for or eyeballing this race and 10:55:02 of suffering, I could finally call myself an ultra-marathoner.

10:55:02 after starting, Captain Ahab finally caught his whale.

My reward for finishing.

So..... what to say after the fact?

For the day itself.... it was a learning experience. I shouldn't count on the aid stations to be able to completely take care of me. It was a clever idea in an effort to not carry 32 miles worth of gels with me, but it backfired. And I don't hold it against the race- they had a good reason why they didn't carry the individually packaged gels. Now I know for next time. I also need to care better for my feet. I shouldn't have forgotten to do the first sock-swap, and I shouldn't have just flat-out skipped the second one. I think I could have avoided a lot of pain and swearing at the end if I had just taken better care of myself. I missed my target time frame by 3 hours, but I now feel that it wasn't an unreasonable goal that I had set. My two BIG rookie mistakes hurt me, and my knee + the weather on the descent were just freak things. And I felt like I could have run during the last 5 miles if I wasn't in such pain. If my cards came out a little differently and I played my hand just a little bit better, there's no doubt in my mind that I could have easily hit 8-9 hours, if not better.

Will I do it again? If you had asked me during the race, and especially during the 3 hours it took me to do the last 5 miles, I would have definitively said that I was never running again. If you asked me the evening after the race, I would have said that I'd have to think about long-distance races and whether or not they were really my cup of tea. Now? Yeah, I think I will. I'm still planning on making the trip out to Seattle in September for my first official marathon, and I'm already thinking about my next bad idea. There's no way I'm going to lose one of my knees after only 15 miles every time. And hopefully I'm smart enough to learn from my mistakes and not make them during future events.

It was a long day, and more miserable than I care to think about. But I got it done and I got that monkey off my back. I've killed my White Whale.