Mountain ultras are hard

Race report on the Big Horn 50 mile trail run, June 20, 2009

After it’s all said and done, I’m left with two simple observations on this event:  Man, that was tough.  And, whoa, that scenery was spectacular.  Well, and one other:  whoever does the 100 mile version of this has my utmost respect.

The “Bighorn Mountain Wild and Scenic Trail Runs” is actually a series of events ranging from a 30K to 100 miles, held in the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming.  The events are staged with staggered starting times, with the result that many of the runners from different events will end at Scott Park in Dayton, WY in the same general window of time.  For example, the 100 miler starts at 11 AM Friday, with the 50 miler starting at 6 AM Saturday.  As a result, a 30 hour runner in the 100 would finish at the same time as an 11 hour 50 mile participant.  The result is a festive atmosphere at the finish line with music, a picnic and the cooling waters of the Tongue River awaiting finishers.  Of course, you have to finish your chosen race to really enjoy it.

A look at the 50 mile course elevation map doesn’t really give a good indication of the difficulty faced by the runners.  After all, it starts at 8,800 feet elevation and ends at 3,600.  How tough could it be?  There are a couple of problems, specifically “The Wall” and “The Haul,” along with a few others.  But more on that later.

The Bighorn 50 is a point-to-point event, starting at Porcupine Creek in the Bighorn Mountains.  This meant catching the bus in Dayton at 4 AM for the drive up to the high country with a 6 AM start time.  Despite my careful packing, I did not bring any warm weather clothes for the wait prior to the start.  I knew it would get warm later, but temperatures in the 30s would make for a long wait.  Fortunately, there was a thrift store close to my hotel, and I scored a fleece top and cotton gloves for a total of $3.  I left the pullover at the start, but couldn’t bear to part with the gloves, so they made the trip home with me.  An accountant loves a good deal.

The event started with an American flag and an a cappella version of the National Anthem.  With that, we were off.  The trails are absolutely beautiful, with much of the opening stretch running though green meadows.  And there was the mud—lots of mud.  I should have given up on keeping my feet dry early on, but I still tried to pick my way through the wettest sections.  In one lapse of judgment, I jumped onto a large rock, planning on springing across a water crossing.  My muddy shoe hit the wet rock, and the result was predictable.  I ended up sprawled in the creek with some minor abrasions and bruises….annoying, but hardly disabling.  (I would say I fell awkwardly but that would be duplicative.  After all, can one fall gracefully?)

Near the start of the Bighorn 50.

A gorgeous morning in the high country.

The first 18 miles were generally downhill, with pleasantly cool temperatures.  Befitting of the backcountry nature of the trails, the first two aid stations are relatively limited.  After all, vehicles can’t reach the locations.  Power Gel was still appealing at this point in the day, so I tried to consume a packet every hour or so, along with an S! Cap, refilling with water at the stations.  At the third aid station, Foot Bridge, drop bags are available along with a full service aid station.  I devoured some very tasty watermelon, changed into dry socks and headed out.  My time was slow at about 4:15 for the first 18 miles.  I was a bit concerned, because I didn’t think I was that slow.  But it got worse from there.

The view on the way to Foot Bridge.

The next couple of miles are referred to as “The Wall,” and I soon found out why.  It seems that the trail is simply straight up.  No switchbacks, just grinding constantly uphill.  I was on this section for something in excess of an hour as the course elevation went from 4,200 feet to 6,300 feet.  This climb took a great deal of energy and allowed self-doubt to creep in….would I have the gas in the tank to finish?  After all, when we got to the top we were not even halfway through the event.

My doubts continued as we passed the Bear Hunting Camp aid station.  My stomach was beginning to rebel at the idea of much of any food.  I was tired and had a long way to go.  I tried to focus on the gorgeous scenery, snap some pictures and keep moving forward.

Feeling like hell, but the scenery was pretty.

The low point arrived at the next aid station, Kerns Cow Camp.  I just about ralphed at the side of the trail entering the station.  The fried bacon did not look appealing, to say the least.  At this point I was relatively sure I was going to drop.  Asking the mileage, I was informed it was 26 miles down and 24 to go.  It had taken me seven and one-half hours to get to this point!  Hell, the Pike’s Peak Marathon, years ago, didn’t take that long.  Plus there is a 15 hour time limit…. half the time was gone already.  I nibbled on a turkey and cheese sandwich, and tried to figure out whether I could make the cutoffs.

One of the veterans I ran with briefly described the next section as “PUAD’s” or “pointless up and downs.”  Predictably, the last stretch before the 32 mile aid station was the “up” stretch.  I changed socks once again, guzzled some carbonated soft drinks, ate some watermelon, and continued on.

The well-known ultra saying is, “it never always gets worse,” but I had my doubts.  It did not seem like this bad stretch was going to end.  Miraculously, it did.  I met up with another runner (we never even introduced ourselves, but I think it was Kurt Buchl of Bozeman, MT) after the aid station and we began running together.  Kurt is a banker and I’m a CPA, two notoriously conservative professions.  I rambled for miles about the complete lack of fiscal responsibility in this country and the coming decline of the dollar, while Kurt talked about the real estate market in Bozeman.  We were so wrapped up that we managed to miss a turn in the trail.  Fortunately, there wasn’t too much “bonus mileage,” but we did add an unnecessary steep climb.

A short break after a long climb.

“The Haul” was the next testy stretch at about the 40 mile mark.  Steep, but not terribly long, at least when compared with “The Wall.”  And it had some beautiful wildflowers.  After cresting this section it was a long series of downhill miles.  I was feeling good by this point and knew I was going to finish, unless I did a severe face plant on the steep descent.  The course pulled alongside the Tongue River for the balance of the event.  One runner joked about jumping in and floating to the finish….man, did that sound good.

Wildflowers along "The Haul."

The trail rejoins the Tongue River as the finish draws near.

I hit the finish with a time of 13:13, and rewarded myself by soaking my legs in the snow melt fed river.  Given that my previous personal worst for a fifty miler was 9:23, today’s effort was a testament to lousy conditioning, a tough course, or both. This was my first mountain ultra, and I knew I would be stepping up in the level of difficulty.  Before heading to Wyoming, and without much analysis, my fantasy time for this was 12 hours with a more reasonable estimate of 13 hours.  So all in all, I suppose my time met my diminished expectations.  The course, scenery and event overall?  Way, way better than I thought it could be.  But I don’t think I’ll be entering the 100 next year.

Epilogue

We’ve been back home for two weeks now, and I’ve been back for two workweeks.  Been kind of gnawed on by clients, responded to inane emails, dealt with a filing deadline.  So it’s pretty much back to the grind.  A perfect time to reflect on the monster road trip.  Following are some random comments, in no particular order.

This is a really big country. Certainly a sage revelation, I know.  Nearly a month (25 days) seemed like forever as we started.  But it was nowhere near enough time to see even the West, at least at our pace.  We never even made it to the coast.

The green is the outbound trip, the black is the monster drive back.

There are some really pretty areas in the western US. Pretty much on par with the first statement.  There are many areas of the West I just love.  The red cliffs of northern Arizona / southern Utah, the snow capped Wasatch mountains of northern Utah, the deep forests and glacier carved lakes of northern Montana.  All are gorgeous.

The Vermillion Cliffs area of Arizona, looking up the Colorado river.

Snow Canyon State Park, Utah

The Sawtooth mountains, Idaho

There are some really desolate areas out there. This trip really drove home the sparseness of large blocks of land.  New Mexico….man, there’s just nothing in lots of it.  Southern Idaho is pretty sparse.  Perhaps surprisingly, parts of Oregon and Washington were pretty quiet also.  We may take for granted cell phone service…..but there’s long stretches with no cell service, no cars, no nothing.  What you do with car trouble is a mystery to me.  Fortunately, we never had to address that.

I could live in lots of different places. I suppose the “grass is always greener,” but there are some very nice cities / towns with really nice, dry (read: no KC summer humidity) climates and plenty of outdoor activities.  Some places that come to mind are St. George and Provo in Utah, Bend in Oregon, Whitefish in Montana (summer only, of course) and Durango in Colorado.  Oh, I know, they lack culture, diversity, etc.  But most had really good trails, bike paths and climates.  And I found good beer in all of them.

Kathy and I must be sorta compatible. Well, we’ve been together 30+ years, and didn’t kill each other on the trip (notwithstanding what I believe was a brief, murderous wrath on her part late in the game).  Actually, K is one of the nicest people in the world, while I can be kind of a jackass.  So maybe it balances out.

I really love my Goldens. Dogs in general are very adaptable, I think.  And Goldens are a very gentle, friendly breed that just like to hang around with their owners.  Maddie and Lola did really well and are good traveling companions.  Want to take a hike?  They’re up for that.  Hang around the room and catch up on stuff?  They’re good with that also.  Have to do a monster drive?  Just let them out to do their jobs occasionally and they’re OK with that.  But, then, I’m really a dog guy.

Mads and Lola, on the road.

Drawbacks of canine travel. Certainly you are limited with dogs on board.  We never ate in a restaurant, mostly carrying back food to a cramped motel room.  (Residence Inns with the outdoor grill and more space were very welcome stops.)  Couldn’t go into museums, indoor attractions, etc.  And we didn’t hike on hot, desert days when Kathy and I would have gone.  But I knew all those things going in, so most of the surprises were pleasant.

Sights we missed. We had a reasonably leisurely pace, not a lot of plans to deal with and still missed lots of things. There were plenty of outdoor recreation activities in Colorado we skipped.  Didn’t stop at the “Knife Outlet,” (I think that was in New Mexico somewhere), missed the Ice Cave in Idaho (a guy staying at the Salmon, ID B&B with us said it was really good), etc., etc.  The list goes on.

Pleasant surprises. Provo, UT was selected primarily due to the driving distance from St. George meeting my rough target.  It was a very nice stop, with the Wasatch Mountains in the background, a pleasant climate and lots of outdoor activities available.  Bend, OR was a last minute addition and was a very nice stop.  Grass Valley, CA was a pure shot in the dark and was a nice, if quirky, town.  Most of the young people were hooligans and everyone drove like hell, though.

Low point.  Ritzville, WA.  Not even close.  A La Quinta Inn with carry out dinner from “Cow Creek Food and Gifts?”  Way worse than Dodge City.

Dinner from the Cow Creek restaurant?? (Sorry, picture needs to be rotated)

Lessons learned. Driving every day with a different hotel each night is a bit of a grind, especially if you’re carrying a wardrobe worthy of Angelina Jolie.  Necessary across Kansas and other parts, but not the most pleasant way to travel.  Mixing in two and three night stays in selected locations really makes a difference.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.  No question.  Actually, I’ve got a race in Hot Springs, SD in August.  I’ve already got reservations at a pet friendly place.  We’ll just pile in the car and go as a group again.

Whose idea was this, anyway?

Assessing the quality of a road trip is probably best done sometime other than immediately after piling out of the car from the 29 hour drive home.  Actually, everyone is in a pretty good mood, glad to be home.  The Goldens are always in a good mood, of course.  And the house is still standing, the plants look pretty full (in the dark, that is) so all is well.

Travel stuff. The return trip had a bit more suspense than I was really looking for, at least in one respect.  There was some construction going on at our hotel, and two nights in a row we observed guests with flat tires in the parking lot.  I really did not want one, since I know nothing about the rental car, changing a tire on it, etc. and needed to make a 1,700 mile drive.  Kathy took me over to the race location at 6 AM Saturday morning (in a bit of a surly mood, predictably) and the low tire pressure indicator came on in the car.  Oh, hell…..had we picked up a nail and the resultant slow leak in tire pressure?  I would guess a slow leak could become severe over the course of the long drive home.

At least the race gave me plenty of time to think about a course of action.  We opted to alter the return drive a bit, go through Oakhurst (a moderate sized town) and pick up a tire repair kit.  If problems developed immediately, there was service available in Oakhurst.  Additionally, the new route took us through a more populated area as opposed to heading across the Sierra Nevadas. Kathy met me at the end of the race, I took a quick shower and we hit the road.  As planned, we bought the $30 emergency flat repair kit and began looking for air, and guess what…..the indicator light went out and never came back on.  No tire problems, no mechanical problems at all.

Nevertheless, the drive was, as I predicted, a sumbitch.  Yosemite is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and we went way out of the way (seemingly) to get interstate travel.  South to Bakersfield, CA, east to Barstow, up I-15 through Vegas and Utah, hit I-70 for the long drive home.  Strange as it may seem, I forgot how mountainous I-70 is through Colorado.  I think it was about 27 hours of driving and probably two hours of stops for gas, rest areas, etc.

Before darkness descended I even took a couple of pictures (Kathy started out driving so I could rest a bit).  Both of these suck, but what the hell?  They were obviously taken while moving.  I’d never been through Bakersfield, which has streets labeled “Merle Haggard Boulevard,” and “Buck Owens Way” (old time country music singers with connections to Bakersfield).  As with much of California, with water it was a vibrant agricultural area and without it was dry brown fields.

Bad photo showing brown fields and green background, viewed sideways and needing rotation

Then there was the biggest damn wind farm I’ve ever seen, extending miles and miles.

Really big wind farm. I was very bored early in the drive, and found this fascinating.

Sights missed. We skipped the Boron Museum (I think it was on “Twenty Mule Team Road”), the Mojave Desert visitors center, the five-legged steer in Kansas, etc., etc.

Golden stuff. The Goldens were great though the long return home, as they were throughout the trip.  I think they just concluded they were never getting out of the damn car.

Lola resting on Mads in the back seat. (Damn picture is sideways again).

Scientific studies of D.O.M.S. The return drive gave me an opportunity to study the impact of travel on “delayed onset muscle soreness,” or D.O.M.S.  This frequently impacts distance runners and produces soreness sometime after the event.  In my case, 36 hours or so it about when it hits.  From what I can determine so far, stuffing yourself into a cramped car for 29 hours after the event, eating leftover Wheat Thins, Cheerios, trail mix and drinking any stimulant you can find has little impact on D.O.M.S.  Hmmm, and I thought it might help.

Running stuff. The race was fine.  I think my mind just blocks out unpleasant memories of events.  I did not remember the steep, shadeless uphill grinds nor the shin-deep water crossings.  But I did remember the beautiful scenery and the really big trees.

I think this is pretty well it for this series of posts.  I’m going to put together some kind of epilogue in the next day or two to capture some overall thought before they get away.  Just a couple of final thoughts….

–I hope Alamo’s “unlimited miles” really means “unlimited miles.”

–I wonder if the Feds will bail me out of my Visa bill this month?