Run with the Burros - a long walk with Jack
2020 has been a year of canceled races and doing things differently. Also heightened awareness to the unseen world of germs and viruses. I of all people know the risks of running races and contracting illnesses. After arriving home from running the White Mountain 100 in Alaska in 2017 I laid sick in my bed with the flu for almost 2 weeks. I think I caught it from the plane. Not to mention the month plus I was sick after contracting the mono virus from the TRT 100 in 2018. I think I caught it from an aid station. Ultras run your body down and the weaker you are the greater the risks. Thats why when this race came across my radar I weighed the risks. The race had very few entrants and mostly all local CA. I’d be attached to a donkey keeping me mostly 6 feet from any other person. Masks were required at aid stations. No communal cups or food. Outdoors. Only a marathon distances so not aggressively taxing on the body. Sleeping, cooking, and eating in a van. Not to mention I’ve been the healthiest I’ve ever been this past year since moving to the summit and my diet has improved immensely. Needless to say I felt the risks were very small for me personally.
But now you’re probably asking yourself but why this race!? Burros have been a part of my life for many years now. Every year of college at Colorado School of Mines we would walk from our university to the capital center of Denver with Blaster the Burro. So I guess walking with a donkey wasn’t new to me. That being said I hadn’t really heard much about Burro racing till it tore through our little town of Truckee like wildfire. Gia a local gal had raced a race in Colorado and the photos and stories had all the runners talking. It was to my surprise to find out that California had a race just down the road. I had to go and see what it was about. And it just so happened to fall a few days before my birthday so I convinced my best friend Nikki who went to CSM with me and was familiar with Blaster the Burro to sign up with me.
The days before the race were a whirl wind. I bought a new van and prepared my house for winter. Then Nikki and I made a very janky van build out and hit the road for southern California. The plan was to pick Corbin up in Lee Vining on the way and for Corbin and I to take a birthday trip after the race. We spent a night at the mobile and picked Corbin up the next morning. The final 4 hour drive to the race was a slow drive. We had a minor van hiccup and drove around Bishop twice looking for gas. We reached Inyokern just in time to take a short little test run with Jack before the race. Amber the burro match maker had matched me with sweet old Jack he was somewhere in his mid 20s and a world champion burro racing runner. Pretty much this wasn’t his first rodeo. Since the rules state only one runner can operate a burro Nikki was just running the marathon solo. But she figured she’d tag along for the journey cause misery loves company. During our little test run we took Jack around the block and everything went smoothly Nikki ran in front while I ran behind. This burro racing thing didn’t seem so hard. Jack was an all star.
We camped in the van about 100 feet from the start line. The temperature highs for the day were going to be 94 degrees. I got up early and headed down to the donkey pen to get Jack brushed and fitted with his running pack. The cool thing about these burro races is that you can just make the donkey carry all of your water and you can go super light but since I wasn’t super aware of this I decided it was best if I just carried everything. Plus I had a big soft spot for old Jack. They started the burro runners first so I was the first one out of the gate. When the gun went off all the other burros took off in a sprint… except for Jack.
I was under the impression that Burros were pack animals and that they would run like crazy right out the gate but I guess I needed to encourage that behavior with old Jack otherwise he would just take the easy way out. So there I was not even 5 seconds into the race pushing Jacks butt over the starting line watching the dust from the burros disappear into the distance. Once we got far enough away from the start Jack started to run and I ran fast behind him. But we weren’t gaining on the other racers and the second wave of donkeys hadn’t caught me yet… I had a bad feeling I might have taken a wrong turn. So I stopped Jack and looked at my map. No I think this is right it has to be. So we jogged on. About a minute later I heard a stampede of donkeys behind me. I figured it must have been the 10 mile racers finally catching up. As I turned around to see 6 loose burros bounded past me no runners to be seen! What the fuck as I clutched on to Jack. Let’s try and run with these guys. Jack took off in a little jog but didn’t seem interested in keeping up with the other donkeys and soon the loose donkeys were gone in the distance. Next came a couple runners with donkeys and a couple runners looking for donkeys. I tried to get Jack to latch on to anyone or anything but he wasn’t interested in being a pack he just wanted to walk.
As I settled into the walking pace and runners kept flying past me with burros or not Nikki finally caught up. I was looking forward to having Nikki around. I thought maybe her presence would make Jack think we were a pack and move a little faster. But that wasn’t the case. We even got passed by walkers. Jack not only didn’t want to run but he just didn’t want to walk fast either. Not even 3 miles into this race and we were walking 30 minute miles. Jacks owner finally caught up and he gave us a couple tips to get him moving they helped. If I yawed him real loud from behind and waved my arms he would start to walk faster and maybe even do a little jog but he knew at this point I was soft and running was out of the question. After walking slowly the entire way to the first aid station at mile five we were finally able to get Jack to jog consistently. He liked the downhills and wasn’t super into the uphills so we capitalized as much as we could on the downhills. I’d run behind him screaming yaw Jack yaw and Nikki would lead the way in front. We passed almost the entire 10k race and even caught up to a couple marathoners. Coming into the 10 miler turn around in good time and looking promising for the last 16 miles. We finally got a system together and Jack was crushing.
Or at least we thought. Jack didn’t get the memo that we were doing a marathon today and decided that he wanted to just walk it in. No matter how hard I tried he did not want to run. But he never stopped. The day was getting hotter and I do not do the heat so I wasn’t upset Jack wanted to walk I didn’t want to run either in that heat. We watch a couple of racers DNF and then we were just alone out there… except for all the hunters. It was opening day for some bird hunting and we spent most of the walk listening to gun shots and even having one wiz right between us.
There was one steep climb and as we approached it we saw a very unhappy burro struggling on the climb refusing to move for a good 30 minutes. When we caught up the other burro seemed excited and latched on to Jacks walk. Jack wasn’t in the mood for much walking now and would occasionally graze the surrounding plants as he walked. Not soon after we pulled ahead of the other donkey and we really could not believe that over 6hrs into a marathon we were actually passing people. How in the world were we not dead last. Jack was very consistent and as the home stretch came closer and closer and the downhills longer he jogged a bit here and there. It was a nice change of pace from the infinite slow walk we had kept up for the past 13 miles. As we reached the last aid station with only 3 miles left to go we caught up with two other marathon runners. Another Naomi who I had a lot of mutual friends with. The 5 of us jogged it in the home stretch all finished with an epic 9hr marathon.
I was relieved to be done. Jack was in amazing shape having not pushed himself at all and took a nice dirt roll to cool off. And to our surprise Jack and I won the MolASSes award being the last ass in. And yet also we won second place for the females category after 2 others were DQ for having their burros run off on them at the beginning. Needless to say Nikki, Jack, and I had a blast and upon further reflection will totally come back and do another burro race. Maybe a shorter distance though and in Colorado.
Also here is a sneak peak of my Christmass card this year
