Bighorn 100 - 30 years
Last fall I turned 29 years old. The loom of my 30s hung heavy over me. I never really believed I’d make it to 30. Live fast die young or something. I also couldn’t imagine a world with out Lopi. And as an extra large dog 12 years old is rare. There was no life after Lopi, or so I thought. But Eigen showed me there was life after Lopi and Corbin taught me how to live slow and die old. So here I was staring down another decade I hadn’t planned for.
I’d lived a lot of my young 20s with reckless abandonment chasing superficial accomplishments for attention. And then the second half of my 20s with zero care. I’d built a house, run a handful of 100 milers and a 200 miler, switched jobs 3 times, got a second dog, lived in CO, SF, Tahoe, Montana, lived in a van, chased paragliding, climbed big walls, got a master degree, got married, took up acting, learned the banjo…. What was next. What could I even strive for in my 30s.
That’s when my good friend Jenelle reached out. She said something like hey I just signed up for the Canyons 100 miler you should do it with me. To which I laughed and said never. There wasn’t much that inspired me about the canyons and I was picky about the 100s that I would even think about doing. Plus it was practically in the middle of winter for me and not that I train anyways but I knew I’d really not be trained. She then pressured further saying something about your last year of your 20s you should do another one before your 30. The thought sunk in. I hadn’t even thought about racing again after the Fat Dog.
Julia’s death in 2018 really messed with my head and my relationship with running. When you don’t care what anyone thinks about you and you don’t care about finishing it’s really hard to push through the dark points and the pain. I’d run 100 miles before. I’d run 200 miles before. I had nothing to prove to myself and nothing to prove to anyone else. So why would I do it again? What did I have to gain? What could I use to motivate myself?
I started poking around 100 mile races online. Nothing inspired me. Nothing excited me. But the Bighorn 100 was in Wyoming a short drive from the property I’d been building a house on and it was early enough in the summer that it would be over and I wouldn’t have to think about it again. So against all my better judgment I signed up.
I went through some health stuff early winter and my doctor advised me to not do the race. She said it would just set me back and she couldn’t see any benefits to doing it. I felt the same way and then we got the 2nd biggest winter in history. So I emailed the race director of the Bighorn in March asking to withdraw from the race. The email bounced. I sent 15 emails all of them bounced. As the window for any refund came and passed, I took it as a sign I should just do the race.
Starting in April I found some trails in Boca that were plowed and gated. I started running again. I drove every day to Boca to run. As more trails opened up I ran more. Then I told some friends. By May we were the Boca Run Club (BRC) and every day I was running. I ran more than I ever had before. My body was the healthiest it had been in years. I felt strong. I felt good. I knew my doctor was right. This was all I was supposed to do. Nothing good would come from pushing it to 100 miles.
During this time my college best friend Nikki was stuck at 14k feet on Denali in a giant storm window. I’d inreach her to make sure she was still excited to pace me at Bighorn and also going to be off the mountain in time. She was stoked to do anything but sit in a tent. When she got off the mountain she flew to SLC and I drove to pick her up. Nikki and I spent a week in Lander jogging, hanging out, doing life stuff, and then picked Corbin up from the Riverton airport. We drove from Lander to Sheridan the next day and prepared for the race.
Things felt different this time. I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t excited. I was just there. I was really fit more fit than I’d been in a long time and could have probably crushed a 50k. But I wasn’t doing a 50k. I was surely going to be crushed by a 100 miler. The cut off was 35hrs and I wasn’t even sure if I could run that fast for that long. Not to mention I had gotten my period the day before and made the bold choice to just free bleed during the race. I said goodbye to Corbin and Nikki and got on the bus for the start line. I sat beside a really lovely lady from South Dakota and she told me about her runner named Chris. It was his first 100 miler. How exciting I thought. I wish I was excited.
I started in the back because I was on one of the last buses to arrive. I eyed a couple of 50ish year old woman who looked wicked fit and ultra savvy. I told myself to try and hang tight to them so I didn’t go out too fast. I ran on the heals of Laurie from Colorado for the first 5 miles. Before I gave her some space and headed up the wet slippery muddy hill. I was so thankful I had brought my poles as the footing was slick as can be and steep.
I made quick progress of the long uphill and found myself more annoyed than ever by peoples casual conversations. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t care what you do for work. I don’t care what other races you’ve done. And I definitely don’t want to listen to your bluetooth speaker. In the past I’ve been a more social runner but for some reason I was the opposite at Bighorn.
Right before the first major aid station I saw a runner coming towards me he was limping and screaming in pain. I looked at his knee it was split open. Blood pouring down his leg. The gash had to have been 3 inches long. Every step looked excruciating. I imagine I had just missed him fall in the mud and he must have hit a hidden limestone rock. I felt sick to my stomach. I had been slipping and sliding around all over but had yet to fall. A couple of close calls. I took each step more seriously after that.
I got to see Nikki and Corbin at the first aid station at mile 13. I changed socks took a bathroom break to see the damage from the free bleeding and eat some food. I wouldn’t see them again till mile 48. But I was feeling good and the temps were cool. Everything was perfect except for the mud. I left the aid station in good spirit. I could walk faster than most people could run and I took advantage of that on the uphills. I’d jog the flats and downhills and speed walk the uphills. I passed a lot of people on my way to Sallys Bridge.
The descent into Sallys Bridge was a slippery mud fest. A friendly fellow had come up behind me and I was more in the mood to chat by that point. He told me he was from South Dakota and I thought what are the odds if this is Chris that my new friend on the bus was crewing for. So I said “Chris?”. And he was like wait what do I know you. I then explained how I had sat with his crew on the bus and what were the odds that he would be the one and only runner I chatted with for the entire race!
At Sallys Bridge I took a sit. Changed my socks. Eat a bunch of food and used the bathroom again. I took what I thought was a wet wipe (it was actually an alcohol wipe) and really woke up my down stairs. I was moving out on the big climb to Jaws quickly and feeling really good. The mud had become just a part of the course at this point and I think I stopped trying to find the best line and just started owning the slopfest. I had a friendly runner latch on to my pace and me and him did almost the entire climb together. I liked him because he was quiet. I knew he was there and we would exchange pleasantries from time to time. Things like wow this is really runnable or gosh this mud is never ending. But I never got his name. He never got mine. I don’t have any clue where he is from. All I know is he had an iron man tattoo on the back of his calf.
I passed a lot of people on the climb and didn’t dawn my headlamp till I was 4 miles from the Jaws aid station. At this point the temps were really dropping and I knew putting on some extra layers would be smart so I put on my jacket but it still wasn’t biting the cold. I jogged as fast I could to the warm tent ahead. At this point I was seeing a lot of runners heading in the opposite direction but it was still hard to tell exactly how I was doing for pace.
When I got to the aid station it was dark and I couldn’t see Corbin or Nikki anywhere. The volunteers ushered me into the tent and I was worried for a second that they missed me. I was a little faster than normal but I was still in the window of possibility. I knew they were probably there somewhere. I started unpacking my backpack and getting ready to go back out just hoping they’d show up.
At that moment Corbin came flying into the tent in a panic. OMG he proclaimed Nikki is sleeping and I wasn’t expecting you. I’ll go get the bag but just wanted to let you know we’re here. I think I said something like okay. Well wake Nikki up. I was worried that I’d be combative and not want to keep going at the half way point but I was actually the opposite. I felt good and I knew the next section was a lot of flat and downhill. I required no motivation to get out of the aid station.
I put on all of my layers including my down jacket as Nikki and I walked out of the aid station. The sun would rise in a few hours and as we descended the temperatures would hopefully warm. The clean dry socks I had put on were wet with in the first mile as we slipped and slided our way down the hill. I was falling a lot now. It was dark and my body was weakening.
My stomach was sour and the downhills hurt worse then the uphill. My eyes were heavy and my pants too tight. I was getting grumpy. I had to pee like every 15 minutes it felt like and pulling those pants up and down was a process. I even at one point had a fart that ended up being diarrhea. Things just weren’t going well. At 2 am we got to a lovely remote aid station and they made me a cup of coffee. That give me the final boost to make it to Sallys.
When we arrived at Sallys I was done. I sat in a chair complaining. My knees were swollen and painful. My feet were beginning to get trenched. I was tired. Hungry. I whined to Nikki. This is so dumb. I have nothing to prove to anyone I don’t want to do this. I begged Nikki to ask a stranger to drive us to the next aid station. She quietly just stood there ignoring me. Occasionally saying so you want to DNF and I would angrily say only if we can get a ride and she said she wouldn’t ask for a ride unless I said I was DNFing. I was frustrated. And after falling asleep while sitting in the chair and 45 minutes of whining, I stood up and stomped out of there.
The first mile out of the aid station was mentally hard. I told Nikki I hated her and that I was going to walk at 1 mile per hour so that I would time out. And that it was going to take us 16 hours to go 16 miles. I said things like I want to fall in the mud and need stitches so that I can DNF. I would sit on the side of the trail with my head in my hands trying to make it make sense. Why was I doing this. What could I possibly pull on to motivate me to keep going. Ultra running is so dumb I muttered under my breath while Nikki ignored me. A friendly pacer came by with a runner to inject loads of positivity into my space. My eyes were like daggers.
I finally got up and took my jacket off. I looked at Nikki and I said I just need to change my head space. I told her I could no longer talk and that I just need to be silent but she could talk. It was going to take a lot of internal will power to break myself out of that headspace. It wasn’t ever going to make sense. Nothing external was going to motivate me. I don’t care about the finish or the belt buckle. It was still going to be dumb and pointless and yet I was going to have to keep doing it. I charged out of their passing people left and right.
I moved fast. I had dug myself out of the depths of my darkness and I was just going to get it done. I stopped occasionally to take drugs and bio freeze my knees. But mostly we jogged and walked quickly in silence. Nikki was doing 38 miles starting in the middle of the night with me through sole sucking mud. So I don’t think she was having much fun either. But sooner than we knew it we rolled into the last major aid station where Corbin was several hours before the cut off.
I didn’t stay long at this aid station. We were only 16 miles from the finish and I was in so much pain I just wanted to be done. I was motivated by the idea of sitting down and not having to stand back up. I said goodbye to Nikki thanked her and apologized for how awful I was and then jetted down the trail with Corbin. I knew this next section was going to be rough. It was a scary oil slick going up. I could only imagine what it was like going down with tired legs.
Corbin and I jogged this section carefully. It was beginning to rain and I was worried about getting my layers wet in my backpack so I put on my poncho. But I quickly got hot so I ripped it right off. Right before the final uphill I passed a man with an ironman tattoo on the back of his leg. He was walking slowly and I looked up and said hey we spent a lot of miles together. He was like hey yes we did. And then I passed him still never getting his name.
I was on a mission and the uphills felt good. I blazed up the final climb passing 50 milers left and right. Knowing it was about to be a downhill disaster. As the trail turned to the long final descent I could feel all of the painful blisters in my shoes. The rain running down my shoulders drug the sweat into my arm pits and I became aware of the chaffing I had there as well. My knees in particular didn’t find the downhills pleasant. And to make it all worse it was an oil slick luge. Corbin and I spent more time on the ground than upright. It was almost comical every few steps ended in the mud and again and again.
That descent felt like it took a decade. But I didn’t hurt anything so I counted that as a success. It was a tiny bit of trail and then a long 5 miles on the road. The road came quick and then it was painful pounding on pavement for an hour. I quickly sped walked off as Corbin chatted with a 50k runner. My brain was on pain and the motivation of sitting in a chair. The miles dragged. As we rounded the corner into the park I finished.
I walked off. Sat down. Took my shoes off. My feet were gross and my knees were swollen. I grabbed my belt buckle and left. I laid in agony in the back of the car. Soaked my trench foot feet in the bath tub of the hotel and then tossed and turned in pain all night long. Ultra running is dumb I repeated. I didn’t even get a runners high. That sense of accomplishment was gone. I felt nothing. I felt dumb. All I did was damage my body, ruin my gut, and ruin my fitness. To see if I could do something I already knew I could do cause I had don’t it before.
Nikki Corbin and I headed back towards Tahoe. I had so much fun with Nikki in the week leading up. I had fun with Corbin and Nikki before, during, and after the race. I met some cool people that I really liked and make me want to visit South Dakota again soon. The Bighorns are incredibly beautiful mountains and the state of Wyoming has my heart. But I don’t think I needed to run 100 miles to experience all that. I think it’s time to try something else in the next decade of my life.