Wasatch Front 100

By Andy Pele

I want to thank everyone who thought about me last weekend and who tracked my progress online. I had decided to attempt finishing this race without a crew, without pacers, and without my wife waiting for me at the finish line. If she wasn’t waiting there bored to death, she would have been chasing me through the mountains for 33 hours, running herself ragged from aid station to aid station. It was bad enough she lost so much sleep trying to track me throughout the night. I wanted to see if I could do this all on my own, with 1200 miles between me and my network of social supports. I knew you were pulling for me though, hoping and worrying, and I really appreciate it. Thanks also to Dianna Adkison and Kimberly Mouser, who lent me the extra lights I needed to run through the darkness

 

Many have asked, “how do you train for that?” Not so surprisingly, I ran a lot. I idiotically doubled my weekly volume at the beginning and then worked up to 95 miles/week more rationally. It was actually easier than training for ironman because I only trained 10-17 hours each week. My key workouts were two long trail runs on the weekends, culminating in a five hour run on Saturday followed by a six hour run on Sunday.  By the time I was ready to taper though, all the volume had taken its toll on my legs and I was forced to lay-off completely for 13 days.

 

I seemed to have pain everywhere, groin, hips, outside and inside of the knee, and both legs. I went to Joe Company for two massages during the seven days preceding the race and he worked me over really well. I can’t thank him enough for the help he gave me. After almost two weeks of absolutely no running, I was able to complete the 100 miles without any of the symptoms I had leading up to the race.

 

Of course the pains changed my goals some. If all went perfectly, I had dreamed of a shot at breaking 24 hours and earning the coveted Crimson Cheetah Belt Buckle, inlaid with gold and usually awarded to less than ten participants each year. That long shot seemed impossible two weeks before the race.  I was still pretty certain that I would break 30 hours and earn the Badger Heart buckle, though. First of all, however, I wanted to enjoy the experience, and almost didn’t even wear my watch. Now, I won’t say that it was “fun,” but it really was unforgettable and something that I would not have wanted to miss this time around the merry-go-world.

 

At 3:50 am I left my hotel in downtown Salt Lake City for the short walk to the bus that would take us to the start of the race in Kaysville, twenty minutes north. I sat near Alan Holtz, one of six people from the Midwest (Minnesota) who would finish the race we were soon to start. I had listened to him at the pancake and sausage breakfast before the Voyageur Trail 50 miler in July. He continued his soliloquy cataloguing his latest achievements and failures. This man had attempted the most insane ultra I’ve ever heard of, The Barkley Marathons, a 100-mile event with 52,900 feet of climbing that only seven  people have completed within the 60-hour cutoff time. He was attempting the Grand Slam this year, completing 4 of the oldest 100 mile ultras in one year: Western States 100, Vermont 100 , Leadville Trail 100, and Wasatch Front 100. Most of us sat quietly and sleepily on the bus while Alan shared his passion.

 

That’s when I started to get nervous. Jeff Wells had called me the night before and relayed how nervous he was for me and I was cool and calm at that time. But the butterflies in my stomach were going crazy on the bus. I recalled that same feeling; dread and excitement all bundled into the pit of my gut, from my days of body surfing in Southern California. There were days when I knew the waves might be ten feet or higher and my stomach would churn like the sea as I drove toward the beach anticipating my first view of the surf. I knew that I would struggle on those days and maybe even get into trouble, but the thrill of the rides, and even the fears I faced, made it all worth it.

 

I was calm again by the time we got off the bus and went straight to the line for the port-a-potties. There were two of them, one for every hundred people I guess. I finished with five minutes to go and then it was finally happening, something I had wanted to do for several years. Some of you may remember that I signed up to do the Leadville Trail 100 Mile Endurance Run in 2006, but got hit by a car that year. Wasatch was supposed to be even harder. It has a lower average elevation, but significantly more climbing and descending. I was also looking forward to it because it has more single-track trails than Leadville, which has a lot of dirt and gravel roads. Later I would find out that single track in Utah, though it takes you thru beautiful forested areas and narrow gorges, can be brutal on your quads.

  

The first aid station was over eighteen miles away, and before I got there I would have to climb from a starting elevation of 4900 feet to over 9200. The air was thin but I just thought at least it wouldn’t be sticky and hot. Throughout the race I would try different tricks for dealing with elevation. From mountaineering I learned to rest step, momentarily locking out each knee as you walk up very steep terrain. It makes you slow, but being slow and steady was another approach that I hoped would help me succeed at this distance. I kept thinking to myself, be patient, be tough as nails, persevere, and “the race doesn’t start until mile 70.” Little did I realize that the winner would be done by the time I reached that mile-marker. I forcefully exhaled as the going got tough, another mountaineering trick, and I breathed out through pursed lips, a technique Rodney taught me as I sucked wind at Triple-T last May. I didn’t need to use these tactics early in the race, but they were lifesavers late in the game. And at that point, when all was failing I would just stop, bend at the waist with my hands on my knees, and wait till I couldn’t feel my heart pounding in the back of my neck.

 

Eighteen miles is a long haul with only four gels to eat. I didn’t think I’d get hungry because I ate 1200 calories for breakfast, but I should have carried more food. I was all set for water because I knew there were springs along the way and that I could purify the water with my iodine tablets. Also, though not an official aid station, they did provide water at about mile 13, after I had climbed above the infamous Chinscraper Bowl without incident. It’s a 500-foot ascent on loose rocks and we were warned to stay out of the fall line of the runners ahead of us so that they wouldn’t dislodge rocks onto our heads..

 

At the aid station, I finally got to eat. Once again, you can’t beat ultras for aid station food. Check out this list: Chips Ahoy, Oreos, melon, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, apples, oranges, bananas, Coke, Sprite, Powerade, chips, pretzels, M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, Goldfish crackers, Saltines, potatoes, salt, chicken noodle soup, broth with rice, grilled cheese sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, bagels, hash browns, pancakes, waffles, canned chicken chunks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peanuts, hot chocolate, coffee, hard boiled eggs, Popsicles, jelly bellies, gummy bears… They would bag it up for you and send you on your way. Or you could sit down in one of the chairs. I avoided that luxury for the first several stations but would sit frequently at others. Later I would discover aid stations with cots to lie on (oh,..the cruel temptresses) and propane heaters to warm my weary bones. At each aid station, volunteers would log your entry and exit times and relay these by ham radio to “net control.” Net control posted our progress online and also predicted our arrival times at future aid stations so that they would know to start searching for us if we didn’t show up in a reasonable amount of time. Three of the stations were also weigh-in stations where our weight was compared to our starting weight. This helps them to evaluate our medical condition and it helped me to eat and drink appropriately. By mile 53 I was a few pounds light so I started consuming more and by mile 75, I was one pound heavy so I knew I was ok.

 

My biggest problems during the race were nausea and painful stiff leg muscles. I’m sick of fighting nausea in long events. The lucky ultra runners get to vomit. I wish I were one of them. At one point I ate a potato dipped in salt and had a cup of chicken noodle soup. My stomach felt great afterward. But of course it didn’t last and further attempts at the same cure were less and less successful. Similarly, I discovered that I could stretch out my quads (rather forcefully and painfully until my legs regained their range of motion) after all the steep downhills pounded the elasticity out of them.  I could run pain free afterwards, but for shorter and shorter periods.

 

Ashley Nordell (winner of the 2007 3 Days of Syllamo and 2006 Angeles Crest 100) told me I would experience highs and lows during a 100-mile race. She was right and at times I couldn’t believe how good my body felt. It first happened as I was approaching the Big Mountain aid station. 400 feet below me the crowd was going wild. It was incredible, almost Ironman-like in its fanfare. They could see me approaching along these steep switchbacks and when I heard their cheers I just started attacking the descent. I was 40 miles into this race and felt like a kid running down a sand dune. Then, again, in the middle of the night, I was running down a gravel road with some nasty rockstacles to avoid and I was flying, passing people and feeling no pain. Everything flowed and my feet refused to land on anything but flat ground.  Then I came to asphalt and the miracle continued. It seemed as if I was all alone, miles ahead of (and behind) the other runners, and feeling great. Just a few hours ago I had been a walking zombie, weaving up the hills, trying not to fall asleep on my feet, looking forward to taking a short nap at this aid station that I now found myself approaching like a gazelle.

 

Even with all that energy, though, this is where I had my first hallucination. The houses of the little ski resort town of Brighton (mile 75) started to pop up and attached to one of them I saw a porch sized beach ball with spectators inside it. Later that night, I would see the moon setting behind the mountains, but before it was the moon it was a cabin, ablaze on the ridge. What a wild ride! Instead of mescaline and LSD,  might I suggest staying up all night doing the other LSD (long slow distance) as a “healthier” alternative?

 

Another challenge of the night was the cold. I didn’t expect it to be in the thirties. At one station I filled one of my bottles with very hot chicken broth. That helped but it was so salty and garlicky I had to dump it later. I had warm clothes in drop bags at the aid stations, but I always got cold before I reached the next spot where I could add a layer. As I approached 10,400 feet at about 3:15 am I wore two shirts, a rain jacket, gloves, and a third shirt as a hat for my head and ears since I had lost my balaclava. I never needed to put on tights, though. Ran the whole race in my mini-shorts. It was amazing to run into the night, knowing that you had just run 14 hours and you weren’t going to be stopping anytime soon. The sky was clear, and dark as ink, Orion as bright as I’ve seen him, and the Milky Way brilliant. I did have to stop, look up, and admire that scene for a bit. Off in the distance a glow stick might be seen hanging from a tree limb, signaling to me that somehow the trail would end up there. In the daytime, red and yellow ribbons marked the course. They were very easy to follow and I didn’t ever have to consult the course directions I had so meticulously copied and carried with me.  The night passed more quickly than I would have imagined, time runs erratically in an ultra.

 

Sadly I missed the sunrise. I can’t explain how it happened. Shortly before it rose I ran straight through the Pole Line Pass (mile 83) aid station figuring I should start pushing toward the finish. It was dark then, but before I knew it, it was light and I was at the Rock Springs aid station with just two more to go. I started checking my watch after that and noticed that I fell behind my original rough estimate of where I would be by now but still felt comfortable that I could break 30 hours. I had 3 hours to cover less than 13 miles. But I also knew that the Dive and the Plunge were coming up at miles 88 and 89. These are two sick steep descents of 600 feet each with lots of loose fist-sized round rocks sitting in the middle of the narrow trail. I had been warned to save some quads for them and felt pretty good after getting thru them. But in my mind, the last aid station should have been coming up pretty quickly after them but it didn’t. I watched the time slip by and even started to wonder if I had missed it somehow. I even sat down in the middle of a descent to wait for other runners and ask them if I had passed the last aid station. They must have wondered about my mental state then. When my watch read 9:30 am and they told me it was still up ahead, I knew my 30-hour goal had slipped from my grasp.

 

Then I lost the motivation to push through the pain in my legs and keep running. I figured I could walk to the finish and still make the 36-hour cutoff. I could probably even save my legs from further muscle damage. So that’s exactly what I did after the last aid station at mile 93. After enjoying lots of Coke and Chips Ahoy, a couple bite-size Twix bars, and a pancake, I started the long death march to the finish. I had no idea it would take me over four hours to cover that last 6.9 miles. I tried to pick up my pace a couple times but by then the downhills were excruciatingly painful. The sun started to beat down on me and I just continued to get slower and weaker.

 

I started to hear the phrase “you’re almost there” by other runners who were passing me, and even some crewmembers who were out looking for their runners. I continued to hear this for a span of three miles and almost two hours. This can be a wonderfully beatific phrase if used judiciously, such as when the finish line is just around the corner, out of sight. Please consider carefully your use of this seemingly innocuous phrase at any other time during an ultramarathon. I was so grateful to hear it at first. However, after an hour or so, this wellspring of anger started to boil up in me, Hulk-like, and I feared I would summon energy from sources that should have long been depleted to transform into a homicidal runner amok sent to rid the Earth of such heinous liars. Luckily for them, I never was able to tap into that elusive energy.

 

The finish line finally did come into sight and that’s when I lost it and momentarily broke into sobs. I was so happy that I had done it. I had thoughts of so many of my friends and loved ones while running, but none of them would be there to greet me as I crossed the line. For that reason, it was somewhat anticlimactic and a bit of a downer. But I knew that I had made that choice and that in consolation I would return home to an awesome welcoming filled with congratulations and the opportunity to share my story with everyone. I thank you for that.

 

I limped over to some shade and tried to recuperate and examine my feet. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t have a single blister. And my legs weren’t chafed at all either.  I’m sold on Bodyglide and Injini socks (the ones with the toes.) After a shower and dinner they held the awards ceremony. I was so impressed to see that everyone who finished within the time limit was awarded a personalized plaque and a belt buckle. In addition, almost everyone stayed to receive his or her award. Special recognition was given to those who had completed the course ten times. One man had 24 starts, and 24 finishes. Some people were walking around and not even limping.  The whole thing is so unbelievable!

 

Later that evening, I went to the grill for a beer and in the tradition of Jeff Wells and I, looked for something unique and fitting for the locale. In Minnesota, it had been a beer called Moose Drool. In Utah, I discovered Wasatch Polygamy Porter, with the motto “Why have just one?” Well, because for one thing I told my wife that I don’t think I need to do another one … 100-miler that is.

 

I love the race shirt. It sums it up perfectly: “100 Miles of heaven and hell.”

 

But, what next??