By Bill Wright
Hang out with the wrong crowd long enough and their bad habits will rub off on you. This has been a constant theme for me this year. First, by trail running and adventuring, I decided that I needed to experience an ultra-marathon and I signed up for the San Juan Summer Solstice 50-mile trail race, a.k.a. The Lake City 50. Next, by riding lunchtimes, I caught the bike-racing bug.
Instead of training for a 50-mile run, I was off riding and racing my bicycle. Even my bike rides only consisted of an hour or two and would hardly prepare me for a 13-hour run. A saner man would have probably dropped out of the race, but I was committed. This particular race takes place almost entirely above 10,000 feet and requires 12,000 feet of climbing. I figured the huge amount of climbing would work to my advantage, since it would require hiking. I’m not much of a runner, but I’m a pretty fair hiker.
I’d learned from my friends that in order to finish an ultra I’d need relentless forward motion and the ability to eat. If I couldn’t eat, I wouldn’t be able to move. So, with limited time, I concentrated on practicing my eating. I ate copious amounts of food, training for my race.
Now doing such an event without any running at all would be foolish, so the weekend before I went out with Bill Briggs, Bart Miller, and Mike Stabler. We ran from the Hessie Trailhead up to Arapahoe Pass and then over to Diamond Lake. We crossed some snowfields, climbed some talus and generally stayed on our feet for nearly five hours. It was now time to taper and rest of for the race.
My whole family came down to Lake City with me. We drove down in the RV and stayed at a campground in town, along with a bunch of other racers. The Loobster, who recently moved to Grand Junction after retiring from IBM in San Jose, California, met us there. Loobster would be my pacer for the final ten miles. We arrived in town at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and we went to the pre-race dinner, which was included in the entry fee. This dinner was surprisingly great. They had two pasta dishes, salad with full strength dressing (unlike the watery slop you get at the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon), rolls, cookies, and brownies. I ate two large helpings and even Daniel like the spaghetti. At dinner we met and talked with Bill Briggs, Christian Griffith, Gerry and Jennifer Roach, Ryan and Lori Cooper, Mark Sunderland and even Matt Carpenter. Matt is a legendary trail runner and perhaps the best high altitude runner in the world, even at the ripe old age of 39. He was looking very lean and fit. The course record, set by my friend Dave Mackey, was 8:44. Could Matt challenge that time? Could he stand up to the rigors of fifty miles?
The race started at 5 a.m. the next morning. The Loobster got up with me at 4:15 a.m. and we ate a bit, got dressed, and headed down to the start. I looked around for Bill Briggs, but couldn’t find him in the dark. He had mentioned running the first major climb with me and I really wanted his companionship. When the gun went off, I went to the front and trotted along easily, hoping Bill was behind me and would find me when he passed by. Sure enough after about ten minutes, Bill runs up beside me and says, “Whoa, look at you at running with the leaders.” These ultras are funny. For any other race my pace would be considered slow, but for this ultra, it was too fast.
We covered the first 2.7 miles, all on a dirt road, in 25 minutes, for a pace of just over 9 minutes per mile. If I could hold this pace, I would demolish the course record! Just then we turned onto a single-track trail and headed up. It wasn’t that steep to begin with and we could run most of it still. We crossed the creek in the canyon a number of times, usually on logs and I worried about slipping off and falling in. Years ago, this happened to Bill Briggs. He was left hanging upside from a log with his back in the creek. After 45 minutes, Christian ran by us, uttering some encouraging words. Bill told me, “Let him go.” Good advice to be sure. I was probably going a bit faster than I should have here and I was only doing that so that Bill would get too anxious and leave me. Yet he was the one telling me to slow down. I loved having him with me, but I didn’t want him to blow his race. He assured me that this was a smart pace even for him. By logical extension, it was too fast for me, but I’d deal with that later.
Further up the canyon we had to just wade across the creek a couple of times. I wasn’t too thrilled with this idea, not because it froze my feet, but now my socks and shoes were soaked. Bill told me not to waste time looking for a dry crossing because there wasn’t one and my feet would drive eventually. After 7.7 miles, we got to our first aid station and the volunteers here were incredible. You just hand them your Camelback, tell them what you want in it, and they fill it for you. The service is really impressive and so friendly. It was always a huge boost to get to these aid stations and these were best in any race I’ve ever done.
Bill and I stayed together over the first 4000-foot climb and descended together for a thousand feet or more. I got passed by a couple of people here and Bill eased on ahead of me and out of sight. Bill never appeared tired, never appeared to be working, never appeared to be out of breath the entire time I was with him. I guess that is the way things are supposed to go in the first half of a fifty-mile race. Bill disappeared into the distance and I figured that would be the last I’d see of him, but after another thousand vertical or so, he comes up behind me. He’d taken a bathroom stop in the woods. We ran the rest of the way down to the second aid station together. This aid station was the 15.7-mile mark and Sheri, Loobster, and the kids were waiting for us. We filled our Camelbacks, grapped a peanut butter sandwich and moved on.
We were on a dirt road again and ran mostly together for about 2.5 miles before turning up a steep 4WD road. The sign said 4 miles to the abandoned mining town site of Carson and that would be our next aid station at 22 miles. Everyone around me completely hiked this road. Bill steadily pulled away from me here and was soon out of sight. I pssed a couple of people here and was feeling pretty good still. I arrived at the aid station to find Bill and Christian still there. I was in and out quickly, leaving with Bill and before Christian. Christian soon caught me and once again praised my efforts, before easily hiking on by.
Before the race I had analyzed the splits for all the finishers from the year before and based on this I made a chart for the splits at each aid station. At the first aid station, Bill and I were dead-on a 13-hour pace. Bill scoffed at this notion, saying we were very nearly on his 10.5-hour pace. This shows that most runners go much slower on the latter parts of the course. You’d expect this, but that’s not the way Bill runs it. He seems to get stronger and faster every ten miles he covers. We got the second aid station at about a 12.5-hour pace. I arrived at the third aid station, at 22 miles, on a 12-hour pace. For a moment, I fantasized about how great it would be to break twelve hours, but that was short lived.
The climb continued relentlessly above, demoralizing me. At one point, we appeared to crest and even descended fifty or a hundred feet, before turning back up on the other side of the pass to climb for another five hundred feet or more. I was getting passed now and it only got worse once we topped out and were running along the divide. Bill had told me about this section and said you really want to be fresh here, because it is rolling terrain and you can really make up time. I wasn’t fresh and the 12,500+ foot altitude did nothing to encourage me to run. I power hiked everything that wasn’t sharply downhill. I chatted a bit with each person as they passed me. Lori Cooper flew by me here with such authority and speed that I barely recognized her. I just remembered the shorts she was wearing and called out, “Lori?” “Yup, it’s me,” was her quickly reply as he stretched out the distance. Lori would go on to finish in 3rd place for the women with an incredible time of 11:42.
A runner from Salt Lake City, Ari, caught me and we ran together for quite awhile. It turns out he is mainly a climber as well. We talked about Yosemite and Indian Creek. He had recently climbed Half Dome in a day and aspired to doing the Nose in a day. Of course, I plugged the new edition of my book. Does that make this a marketing, deductible event for me? After awhile, he moved on ahead and would go on to finish in 11:31 for 17th place.
This section of the course, up high on the divide, on the Colorado Trail, is incredible scenic. I did enjoy the views and tried to enjoy where I was. I crossed a couple of snowfields and had to descend one that was pretty steep. You could see for at least a mile in either direction along the course, so there was no hiding from the other racers. After an eternity, I finally started to descend with some authority and continuously, but the 31-mile aid station seemed like it would never appear.
I arrived at the mile-31 Yurt aid station almost exactly the same time Matt Carpenter finished the race. I talked him with later and found out he ran every single step of the way and was in and out of the transition areas in under a minutes, except the for the first one where he changed shoes and spent a decadent 1:30. He ran in 5.5 ounce racing flats and even carved out the bottoms to reduce weight. He even took off his wedding ring. He kept telling me he was “old school.” He ran an unbelievable, mind-boggling 7:59:48. This record will stand for decades. His debut at this distance was quite a bit more impressive than mine. It made me think of when Alberto Salazar debuted at the marathon distance. Salazar predicted he’d win the race and he did. Matt said he didn’t come to this race to win or place. He came for one and only one reason: to break the course record. He analyzed the course extensively with special topo software with satellite imaging. He had “seen” the entire course before. He pre-ran the first 15-mile section the weekend before. He analyzed all of Mackey’s splits from his record-setting run and decided they were soft on the high, rolling section along the divide. At one point he hit a rock hard with the side of his shoe, bruising his foot. He stopped, pulled out his insole and bit out the side of it. I asked him after the race how he could run some of the really steep sections, commenting that it was much steeper than Pikes Peak. He thought it was only marginally steeper and said he was used to running at the Incline Club, where they run steps at a 40-degree angle. The second place runner finished in 9:48 – nearly two hours behind Matt!
Matt was looking very fit, obviously, and he said he had gone six months without every running less than 90 minutes per day. Matt’s VO2 Max was tested in Colorado Springs at an altitude of 6000+ feet and it came out to 87 – the highest ever tested for a runner. He has a world-class engine, but, despite his considerable speed on the trails, does not have world-class speed – at least on the roads. Hence, Matt has turned away from road racing and track racing to trail running, where pure foot speed isn’t much of a factor, but huge lung capacity is required. He can run at 14,000 feet like others run at 4,000 feet. He’s contemplating running Leadville next. I asked him why not Western States and he responded:
“I don’t buy into that Western States is the most prestigious hundred. They just have better marketing. I think Leadville is the premier event. It’s like Zane Grey claiming it is the hardest fifty. That isn’t true. Mackey had the records at both Zane Grey and Lake City, yet the Lake City record was an hour slower. This (Lake City) is the hardest fifty.”
I’m sure Leadville’s incredibly high altitude appeals to Matt, as it plays to his strengths, but right now it is hard to imagine anyone who can compete with Matt, if he can handle the distance. Fifty miles proved to be no problem, but a hundred is a completely different ball game. But is there a runner in the game with nearly his talent? I don’t know the ultra game well enough to answer that.
At the Yurt, I downed an entire cup of Ramen soup. I figured the salt would do me some good. I was hurting. Three other runners came into the Yurt station while I was eating, but none left before I did. I walked across the field and started a 500- foot climb that took me almost thirty minutes. I expected the others to pass me here, but they were hiking just as slow. When the trail flattened and then started downhill gradually, I still wasn’t able to run. Steve McCormack, Bill’s friend, passed me here. He was shuffling along with what looked like a painful gait, but he was running while I could not. He’d go on to finish in 12:23, good enough for 40th place. A guy and a girl passed me next, running pretty smooth. I tried to run and couldn’t. The front of my right ankle was just so tight and sore that I couldn’t handle the pain. I got passed some more. I tried running again and would alternate two minutes of running with two minutes of walking. Eventually, I would go for massive stretches of up to five minutes of running!
Eventually, I was all alone, with no one in sight in front or behind me. The trail went steeply downhill now and it was rocky. I still couldn’t run for long and I struggled and struggled, hoping for the end to this misery and trying hard to concentrate on seeing Sheri and the Loobster instead of the ten miles that lie beyond them. I came to a junction that wasn’t marked and went the wrong way for forty seconds or so before I realized it wasn’t going the right direction. I took the other path and after 50 yards, spied one of the course markers. Some mountain bikers were coming up the road and I asked how far to the highway. Then I met a runner coming up and asked the same question. He said twenty minutes. When another race passed me, I vowed to try running with him. I surprised myself and ran for 17 minutes until I hit the aid station. Seeing Derek and Daniel cheering me on was a big boost.
I sat down in a chair and the Loobster and Sheri tended to my every need. They changed my socks and shoes, brought me things to drink and eat and filled my Camelback. With Sheri and the kids cheering me on, the Loobster and I headed down the rocky trail towards the final big climb. But first we had to descend steeply through the woods, paralleling the highway. At one point we popped out on the highway only for a couple hundred yards and at this time, Sheri and the boys drove by. They cheered wildly out the car windows before we turned off and headed up.
Having the Loobster with me really rejuvenated me. He kept a constant stream of stories flowing and even required me to talk. Listening helped keep my mind off my pain and fatigue. I could still hike okay and I powered up the slope at a good rate, at least for the first thousand vertical. We passed a couple of racers here and the Loobster took some photos. At one point he asked me to stop for a bit. I responded that if I stopped I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start again. This climb was 1700 feet and the last 500 were tough on me. I just followed in the Loobster’s footsteps. This is beautiful country, to be sure, and a great place for running, if one could still run.
I was still watching my splits very closely and was relieved to arrive at the final aid station with a couple minutes of cushion to break 13 hours. Yet, I was having a hard time running at all now. The two runners I had passed on the ascent had closed down the gap and were right behind me coming into the aid station. They had the country music blasting here and all the volunteers were very encouraging. I sat down in a chair and it felt so good. I wished I was done and didn’t have to get up. (Note: you have to wonder when most of the “action” shots of me in this race involve me sitting in a chair…)
I left the 46-mile aid station at 11:54. My splits told me a 13- hour pace was hitting this station at 11:55. One of the runners who came into the station after me left a minute before me and the other one left right on my heels. I asked if he wanted to go by and he said he was fine. I had my doubts about breaking 13 hours. It was unfortunate to be so close, actually, because now if I failed it was because of a lack of will. I hiked along, painfully, and tried to shuffle whenever the trail went downhill a bit. I knew I had more than two thousand feet to drop and I dreaded it.
I decided to turn on my MP3 player here. I’d still be able to hear the Loobster, but hoped the tunes would motivate me to finish this baby off. This worked like a miracle drug! It was as if I had just injected a cocktail of EPO, HGH, and morphine. I turned on the speed and ran through the pain in my knees. I dropped the runner behind me immediately and closed on the runner in front. I passed him on an uphill, for I was now running everything and cruising on the smooth downhills. New Order led to Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” (best lyrics: “I was torn and battered, unrecognizable to myself” – how appropriate), then Pearl Jam’s “Wishlist”. Transported by these songs and the great friendship of the Loobster, I finally did some running. I didn’t want Loobster to think the entire race was one big hiking slog for me, though most of it was.
I pushed and checked my altimeter watch constantly, rejoicing with each hundred feet that I lost. Further down the trail got very rocky and very steep. I slowed to a more careful pace, but kept running. The Loobster kept up a constant stream of encouragement. We finally hit the bottom of the trail and ran down a dirt road for a ways, the Loobster leading me slightly like a lead-out man at the finish of a long stage at the Tour de France. I was down now and only had a mile to go. I was about to tell the Loobster that I wanted to walk a bit, to rest up for a running finish, when I spotted them. Two runners were up ahead, running side by side. Now is it silly to go after these guys? I don’t know the etiquette in an ultra and maybe it is rude to think racing when you are so far back in the pack and racing for seconds in a race that is nearly 13 hours long. Ignorant or rude or whatever, I couldn’t deny my competitive urges. The Loobster pulled off to the side, as if to say, “My work is done now. You have to take it home.” I gave chase.
I was running pretty hard now, probably around a 7:30/mile pace, but it felt like a 6:00/mile pace after all I had been through. I up to and across the 8 1/2 Street Bridge. They had spotted me and picked up the pace. On the other side of the bridge, Sheri and the boys were cheering me on and shooting video of the spectacle. The course is open once you hit the roads and Sheri urged me to take the shortcut trail across the field. Bill Briggs had pointed this out to me before and headed for it. I cruised across the field while the other two had run the streets. I emerged only ten yards behind them. Now the stronger runner, Chris Clarke, left his companion and the race was fully joined. Daniel sped by us on his bike at this point and was leading the way to the finish. I was thankful as I wasn’t sure exactly where to go at this point.
I ran down the first guy and moved past him, but he stayed with me. I ran hard and he eventually fell off, giving up, not wanting to hurt anymore only to end in failure. I closed on Chris and then drafted him for a few hundred yards. I was hurting, but I wanted to go by now, maybe he’d crack as well and I could end the effort. I passed by him by about ten feet, but he wouldn’t give up, he wouldn’t drop back. He came back on me and upped the pace again. He passed me and gained ten feet, then twenty. I thought it was over; I didn’t have anything left to give. Just then Sheri came by on her bike, screaming at me to get him. I had no choice but to respond. I closed the gap and we made the final turn together. I started to sprint and pulled away, finishing five seconds ahead of him in 12:42:21. I finished 42nd overall, 36th male, 7th in the 40-44 age group, with an average pace of just under 4 miles per hour. This sounds pitifully slow, I know, but it was the best I could do. I was quite pleased with the time and that I was able to finish my first ultra without any epics or injuries. Chris came over and put a hand on my shoulder, just before I collapsed to the ground. It was a nice gesture of sportsmanship. Everyone had witnessed the sprint finish and cheered me on: Christian Griffith, Bill Briggs, Gerry Roach, and even Matt Carpenter, who had time to drive home to Manitou Springs, shower, watch a third round of the U.S. Open, and return.
Bill Briggs flew on the second half of the course, per his plan. He finished in 11:00 – good enough for 11th place overall and first place for all runners over 40. And Bill is 55 years old, not that you could tell from looking at him or watching him run or climb or bike or… He’s a freak of nature along the lines of Matt Carpenter. I suspect Bill would have been quite a bit faster if he hadn’t stayed with me for so long, but apparently he was more interested in friendship and companionship than in the best possible finish. That doesn’t surprise me much.
Ryan Cooper ran a great race and finished 4th in 10:14. This guy is an amazing runner at all distances, from a 5th place in the Pikes Peak Marathon to high placements (first?) in hundred mile ultras. He can fly, too, and is probably just as vicious in the shorter races as well. Christian Griffith bettered his great time of 12:25 from last year with a 22nd place and an 11:38 time this year. Of course he ran most of the race shirtless. Steve Pollack of Boulder ran 11:33 and finished in 18th place on a course that isn’t well suited to him. He’s more of a pure runner, while course (Matt excluded) tends to favor the strong hiker because of all the climbing. If this is what Steve does on a course like this, you don’t want to see him on a flat fifty. In fact, we talked about this and I think, much like I do with the marathon distance, that a flat fifty isn’t any easier than a hilly fifty. The flat ones are faster to be sure, but brutal because of how much more running you must do. I really looked forward to the hills in this race as then I could walk without shame.
Mark Sunderland, a friend I have run with a couple of times, finished 73rd with a time of 14:16. He loved it out there and when I talked to him the next day he was all excited about doing another ultra, while I couldn’t stomach the thought. He ran a much better paced race than I did and seems to have the planning and mentality for ultras. Jennifer Roach finished 95th with a time of 15:26. She is extremely modest and is always pointing out how slow she is, but she is extremely tough. She’s done the Hardrock 100 (100 miles with 33,000 vertical feet of climbing) in 49.5 hours and in doing so, she never slept or even changed shoes. In this race she never sat down! She’s entered in the Hardrock again this year to try and get until the official cut- off time of 48 hours.
Full results can be viewed here.
So, will I ever do another ultra? It’s still too early to answer that. After the 31-mile aid station, when I couldn’t run at all, I wanted to drop out of the race and I seriously considered it. I continued so that it wouldn’t be hanging over my head and I did get a little bit better in the final ten miles. Immediately afterwards I was sure I’d never do another fifty, let alone attempt a hundred. I was done. But, like alpine climbing, a bad memory is an asset here. The pain has already started to fade. I remember the beautiful course, the great aid stations, the companionship and camaraderie of my friends. I’m starting to think that, with some training, maybe I could run a bit more of the stretch from 31-40 miles. Maybe I could break twelve hours on this course… But then I think: I was out there for nearly 13 hours, ran/hiked 50 miles, climbed up and down 12,000 vertical feet and how many peaks did I bag? Zero. Nada. None. Now if this race went over the Lake City 14ers…via 5.6 climbing routes…Now you’re talking! Now I’m interested. Now I might place higher than 42nd…Mainly because there wouldn’t be 42 entries…
I hung out at the finish for quite awhile, not really able to move much. Derek did prod me to get up and play a game of Tic- Tac-Toe over on the playground. The Loobster, having run 20+ miles already today, jogged back to the campsite to retrieve the car, for I wasn’t about to walk the half-mile back to the RV. I took a shower with some difficulty later that evening and was pretty tired by 9 p.m. The next morning I was feeling a lot better. My quads and knees were still really sore and I craved some ibuprofen and glucosamine, which I had forgotten to bring, but was now able to move around almost normally.
Sheri went for a run up the course that morning and the Loobster headed for home in Grand Junction. The rest of us biked on down to the awards ceremony at the park and enjoyed a beautiful morning laying out on the grass in the sun. We ate breakfast there and cheered for all the overall and age group winners. Then we headed back to the site, packed up and headed for home. We stopped briefly on the way home so that Derek and I could race Daniel on the go-cart racetrack, and then were home by 5 p.m.
Finally, this race was incredibly well run. The aid stations and volunteers manning them were the best I’ve ever seen. The organization was superb. The people were great, throughout. Sheri commented that everyone in town was friendly. The course is excellent and they even ordered perfect weather – great foresight! The dinner the night before was excellent. The breakfast / awards session was great with plenty of food and drink. There was a hat for every finisher and a lottery of schwag where everyone won something.