Bigfoot 200: Part 1

Prelude:

3-4 years ago, when I found out that someone was putting on 200 mile races, I immediately told myself, “Heck no. Only a crazy person would do that.” At that point I had run a couple 100 milers and had no desire to even think about doubling that. Fast forward a couple years to Thanksgiving of 2017 and I was contemplating my race schedule for 2018. Clearly I had Western States and Hardrock on my radar, but the chances of me getting in were slim. That’s when the idea of doing a 200 crept into my mind. The idea kept eating at me until I spoke with Kristen who pretty much gave me the green light (though she was not exactly enthused about it either). After failing to get into any of the lotteries, I went ahead and signed up for the Bigfoot 200!

Why Bigfoot? 

After a little research and talking with friends, the common theme I heard was that Bigfoot was the hardest, but also most beautiful of the 200s that were currently being put on. It provides a tour of backcountry Washington state while testing you (and your crew) in so many ways.

Training: 

One of the first questions I got this past year when people found out I was training for a 200 miler was, “How do you even train for something like that?” and my answer would always be the same, “I am not sure… but I guess it just involves me running a lot.”  This pretty much sums up my spring and summer training: trying to run as much and as often as possible. There was a twist though. At the end of April some friends and I ran across the Great Smokey Mountain National Park on the Appalachian trail (also known as SCAR, or the Smokies Challenge Adventure Run) which was 70+ miles and took us just under 20 hours to complete. On one hand this was an excellent training run, but the other thing this epic run did was to cause some doubt to creep into my mind. I thought, “This was HARD. How am I going to double this plus add another 60 miles?!?!” I got into a little funk after that, getting really worried that I was not training hard enough and getting a little anxious about that. By June, I had turned a corner and realized that if I was going to even be able to give Bigfoot a shot, I would need to stop worrying about my training, enjoy the journey and get to the start line happy and healthy. That became my training mantra for the rest of the summer: Happy and Healthy.

Meet the Crew
Rudy- Former Ultra VT teammate and VT alumni, currently residing in Utah, working for Petzel and training for the Wasach 100. Rudy is so incredibly experienced in both racing and pacing. He paced me to an amazing race at the Bear 100 in 2016. He is my go-to pacer for races that I am scared of doing. Rudy was penciled to pace me for nearly 60 miles.

Kirby- Trail friend from Blacksburg now residing in Spokane, WA. With Kirby’s close proximity to the course and experience on trails, he was an obvious choice! Kirby has an incredible, positive attitude with an infectious enthusiasm for being outside. He knows how to be outside doing difficult things in all sorts of challenging situations so I knew I would be in good hands with him pacing nearly 50 miles.

Josh- The crew chief and logistical extraordinaire, Josh has been an amazing crew chief for several of my races and he knows how I run better than almost anyone. He is an expert at ensuring the crew gets to where they need to be, when they need to be there. He has even created a pace model based on data from my previous races that predicts my overall finish time, as well as when I would arrive at each aid station. He is the MAN when it comes to logistics, and with a race of this magnitude, you need a logistics guy.

Kristen- the wife, an obvious choice I guess :) She delegated herself to being in charge of keeping me and the crew well fueled, taking pictures, social media updates, and massages. Staying up all night and car camping are not exactly her strengths, so I knew the experience would “stretch” her, but she was still quite excited for endeavor as a whole! She knows how to make me smile and laugh but believe me, she also knows how to crack the whip if I am not doing what I need to be doing during races. At aid stations, she usually is the on saying, “HURRY UP, GET OUT OF HERE!”

Pre-race:

Kristen, Josh and I flew into Seattle on Wednesday, August 8^th, then met up with Kirby who drove in from Spokane. The next morning we picked up my final crew member, Rudy, and made our way to Randle, where the race finish and race headquarters were. After the race briefing we relaxed some more and drove to our AirBnB for the night. The next morning we drove to the Sno-Park at Marble Mountain in Cougar Washington for the race start on Friday, August 10th. My expert crew helped me prepare and finalize my gear and then we waited. After our ‘Class of 2018’ photo’ and at 9am sharp, Candice Burt, the race director, sent us steaming up the mountain to start our 206.6 mile journey.

Ole Ole Feeling HOT HOT HOT

Ole ole - ole ole, ole ole - ole ole

Feeling hot hot hot, feeling hot hot hot

The first 46 miles or so of the race featured one thing: Mount Saint Helens. This volcano erupted dramatically in 1980 and decimated the surrounding landscape in the process. We started by running up towards the volcano from the south, clearing the tree line and running directly into fields of razor sharp lava rock. As we hopped from rock to rock, there wasn’t a lot of running going on. Every now and then a rock would shift under you, sending your whole body flying one direction or another. The course markings are affectionately called ‘dragons’ and they were everywhere. This was by far the best marked course I had ever seen.  

We descended to the first aid station Blue Lake (Mile 12.2) and were told that there was a lost hiker out on the mountain. The person had apparently gone hiking in flip flops and without water and got lost. They had been lost for over a day and they were asking us runners to keep an eye out for him (he was eventually rescued after 6 days in the wilderness surviving of berries and bees).

This next section was full of incredible close of views of Mt. St. Helens. Overall it just made you feel so tiny compared to this giant volcano. One of the differences between 100 milers and 200 milers that was evident immediately was the distance between aid stations. The distance between second aid station (Blue Lake) and third aid station (Windy Ridge) was a whopping 18 miles with very few water sources. You had to plan ahead when to get water and how much to carry or filter. Most of this section was dry and exposed and consequently many people ran out of water and became dehydrated early in the race. There was a section where you had to use a rope to descend down a river gorge to the Toutle river and back out the other side. My only goal during this ‘first’ section was to get in a rhythm and stay calm. That worked well until I got stung by a yellow jacket at mile 11! After initially freaking out, I tried to settle into an easy pace, but kept getting paranoid about running into another yellow jacket, and subsequently kept speeding up past any section of forest that seemed like it could house a nest (a.k.a. I started running faster than initially planned). This was also the only section of the race that I was able to spend time with other racers. I had the opportunity to meet Trevor Baine, who has run Moab 240, and running with him for several miles early on helped to calm my nerves. I also ran with the eventual race winner, Wes, for several miles in the blast zone. I was amazed at how steady he was running and enjoyed trying to stay close to him since he had completed Bigfoot before.

After traversing the western face of the Mt. St. Helens, I started the out and back climb up to Windy Ridge AS. When I arrived there with Wes, the AS workers asked if we were the first two 200 milers and we both shrugged because in the mass of runners from the 4 different events we honestly had no idea. Down the mountain I went in awe of the sweeping views of Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens. I ran by a few large lakes which were still filled with logs from the eruption 38 years ago. Then I started to climb up towards Johnston Ridge Observatory. Around this time, I realized that I was not peeing regularly and when I did, it was very dark. I guess that subconsciously I had stopped drinking much in an effort to conserve my water while I was in the long, dry stretch between Blue Lake and Windy Ridge and consequently was becoming dehydrated. I noticed that my heart rate had started to increase and I could feel my heart pounding between my ears. All this made me pause to figure out how not to dig myself into a deeper hole. The long climb up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory proved to be an excellent opportunity to tone down my pace, drink tons of water and spend a couple extra minutes in the shade and by the time I arrived at the Johnston Ridge Observatory AS (mile 40) I was feeling much better from a hydration perspective. Here I saw my incredible crew for the first time. They quickly set to work refilling my pack and filling my bandana with ice and  then sent me on my way.  I wanted to linger a little longer to catch up with them but it became very clear that they wanted me to keep moving. 

I left Johnston Ridge just before 5pm, meaning I had been running for just under 8 hours at this point. The next section was a short 6 miles and all downhill so I just let it flow. Again, sweeping views of Mount St. Helens filled the horizon as the sun started dipping down towards the west. I arrived a Coldwater Lake (mile 46.5) at 6:05 PM feeling great! Here I ate my first big meal, and changed clothes, socks and shoes in preparation for the night. This was the first time I really looked at my shoes and realized that the volcanic rock had completely shredded  BOTH sides of the new pair of Altra Olympus I had started in. I also picked up Rudy as a pacer, who was going to take me through the night in running the next 30 miles.

Moving Forward

My eyes are open,
My heart is beating,
My lungs are full,
And my body's breathing.
I'm moving forward.
I found my freedom.
I found the life that gave me reason to live.

Rudy and I left Coldwater lake to the cheers of the AS workers and crew, and we both took a deep breath knowing that this was the start of ‘part 2’ of the race. The part where I was going to have a pacer the entire time and where the real race began. We ran around the beautiful Coldwater Lake as the sun began to settle behind the mountains. It was an incredibly serene and peaceful scene and I was struck by how lucky we were to be out there, enjoying these beautiful trails. We caught glimpse of a runner in front of us and without saying a word, took chase.  After a mile or two we were able to catch and pass this runner and then began our big climb up towards Mt. Margaret, the highpoint of the race. Candice had told us that there was still a little snow up near the peak and I was excited to see it. As the sun set to the west and we chased it up the mountain, Rudy and I were treated to an amazing sunset. We joked about how many more of those we would see during the race and spent the next several hours catching up on life. The reason that I love having Rudy as a pacer is that he is so easy-going yet he somehow knows what you need, when you need it. I loved listening to his stories about his travels and we both enjoyed catching each other up on the news from all our mutual college friends.

As night settled in we ran across jagged peaks and past a sparkling lake. We had a bright moon this first night and it was great. We saw the headlamps from the 100k racers far in the distance as they ran towards Windy Ridge and kept a keen eye out for the headlamps of other 200 milers. We dropped down to Norway Pass (mile 65.2) around 11:30 pm and saw the crew again. They expertly took care of Rudy and I and swiftly got us out of the aid station within 7 minutes!

Off we climbed towards our next destination. Here the trail got bad. Really bad. What started off as a few down trees quickly became several miles of clambering REALLY big trees every 50-100 ft. Rudy advised me to stop trying to run because I was just wearing myself out trying to keep my footing in the midst of all the blow downs. I eventually conceded and we walked, climbed, crawled and clambered our way through the next several miles. This 11-mile section was super tough mentally because I was still pretty alert and just wanted to MOVE. Yet Rudy kept encouraging me that this was not where the race would be won or lost and I needed to just take care of myself. In the last several miles of this section, I started getting sleepy and we decided that I would take my first sleep break when we arrived at Elk Pass. At 2:30 am, we arrived at Elk Pass (Mile 76.3) and I promptly changed into pajamas and went to sleep in the back of the car. I told the crew to wake me in 1 hour and when they woke me up, I was feeling great. It was chilly as I stepped out of the car and got ready to run. I knew that while the sleep was good for me, none of my competitors had stopped to sleep this early and I would have to make the most of the rest that I had received over the next 50 miles.

Take Another Step

Take another step, take another step
When the road ahead is dark
And you don’t know where to go
Take another step, take another step
Trust God and take another step

Kristen and I left the Elk Pass AS around 4 am. We knew that this section was about 15 miles and was ‘more downhill than up’ but otherwise we didn’t really know what to expect. As we climbed in the dark, I asked her to recap her day so far and she told me about the crewing part of her day and the adventures she and crew had had so far. As the sun rose, we realized that the ‘beautiful meadows and craggy peaks’ of this section were going to be pretty much obscured by fog and some drizzle. Even with the fog, this section was beautiful. Wildflowers were everywhere as we ran through open meadows and deep woods.

About 5 miles into the section, right after we turned off our headlamps, we followed three course markings in making a right turn down a hill. Kristen casually said, “This doesn’t look right.” To which I responded “I am going to always follow the dragons, no matter what.” After about 20 minutes of running with some steep climbs, we came to a clearing with no defined path forward. No course markings were in sight so I pulled out my cell phone and checked my location with the GPS tracks that we were required to have on our phones. My heart sunk as my location showed up way off course. Where did we go wrong? As I tried to figure out where we were, Kristen smartly insisted we backtrack rather than try and bushwhack our way towards the course. I definitely would have fallen off a cliff if I had tried to find the course using my map rather than backtracking! After our 2-mile detour, we found ourselves back at the suspicious turn and realized that it had been tampered with. Kristen re-set the markings the correct direction and off we went. It’s funny how despite nearly an hour detour, it didn’t bother us too much because in the grand scheme of things it was a just a blip of time. We gave the detour a positive spin by rationalizing that it provided the opportunity to spend more time together. During the last several miles heading downhill into the next aid station, my legs really started to feel beat up and I was discouraged by how slow we were moving at this point in the race (roughly mile 85). Kristen offered encouragement by reminding me to just ‘take another step, and another step…’ One step at a time… and eventually we popped out at the Rt 9237 AS.

Never Enough

All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we steal from the nightsky
Will never be enough
Never be enough
Towers of gold are still too little
These hands could hold the world but it'll
Never be enough
Never be enough

For me

We arrived at the Rt 9237 AS (Mile 91.3) at 9 am and were met by a flurry of activity. I was sitting in a chair, changing shoes, eating breakfast and getting two blisters masterfully popped by Rudy. I felt sort of bad because as I was sitting there being waited on hand and foot by my crew, another crewless racer, David Giles, was slowly digging through his drop bag looking for his clean socks and spare shoes. In the background, the aid station captain was telling us how he has seen a mountain lion while checking on the vandalized section of course and another woman mentioned that there was DEFINITELY a resident mountain lion in the section of the course. Kirby was all set to pace me for the neat 50 miles or so. I finished breakfast and put on new shoes, then Kirby and I took off towards the next aid station, Spencer Butte. As we ran through the beautiful PNW forest, we talked about how in a few miles I would reach the farthest I had ever run. Then from there on out, each step would be a new adventure.

We climbed and descended endlessly during this section and the steep descends began to really hurt my quads. David Giles, the racer who was with me at the last aid station, came flying by and I told Kirby, “Let’s not worry about him right now, there is still a lot of racing left.” Yeah right. If you know me, then you know how competitive I am. After letting him go for about 3 minutes, I felt that tug deep down to start reeling him back in. My pace quickened and I started running more and hiking less. I started opening up on the flats and downhills and within a mile or two, we caught and passed Dave. My coach in high school taught me that when you pass someone, you do it with authority. I guess what makes sense in a high school 5k xc race can be applied to a 200 miler as well? Thus I didn’t just stop after passing him, I kept the gas on for another mile or two. Ironically, I am pretty sure I was running maybe 15-18 min miles at this point while ‘gunning it’ so… perspective. It began to get chilly and dark clouds rolled in as we dropped into the Spencer Butte AS (Mile 102.5).

Rain starting falling as I sat down, lightly at first then steadier. The AS workers were amazing, keeping us warm and feeding us as they calmly asked us what we needed. After a few minutes we put on our rain jackets and headed out on a 2-mile paved section. Once off of the asphalt the trail dived down towards the lowest point on the course. Here the scenery changed dramatically from mountain terrain to that true PNW forest vibe with ferns, giant evergreens and moss covered trees. I kept hearing Kirby yell, “LOOK HOW BIG THIS TREE IS!” We made our way down to the Lewis River after a painfully steep descent and for the first time in over a day, I saw ‘normal’ people walking around, riding bikes and hiking. This section of the Lewis River is very popular due to its beautiful waterfalls and accessible trails. As we followed these flat, groomed trails for 4-5 miles my legs were NOT happy. They were very quickly getting to the point where they felt like they were not going to work for much longer and I was getting worries. I was only 110 miles into this race and I didn’t want to feel this bad ‘this early.” Kirby reassured me that this was normal and not to forget that I had already run OVER 100 Miles. I guess my legs had a reason to feel bad.

As we ran into the Lewis River Aid Station (Mile 112) around 3:30pm we were greeted by the awesome aid station volunteers who had decorated the aid station in a tropical island theme. It’s always great to see aid stations having fun with what they are doing! Along with my crew getting Kirby and I set for the next, very long section, we got the chance to spend some time hanging out with Todd Thomas’ crew. A little back story: At the 2017 Grindstone 100, Todd and his wife Alexis had spent considerable time trying to convince me to join them in doing Bigfoot. I guess we all know how that turned out! Todd was having an excellent race and came into Lewis River while I was making my final preparations to head back out onto the course. His feet were a gross, blistery mess. I kept thinking to myself…don’t let your feet get as bad a Todd’s and you will be juuuust fine.

Kirby and I left this aid station around 4pm knowing that we would not see the crew again for nearly 30 miles. As we headed out into the forest, the enormity of what I was doing began to settle in. I thought to myself, “It is such a milestone even getting to where I am now, but I have more than another whole day to go.” We ran, walked and traversed the trail, which was deeply overgrown with huckleberry bushes. I am not sure when it happened but at some point Kirby and I began singing along to the soundtrack of the Greatest Showman. It’s incredible what 120+ miles and no sleep, along with being isolated in the wilderness can do to your inhibitions. We found ourselves straight up belting out song after song as we went. It was glorious. A little later on, I asked Kirby about our mileage since my watch had died and we sobered up quickly when we came to conclusion that we had spent the last nearly 2 hours not making much forward progress. It was a swift kick in the butt knowing how easy it was to settle into a much to slow and comfortable pace and then lose loads of momentum/forward progress. Around the same time that we came to this conclusion, the skies opened up and rain came pouring down. Not overly heavy, but a steady, drenching rain that not only saturated us but all the foliage around us.

As we continued forward through the deep undergrowth, we were continually soaked by the wet branches and leaves that surrounded us. Even long after the 20-minute rain shower had ceased, we kept getting more and more wet as we went. Several hours into this stretch, which turned out to be the longest climb of the course of 10 miles with about 5,500 ft of ascent, I began to get disoriented with my surroundings. The trail began to all look the same. I saw a tree or a branch that looked familiar. Several times I silently thought, “Have we been past this bend in the trail before?” Eventually, I saw a large downed tree and my stomach dropped because I clearly recognized it was one that we had clambered over earlier, coming from the other direction. I stopped dead in my tracks and said, “Kirby, we have been here before! I recognize this log! We must have gotten turned around somewhere and we are heading the wrong direction!”  Without batting an eye, Kirby calmly reassured me that we were on course and heading the right direction in a way that only Kirby could. I refused to budge. “Let’s look at the map” I argued. After looking at the GPX tracks that indeed showed us on course and facing the correct direction, and at Kirby’s calm urging, I reluctantly proceeded over the downed log. After that situation, I was on high alert, constantly feeling like we were getting lost and terrified that we were heading the wrong direction. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I had been alone during that section. After what seemed like several more hours of blindly criss-crossing creeks and climbing up ridiculously steep slopes only to rapidly descend the other side, we began a noticeable and clear, extended climb out of the Quartz Creek draining that we had been wallowing in for most of the afternoon.

The sun was setting and both Kirby and I were starting to really feel the effort we had been putting forth over the last several hours. We both set the goal of making it up to the next ridge by sunset so that we were clear of the deep, wet forest before it got dark. We reached the ridgeline that we would be basically following until the next aid station, we stopped for a celebratory break. We pulled out some food and stopped to relax. Suddenly, we felt a cold wind blow across the ridge from the west just as the sun dipped behind the next mountain over. A deep chill spread across my body and I immediately started shaking uncontrollably. I saw that Kirby felt the same thing and we realized that because of how wet we were and with the temperature plummeting, we did not have the luxury of stopping until we made it to the next aid station where they would hopefully have a propane heater. We quickly found all the warm clothes we had packed, threw them on and took off down the trail, attempting to outrace the cold that was settling in. This section was getting long. We were feeling somewhat demoralized because, even though we knew there was an aid station coming up, we didn’t know what kind of shape it would be in since it’s in the backcountry, with no crew access, and we were going to be some of the first few runners there. I am not embarrassed to say that during these last few miles we were singing a lot of Disney songs just trying to keep my fragile spirit up. We finally saw the glow of the next aid station and my energy level shot up. We had made it to Council Bluff (mile 131) in the dead of night.

Collapsing in the chairs, we stated that I was going to shut my eyes and sleep for 15 min. The aid station volunteers were incredible and immediately took my pack and piled 3 blankets on my while I immediately dozed off. While I was sleeping, Kirby got some hot food and coffee and was warming up under several blankets as well. 15 minutes went by in the blink of an eye and the volunteers gently woke me up.  This group of volunteers had an interesting story. They were all one extended family hailing from different parts of the US ranging from New York to the west coast. Some of the family members had run Bigfoot in 2015 and then as a group they decided to volunteer together at this aid station. It was like a big family reunion for them up on top of the mountain, including having a toddler up there with them. Their enthusiasm for the race was infectious. They cheerfully told us that this upcoming section was by far the easiest of the entire course at about 11 miles with a big next downhill, but more importantly, the trail was runnable and there were even be a couple miles of dirt road. This was music to our ears after struggling through the last 10 miles of rough, overgrown, barely runnable trail and we left Council Bluff smiling and waving. 

We ran down the side of the mountain, weaving between large trees and every now and then catching a glimpse of a toad, salamander or other small creature running across the trail. The cold of this night was in stark contrast to the night before due to the dampness. Kirby and I ran in and out of the fog as we descended rapidly. We decided to re-sing the Greatest showman soundtrack again and as we were in the middle of singing the song Never Enough at the top of our lungs, we turned a corner and found ourselves in the middle of a sleeping encampment of dirt bikers! Clearly, they were out for the weekend for a race or ride because there were tons of dirt bikes, tents, trucks and campers everywhere. We quickly (and by quickly, I mean probably running 18-20 min/mile) scooted out of there and finally popped out on a dirt road as the clouds cleared to reveal incredible views of the night sky. SO MANY STARS. Because we were on a smooth, wide dirt road, we were able to run and stare straight up into the night sky. It was amazing! The Perseiad meteor shower was in full swing, but I wasn’t lucky enough to see any during this stretch. We turned back onto single track right before Chain of Lakes Aid station and, for the first time in nearly a day, we saw the glow of another racer and his pacer’s headlamps ahead of us. We quickly caught up to Andy Pearson, who had been leading most of the way from the start, quickly said hi, and scooted on by. It felt good to pass someone. This race is so remote and the competitors were so spread out that, whenever I had the chance to feel a little competitive edge, it felt REALLY good.

To be continued: read part 2