Bigfoot 200: Part 2

Around 1:30 am, we rolled into the Chain of Lakes AS (Mile 140.8). If you are keeping track, this is about 40 hours and 30 minutes into the race and I was ready for another nap. The crew had learned from my first sleep break at Elk pass that I needed a little more room in the SUV to sleep well and they had everything set up perfectly. I talked briefly with the crew, telling them how difficult the last section had been, and then hunkered down for 2.5 hours of sleep. Kirby had talked me down from wanting 3 hours of rest, but not by much. I zonked out immediately in the warm vehicle while Kirby, wet and cold, climbed into a tent with Rudy to pass out for a little while. When I woke up 2.5 hours later, I had warm clothes, dry shoes and a filled pack ready for me thanks to the amazing work of my crew. They even had breakfast burritos and coffee prepared!

When I got the courage to step outside, I immediately started shivering again and knew it was time to get moving. Rudy was tasked with taking me from here to Twin Sisters AS which was mile 178. We had a 30 mile stretch to cover with only 1 aid station and no crew access, and knew that we were in for a long day before we would see the familiar faces and comfort of the crew again. As Rudy and I prepared to leave Chain of Lakes AS, I had the sudden urge to check on Todd Thomas who had been behind coming into this aid station. I had been worried about him since Lewis River AS because of how bad his feet had been and the cold. I found his crew before leaving the aid station and they assured me that he was doing well and in fact, had just left the aid station a few minutes ago. They encouraged me to go catch him so we could run together.

The River

And I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry

Rudy and I took off into night. Thankfully it was around 4:30 am by the time we got moving again, so we had just a couple hours of dark before the sun would rise. Rudy informed me that the next stretch would include 3 creek crossings and a river crossing. “Wow, that’s a lot of water crossings,” I thought to myself as we proceeded slowly in the dark.  Sure enough, we soon came upon our first of several water crossings. This first one had a rope to assist with the crossing, which was definitely helpful as the current was swift and strong. Rudy went first as I hesitated, unsure of my confidence in my ability to stay upright. The last thing I wanted right now was to fall and get soaked while it was still dark and cold outside. Thankfully I made it across unscathed and the next several creeks were pretty tame. Soon enough the sun began to rise and we found ourselves socked in by a thick fog. During the next several miles, I got into a good groove and was able to run well. The trails reminded me of home and I kept imagining myself running along Poverty Creek in the Jefferson National Forest right by my house. This successfully distracted me for a while as Rudy and I ran and hiked in relative silence. As the sun rose higher and the fog began burning off, it once again became apparent that we were running through an incredibly beautiful place! We were treated so some incredible sweeping views of the forest and mountains.

Eventually we arrived at the Mighty Cispus River (as we had been affectionately calling it) and made out way across the gently flowing, but extremely cold water. I thought the cold water would feel good on my aching feet but in reality, it made them hurt worse. By the time we made it across the wide river, my feet were hurting so badly from the cold that I just bend over and let out a sad whimper, cursing the cold water. I knew I looked pathetic but at least no one but Rudy was there to witness it. Rudy cheerfully informed me that up next was a 4-mile climb to the top of Elk Peak with roughly 3,000ft of climbing. Yikes. I knew that a 4-mile climb would take a LONG time for me at the pace I was moving. “There’s nothing to do but keep going,” I thought.  At this point I also began to feel a bit nauseated, so I pulled out my med kit and ate some Tums and GinGins. I knew that the climb would be a good time to settle my stomach and was careful what I ate over the next stretch. I tried to take in calories in smaller quantities to keep my stomach from getting angrier.

Crossing the Cispus River

At one point, Rudy decided to experiment with one of the Muir Energy Gels that he had picked up at an aid station. We didn’t really know what was in it, but he said it tasted good. It soon became evident, however, that there must have been A LOT of caffeine in that gel. Rudy’s demeanor changed dramatically over the next 10-15 minutes as he dragged me up that mountain while chatting away like as if he was out for an afternoon jog. This was a much-welcomed jolt of energy for us both and we laughed about it later as we neared the top of the climb. As we approached the top, Rudy asked me what my favorite song was. I tried to sing “The River” by Garth Brooks to him, but I was too weary and out of breath to do it justice so I played it for him on my phone instead. It’s a song about dreams, life, taking risks and letting God be captain. It’s been my favorite song since high school and it seemed very relevant in the midst of this adventure we were undertaking. As we approached the short out and back that signaled the top of Elk peak, we were surprised to see Andy Pearson and his pacer AGAIN. This type of situation is seemingly unique to 200’s, where competitors seem to pass each other while sleeping more so than while running (I had passed Andy prior to Chain of Lakes (mile 140) only for him to leave that same aid station before me). I had no idea he was in front of me and for a second I thought I was going crazy! We reached Elk Peak and took in some sweet views of Mount Rainier! I didn’t linger too long at the top, but as I headed down I looked back to see Rudy just standing there. I later found out that the high point on Elk Peak was one of the only places on the course with cell service, and Rudy was taking advantage of that precious opportunity to regain momentary access to the rest of the world.

Elk Peak

We descended rapidly from there to the Klickitat AS (Mile 158). Here I ate the world’s best spaghetti, let my feet dry out for a few minutes and put on dry socks. I was very thankful that my crew had thought ahead about the water crossings and had stuffed a spare pair of socks in my pack without me even realizing it (they told Rudy, knowing that I would forget). It’s the small things that make a huge difference in a race like Bigfoot. By this point, it was somewhere around late morning and we prepared ourselves for the next stretch of trail in route to the Twin Sisters AS. This was going to be the longest stretch without aid on the entire course, nearly 20 miles.

Candice, the RD, described this section as follows: “Bushwhacking, tree hurdling, exposure and lots of technical make this section notorious and especially tough. Stay positive and don’t let the downed logs and rough trail mess with your spirits.” She was right, this section was HARD. Several miles after Klickitat I was hit by the first of several bouts of severe fatigue. I felt woozy and told Rudy that I had to sit down for a minute. I asked him to let me sleep for 1.5 minutes. Boom. I was out like a light and miraculously woke myself up with 10 seconds to spare! On we went marching through the thick undergrowth, over a ton of blown downs and up some of the steepest trails I have ever traversed. Some parts of this section were runnable and I did my best to move quickly, but ultimately it was an extremely mentally challenging section. We topped out on a ridge after about 8-10 miles and were treated to spectacular views of Mount Adams. After admiring the view, I proceeded to  immediately sit down and take another nap, this time 3-minutes, and again miraculously waking myself up on my own.

The view of Mt. Adams

Rudy was exceedingly patient with me as I stumbled along though the loose, gravely terrain and yet, found ways to not let me dawdle too much. He would not let me use the terrain or my fatigue as an excuse to stop moving forward. Whenever I would start getting negative, he would somehow drag me out of that dark place. We came across the St. John lake, a beautiful, peaceful, isolated lake where we stopped to refill our water and enjoy the scenery for a couple of minutes. It was awesome. We eventually made it to the next water source several miles later, Jackpot lake, where I was expecting to have another serene experience. 

Wrong. As soon as we stopped to get water we were attacked by the world’s most aggressive, angry, swarming devil mosquitos. Never in my life had I experienced mosquitos like that! We quickly took off, hoping to leave them behind as we swatted in vain. Every bit of exposed skin was fair game and unfortunately, I was not moving fast enough to outrun them. Rudy was also getting hammered and eventually he took off up the mountain ahead of me so that he could outrun the insanity of mosquitoes. The flip side of getting attacked for what felt like “hours” was that it made me move a heck of a lot faster. It made the time seemingly pass more quickly as we neared the 2.8 mile out stretch that descended into the Twin Sisters Aid station. Once we saw the sign sending us off onto the 2.8 mile and back to Twin Sisters Aid AS we knew we just needed to cruise on in. This was probably the most runnable section we had been on in the last 30 miles! As we neared the aid station, we ran into Todd Thomas and his pacer Steve Higgins heading towards us. To my surprise, Todd stopped completely to inform us that we were sitting in 2^nd and 3^rd place! The last time I had heard about out placings, I had been somewhere between 5^th and 6^th so it was quite a shock to hear that we had moved up so much. He said that once of the top guys had gotten off course and we were both in a podium spot…for now. We gave each other a slp on the back and headed off in opposite directions. At that moment I was so proud of how we were doing…and it felt so good that it was both Todd and I together doing this thing. Even though we hadn’t run a single step of the race together, we were out there, challenging ourselves, hurting and overcoming obstacles together…climbing the same mountains and tackling the same rough, wild terrain.

Rudy and I ran into Twin Sister AS (mile 177.5) at around 5:08pm. Yep, it had taken us 11.5 hours to traverse the last 37 miles. The whole gang was there and EXCITED. We could smell the barn now and they were excited that Todd was barely a mile ahead of me at this point. I had started to develop some foot and achilles pain in the last 5 hours so I decided to give my feet a couple minutes to breath and change to shoes with my Superfeet insoles in them. I ate a veggie burger while the crew resupplied me and the medic went to town on my feet. The medic kept telling me how amazing my feet looked compared to Todd’s and that my feet were the least torn up feet he had ever see this far into a race. Needless to say I didn’t really care at this point because my feet were aching and my legs were feeling pretty shot as well. Kristen was ready to roll so we said bye and took off back up the trail onto the second to last leg of this journey.

How Your Love Makes Me Feel

It's like just before dark
Jump in the car
Buy an ice cream
And see how far we can drive before it melts, kind of feelin'
There's a cow in the road
And you swerve to the left
Fate skips a beat and it scares you to death
And you laugh until you cry
That's how your love makes me feel inside

Kristen and I left Twin Sisters AS at around 5:20pm. We had about 16 miles to go and the description of this section made it seem like it MIGHT be runnable downhill. We climbed back towards the main trail and came across a very tired looking Andy Pearson and pacer near the turn off, meaning he was nearly 6 miles behind us. At that point I thought, “Ok… I just need to keep it together in these last 30 miles and I will be on the podium.” While I knew this was definitely doable, nothing in a race like this is a given. We climbed up to Pompeii Peak as the sun was getting ready to set, which was hazy from all the wildfires in the PNW and Canada, and then began our long descent to the next aid station. We quickly learned what the description meant when it said the “trail becomes overgrown with downed trees about 2 miles before Pompey Peak and afterward as well.”

Pompeii Peak

It quickly got crazy with giant downed trees every 50-100 ft. Several times there were multiple trees down together making it difficult to know even where to climb over. With my limited mental capacity at this point, I was making some poor decisions and Kristen definitely had to save my butt a few times from getting stuck between trees or falling off the edge of the mountain. I wanted to move quickly, but it was frustrating because whenever we thought there was an end to the downed trees, another one would come into view. I remember telling myself, “at least its downhill.” Kristen and I ended up just trying to have fun finding creative ways to crawl through, scramble over and generally parkour ourselves through this section. It was a lesson in patience and smiling in the face of frustrating circumstances. Another thing I kept telling myself was that no matter how difficult and challenging this section was, there were 150 other racers behind me, traversing the same terrain, hitting highs and lows and tackling the exact same things I had struggled through earlier. I owed it to them to not mentally fall apart now when I was hours to days closer to the finish line than them.

We finally popped out on an old logging road which had been abandoned and turned into a trial. This trail reminded me so much of some of the trails I ran last October at the WV Trilogy (side not: Incredible running event. Do it.) I find it fascinating to see how the forest takes back what was once its own. It is perfectly shown with these old logging roads as you can see the forest start taking over the edges and creeping back inwards, slowly enclosing the trail under its canopy. We zig zagged along this trail’s gentle grade, intermittently dodging a low branch or tripping on a hidden rock but overall moving steady. As dusk settled in, I cranked up the music from my phone, partially to keep me awake and partially to alert any animals in the vicinity that we were coming through. I had started having small hallucinations at this point and it was comforting to have music going, knowing that I didn’t have to talk loud or yell to alert them of my presence.  I would see a shadow off to the side and think I saw an animal or person, only to shake my head and realize that it was merely a bush. I would see a dark object ahead and think it was a bear, only to turn out to be a log. Kristen did an amazing job at distracting me by telling me about the adventures that the crew had been having throughout the race. She told me how incredible her view had been from her hammock at the Twin Sisters aid station, and she told me stories of the mishaps the crew had over the last few days. It made me feel so happy to know that the crew was doing well and taking care of each other.

As we neared the next aid station, we started hitting a few washes, where the trail was being eaten away by creeks, leaving big cliffs off to one side. All I would see would be a reflector straight ahead and before I knew it, Kristen would be motioning me to turn quickly to go around the wash and not right through it off the cliff. She physically had to manhandle me away from running off the edge on more than one occasion. Sudden sharp turns were clearly not my forte at this point in the race. Several miles later, we found the mysterious “surprise” that we had been promised at the pre-race meeting: tequilla shots sitting on a tiny table in the middle of the woods. We got a good laugh at that, both knowing that I would literally either fall asleep or fall off a cliff if I partook. A few minutes later we saw the glow of the next, and LAST aid station. We heard the crew yelling and the aid station volunteers enthusiastically hollering. It was so good knowing that this was the last stop before the finish.

Kristen and I ran into the Owen Creek AS (Mile 193.5) at 9:45 pm. In my mind I was hoping for chill, sort of prologue type of aid stop. I guess I was hoping it would be a “Welcome to the last aid station! Let’s get to that finish line” sort of experience.  Wrong. Apparently, Todd Thomas had showed up not long before me and while looking ok, had been struggling a little bit with the sleep deprivation. As we ran into the aid station, it became clear that the crew was determined to get me in and out of that aid station FAST in order to start the chase. The first thing Rudy said to me was, “Todd left 10 minutes ago. You can get him.” I was mentally torn by this revelation. I knew I was ultimately in a foot race and that this is what I was signed up to do but MAN I WAS TIRED. So much of me wanted to just sit and be happy with the fact I was sitting in third place but this was a RACE. In the moment I didn’t know what to think. I was sitting in a chair with foot and drink being constantly handed to me in a blur. Meanwhile Rudy and Kirby were rummaging through my pack, determined to see how much they could lighten the load for the last 12 miles. I saw plastic bags, article of clothing, old wrappers, gels and random gear I had lugged for miles and miles all being emptied out of the pack that had been on my back for the last 190+ miles. This felt more like a 50k or 50 miler aid station than an aid station 60 hours into a 200-mile race. But this was a RACE. “Time to race. Time to race. Time to race,” I kept muttering to myself. I thought about Dr. Horton at mile 80 of the 2014 Grindstone 100 when he yelled at me, “NOW ITS TIME TO GO CHANG. NOW IT’S TIME TO START HURTING!” I switched back into my Altra Olympus shoes, which had several large gashes in both sides from the lava fields of Mount St. Helens that seemed like an eternity ago. 

From Now On

From now on!

These eyes will not be blinded by the lights!

From now on!

What's waited till tomorrow starts tonight!
It starts tonight!
Let this promise in me start
Like an anthem in my heart
From now on!
From now on!
From now on!

And we will come back home
And we will come back home
Home again!

While this stop seemed like it lasted quite a while, the crew actually got me in and out in 8 minutes! I left Owen’s Creek a just before 10pm and was headed for home with Josh, who had been faithfully leading the crew around the backcountry for the last three days. As I walked out of the aid station, I was handed the world’s largest burrito/taco that felt as if it weighed 5 lbs. I literally turned to someone and said, “What IS this?” to which Kristen replied,” JUST EAT IT” as Josh and I walked off into the darkness. I attempted to shovel in as much of the burrito as I could, but after about 5 minutes I gave up and tossed the rest into the woods. We got back to our mission of running the last 13 miles hard in an effort to catch Todd. At this point, my mental capacity for running hard was shot and I was able to hold a ‘hard effort’ for only minutes at a time, maybe less.  It had been so long since I was capable of sustaining a running pace due to rough nature of the trail and it was really hard changing modes from run/hike/crawl to JUST RUN. This last section was all road and I was determined not to walk it in. As we descended the dark road, I only wanted to see two things: Todd’s headlamp or the lights from the town of Randle. As we ran, I kept looking at my watch and made a silent agreement with myself that I would try and sustain a sub 13-minute mile pace, which at that point was HAULING! In order to do that I had to really focus and I fell pretty quiet for a while. I hadn’t really imagined the end of this race being an actual race but there we were, in a footrace. I had been in this situation so many times before at other races, either being chased or chasing someone on a long descend back into civilization that this felt like de ja vu.

Each time we rounded a corner, I strained my eyes to see if I saw any bobbing headlamps or bright lights that looked like a town, but over and over again I was met by mere darkness. I started to really get demoralized at this point. My legs were aching, my left achilles felt like it was about to explode and all I wanted to do was stop. I was mentally tired of forward motion. Josh did his best to keep me going, pulling out all the pacer tricks he could think of, but I was getting to the end of my rope. Every time I tried to pull myself out of the dark hole, it seemed like I would fall right back in. I knew that this type of feeling was probably inevitable at some point and I was actually thankful it hadn’t happened earlier in the race. I was SO CLOSE to the end. I found myself running off the road to whichever direction to road was cambered to. My body was so used to running with the flow of the single-track trail that I found myself unable to fight the downslope of the edge of the road. Josh kept gently nudging me back away from the edge of the ditch while at the same time not letting me run out into the middle of the open road since it was and open course and we were passed by several car going 50+MPH. I kept thinking to myself, “This race is never going to end!” Finally, after struggling through several tough miles, we hit a few very flat sections of road meaning we were getting close. We eventually crossed the big metal bridge across the Cowlitz river and I knew we were almost there. Josh did an awesome job making sure I didn’t get run over while crossing Hwy 12, and we made our way down a back road towards the finish line at White Pass High School.

About a half mile away from the school I saw 3 headlamps heading towards us. Josh happily said, “there’s your crew, here to run you in” and I was overcome by just how incredible it was to be surrounded by such amazing people who had spent 60+ hours taking care of me. They were the reason I was about to cross the finish of this amazingly tough race. We ran in towards the high school and I turned onto the track to the sound of cheers and cowbells. 400 meters to go. “Soak it in,” I thought to myself. Running stride for stride with my beautiful wife, we rounded the track. I closed my eyes as we ran and just listened to the rhythmic sound of my breathing, my footsteps and my heart pounding. I smiled even more than I already was when we rounded the last turn and I locked my eyes on the purple Destination Trail finish arch. Behind it were cheering volunteers, Todd plus his crew, Candice the phenomenal RD and my wonderful crew. It was past 1am and all these folks were out here to see me finish. It was humbling.

Crossing the line, hand in hand with Kristen, our arms raised, felt about as good as one could imagine. The culmination of months of training, planning and logistics, coupled with 63 hours and 49 minutes of racing had led us to this point. I hugged each of my crew and kept thinking to myself how lucky I was to have these people in my life: 

Kristen who it my rock, my selfless, caring wife who stands beside me through all these crazy adventures;

Rudy, the longtime friend who taught me how to truly fall in love with the long distances;

Kirby, the man who truly sets an example for me that I hope I can follow in my own life as a husband, father and friend;

Josh, that person in my life that I can count on to be there no matter how little or big the adventure

I was, and still am, truly humbled by these people.

After my time with my crew, I got a big hug from Todd Thomas, the crazy man who somehow got me to do this race. He had an incredible race and finished about 35 minutes before me. I also spoke with Candice the RD and told her how I was in awe of how well this race was organized and executed. Eventually we all piled into the Bigfoot mobile, as I affectionately called our Ford Expedition, and drove to the hotel that the crew had smartly secured when they realized that I was going to finish nearly 10 hours earlier than I had anticipated.

After cleaning up, I gingerly climbed into bed and laid there, wide awake, too excited to sleep and too tired to move. I tried to wrap my head around the last 3 days but couldn’t. I just laid there while everyone else passed out from exhaustion. Bigfoot 200 was a wrap…and what an adventure it was.

Stats:

Distance run: 208.5 miles (2 added on to the original 206 miles due to getting lost)

Elevation: 43,000 ft

Hours slept: 3.5

Distance driven by crew: 528 miles

Hours driven by crew: 22

Distances run by 4 pacers: 162 miles

So now what?

I found a few days after finishing Bigfoot that I had been selected in the HURT 100 lottery, a race that I have been trying to get into for over 6 years! Next up we’re heading to Hawaii in January so that I can tackle 100 miles in the Jungle! But right now, it’s all about rest, recovery and reflecting on the Bigfoot 200 journey.