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Ahhh! 100 miles. Where do I begin to write about this under taking? The biggest driving force behind signing up for and running this race was I did not think I could do it. I really wanted to see how my body would feel after 100K.

This race takes no time getting to the climbing.  Right out of the start gate you run out of Fairplay, CO up to Silverheels mine nestled up at a comfortable 12K above sea level.  At this point the race felt like every other long distance mountain run I have ran.  Nothing hurt, I was sucking down the tailwind, and I was taking in solid calories.  To prove we went out to the mine we had to grab a card and bring it back to the High Park aid station.

The section between High Park 2 (13.75) and Poor Mans Gulch aid stations (21.3) flew by really quickly. This section is mostly downhill on a fire road so it was easy to get into a rhythm.  Oh but wait it would not be a Human Potential race with out having to find your way through a marsh filled with shin deep mud 1 mile before you roll into Poor Mans. I rolled through the mud and into the aid station.  This is the first place I got to see my crew Kim and Michele. My crew suggested I sit down and take some calories in.  I did not argue.

This is where the course just starts to blur together.  I left Poor mans with a 10 mile trek to the next aid station.  On this section I made the decision to pick Michele up for the way back.  I knew I would be running this section in the witching hours on the way back.  It was hard during the day, I had a feeling it was going to be pretty rough at night.

About 500ft from the Trout Creek Aid station I tried to get fancy and run on top of a rut in the middle of a muddy 4×4 road.  This ended up with my legs flying out from under me to the side and me flopping into the mud side first.  The whole right side of my body was caked in mud.  Thankfully the aid station volunteers had towels to give me an impromptu bath, even though I wanted to keep the mud on me, you know for the story.

I rolled into Tarryall 1 (31.9) and met with my crew again.  I took a good break here, changed my shoes, ate some sold foods, sat in a chair, and picked up my trekking poles for the first time in the race.  Its really hard to not get too comfortable at aid stations! Lucky I had a badass crew to kick me out of the aid stations!

I knew it was going to be a really long haul until I came back to this aid station, roughly 20 miles.  I set off on my way to grind out those miles.  At this point I was still in pretty high spirits. Things really started falling apart as soon as I hit the road mile 46.  This was the road from hell! The road was 12 miles, down hill and 100% exposed to the sun.  This is the first place I came to the realization that I am not solar powered.

In my run drunken stupor I mistakenly forgot to pick up my headlamp when I left Tarryall. I thought for sure I would make it back with plenty of time before it got dark, I mean who thinks about a headlamp at 2 in the afternoon!? Luckily an aid station Volunteer let me borrow theirs for the last 3 miles back to my crew.

It took me roughly 7 hours between Tarryall 1 and 2 and this is where I started making mistakes.  I should have stayed in my original shoes, my feet were good when I left Tarryall the first time.  I ignored a pebble under the ball of my foot, And I stopped eating around hour 5 of the loop from hell.

I let me crew know I stopped taking in calories about 2 hours prior.  Kim made it her mission to load me back up on calories. I sat down and wrapped myself in a blanket and proceeded to find a place to hide all of the food Kim handed me.  The last thing I wanted to do was eat, but I managed to choke down a good amount of solid food.

At this point I had one 9 mile out and back before I got to pick up Michele to pace me!  It was also dark at this point and was getting pretty chilly.  I threw on my gloves, tall socks, and warm clothes. That’s a lie, my crew did all of that for me! As a 31 year old adult its kind of weird having someone dress you.

I made quick (retaliative term) work of the 9 mile out and back and made my way back to Terryall 3.  At this point it was very late at night and it was getting really cold.  I really wanted to take a nap at this point but my crew highly recommended against it.  Instead I sat in my comfy chair and was force fed sold foods again.

For the first time in 68 miles I had a pacer! Weee! Michele picked me up at the hardest part of my race.  I am so glad I had her with me because things got real dark, literally and mentally, running through the night.  This is the first time all day where I started doing math and looking my pace.  I was 100% convinced I would not finish the race.  Good thing I am really bad at math. All joking aside going into that mind set is toxic during a race this long.  I was so ready to give up, if I did not have Michele with me I would have called it. Michele had a positive attitude all the way through the night and put up with me being in a pretty rough spot.  She kept me moving and did not let me quit.

Eventually the sun came up and I started feeling optimistic about the race for the fist time in hours (ok maybe I am a little solar powered).  Michele ran me back across the muddy swamp and into the Poor Mans (Mile 83) aid station again.  This is where I was picking up Kim, my final pacer for the last 21 miles. After taking another short break here me and Kim ventured out back across the muddy swamp for the 3rd time (Thanks Sherpa John). At this point I knew exactly what I was in store as we were retracing my foot steps from earlier in the race all the way back to the finish line.

Kim earned the reputation of “slave driver” from some of the other runners crews.  She definitely lived up to this when she was pacing me.  Ok maybe slave driver is a little harsh, but she was laser focused on making sure I was eating, drinking, and moving fast enough to beat the 36 hour finish line cutoff.  The 21 miles I was with Kim went by relatively fast, minus the last 4 miles of gravel road in the sweltering sun (definitely not solar powered).  At that point I was so ready to be done and every mile felt like an eternity! Eventually we found our way back into Fairplay and across the finish line.

I have never experienced that range of emotions in a 36 hour period in my life.  I felt my lowest lows and wanted to cry tears of frustration and pain, and I felt my highest highs where I wanted to cry tears of pure joy (Thankfully I was wearing sunglasses). After a riding this emotional roller coaster for hours I just accepted the lows and knew they would go away and was grateful for the highs knowing they would not last for ever either.

This race 100% would not have been possible with out my crew and pacers!  Its pretty incredible what you can accomplish if you surround yourself by the right people.  Again thanks a ton to Sherpa John, All of the volunteers, Michele, and Kim!

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This race was originally not on my radar for the year.  I planted the 50K idea in Michele’s head earlier in the year and she picked this race.  There was no way I was going to let her have all of the fun so I signed up too!  Run the burn landed 5 weeks before Dirty30 which put it in a perfect place to use it as a training run for that and my 100 miler in August.

Run the Burn takes place west of Portland in the Tillamook State Forrest.  This was my first time in the pacific northwest, this ecosystem is so green and lush, I felt like a t-rex could pop out of the Jungle-esq surroundings at any moment.

Me and Michele stayed about 40 minutes away from the race location so we were up bright and early on race day.  The drive to the race was filled with the normal butterfly in the stomach sensations.  I knew this would go away as soon as I started running.  When we got to Tillamook we found our parking spot and wondered over to pick up our bibs.  We had about 30 minutes to kill before the race started so we explored around the start / finish gate and warmed our butts by the camp fire that was burning 50 feet from the start of the race.

Before I knew it 8AM rolled around and we were off running.  I knew there was a big 1500ft climb in the first 3.5 miles so I forced myself to take it easy on the climb.  The best thing about grinding up a big climb is knowing that you have a big downhill to follow that up.  The 5 mile rolling descent off of the first big climb was my favorite section on the way out.  This descent took you down a perfect piece of single track that switched back and forth down into a gulley.  I was very distracted by all of the waterfalls I passed on this section of the trail. At this point of the race (mile 10) I was on cloud 9.  I had hopes of a sub 6 hour 50K and a PR for the day.

This race is designed as an out and back with the turn around point being at a huge waterfall.  I reached the waterfall around 3 hours and 15 minutes into the race.  At this point I started fighting the mental battle I normally fight half way through a race. The bad thing about an out and back means you have to run back on the exact trail you ran out on.  The good thing is I got to see Michele a little bit after I turned around and started heading back.  I ran into her about 15-20 minutes after I turned around.  We exchanged some nice words and a quick hug and we were both back on our way.  Seeing her picked me up out of the low place I was going to mentally for a little bit.

I was dreading that 5 mile descent I wrote about earlier because I knew It was going to be a pain in the ass (literally) to run back up.  As soon as I started the climb I did my best to just zone out and grind up the hill.  At the top of this climb there was an aid station, I moved through it quickly because I just wanted the race to be over at that point.  The last downhill was a quad, knee, and toe killer!  I did my best to grind out the last couple miles of down hill and ran my way into another 50K finish.

After I finished the race I hobbled back to the car, changed into my comfortable neon orange shoes and plopped myself down at the finish line to cheer Michele in for her first 50K finish.  Not too much behind me Michele came running across the finish line, I was incredibly surprised how well she looked for having just ran her first 50K.  She absolutely crushed this race and I am incredibly proud of her.  I am happy I got to share the race with her!

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The day started bright and early at the dino lots.  We ditched the little red civic and cruised up to Georgetown.  The road is closed about 2 miles below the standard summer Bierstadt trail head.  After about 10 minutes of talking ourselves out of the 90 degree Subaru we strapped on the snowshoes and were on our way.  The first part of Bierstadt in the Winter is an uneventful snowshoe up the road. We did not snowshoe all the way to the summer trail head.  We cut off one switchback below the summer trail head and snowshoed across the lake and eventually linked up with the standard summer route. 

All day we could see another person off in the distance.  We ended up following his snowshoe trail most of the way to the summit. Honestly I was happy to have a somewhat broken trail, I really dislike wallowing in boob deep snow!  Once we synced up with the standard route we ditched the snowshoes and went with the fast and light plan.

In my opinion once we were on the standard route it felt like a summer day on Bierstadt, maybe even a little easier.  Well the way back down is easier because you can butt slide.

The final push to the summit was a bit slippery, but we eventually made it. It is incredibly rare for Bierstadt to not have 20+ people on the summit, its honestly the 6 flags of 14ers.  We took full advantage of that and chilled on the summit, ate our snacks and chatted with the dude that broke trail for us.

After a quick photo shoot we started our butt slide back down to our snowshoes.  Once we reached our snowshoes we strapped them on and extreme snowshoed all the way back out to the car.

Its pretty hard to believe but this is the first 14er me and Kim tackled together, it only took us a year and a half!  Here’s to a summer of many more 14,000 Ft adventures!

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There were 4 wave options spaced 5 minutes apart, I chose to start in wave 4 to avoid the congestion that comes with large races that funnel into single track.  One word of caution here though, if you start in wave 4, the aid station cutoffs are not adjusted for this time.  I had a friend who missed the cutoff by a few minutes and if she had started in the earlier wave she would have made it with time to spare.

My race started at 6:20 am, it was a balmy 30 degrees out, but honestly 30 degrees felt very comfortable once we started running.  My first mistake was wearing my Salomon down jacket, I always under estimate the power of down!  I took my down jacket off about 10 miles into the race and unfortunately it fell off my pack someplace up on the first big ridge crossing and I did not notice until miles later. (Farewell favorite red jacket!)

The Rut takes no time kicking your ass.  Right out of the gate you are faced with a 1500ft climb in the first 2 miles.  My goal for the day was to take it easy and pace myself for the first 15K of the race, which for some reason is hard for me to do, I always burn myself out in the first half of the race and then suffer the last half.  For the first 10 miles of the race I leap frogged with familiar Colorado faces.

The first real big climb comes at mile 15. This is where The Rut starts to show its true colors.   I was so excited when I hit this section, this is why I signed up for The Rut, I crave that big mountain terrain!  This was what I was saving my energy for, as soon as I hit this talus I went into 14er power hike mode and did not look back, ok I looked back a few times at the scenery.  This race becomes so much fun at this point, you top out on this climb and run an incredible vertigo educing ridge line for about a mile.

After this fun ridge line you descend back down a couple thousand feet and then have another brief climb back up to the mile 17 aid station.  Right after this aid station you start the biggest most intimidating climb up to the top of Lone Peak.  This climb is also very 14eresq, very steep grade, lots of crawling on hands and knees to get over features.  It was a mental and physical grind all the way to the top.  But I knew this was the last major climb of the race and I was pretty much home free after that.

Once I topped out on the summit of Lone Peak, I got a good look at the terrain ahead.  It was not going to be as easy as I thought.  Coming off of lone peak was almost harder than hiking up it.  The trail down lone peak was full of slippery lose talus.  Anyone who has tried to run/hike on this stuff knows it is a rolled/Bloody ankle waiting to happen!  I took my time coming off of Lone Peak, but it was pretty painful.  Long downhill’s destroy my toes and knees, so I was incredibly happy for any slight uphill that came after that descent.

The last part of the race was kind of a blur.  I do not really remember much between the descent off of Lone Peak and the last aid station.  The last aid station sits on top of another 700FT climb.  As soon as I hit the last aid station at mile 26ish I started doing math and realized I had a real chance at finishing sub 10 hours.  I zoned out and forced myself to run every single section of downhill to the finish line.  With about 3 miles left I felt my fingers and face start to go numb, for me this was a sign that I needed to put more calories and water in.  I choked down the 4th full sized snickers bar for the day and drank the last of my water.  Right before the finish line is one more mini climb, this climb was a sole crusher for me because I was really chasing that sub 10 hour finish.  As soon as I hit the top of that last hill there was a volunteer cheering people on.  I told her I really wanted to finish sub 10 hours.  Immediately after I said that she started screaming and cheering me on and shouting words of encouragement.  Its amazing how someone cheering for you turns everything around.  I came out of the trees and could see the finish, I had 9:54:00 on my watch and began to sprint the last section of the race.  I managed to finish in 9:56:00, which I am incredibly proud of!  This is a definite repeat race for me!

The most important thing I learned on race day was I love doing this, I love running ultra distances, I love being in the mountains, I love the community, and I love feeling like I am a part of something bigger!  And the people who Volunteer for these races make them what they are.

Here is my snapchat story from the day!

Distance – 30.8 Miles
Vert – 10,620FT
Calories Burned – 5,201 (So many gummy bears)

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I knew going into this race it was going to be much different than any other race I have ran. This much climbing crammed into a 50K is just nuts!  The race started out at the bottom of a ski run, the climbing started immediately after the race started.  I tried to remind myself to take it easy on the climbs.  The first couple climbs reward you with brief stints of runnable downhill. You do not hit the first aid station until about mile 8 and about 3K of climbing.  At this point I was still feeling pretty fresh, I had an aid station and I had just met Mare-Bear on the trail just below the aid station, she had the gopro and was taking pictures.  I took a Banana and pb&j from the aid station was on my way.

After the first aid station you immediately drop back down 3,000 FT, followed by a few miles flat and then the climbing starts again.  This section of the race was one of my favorite sections, it was filled with fast flowing single track though waist height wild flowers.

After the mile 22 aid station you are thrown one of the hardest climbs of the race, you basically straight up a black diamond bowl.  Throughout the day I heard a lot of people curse the race director, Karl Meltzer, but this hill is where I heard most of it.  Seriously who puts this kind of hill 20 miles into a race!  After topping out on this climb you are rewarded with spectacular view on the surrounding mountains.

The wheels started falling off for me on the last climb back up the the first aid station.  I am not sure what happened, my legs felt fine for having 25 miles on them.  Thankfully Mare-Bear was waiting for me at the top of this climb, I was in a pretty bad place mentally until I saw her.  She hiked with me the rest of the way up to the last aid station.  I took an extended break at this aid station to cool off with a popsicle.  In theory the rest of the race should have been a cake walk.  This was not the case, the last 5 miles of the race destroyed me mentally.  It was mostly downhill, but the little bit of uphill there was was really difficult. There was no real trail, it was a lot of bushwacking, and it seemed to never end.  After you finally top out on the last climb and earn you 11,000 feet of climbing you are dumped out on a dirt road that eventually funnels you onto single track back down to where the race started.

This race was a very humbling experience, It was by far the hardest thing physically and mentally I have ever completed.

I want to take a second to thank this beautiful lady for being out there to support me and take photos all day.  I would not have finished with out her support leading up to the race and on race day.  Its pretty awesome how she turned the race around for me every time I saw her.  She took me from a bad place mentally to a place where I knew I could finish the race.  Sorry about the sunburn!

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Training philosophy – Training for the Dirty 30 was pretty low key with the monsoon-esq season we have been having in Colorado this Spring.  My only goal going into the Dirty 30 was to beat my time from last year.

The Course – This course is an ass kicker for sure, its 32 miles with 7500+ feet of climbing with a huge chunk of that coming at mile 26 with a summit of Windy Peak.

Race Day – I opted to drive up to the race area before and catch some sleep in the back of the Forrester.  There were about 10 others cars in the lot too so I was definitely not alone with the idea of car camping the night before.  Sleeping in my car at the took away a lot of the stress of having to be up at the butt crack of dawn and then finding my way up to the race.

This was by far my best race ever, I nailed the nutrition, had no cramps and was surrounded by incredibly supportive people all day, everything just fell into place!  In the first 5 miles of the race I recognized a familiar voice coming up the hill behind me, it was the voice of Sherpa John (The badass HPRS race director).  I ended up sticking with him for the next 25 miles of the race,  chatting about life, running, and video games made the race fly by.  Having someone to pace off of was a new experience for me and I think it was a huge contributor to my awesome race day.

I came into the mile 17 aid station and instantly recognized Meredith and Kim, it was awesome to see these 2 at the aid station.  Up to this point in the race I had been taking it pretty easy, just saving my legs for Windy Peak.  Last year Windy Peak kicked my ass!  John had picked up the pace a little so I lost him before Windy Peak.  Luckily Meaghan caught up to me half way up Windy Peak so I had someone else to ninja pace off of.  Its shocking how much having someone to talk with just puts your mind in a different place and makes the miles tick by.   I was on cloud 9 at the summit of Windy Peak because I knew it was mostly downhill to the finish line.  The last few miles of the race flew by and I managed to knock just under 1 hour off of my time from last year.  I had Meredith and Kim waiting at the finish line for me, it was really nice having my peeps at the finish line.

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