From: Tom Hayes Subject: Elkhorn 100K from near the front Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 15:04:44 -0600 Here is another story, perhaps more personal, as seen by somebody running *only* 40 minutes behind the winner. My Dad and I did the Elkhorn 100K (62 trail miles) on Saturday, July 18th in Montana City, Montana. The heat has been building up in Montana all of July. There had been some severe thundershowers early in the month as the weather changed from excessive rain to excessive heat. So the local runners were not awfully acclimated to these new temperatures in the 90's. Race day was supposed to get up to possibly high 90's with no thundershowers in sight. But at least we knew that race directors Bobbie and Jim Pomroy would have a beautiful course laid out for us. Afterall, they lived right at the foot of the Elkhorn Mountains and ran these trails year around. We started at 0500 and the 56 degrees then was not a good omen. Mark Tarr, who has won 6 times, and Leland Barker started way faster than most of us wanted to run, finishing the four mile road loop in about 28 minutes. I was wondering if I should stay up with them as I had heard one theory on racing that day was to start fast and get some miles in before it got hot. But it wasn't my theory as I figured you would just be more fatigued when it did got hot. At the nine mile aid station I heard Leland had fallen back about five minutes as Mark pushed the pace. There was nobody in sight behind me so it looked like I had a solid third for now. My goal was to beat 10 hours and 25 minutes, the master's record for that course and a 35 minute improvement on my last time. As we started up one of the steep parts of the trail, the sun began to rise, very orange on the mountain ridges to the east. I lost the sunrise several times as I ascended a narrowing creek bed going up west facing slopes. A graceful doe loped through a meadow ahead of me causing me to feel a little cloddish as I pounded along carrying my 90 ounces of water and five powerbars. After climbing about three miles of the first seven mile hill I looked back and could see Dave Atlas down below. He had passed me like a gazelle with 20 miles to go the year before so I figured I would be seeing him later. My only goal was that magical time I had selected, not so much to get in the record books but because I thought it measured a reasonable improvement from last year. My calculations were based on knowing the course better, being in better shape, and I wasn't stopping to take pictures this time. I sort of expected the current record holder, Rick Spady, or a younger masters runner to beat me and improve the record more than I could. Running through Elk Park at the top of the mountain after 20 miles I felt just awesome. You could see the tops of mountains for miles and Mr. Sun was shining and it was still cool and the trail was smooth and carpeted with pine needles. Naturally my toe found the only tree root for a hundred yards and I fall flat on my face. But the ground was so soft I just bounced up and kept running. At the 20 mile aid station after that long climb I inquired about the two guys ahead of me. Leland was about 25 minutes better than my three hours and ten minutes while Mark was a good 40 minutes ahead of me. About ten miles later the course took us around a further mountain top on an old, old road with lots of rocks exposed. I fell four more times here, abrading my knee a couple of times and bruising my hip pretty good once. I was getting very impatient with myself for not lifting my feet higher. But things fell into place (sort of) and the trail improved when we ran back through the former 20 mile aid station, now 36 miles (only a marathon to go!). Leland was only 20 minutes ahead of me while Mark had stretched out to 50 minutes. We ran through some tall pines for a while and it was so quiet I felt like I was in church, and maybe I was. I had to let out a little hoot of joy just because it felt so neat to be out in the woods and running along at my pace on my own power. What more could a person want? Going down through Beaver Creek we ran in an old creek bed most of the way so it was nothing but rocks often with no trail showing at all. This is where Dave flew by me last year so I was thinking of him the whole way, trying to emulate his style (and speed). He never showed up and I had gained 17 minutes of the 35 minutes I needed to beat the record. This section through Beaver Creek and then later down an extremely steep grassy sidehill to Casey Meadows were where I hoped to get most of the other 18 minutes. The Beaver Creek section was marked well as the elk had not pulled all the ribbon down as they so often do. Besides being very rocky this section had been the scene of a huge forest fire eleven years ago so the trees were all ghostly skeletons which looked very imposing in the late morning sunshine. Several short marshy sections insured we would have the requisite mud-covered legs at the finish (except for those intrepid runners who laid down in streams we crossed later). At the Sheep Park 43 mile aid station I discovered Leland was forty minutes ahead of me and even gaining on Mark! From Sheep Park the trail goes up a slope so steep I don't understand how grass can grow even. The Forest Service cut in a switch back trail last year so we climbed up switchbacks on a vertical wall with the sun beating down on our backs. Dad said it was in here that he decided his 71 year old body was just affected by the heat too much to attempt to maintain his usual middle of the pack pace. Luckily it was still a little cooler when I drug my 47 year old body up and over. It was such a pretty view, especially in the sunshine, that I didn't mind the heat. Just over the saddle from Sheep Park the trail peters out as it starts across the top and down the other side. I think everybody who comes through there goes a different direction so a trail never gets formed. Last year both Dad and I (and countless others I am sure) wandered off the best way down. When you get in the wrong place you are suddenly in a field of boulders the size of Volkswagens interspersed with dead alders spaced about as far apart as jailbars. Luckily us ultrarunners are skinny enough to slide through but the boulders sure added to the difficulty. Needless to say, I lost a lot of time last year rummaging around over there. Dad and I had come up two weeks earlier and sort of marked a trail so I figured to improve my time going down significantly. Going over the saddle I spotted 4 elk just off the trail. It was neat seeing them but that meant the next runners were quite a ways in front of me or they would have scared them off. Going down that steep portion we had scouted two weeks ago, the grass was so dry I half skiied and half ran all the way down. But I did stay out of the boulder field (and so did Dad). The next four miles of trail were smooth and followed a gurgling s tream with several log crossing. I had to hoot again along in there. Dad said when he came down he saw several runners just laying in the water. Unfortunately, neither of the guys ahead of me chose to do that. When I got to the aid station with 14 miles to go I figured I could do it in two hours. I had an extra six minutes to spare so things looked good. I also found out that Leland was 45 minutes ahead of me and less than ten minutes behind Mark. It sounded like a real battle up ahead. I didn't figure on the heat being so much more of a factor down off the mountains. I had four and a half miles of trail left followed by six miles of a rolling, generally uphill, gravel road and three miles of almost all good downhill paved (except the final mile was up again). Naturally I fell one last time on the trail, knocking all the water out of my bottle I was carrying. But I refilled it from a stream and made it to the road where Mom waited with the car. She exchanged water bottles with me about three times as I pushed myself along that road just as hard as I could. By then my six minute buffer was down to three and the heat was very obviously affecting me. I could tell my legs were much heavier than normal. Up to now I had felt like I was on a fun trail run. Now I was on a road race with a very specific goal and fun or enjoyment were no longer a factor. I just kept telling myself how bad did I want that time and how hard could I push myself to get it. The last mile was uphill and I had 8 minutes on totally dead legs. I tossed my water bottle to lighten the load and just pushed as hard as I could up that hill. I didn't even look more than two feet in front of me, concentrating on finding every gram of energy I could summon. I felt like I was barely moving but suddenly to my wondering eyes, the crest appeared. The last three hundred yards was level so I was doing my best to sprint though I am sure it didn't look like it. About twenty feet from the finish I had 45 seconds to spare when I suddenly got dizzy and faltered, caught my balance, took two more steps and went down in a heap. I thought to myself, can I crawl the last ten feet in thirty seconds or should I try to get up. I still felt dizzy but figured it was worth a try to run across instead of crawling. I was able to stand and made it across with 13 seconds to spare, 10 hours, 24 minutes and 47 seconds. I went to the aid tent where they took my blood pressure and pulse and let me soak my burning feet in cold water. For the next two hours I was feeling a little odd but not bad and was talking to other finishers and drinking a little. Then Mom wanted to go to the trailhead to crew for Dad as he came down that boiling hot road, now even hotter in the late afternoon. I went up with her still feeling OK. But when we stopped I suddenly felt nauseous and told her to go on ahead. Soon after she left I suddenly threw up and that is the last thing I remember for almost 5 hours. Mom said when she came back I was sort of mumbling. While she was crewing for Dad I started clanging two plastic cups together and just wouldn't quit. Then I started running in place, in the car, so she got worried and took me to the next aid station where someone took me down to the finish to see a doctor. Mom went back to check on Dad and tell him she was going to see what was up with me. Several of my friends were still around the finish line and said I could respond to them, sometimes intelligently, mostly though I seemed to think I was still on the course. I was still moving my legs and arms as if I was running. Dave Atlas (who had finished fourth in eleven hours even, forty minutes slower than last year) got me to drink by telling me I had just come into the 50 mile aid station. An ambulance took me to the hospital where they pumped me full of electrolytes. They kept asking me questions to see if my brain was functioning properly and I vaguely remember sometimes knowing I knew the answer but then not being able to say it. Like my birthdate, I thought I knew it but when I went to say it I realized I wasn't even sure what a birthdate was. Or where I was. I knew west central Montana but couldn't quite think of the name of the place. When I suddenly realized I was in the hospital I couldn't figure out why. Had I finished the race or collapsed on the course? Then I remembered that I had barely achieved my goal but had finished. I guess I was fully hydrated but my electrolytes were unbalanced. I had taken Karl King's electrolyte capsules and consulted with him afterwards. Based on his assessment and the medical tests, it appears that I was suffering from Dilutional Hyponatremia. I had drunk too much in comparison to the number of capsules I took (four total as I don't sweat nearly as much as most people). My sodium was so low my brain couldn't function properly. It took about four hours for me to come around to where I could answer most of their questions and go home. The next day I felt fairly good though I didn't have much of an appetite. I feel fine now but still do not remember anything about that period of time after I threw up, not even foggy memories. Meanwhile Dad had been left with five miles to go on burning pavement so Mom could come down to the hospital and ensure they took proper care of me. Dad had been drinking like crazy, especially after seeing all the casualties along the trail. He said it looked like a war zone out there. Runners were lying under trees, spread out in the mountain streams and even occasionally jabbering by the trail. One guy did have to be carried out by horseback after collapsing way out beyond any roads. Naturally this made Dad a little nervous so he was guzzling water and pouring it over his head. But even still he started getting nauseous and dry heaving a little with five miles to go. He came in slow and beat the sixteen hour cut-off by 35 minutes, but over two hours slower than his best time. Dad was like a zombie waiting for me to recover and ended up taking about 3 days to feel OK. By the way, Leland had just turned 40 so his name is in the books with an amazing time of 9:51. Mark was eleven minutes ahead of him but still almost ten minutes behind Rick Spady's pre-masters record. The lady's winner ended up a tie between Liz Maroney and Rickie Redland in 13.03:57. Deborah Askew was only six and half minutes behind them. Of the 97 starters that day only 80 were able to beat the heat. That hot sun just takes more out of you than you expect. But the post race breakfast buffet put on by the Exchange Club was still the best one on the circuit. And race directors Jim and Bobbie Pomroy deserve a big thanks for putting on a class event.