Date: 2 Oct 1997 17:23:53 -0800 From: "Hoff, Bruce R" Subject: My Wasatch account Balto Runs Wasatch ------------------------ On September 6, near Salt Lake City, the 18th annual Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run was held. It was my third Wasatch race, and my second attempt to break the elusive 24 hour barrier. I joined Team Blarney in 1995 with the specific purpose of doing well at this race. I had run three 100 mile trail races, including Wasatch, and was having trouble doing well. After committing to the serious training that goes along with being in our club, I found that the 1995 Wasatch entry list was full. In 1996 I entered early to avoid a repeat of that problem. I arrived at the race well prepared but, through a miscalculation in my "replenishment plan" my race disintegrated, and I finished in 27 hours, 8 minutes. Now, in 1997, I was committed to try to make things right. From the experience of the previous two years I knew that the summer would entail some long, hard weeks of training. By the time June arrived I had run three 50 mile races and one 50K for the year. During the summer, our fearless leader scheduled for me eleven consecutive weeks exceeding 100 miles/week, including two weeks over 150 miles. During each of those two weeks I had arranged to go to Salt Lake City for three days to train on the Wasatch course. My schedule called for running 115 miles during each of those three day weekends. Boy was I hungry and tired! Fortunately I had some good company while training. In the Spring I ran a lot with Dana Taylor, as he prepared for the Kettle Moraine 100. I was amazed at his speed and resistance to fatigue, despite his high training mileage. Unfortunately he was side-lined with a stress fracture during the summer, which scuttled his plans for being in top shape for Wasatch. During the long dog days of summer I ran with Larry Gassan, who ran the Leadville 100 in August. Long training runs breed familiarity, and Larry and Dana started calling me "Balto the redheaded sled-dog," as we scampered up the peaks of the San Gabriels. The highlights of the summer were two trips to the Sierra Nevada. During July 4th weekend, we stayed in a Mammoth condo and ran over trails, streams, and snow for about 80 miles in three days. The next weekend we camped in Kings Canyon, and put away a grueling 75 miles over two days. Running out of that canyon is particularly taxing, as any significant trail climbs steeply upward. We ran the Rae Lakes loop, which climbs from 4,600 ft to 12,000 ft over 18 miles, and descends back over another 25 miles. The next day we ran north to Kennedy Pass, until we were forced to turn back due to snow hiding the trail. We saw more cougar prints than human ones in that remote area. At the end of July, Larry was off to 10,000 ft. high Leadville to breathe the thin air and Dana was aqua-jogging and eating calcium pills with his Wheaties. I wrapped up the bulk of my training in mid-August, rejoined by a recalcified Dana for one last weekend in the Wasatch. Having convinced my bosses to allow me to do so, I moved my residence to Green Valley Lake (near Big Bear) for three weeks, to breathe the 7,200 ft. thin air while telecommuting. I left only for a brief trip to Colorado, to pace Larry during the last 23 miles of his race. His successful race was a stark reminder of the nature of the "hundred" and the perseverance necessary in the final miles. Back in Green Valley, I found a track at the "Rim of the World High School". After trying to hold the pace for 8x800 at that altitude, I think I'll never again complain about running in Arcadia. After a brief return to our "lowlands" it was "off to the race!" Wasatch is hard. Of the major hundred milers strewn across California, Colorado, and the east coast, it's considered the hardest. The trails are rocky and steep. Each runner must go uphill a total of 24,000 ft., and downhill slightly less. The typical cut-off for a hundred miler is 30 hours, and runners strive to break 24 hours to receive a special award, usually a beautiful (if somewhat gaudy) western belt buckle. At Wasatch runners are allotted 36 hours (from 5AM Saturday to 5PM Sunday) to finish, and they strive to differentiate themselves from mere finishers by breaking 30 hours and receiving a stunning buckle featuring a profile of the mountains, inlaid with blue turquoise. Yet there is one other category of finisher: The race director makes up a handful of special buckles for the few who can break 24 hours. The buckle depicts a cheetah in full stride, surrounded by brilliant crimson stone. At the awards ceremony, recipients are indoctrinated into the "Royal Order of the Crimson Cheetah" in a tongue-in-cheek ritual. The ceremony is silly, but the message is clear: Once you've accomplished this goal, you've differentiated yourself for life. In 1993 I first ran Wasatch, finishing in a "decent" time of 28 1/2 hours. There were about three runners who broke 24 hours. When I saw that accomplishment, and that category of recognition, I decided that it would be the life-time achievement of trail-ultramarathon running to break 24 at Wasatch. Knowing that I had trained so thoroughly, my race day goal was only to maintain a conservative pace, and keep an eye on replenishment. Running too fast at a hundred is easy. Most any entrant can rocket ahead of the ultimate winner at the start. Even running slow enough to feel comfortable after 80 miles can still be disastrously fast. The ultramarathon is a classic war of attrition. In addition to maintaining one's body integrity by running slowly (and walking!), replenishment is key. We can note it with amusement when we have sweat off five pounds at the end of a marathon. Imagine a 24 hour race in comparison to a 3-4 hour one. Can we stand to lose 6-8 times that much body fluid? Replenishment is key to hitting the finish line. Race officials weigh the runners periodically, and reserve the right to detain a dehydrated runner. Wasatch begins with a pre-dawn warm-up -- an ascent of over 4,000 ft. in the first five miles. 180 racers marched up the side of the mountain range in a flashlight centipede, then, at dawn, turned south traversing the crest of a long ridge following overgrown sheep trails, hopping over ankle breaking rocks. The Great Salt Lake spread westward across the basin below. After 2 1/2 hours, the first 9.5 miles had past, and we received our first water bottle refill. I had consumed three 20 oz bottles along with a bottle of mango nectar-carboplex mixture, the standard Blarney concoction. Out on a dirt road, the course headed downhill, to an intersection that support crews could reach by car. Resupplied, I continued to follow the course, which switched between steeply up and steeply down, dirt road and rocky single track trail, overgrown and exposed, all at high altitude. A major checkpoint comes at mile 36, the first weigh-in. I was pleased to have maintained my starting weight after 7 1/4 hours. Then the course dropped to a low altitude of 6,000 ft, just as the day heated up. Anticipating this I concentrated on drinking a great deal of water, fighting the hydration side of the "battle of attrition." Despite this, I lost four pounds over the next 14 miles, starting to feel queasy. Wasatch has no mercy, and sends the sun-baked runners straight to a 2,000 ft. climb: The course ascends slightly up a road called Lambs' Canyon, then switches to a parallel canyon called Mill Creek. Lacking finesse, the course organizer connected the two canyons via a trail that goes straight up the side of Lambs', through "Bear Ass Pass" and down into Mill Creek. After walking conservatively up to the pass, I found that I felt less queasy on the descent. For this section I had been joined by David Penny who provided a watchful eye for the third quarter of the race. A passerby said "you're 14 minutes" behind the leader. We looked at each other and concluded "He doesn't know what he's talking about, we know we're 1 - 1 1/4 hours back." We walked and jogged up the canyon road, while I pumped more water and mango down my throat. At the end of the road, the climb has just begun. The runners must continue well above 9,000 ft to Desolation Lake. The road's end is the Upper Big Water aid station, mile 59, a good place to get resupplied by one's crew, and regroup for the ascent. All along the road, passersby were acting excited. At Upper Big Water, my crew quickly escorted me to our organized supplies, and excitedly told me that the race leader had left the aid station only one minute earlier. I was incredulous. I had been basically alone all day, incognizant of my place in the field. Now I find that I'd been reeling in the front runner! I was warned not to let the excitement cause me to race too fast, and fall prey to the battle of attrition. After getting resupplied, Dave and I left the aid station walking, but passed others and caught the leader by Desolation Lake. It was my friend Tim Spence, who I greeted warmly. I briefly held a vision of holding the winner's trophy, but the fantasy dissolved when Tim saw me and took off, as if rocket propelled. That was the last I saw of him! I continued on comfortably, but the battle of attrition was waxing. My queasy stomach returned, but with a different, familiar sensation. I stopped in my tracks and "recycled" what I'd been recently drinking. "OK," I thought. I wasn't going to let it get me down. I proceeded, but must have slowed. I soon learned that there had been runners close behind, as two or three appeared and passed me. The course leveled, then descended into Big Cottonwood Canyon. The scenery is uniquely attractive here. Atop the ridge, we could see Park City below to the east, Brighton and Solitude ski resorts in the canyon below, to the south. Directly ahead, the arretes at the head of Big Cottonwood include Catherine's Pass, our ultimate exit from the canyon, and the highest point on the course. The descent into the canyon was effortless, and I reeled in some of the runners who had passed. I was surprised to arrive at the next major aid station, mile 74, the base lodge at Brighton, at 8:15PM, without using the flashlight I carried. At Brighton it was time to refill the bottles, get some warm clothes, get a new pacer and fire up the flashlight. Tim, the race leader, had been held at the station until he gained some water weight, and was only minutes ahead. I was down nine pounds from my starting weight, but no one said anything, and I felt good. We were revved up to go. As we left the building I saw that it had become dark, and a cold breeze had picked up. We were to climb 1,700 ft. to reach the 10,400 ft. pass. As we began the climb I crumbled. The trail was steep, and the effort seemed tremendous. Fortunately, my pacer Al took the point, tracking the trail markers in the dark. The trail went over boulders, and it was difficult to take the big uphill steps. As I stepped up I would lose my balance and tip over to one side. My brain was going fuzzy, and it didn't occur to me that the transition in my state had been so dramatic. It took 1 1/3 hours to crest the pass, which is followed by half an hour of steep, rocky downhill, and another steep uphill called "The Grunt". Along the way, runners were beginning to pass. At the next aid station, mile 81, 3 1/2 hours had passed since Brighton, and my mind was deep into a hundred-mile-funk. As I shuffled along, lightning began flashing on the horizon. The experience was unusual: We'd be running by flashlight, able only to see a round circle of terrain, when suddenly , ZAP!, the whole trail, hillside, trees, pacer, were visible for a nanosecond. Then it was back to pitch black. It seemed to me that the race was over, that I'd failed, that everyone had passed. In fact I had only lost part of the 1 1/2 hour of margin I had built up, and there were 170 runners coming on strong from behind. After a 10 minute nap at mile 81, we shuffled on, and I began calculating: If I could make mile 93 by 3:30 AM, I would be out on the road, and I was sure I could make the finish by 5AM. That left almost 3 1/4 hours for twelve miles. That seems easy to do, but the curse of the 100 mile is that somehow it's very hard! The uphills were acutely painful, but I could sort of shuffle the downs. I hoped to hit mile 87 in 1:40, but it took 1:50. Al began lashing me verbally, trying to get me to run to mile 93. The lightning was getting closer and now it started to rain. I had donned Al's Gortex in the earlier cool breeze, and now he was getting soaked, while I was too numb to care. There was plenty of downhill, and somehow we ran to a cold murky stream crossing called "The Bottoms." I dispatched Al to run ahead 1/2 mile to the aid station, to alert the crew, while I shuffled up the dirt (now mud) road. Arriving at the aid station at 3:13AM, I knew I could finish before 5AM. Getting out my own Gortex, a new flashlight, and some water, I headed out on the road. For one last slap-in-the-face, the road has a steep uphill called "the wall", which I slipped my way up. Then we ran/walked down, as the rain let up. At 4:30AM we hit pavement, 2 miles from the end. I knew I had my goal in my sights and we reached the finish just before 4:50AM, a scant ten minutes under the 24 hour barrier. The conclusion was a bit ironic: I finished 12th overall, among 13 Crimson Cheetahs. I originally set my time goal as lofty, since only the first 3 or 4 runners seemed to break 24 hours in any given year. Over the years, the field has grown (almost doubled since 1993), and runners like myself have returned to the course focusing on the same goal. The result is the larger number of sub-24 finishes. But the award is the same, and I'm pleased to have achieved a goal set so many years ago.