Bigfoot Day 1

I slept well and had no issues getting up at 5am to get ready and make my way to the bus @ 5:45. For the previous couple weeks I had been having a recurring nightmare where I arrive at the bus area only to discover that it left hours before... Now safely in my seat, the reality of what was about to happen hit me. I was on the roller coaster, strapped in, heading up the first hill nervous with anticipation, waiting to come over the crest and let the ride begin! The machine had been set in motion and the only thing that could derail it at this point was me!

I spent the bus ride chatting with Jim, a man with an impressive resume including last year's Tahoe 200. We talked about races we'd done, what we love about ultras, and how we hoped the coming days would play out... The good company made the 2hr ride go by quickly and soon we were Marble Mountain Sno-Park. There was coffee, water, and breakfast items laid out on some tables as well as a giant inflatable arch waiting for us to pass under it. Mandatory check in at the start and few pictures of the assembled athletes and we were off!!!

My goal for this race was to finish. My plan to get there was to go slow and sleep my way thru the race... For the first couple miles I was trading back and forth with a couple other people for last place, so I'd say was executing well. I wore my heart rate monitor for the first 44mi of the race. I just wanted to get a rhythm and not do anything too silly on the hills and in the heat early on…

The early miles varied from nice downhill single track thru a beautiful forest to rock hopping over giant blocks of pumice. Everyone was fresh and there was plenty of pleasant conversation on trail.

Thru the first aid station everything felt great. I should hope everything was feeling great with 188mi to go. After the first aid station we were back on single track and I met a woman at an intersection and she wasn't sure which way to go. I had uploaded the entire course to my watch, so I clarified the direction and away we went, but was shortly down the trail she expressed concern and I checked my watch again. It showed us slightly off the marked path and I began to doubt too... We back tracked about a quarter mile and another group came thru and they were convinced it was the right way, so back up the trail we went as it turns out, it was in fact the right trail. The route I uploaded had clipped a few points and that showed us as "off course".

No worries, a few minutes this early was of no concern... The nice trail through trees eventually yielded to some drier terrain then ended at the edge of steep bank that dropped down to a stream. The bank was so steep that there were knotted ropes on both sides to descend and ascend. The temps were beginning to climb into the low 80s and it was dry, so I took this opportunity filter some water from the silty stream before climbing up the other side.

I had made the decision months earlier to wear trail gaiters for this race and the next section proved my choice wise, because as we began traveling thru the desolation zone of Mount Saint Helen's we entered the huge swath of land that was destroyed during the 1980 eruption and was left exposed, dry, & very dusty! As I traversed the flanks of St Helen's I watched dust storms sweep across its valleys. The trail although dry and dusty was very runable thru this section, I made a point to run anything flat or downhill, but followed a piece of advice I received from an endurance racer early in my ultra running career... "If water runs down it, you should walk up it." No sense burning myself out running the uphills now, because there will be plenty more where these came from!

As I moved further into the desolation zone; I moved directly into path of the blast and could appreciate the destruction that had been done to/by this mountain! I drew a line in my mind from the shoulders of the mountain to where the summit used to be thousands feet above what was now a gaping hole. It was very impressive to see… Another impressive site to behold was giant waterfall cascading down the blown out face. It must have dropped 300ft… It was quite a site.

Despite being super dry, there were two VERY silty streams and one amazing little oasis available to gather water. With aid stations approximately every 10-18mi running out of water was something I DID NOT want to have happen, so I elected to tanker extra rather than come up short... I had 94oz of capacity between the 50oz camelbak I had equipped with inline filter to purify water from streams and two 22oz bottles that I had modified with some tubing and bite valves on the chest of my Salomon 12L vest. I really liked the water bottles with tubing, because they allowed me to drink from the bottles while using trekking poles... A couple of people were curious and asked if I bought or made them.

 

I climbed up and around East flank of the mountain and made my way to Windy Pass aid station. As I approached Windy Ridge I was staring down a deep canyon thousands of below and had a deep fear that I may have to descend into it only to then climb of it! Luckily that was not the case... This time! Instead I was treated to an amazing downhill bomb of about 1000ft along the ridge with the canyon dropping away thousands feet on my right and the plain of the desolation zone a few hundred on the left. The aid workers were in great spirits for people that had hiked all the supplies 2mi in. I was pretty quick thru this aid station, but my approach to aid stations in this "race" was never based on speed. I believe my "fastest" stop was in the 10min range, most non-sleep stations being in the 45-1h, and sleep stations I was in for anywhere from 2hrs-3:30. I would sit, relax, take care of my feet, and eat... All maintenance items that kept my body in working order!

After Windy Pass it was back on to what a fellow runner called the plains Mordor. Quiet a fitting name especially with the volcano looming above it… At this point in the day sun finally begun dip below the horizon and it cooled off a little. The problem with sun dipping down that my headlamp was in my upcoming drop bag, so I really wanted to get there before dark, because even though I had a tiny Petzl e-lite. The e-lite is an amazingly small and light lamp, fine for emergencies, but it is not very bright, so the thought of running, or even just navigating by that was not a fun one!

Two runners, a man and a woman, passed me and invited me to tag along, so I matched their pace... It was nice to have company as we stomped through silt beds that were like talcum powder; it would puff out in a cloud of dust as your foot was still inches over ground! We finally gained the ridge that Johnston Observatory was on as the sun began to set and we were treated an amazing alpenglow that bathed St Helen's in a gorgeous array of pinks, purples, and reds! Being at a beautiful vista for sunset would become a recurring theme thru the following evenings...

Unfortunately we had not made the aid station by the time it was dark, so out came the e-lite and I slowly navigated my way into Johnston Observatory.

When I came into Johnston Observatory I looked for chair, but they were all occupied, so I sat on the ground began pulling apart my drop bag. Eventually another runner left and gave me a chair, so I was able sit and ask for some food... Disappointment after disappointment! I requested a hamburger and it was cold. I tried broth, cold. I asked coffee... Cold and full of grinds to the point of almost being undrinkable(if I didn't need caffeine I would've thrown it out). Between the sun going down, sitting, and cold food I began to get a chill, so I put on my windshell and headed off to the next station. This section was mostly downhill and runnable, so I let my legs go. I had left the previous station with Jim, but the dust being kicked by another runner was making it difficult to breathe, so I backed off and let him go ahead, that made it better...

The first night running section didn't seem that bad, no different than a hundred. As I came into the Coldwater Lake aid/sleep station my plan had been to sleep for 1.5hrs and get back on trail. Other runners were talking about "waiting until they were really tired" and only sleeping when they knew they'd pass out immediately. I'd heard it from a couple people though that early sleep was of great benefit though, so when I came to the first opportunity I took it. I imagine if I had been going for a fast time I may have pushed on to the next one, but I was just aiming to finish.

I sat in a chair and the volunteers were very nice and grabbed my drop bag. I drank an Ensure and grabbed a change of socks/shoes, a dry shirt and new shorts then I asked a volunteer where I could crash and he led me to a box of ground pads, but no blankets... So many other runners decided to sleep early that they had run out of blankets. He went back and asked around and when he came back he had a quilted moving blanket from someone's truck. I was tired, so... DEAL!

I asked the blanket giver for a 1am wake (1hr sleep), but after asking  him I decided I actually wanted an extra half hour, so I asked someone to please let him know. That didn't happen... Bad news - I didn't get a straight 1.5hrs sleep... Good news – I did get 1.5hrs total sleep(over 1hr45min) and every sleep station was spot with their wake up calls!

Before I went to bed I changed into dry clothes, took my shoes off, and curled up under the moving blanket. I pulled out my phone and opened the app for my GPS tracker/messenger. I had known all day that people had been messaging me, but I was so in the act of running I couldn’t stop to read them, so it turned into a nightly ritual, to read and reply to my sat messages. As I was out there in the wilderness I was able to at once have solitude, but not feel alone. It was so comforting to have people messaging me and think of them in some of the down times. More than one person would send me a message that would cause me to get emotional. So many kind words of encouragement; it was an amazing experience…

I woke up around 1:30am on day Day 2