It's 5 am. I've been moving for almost 12 hours now. I've been in the dark for what feels like forever. I've already traveled an extra 3 miles because I keep losing the trail. I'm 2 hours behind where I hoped I'd be. I haven't seen another person for 4 hours. My ankles feel like they're ready to collapse in on themselves. I don't know how I'm going to keep going. I don't know if want to keep going. The next checkpoint is only a few miles away but it might as well be a million. I don't want to be here. Another glance behind me hoping to see someone. How far back are they? I've been going so slow they have to be catching up. I'm pretty sure I'm on the right trail. Did I get lost again? Okay, I need water. There's a stream but it's down a cliff. I can't do that right now. Another half mile. There's a little bit of water coming across the trail but it's shallow and looks a bit gross. Oh well, I don't care. I've been thirsty for a mile and want to sit down. Out comes the water filter. Maybe someone will pass me, and give me the pat on the back I need to know I'm not alone and I can keep going. I need that right now. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, after hours of silence, a bird calls out. It hit me like a slap in the face. It called again. I just sit and listen for a while. It's so incredibly beautiful. It means this night must be coming to an end. It means I can keep going. It means I can do this. It picks me up off the ground. I will never forget the sound of that bird, and how it turned my day around.
Fast forward almost 12 hours. I'm exhausted. According to my watch that was the last big climb. I'm having trouble trusting it right now because my map has failed me several times so far. I've been moving for 23 hours and 20 minutes. I've traveled 70 miles and have just over 3 miles to go. My feet feel like they're attached to my legs by worn-out rubber bands that could snap at any second. I know, without a doubt, better than I know my name at this point, that I am going to finish in under 24 hours. I don't know how I'm going to travel these last 3 miles in 40 minutes, having averaged over 20 minutes per mile for the last few hours. But I know it. For the first time in a while, I start running.
For a race like this, you need to have a plan. When there are no aid stations or drop bags or support of any kind you need to have a plan. I had 15 pounds of nutrition on my back. I had practiced filtering water from streams. I knew what I need to consume. I had a schedule on when I had to consume it all. About 3 hours into the race I finished the 2.5 liters of water with Tailwind I'm carrying, exactly as planned. I had been eating fig bars every hour on schedule. Everything was going well so far. Now is my first real test to make sure I can get this done when it matters most. I lay my bladder on the ground. I pull a perfectly portioned bag of Tailwind from my pack and pour it in. Filling it with filtered water with my Katydyn pouch goes as smoothly as could be hoped for. I get everything back into my pack where it belongs. Throwing my pack on my back, I'm feeling very confident as I get moving again.
As I get back into my rhythm I go to take the first sip of my fresh mountain stream water. When else would I ever do this? What a cool race! What an incredible opportunity! And then it hits my mouth and goes down my throat. It's almost pure Tailwind. I can feel the chalkiness of it. The flavor is so potent I gag. I realize my mistake almost immediately. I didn't shake it. I never mixed it up. It all settled right at the bottom and I got blasted in that first mouth full. I didn't realize it then but this was going to be the biggest challenge I'd face the entire day.
Drink mixes are highly concentrated with carbohydrates, sodium, and other electrolytes. They're exactly what your body needs for extended periods of exertion. But they're highly concentrated. You can't just eat a scoop. And I just swallowed a scoop of it. Over the next 8 hours, my stomach would revolt and seriously put my race in jeopardy.
After that gulp, I felt a bit queasy. I'd try to take a sip of water but would immediately gag, almost puking. I forced myself to eat more fig bars but it was all I could do to take a tiny bite and not throw up. I could barely eat. I could barely drink. I've been going for 9 hours and I haven't had to pee yet. This is not good.
The bloating hit. Trying to run when your stomach feels like a clown is blowing up one of those long balloons and making a wiener dog out of it is not ideal. The pressure feels like it's constantly shifting and growing. I had switched to plain water, abandoning the Tailwind at that point because just the thought of that flavor hitting my tongue made me gag. All I could do was keep taking as many tiny sips of water as possible hoping to get things back under control.
I held on for dear life, knowing there was nothing I could do before the next checkpoint anyway. Whenever a checkpoint was coming up where I had an opportunity to bail out the debate would rage in my head. I could get out of this right now. But I had been able to hold on this far, how much worse can it get? The next thing I knew I was past the checkpoint, still white-knuckling my way to the next opportunity to get out.
I passed every checkpoint and slowly things came back to normal. I was able to eat and drink again. By the end of the race, I was starving. I ate everything I had and could've eaten more. I had quite a bit of leftover Tailwind due to the debacle and am sure that would've made the difference if I'd been able to stomach it. No matter how well you plan and how much you practice, it's very easy to make a mistake in the middle of a race. I'm very glad this one didn't end my day.
This was unlike any race I'd ever done. There were not that many people, 22. There were no spectators. The course is 70 miles with only a few checkpoints to make sure you're still going. It is dark for a significant chunk of it and you are extremely alone, likely not a person for miles, for a lot more time than you're with anyone. There were a few stretches where I ran with another runner but those were brief. There were a few times when someone was within shouting distance or I could see a headlamp ahead. Most of the time was spent alone. I didn't waste battery life on music, it was just me and my thoughts.
This race starts in the evening. The runners can only be in Minnewaska Park during the day and the evening start time makes that possible. Starting in the evening made it tricky because I started the race after a full day, having to work and not being able to relax enough to take a nap. Rather than waking up a couple of hours before the race like a typical morning start, I had been up for 12 hours by the time we got going. That made the sleepiness hit me a lot harder than it had in my last 24-hour race. I had brought a lot of caffeine with me expecting this to come. The problem is, it was all in my Tailwind and I couldn't stomach drinking it after the mixing mixup. This was a constant struggle throughout the night. Out of nowhere, I would pop back into focus, having no idea how far I'd just traveled or if I was still on the trail. I was falling asleep running and was going to get lost.
Luckily I had one trick up my sleeve. If I'm ever driving through the night I always get a big bag of pretzels. Something about eating pretzels always wakes me up no matter how tired I am. I had packed a couple of small bags just in case I needed to mix things up. These had no place in all my planning but there's no snack I love more than a good salty, crunchy pretzel stick. I knew they might save my day. I pulled out that first bag and by the end of it, my focus was back. I hit that wall a couple more times and luckily had a couple more bags to keep me awake. At one point in the morning, when normal people started to show up on the trail, I came across a couple sharing a bag of pretzels. I have no idea how desperate I must have looked or how longingly I was staring at that bag but I must have looked like a person lost in the desert desperate for water. Out of nowhere the girl reached out with the bag and said "Do you want some?". I mumbled out some form of "Thank you" and took as many as I could hold in my hand. Small moments of kindness like that are incredible.
We had been provided a map that we could load onto our devices to keep on course. I had loaded a previous year's course before the current one came out and then a day or two before we were provided an updated map due to a fire that had blocked off access to some portions of the course. Unfortunately, that map was routed backward so I worked to flip it around so it was going in the right direction. I deleted the other versions and loaded that to my watch. At least that's what I thought I did. I don't know what happened but I'm fairly certain I ended up with the previous version. Several times I was with other people it was clear they were following a different route. By the second checkpoint, I had traveled an additional two miles. By the end, I had traveled an additional three miles.
Some of that was due to the map mixup and some of it was my complete lack of familiarity with navigating real trails. I had run on trails. I could follow blazes. At least I thought I could, I thought I had. I was used to running on highly trafficked trails with big, clearly visible circles nailed to trees. These were light blue splashes of paint on a tree, looking identical to lichens oftentimes in the dark, or a little mark on a random rock on the ground here and there. Eventually, I realized that two blazes meant a turn. I was way over my head trying to navigate this in the dark and spent a lot of time in the dark searching for a hidden mark somewhere. Several times, where the ground was all rocks and there were very few trees, there was nothing to look for. After frantically hunting around to find some sign I would stop, take a deep breath, and like looking at one of those 3D pictures my vision would refocus and suddenly a path in the rocks would appear. It was like you could see the footsteps that had been there before you.
We had been warned that there was the possibility we could come across wildlife on this journey. Notably bears, rattlesnakes, and bobcats. I didn't put much thought into it. The odds of coming across something were low and I wasn't going to carry something for that possibility. By the time I took my pack off and got to anything it would be too late anyway. In the middle of the night, struggling with my stomach, and barely staying awake I was working my way up a steep trail. There was a nearly vertical 10-foot climb up a rock face. I reached the top tired and out of breath, bent over, hands on my knees. I looked up and there, caught in the light of my headlamp, were two bright eyes reflecting at me. There was a bobcat about 20 feet in front of me staring back at me. We both stood still for what felt like a minute. It slowly backed its way into the bushes and was gone. Now I know they aren't dangerous but at that moment I ran faster than I had in a while to get out of there. It was an incredible moment in the day to have that moment with something most people never get to see in the wild like that.
Here we are again, with 3 miles to go. I'm running as fast as I can. I've thrown caution to the wind. Floating across rocks certain my ankle is going to give out on the next one I come across. With no strength remaining in any muscle in my legs, the chances I'm going to make it through this at this pace without going down are very slim. But there's nothing that's going to stop me at this point other than hitting the dirt. I was flying up hills with no idea how it was happening. Zooming past people who were running the 30-mile distance that had passed me hours before. Their astonishment at seeing me again and words of encouragement pushed me along. Suddenly there it was. The last piece of trail. The only part of the race I had ever been on before. It was part of the Alpha Win Hudson Valley course. My nephew, niece and I come here regularly to explore. I knew how far I had to go and the remainder was flat and easy. I sprinted down the hill to the finish line and was caught and brought to a stop by one of the volunteers because I had no way to stop myself. I finished in 23 hours and 53 minutes. The last mile, my 73rd mile of the day, was done in 9 minutes and 20 seconds.
That was such an incredible race. The format is incredible. The location is incredible. The challenge is incredible. The adventure is incredible. It is one of those experiences you could never have anywhere else, in any other format. Talking with other competitors and volunteers after the race I learned most people consider this harder than most 100-mile races given the self-supported format and terrain. Given the reason I signed up for this in the first place was to see if I could do a 100-mile race, that made me feel very good. This is the kind of experience I want more of. This is something I plan to do again. A huge thank you to the team at Run Wild who put this on. They did an incredible job.