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| Spot the scree field |
"Don't do anything too stupid", my wife said to me as I departed for Big Sky, Montana. To the self-described idiot ultrarunner, she's giving me a lot of latitude. I'd already signed up to run the Rut 50k. In my poor inveitably soon-to-be-at-this-rate widow's misguided attempt at tempering my quixotic quest at repeating 100 milers, she was agreeable to my setting the stage for 2017 to be a skyrunning year - two marquee 50k races. Just 50km, what's the big effin' deal, right? It turns out, it's a huuuge effin deal.
The Rut is the first US Skyrace, and still one of only 3 US sky ultra's. A skyrace is a bastard child of trail running and mountaineering, requiring a shit ton of climbing at high altitude over technical terrain. My experience in this domain boils down to these three races: the 2015 Eiger Trail-Ultra 50k, the 2017 Broken Arrow 50k Skyrace, and the 2017 Rut 50k. All have about 10,500 ft of elevation gain - twice that of typical hilly 50k courses - and while they are different in many ways, one thing they have in common is that these are the only races where all the climbing caused both of my quads to cramp. Legs, thou doth protest too much!
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| RD and all-around nice guy, and aptly named runner, Mike Foote, and Spot the hat |
One other major difference between skyraces and your typical trail run or trail ultra is the proportion of young and very fit people at the former. My aptly named older brother, Sonny, joined me at the Rut as a brotherly bonding session celebrating my ascendency to AARP membership this month. We saw very few runners our age, but at least we had hope of podium in the geezer age bracket. With degrading eyesight and improving hindsight and after the sufferfest that the Rut put our old bodies through, Sonny quipped we should have gone to a gentlemens' club in Vegas for my birthday, because, yeah, partying with 20 year old girls won't make us feel old. I have underwear older than that!
At Saturday's race check-in, we watched a few of the runners finishing the day's 28k race. 9 hours for 17 miles. This wasn't going to be your average grandmother's Sunday trail run. We had another 12 hours to contemplate what that meant for our journey the next day.
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| Barely sunrise, and I'm already smoking' hot |
Starting Sunday at an already thin 7,500 ft elevation, the first 12 miles are considered to be the runnable section of course. Of course, we climb to 9,000 ft in the first two miles with the second mile averaging 17% grade, but other than that, runnable and looking like a typical trail race. Before we got too complacent, a large buck charged through the switchbacks careening towards my brother before turning to run past him at the last moment. Welcome to the Rut! I guess Sonny was in heat, but the buck has better taste.
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| Spot the Idiot Elder-runner |
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| James and the giant turtle |
Shortly after passing the mile 11 aid station, we encountered our first scree field. The Webster dictionary defines scree as that long expanse of loose shale rock that will fuck with your idea of what a trail run is. If it doesn't, it should. The initial brief and gently descending scree field was but just a taste. After yet another torturous climb, we saw the mile long scree field ahead of us, crossing the slope and the tiny figurines climbing the Headwaters Ridge in the distance. I was hoping that they were lost but luck was not on my side that day.
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| A preview of scree to come |
After what we would later call a relatively modest 10,000 ft summit, I started to run thinking we were descending on a real trail, but nope, more scree. Another trail, but nope, more scree. Scree that would slide under out feet, trap our ankles and poles, tripping and throwing us off balance or sliding down on the unfortunate souls downhill. We heard the cheers from our next aid station and squinted to see the line of climbers on Lone Peak ridge, our next adventure. And we heard screams and cheers from the finish line for what no doubt was the young whipper snapper winning the race (in 5:10!) before I'd even gotten to the main climb at the half-way mark.
The 11,166 ft Lone Peak loomed large ahead of us, weaving us a little wight headed, but before we could get there, we'd have to descend another 1,600 ft and climb that right back to the Swifty C "aid" station. "Aid" is in quotation marks because, seriously, what humane group of people would just fill some water bottles and send unsuspecting clods up a razorback ridge climbing 2,000 ft in just 1.4 miles? Hazing in the Marine Corps was like a trip to the waterpark in comparison.
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| The lunar landscape that is the Headwaters Basin |
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| Go to the ridge, turn right and go straight up. Do not collect $200. |
The climb up a narrow ridge to Lone Peak, again with loose scree, was a vertigo inducing experience. I'm not overly afraid of heights so I was attempting to enjoy the breathtaking views whilst clinging for life on the few stable rocks one could find for fear of falling or being blown off the mountain. It was certainly a nut tingling experience. And if you don't have nuts, then I imagine it would be tingling that place where nuts usually attach. The climb itself though had both of my quads cramping hard. I contemplated turning around a quarter of the way up, but I wanted to get the full Lone Peak experience. Stopping periodically to massage my legs, I still managed to keep up with most of my cohorts who were all suffering in their own special way. I felt like I was on a mission to destroy the Ring of Power but was one Samwise Gamgee short of a lift up. The view from up the top, though, just wow. On a clear day, I imagine one could see all of Middle Earth. But on this day, the land was filled with smoke from the burning embers of Mt. Doom or wild fires in Montana, whichever one seems less plausible.
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| photo: Sonny |
By the time I crested the top, my quads were stiff, my knees frozen bent. The 20 yards to the aid station may as well have been 20 miles. With the soundtrack to my life playing in my head, I'm Sexy and I Know It, I leaned on my all terrain trekking poles and wiggled to the tent the best this newly minted geezer could muster. After a few minutes of rest, and departing just 10 minutes ahead of cutoff, I hoped my quads would recover for the downhill. Cautiously optimistic or stupidly optimistic? If ignorance is bliss then I must be the happiest man on Earth.
And the downhill? On the promo video, the downhill looks so fun. In real life? My performance going 3,000 ft downhill on loose scree and dirt at -40% grade deserved a D-. At least I got a turn at glissading - no snow, but sliding downhill on my butt over loose dirt still counts, right?
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| Across the ridge and then down. photo: Sonny |
The heat in the valley took its toll, as did the cramping and quivering quads. Mouth constantly dry, eating difficult, frequently having to still stop to massage cramps out of the legs. Tackling the next few climbs, I knew that it wasn't worth my handsome and valiant but still feable effort to try to finish. Not wanting to risk rhabdo on cramped muscles (again), I called it a day at just 23 miles and +9k ft after a 10 hour day. See, not too stupid.
Congrats to Heather for a hard fought stomach churning completion, and to Sonny for making it up and down from Lone Peak - I hope your nuts have returns to its seat upright and tray tables locked position. And congrats to Audrey and Rachael for crossing the scree and up Headwaters Ridge. And final congrats to the Spaniards that kicked everyone's ass. And thanks to the excellent race directors and volunteers. That was a terrible, awesome, awesomely terrible and terribly awesome experience. Can't wait to do it again. So maybe I'm still a little stupid, but not too stupid?
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| From left: Idiot broken-runner, the Bizzle Beauty, the Beast, Hong the Elder, the Sheriff, the Outlaw; mini-Bizzle, mini-Beast |
Awesome race report. Lets try it again next year and see if we can get farther than we did this year. I wanna experience Lone Peak and everything it has to offer.
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