SO, while googling the web for a photo that resembled my own x-ray from a few days ago I came across this blog posting from Reid Coolsaet. Reid is one of Canada's top distance runners, having just laid down a 2h11m marathon in Toronto a few weeks back. I remember he dealt with a serious injury a few years ago but I didn't realize until just now that it was a broken foot. A 'Jones Fracture' of the 5th metatarsal to be precise...on his right foot...at the beginning of November. His story is revealing as to what I'm dealing with and has hammered home just how long this is going to affect my running. I have had a brief email exchange with him and he did relay that the foot is stronger than ever. I guess this will be a life lesson in patience.
So how did it happen?
Max King tripped me as I attempted to pass him and followed that up by throwing rocks at me until he succeeded in breaking a bone in my foot. The whole time he was just screaming at the top of his lungs,
"NO ONE PASSES ME ROBBINS, NO ONE PASSES MAX KING, NO ONE PASSES MR. KING, NO ONE PASSES MEEEEE!"
He is nowhere near as nice and funny as everyone seems to believe he is. Max is a ruthless competitor and he simply has to be stopped sooner or later. Geoff Roes barely escaped with his life under similar circumstances just minutes later! (sorry Max, I had to do it)
OK, Max is actually a really cool guy and had absolutely nothing to do with my own inability to navigate a few fresh centimeters of snow covered rocks.
Max, Geoff Roes, and myself headed out for a quick trail run of about an hour. We were all in Sunriver Oregon as part of the Montrail - Mountain Hardwear fall sales conference. All I will say about what I've seen here this week is that the technologies this company is about to roll out over the next few months are going to completely revolutionize the outdoor industry, period! It is an amazing and exciting time for this brand and everyone involved knows that we're sitting on something huge right now. I can't wait to see this stuff hit the market and to start talking about it in more detail.
The Run. It was completely insignificant, an easy hour on trails, an out and back route, and on the least technical terrain you could possibly imagine. I had run the same route solo the day prior. We had a light dusting of snow overnight and as we began our run I obviously let Max and Geoff lead the way. About 1km into our proposed 11km return run I believe my exact words were,
"There's literally four rocks on this entire trail"
Not three hundred meters later my right foot slid off the side of one of those four, now snow covered rocks, and the full weight of my body crumpled my forefoot onto itself. I was pretty sure I felt a snap in there yet for some reason I never made a peep. Had I been out on my own I surely would have screamed, thrown my water bottle at a tree, and taken a few minutes to process what had just occurred. Instead I now found myself a few strides behind Max and Geoff and in complete denial at what I'd just managed to do to my foot. I sped back up and simply told myself I'd run it off.
The conversation was consistent from the start but I now grew silent as I was internalizing the pain and trying to will my injury away. Every step hurt more than the last and the stabbing sensation radiated up the side of my leg as high as my knee. About one step every ten would hurt just slightly less than the rest and I focused on these strides and told myself that I was succeeding in running it off.
I was able to do this for about three kilometers before we stopped at our turnaround point of Benam Falls.
Max to us,
"You guys wanna go a bit further before turning back?"
Me to Max and Geoff,
"Uhhh. Uhhh, no I think I may have messed up my foot. I think I'll just start back out now and you guys can catch up with me shortly."
Max and Geoff kinda looked at each other and both commented that they didn't hear a noise from me at any point to suggest that I'd hurt myself. I was sure they were both thinking I was looking for a way out of the run for some reason but they simply smiled, asked if I was alright, and headed off down the trail again.
I started walking out while holding tight to the ever fading belief that I would still be able to will the pain away. My shoe was growing tighter around my foot by the minute and after walking about a kilometer of trail I found myself in a parking area. I had at least admitted to myself by this point that I wasn't going to make it much further under my own steam, so I finally removed my shoe and stuck my swollen purple foot into a pile of snow.
Max and Geoff showed up a few minutes later and we all agreed they'd run back to the car and swing around to grab me. We had a fun backcountry rally car style drive back to the main hotel and I promptly put my foot on ice.
A few hours later I was amazed by how good my foot felt so I decided it was in fact not broken and I went about our normal business for the evening. There was an athlete presentation in front of the entire conference of a few hundred people and I was lucky enough to be one of those chosen to speak on stage. I limped out, thankfully was able to get a few laughs, and limped back. We then enjoyed dinner and drinks before calling it a night.
When the alarm sounded at 7am the next morning all of my tightly guarded self-told lies came crashing down around me all at once. I physically could not get out of my bed. No matter how hard I tried to contort my body the stabbing pain in my foot would inevitably set me prone and grasping my pillow like a child. After a half a dozen attempts I finally I succeeded in swinging my legs over the side. I was then forced to ask Geoff to fill an ice bucket for me so I could numb my foot in order to make it to the bathroom before time expired on my bladder.
I was off to the hospital to confirm the inevitable. A 'Jones Fracture' of my fifth metatarsal, with surgery potentially being the best option for a full recovery. I have an appointment this coming Tuesday to review the x-rays with a surgeon back in Canada to determine our next step...while I struggle to come to terms with the reality that my next step, with my right foot, is still a few months away.
It's been an absolute whirlwind return from the wilds of Northern Quebec just twelve short days ago...wow it's been almost two weeks already, and we're sitting on the cusp of November. As they say, time flies when you're having fun I guess.
After my five week work excursion I kinda felt like a prisoner set free again. The project was incredibly tough but also surprisingly refreshing and if nothing else it gave me a necessary reminder of just how amazing my home town/turf really is. The balance of life that can be achieved in North Vancouver / Vancouver is rarely rivaled around the globe, and because of this it was completely impossible for me to say NO to anything that came my way in the last few weeks. It's been a fantastic twelve days of catching up with friends and truly savoring all that Vancouver has to offer.
(The beard lasted ten full days before I finally caved in and removed it)
Thankfully my running injury seems to be in check, mostly due to the expertise of Jenn Turner and her Moveo sport rehab centre. I have been continually shocked and amazed at how good I've been feeling on my feet and due to this I have knocked down a few sizeable mountain runs. The highlight being Black Tusk, up near Whistler, which I tackled with my Montrail teammate Ryne Melcher. From the parking lot to the summit is a six thousand foot climb and outside of some mandatory photo stops the run up was just a hair over two hours. After nearly an hour on top taking it all in, the six thousand foot descent took us just a few minutes over an hour, which included some nice calf cramping as my body attempted to keep up with my excitement level. Full Album.
Other highlights included a sushi binge of eight meals in seven days, more beer consumption than the last three months combined, finally reconnecting with numerous friends I hadn't seen in months, and checking out a cool concert at a funky little venue, The Acorn at The Biltmore.
As I type this I am sitting in the Seattle airport about to connect to Oregon for the annual Montrail - Mountain Hardwear International Sales Conference. Flattered to be invited is the easiest way to sum it up. Five days of gear talk and trail runs in Oregon sounds like a pretty sweet week to me, though I am really looking forward to finally getting back into a routine again soon and fully focusing on training for HURT Hawaii in January.
Outta the wilds of Northern Quebec and back in the land where sushi roams free and americano's cost almost as much as the gasoline at the pumps. There is another blog posting to be had here, in fact many more, BUT when I arrived home on Wednesday evening I had a brand new Montrail 2011 shoe to demo. Here's a video of my take on the yet to be released 2011 Rogue Racer racing flats...
My buddy Erik Nachtrieb who owns 1iopenproductions.com recently took on the project of editing down my self shot footage from my West Coast Trail and East Coast Trail speed attempts. He just finished up the final version of my WCT recap and will start in soon upon the ECT version.
Here's the final cut, found under 'You Shoot, We Edit', and keep in mind it is a 'short film', not a trailer or a quickie but a full account of my run upon The 75km West Coast Trail on August 4th.
If you need anything similar done yourself be sure to drop Erik a line. As you'll see, his work is top notch!!
Here's a brief video kinda detailing exactly what I'm up to right now, though the work sites have gotten progressively less attractive and more difficult along the way...we even got hailed on today...which means I have officially started my countdown to Hawaii in January!
I also managed a new pet fox, but we had to part ways after just five days as Roxy became insanely jealous.
I have more to say but my brain doesn't currently function. 70-80hr work weeks, consisting mostly of physical labor, can really take it outta ya. Having said that I must admit that ten days in, as tough as this job can be, it has proven to be better on all accounts than I had prepared myself for. I definitely wanted to ready myself for the worst case scenario, and after just a few days I was most certainly having trouble getting my body to do what I needed it to, and getting my mind to stop wishing I were elsewhere. By day four however I had fully accepted my decision process and was even starting to embrace it.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, you can have the best job in the world, but if you work with assholes it's still gonna suck. Conversely you can tolerate a completely shit job if you're surrounded by really good people. So far, the crew of ten that I am in this with have proved to be the absolute highlight for me. The job isn't that bad, it's just different and like everything in life you take the good with the bad. There are enough positives within a 10-12hr day that I rarely return back to camp without a smile upon my face. Having internet and currently staying in a nice hotel for a few days between camp locations is simply an added bonus.
Life Lesson Of The Week
As the 'sample sites' get harder to access and consist mostly of overgrown bog and slightly receding rivers I am often confronted with entangled willows the likes of which I have never seen before, nor knew existed. Bush whacking has taken on a whole new meaning for me and if I had my Central American machete with me right now it'd be put to good use on an hourly basis. Yesterday while trying to access a river bank and emptying my vocabulary in the process I looked ten feet forward and thought to myself, "there's no way", I then said to myself out loud, "just keep moving forward dammit". To look three feet ahead was to confront defeat, to look one step ahead however was to continually find a path.
This was followed by a translucent moment as I tied this struggle to everyday life. How often do we find ourselves looking too far ahead and simply thinking, "there's no way", "I'll never get there", "it's impossible", "I have no idea how to make this happen", and with this thought process we often cease to pursue things without ever having given them a legitimate shot.
Take the first step. I'm confident there will be a second awaiting you once you arrive there. And the willows are never quite as bad as they appear at first glance.
I'm currently sitting in the Vancouver airport about to fly out to my 45 day work stint in Quebec. I returned home from Yosemite and the Mountain Hardwear Athlete Innovation Conference at midnight on Friday, worked Saturday and Sunday, packed my bags immediately following work, and headed straight here. The life button has definitely been stuck on FFWD recently. I'm nervously excited about this new opportunity, but also wishing I had a single day of rest before heading into it. My next day off will likely come in November!
Anyways, back to Yosemite. It was a fantastically amazing four days spent in a paradisal secluded setting within a sixty year old cabin in the woods. I consumed more food in the 96hr than the previous 96 days and our hosts at the cabin made a special Gluten Free meal for me at every sitting...from scratch! I had the absolute best GF Pizza of my entire life, not to mention the cookies, pastas, BBQ's, breads, etc, etc, etc. Our hosts have Italian roots and none of us had to question this. I think the longest stint I had without food was my 90min run with Topher Gaylord, the new president of the company.
SO, I'm sitting in this room, at this table, talking gear with a bunch of gear junkies. I look around and find myself nearly overwhlemed. I'm completely surrounded by some of the most accomplished, passionate, dedicated, and humble athletes on the entire planet. The collective resumes of those within the room would easily trump what you might be able to piece together from an entire city of individuals. I felt small. Not insignificant small, but small fish in big pond small. I embraced every second of it.
I hear and read the words 'inspiration' and 'inspired' far too much lately. People seem to toss these words around like candy and I rarely go a day without noticing someone saying something has inspired them. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that for me I guess the difference breaks down between feeling inspired and being inspired. To feel inspired is to know you've been touched, moved, motivated, by anothers actions or words. To be inspired is to take this feeling one step further and transcend it into your own relevant actions, no matter what they might be.
Each year after seeing the highlights of The Banff Mountain Film Fest I leave the theatre feeling like I could sprout my own wings and fly to the moon and back...but rarely have I been able to act directly upon this. Mainly this is due to the fact that I tend to dream big, and the bigger the dream the scarier it can seem in your own mind.
I am inspired. I want to act on this strong sense of inspiration. Just five days ago I was sitting in a room full of complete strangers who had only previously existed within magazines, websites, and movies. A few days later and all I kept thinking was, 'what separates those who accomplish great feats to those who simply dream of great feats?' The answer is obviously action, but beyond the most simplistic answer, what allows these individuals to stare there relevant fears in the face and say,
"Na ah, not listening to you today."
I am dreaming and schemeing, and about to board a flight to the middle of nowhere for the next 45 or so days. My singular goal upon this journey is to find clarity in how I intend to live the next few years of my life. I have been very content and satisfied with everything I have been able to pursue and accomplish thus far in my 33 years upon this beautiful planet. In fact had you told me at ninteen years old where I would be when I was 33 I would have laughed and said, "yeah right!". I believe I am currently living my best case scenario.
Now it's just a matter of ensuring I can mimic this exact same conversation wtih myself when I'm 43 years old...
I'm gutted right now, blogger has been the biggest pain in the ass and this posting should have taken five minutes and I've been here for hours! No more time to waste, it's a jumbled mess at the bottom and I apologize that I can't fix it right now...
First and foremost though, I'm off to San Fran and then Yosemite to attend the Montrail - Mountain Hardwear Athlete Innovation Conference, this Tuesday till Saturday!! I'm STOKED, and with no internet or phone service it's an even sweeter getaway. Our days will be filled with a perfect mix of product and playtime.
With the list of attendees basically reading like a who's who of the world's top adventure athletes, I kinda feel like I managed to sneak in the back door on this one! Hey, I'll be the waterboy if that's what it takes to sit in the same room as these legends...
Mike Libecki
Andrew McLean
Freddie Wilkinson
Dawn Glanc
Janet Bergman
Kip Garre
Pat Goodman
Janet Berg
Matt Wilder
If you don't know some of these names off hand check out their world class resumes!
AND THEN...
Do you know that key relationships have been specifically placed to help you in ways you never imagined? Do you realize there are special people who are not just happenstance acquaintances but strategic relationships to help you find the life of your dream? Have you missed the simplicity behind this mysterious thing called DESTINY? Perhaps the real problem of finding your dream isn't about who you don't know, but whom you've neglected.
About a month back I happened across an excerpt from a book entitled, "The Power Of Who, You Already Know Everyone You Need To Know". I have yet to read the book but the premise intrigued me. Basically it suggests that you're going to get further in life by tapping into your current resource pool rather than continually searching amongst strangers and in anonymity. 'It's not what you know but who you know'. A very simple strategy that in our current social media age can often get easily overlooked.
Long story short here, I was looking to land a second job, part-time, for about the next eight weeks. Since I'm taking a break (Brett Favre style retirement) from my current second job, that being training and racing, I figured I could set myself up nicely for 2011 by getting a few extra dollars in the bank.
Referring back to what I had briefly read and contemplated via this book, I decided to simply put it out there via Facebook and Twitter. To see what might come back to me, to not be afraid to openly admit what I was looking for and see who might have a connection to offer.
A few options presented themselves and it looked like I was going to land the complimentary job that I was searching for. Then a text from a friend arrived.
Chad Ulansky is a very talented and accomplished athlete and I first met him at Raid The North Extreme in Prince Rupert in 2007, and have since gotten to know him through ultra running in BC. In 09 we ran together for the better part of 2/3 of our local Knee Knacker 50k race and he still holds one of the highest ever placings for a Canadian at Marathon Des Sables, finishing 16th back in 03.
The text basically said 'Hey, I've got a six week project that we could use you on if you're available'.
After inquiring more and seeing what a great opportunity I had in front of me I figured I had nothing to loose by requesting a leave of absence from my primary job at North Shore Athletics. North Van is my home and NSA is my second home, I couldn't and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that set up. I expected nothing and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it had all fallen into place. I depart next Monday!!
The job is basically going to consist of jumping in and out of helicopters (not literally jumping, though that'd be even cooler) and collecting samples from rivers. Apparently in the approximate six week time frame we are going to cover a distance close to 2/3 the size of British Columbia!!
Undoubtedly this will be very fatiguing work with minimum 10-12hr days and working every single day for six straight weeks. Though I have done similar before, having spent a full year working in Fort St. John B.C. as a pipe fitters assistant in the oil patch. That experience taught me that the first 14 days are the worst as your body adapts to its new reality. It may have been the longest year of my life, but it's also where I truly learned the most about who I was as a person and what I could actually accomplish if I put my mind to it.
All in all, I'm looking forward to the change of scenery and to once again being forced outside on a daily basis no matter what the weather might throw at us.
'RETIREMENT' isn't quite as easy as it first sounded however!
The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”
Don Williams, Jr. (American Novelist and Poet, b.1968)
Just organizing this one proved to be a bit of a nightmare that somehow turned into a dream come true. I come from a big extended family in Newfoundland and though the years have passed the bond still remains tight. My Mother is the only remaining sibling, of eighteen born (yes you read that right) that still resides in Nfld. For years when I went on BC road trips and relayed the stories to my parents it would be followed up by, you missed aunt and uncle a-b-c-d and cousins e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p, in towns q-r-s-t.
A few years back a wedding reunited me with this long lost side of my family tree and it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know them all over again. In the end, I could not have pulled this one off without their direct assistance and it would simply be unfair of me not to start by specifically thanking everyone who made this possible for me.
Dean Neville, Nanaimo ferry terminal to Port Alberni, and morning drop off at Frances Barkley boat ride from Port Alberni to Bamfield
Aunt Karen, Uncle Bob, place to crash and great conversation on Monday night
Sarah Logan, friend of this side of family. Place to crash in Bamfield on Tuesday night and drive to trailhead at 5:20am Wednesday
Randy and Roxanne Neville. Pick up in Victoria, dinner, change of clothes for journey home, drive to ferry in Tsawassen.
Ryne Melcher (Montrail family) and his GF Kristin Ohm-Pedersen, drop off at ferry on Monday evening and pick up from ferry on Wednesday night.
As mentioned, just getting to the trail head was a journey in and of itself. Thankfully the scenery upon BC Ferries is second to none, and by the time I arrived in Bamfield itself, on Tuesday afternoon, I felt like I’d been off of work for days, even though it was but 18hrs since I had clocked out.
On the running side of things the weather could not have been better, and given that it rained just 36hr after I came off the trail I’d wager to say that I had the best day of the year for my speed attempt. In hindsight I’m fully relieved I was not able to attempt the trail in May, as was originally planned, because it would have been a complete waste of my time, money, and energy, with a definitive do-over necessary. In the end it most certainly all worked out for the best!
After a relaxing afternoon in the tiny hamlet of Bamfield I’d felt like I’d stepped back in time, though not having phone reception for a day was actually kinda nice. After packing my gear I headed out for a quick test run, as I’d never actually run with this new pack before (”do as I say, not as I do!”) Ahem, don’t try anything new in a race! Speed attempts are different don’t ya know!
At 9:30pm I downed a couple of melatonin, as I would never be able to sleep otherwise, and I was out within minutes.
4:30am is early, no matter how you slice it and no matter what time you may have crawled into bed the night before.
5:15am Sarah and I depart for the trail. It’s a ten minute drive and for the first five minutes I find myself making jokes and trying to wake us both up. As we approach our destination though, I go noticeably silent. It’s almost go time. The gravity of the situation is starting to sink in.
It’s still completely dark outside, and there won’t be anyone else around when I arrive at my starting point. There will not be any other runners to share this experience with, or to create that wonderful nervous excitement that inevitably precludes daunting tasks such as these. I won’t have a Race Director there to send me off, and there won’t be any well stocked aid stations along the way. I’m completely on my own, and competing against nothing but a clock and thirteen years of history. I can’t help but notice that I’m more nervous than I was while lining up for the Western States 100 miler back in June. This attempt is so black and white it’s scary.
10h12m or better, success…10h14m or longer, failure.
I have no one to pace off of, no idea of what my ‘splits’ along the trail should be, no way of knowing at any point in time if I’m genuinely going fast enough to pull this thing off. Due to this fact there will not be a single mental break for the entire duration of the run. I have to get my mind locked in, for as much as some of this might prove to be enjoyable, it’s about time to get down to business.
I didn’t pack a headlamp so as to save on weight and we had to wait a few extra minutes until I could sufficiently make out the obstacles of the trail. At 5:34am, I asked Sarah to give me a ten second countdown…
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-GO!!
I thanked her for her help with everything as I disappeared into the darkness. Truth be told another ten minutes would have been ideal but I was growing restless, it was chilly, and I had dragged a relative stranger out of bed at 4:45am to assist with this. I tried my best not to end my attempt early with a bad foot placement. The first ladder arrived even quicker than expected. Just 300 meters in and my heart rate was already spiking through the roof.
That right there is what makes the 75km West Coast Trail so unique and daunting all at once. There are many runnable sections on this trail, and the largest non-ladder climb of the route is but a few hundred meters vertical gain. If you removed all of the ladders and cable cars, and replaced the soft sand/loose rock beach sections with hard pack terrain you’d honestly be able to tackle this route in well under 7hr. To look at an elevation profile of the entire 75km would actually leave you scratching your head as to how people could possibly describe the trail as one of, if not the toughest trail in Western Canada?
I’d been running all of two minutes and I already found myself upon a wooden structure that climbed over 150 vertical feet in one straight shot. I crested the ladders and began to run again but this lasted all of sixty seconds before I was forced back onto a mimicked creation that would then drop me back down to my starting elevation. The first km took me over ten full minutes to complete. It wasn’t yet 6am, and the sun had yet to crest the horizon. I had but one thought running through my head,
“ I’ve been waiting all year for this!”
The Northern 17km of the trail are known to be the easiest, and prior to the wind storm damage of 06 it used to be a veritable ‘Golden Brick Road’. This has changed slightly, but comparatively these kilometres are still the least challenging you will encounter upon the entire route.
Each and every kilometre on The WCT is sign posted, and after exactly one hour of running I had eclipsed the 10km trail marker. I was exactly on my anticipated starting pace of about 10km per hour for the first three hours, knowing this pace would prove impossible to sustain as the trail grew tougher.
At twelve kilometres you are spit out onto your first beach section and the pace is once again compromised. A thick fog had beset the area the night before and many of the square foot sized beach boulders were glazed over like honey cruller donuts….mmm donuts…no wait, can’t do donuts, dammit! I think I’m bonking on my trail report as I’m currently (was) on my flight to Newfoundland and seriously sleep deprived…maybe I’ll down a gel!
FOCUS…
These delicious yet treacherous beach rocks eventually gave way to sand and pebble sized stones...kinda like timbits…must cease with the donut references…This, above all else, would prove to be the most difficult consistent obstacle to be tackled on the day. At this point I had but a few kilometres of this to deal with, but already it was draining me as much mentally as it was physically. When each and every step you take is compromised, it taxes you as much mentally as it does physically. Like walking in quicksand. Each individual foot placement would result in my entire balance being thrown off, with the only thing stabilizing me being my core muscles, my hip flexors, and my secondary muscle groups. There is simply no amount of pure running that can condition your body to properly accept this type of beating. I was putting in my absolute best efforts to run this stuff and was just managing to sustain sub 8min kms. To stop and walk brought these numbers closer to 11-12 minutes a km. Not a huge difference given the additional energy expenditure warranted. Thankfully however, I kept telling myself that I simply had to run this stuff.
“Every minute counts. Suck it up princess”
In the end, these words could not have proved to be more accurate.
I have a pretty stellar record for wildlife encounters upon trail running speed attempts, including a thirty minute lunch break with a bear last spring while attempting the 47km Juan De Fuca trail with Ryne Melcher.
It’s not even a question of IF I’ll see a bear anymore, just WHEN?
When, ended up being just 1h10min in while coming to terms with the fact that I’ll probably never attempt Marathon Des Sables if the conditions were anything near what I was struggling with. I was in the process of talking to myself via my head camera when I heard rustling in the bushes to my left. I just managed to catch a glimpse of a cub before it was gone and I spent the next few minutes shoulder checking and finding myself thankful that I had missed Momma Bear.
I was still grasping to my original planned pace of 10km per hour for the better part of the first three hours and at exactly two hours I hit nineteen kilometres.
At 23km you encounter the first of five potential cable car crossings, depending on water levels and how wet you wanna get. Only a few are completely necessary by mid-summer, this being one of them. I hit the crossing at 2h25min and shot this video which sums it all up.
The cars rest in the middle of the lines and once again you are thrust into an upper body workout that rivals everything your legs have already absorbed.
After this water crossing the views start to open up a bit on some higher exposed sections of trail, hundreds of feet above the ocean. The terrain also starts to change though and the level of technicality begins its steady ascent towards the completely unrunnable and almost unfathomable culmination later in the route.
As I approached the one and only water taxi crossing, at 32 kilometres, I start to blow on my whistle. Having been stuck at this crossing for the better part of a half an hour in 07 I thought it only smart to try to contact the operator the night before. I was fortunate enough to get a hold of him and as I explained my motivations, my attempt, and my estimated time of arrival, he assured me it would not be an issue to be waiting for my on ‘my side’ of the river. (That being the opposite side of his shelter and normal resting place)
Sure enough after just a few hoots of the whistle I heard an engine fire up! I cruised on down to the waterline and the guy I spoke with the night before was standing in his boat with a smile on his face, all ready to go. I handed him $10 to say thanks, though he kinda looked at me as if to say,
“What the hell is this for?”
“Just to say thanks!”
Into the boat I jumped and we were across the water in minutes! Little did I know at the time, but this one phone call, this one two minute investment the night before my run would end up decisively determining the outcome of my overall speed attempt!
I was carrying four water bottles with me for the run and though I thought I could make the beach vendor, at about 44km on this ration, I now found myself completely dry of bottled fluids and completely drenched with bodily fluids. It was a very humid day, though not yet hot, and when I noticed the water coolers in the boat operator’s beach shelter I asked if he might have some to spare,
“Oh for sure! No worries.”
There appeared to be ample supply to help out hikers on a daily basis, though I am uncertain as to if this is the purpose of this water or not? I simply topped up two bottles, said thanks one more time and was gone.
A nice section of runnable boardwalk follows the water crossing and for the first time in close to an hour I felt like an actual runner again! This didn’t last long however before I was spit out onto the beach again.
The beach sections were getting more torturous with every step so I took every opportunity I could to get back inland. This back fired on one section of trail in particular as it clearly had not been touched by another trail patron in years. The overgrown brush slowed me to a crawl and left me soaking wet from head to toe. I jumped back on the beach as soon as an option presented itself and was left wondering which was the lesser of the two evils?
As you approach ‘Moniques’ at 44km you come off of the beach, up a staircase that climbs a few hundred feet, around a lighthouse, and then back down a staircase of a few hundred feet on the opposite side. While passing through the Carmana Lighthouse grounds I literally nearly stepped on a snake! A tiny garter snake of which I tried to entice back for a pic but having nearly been imprinted with a Montrail Gryptonite shoe sole he was now nowhere to be found!
I hit Moniques in 5h15min, which I was confident was a solid time that was definitely giving me a legitimate shot at the trail record, though I still had to stay focused as every second would count.
Moniques is a small beach vendor in which you can sit down and enjoy a hot meal and a cold bear on the beach, IF you’re not attempting a speed record. For me it consisted of buying two Pepsi’s, a plum, and filling my four water bottles with fresh fluids. There were three to four young travellers working there and about a half a dozen hikers enjoying the break.
As I was rushing about looking very dishevelled,
“What are you doing?”
“The West Coast Trail.”
“When did you start?”
“This morning”
“From where?”
“Bamfield”
“AT WHAT TIME?”
“5:34am”
“HOLH S#%T! Are you running the entire thing?”
“Yeah. I’m attempting a speed record and as of right now I think I’m on pace. The record is 10h13m.”
Two people asked if they could take my picture and one shoved a pen and paper in front of me. I chuckled to myself, realizing it was so that they could validate me via the internet! Kinda like, we don't quite believe what you're saying and we fully intend to check your resume buddy!
“THANKS GUYS! Sorry, gotta run…”
Eight minutes was my ‘transition’ time, which was about three minutes longer than I thought it should have been, though I did not feel like I wasted any time as I was restocking supplies from within my pack to the front storage pockets. I didn’t shoot a video at Moniques as I really didn’t want to be the guy wearing a head cam there, in hindsight though it would have been nice to have a few seconds of what Monique’s actually is.
Exiting this beach vendor is doubly tough as not only are you leaving your one safe haven upon the trail behind, but you are trading it in for the longest beach section of the entire trail…seven kilometres of TORTURE!
The first mile was great. The way you would imagine running on a beach, like a pleasant stroll. Hard packed sand, great traction, breaking ocean to one side, and no problem knocking down the mileage without flinching. This did nothing but lull me into a false sense of security though.
“Maybe this won’t be that bad? Maybe it’s all hard packed from here on in. Maybe the worst is now behind me!”
Ahhh nooooo
The hard packed sand gave way to loose sand, which gave way to gravelly pebbles, which lead into large rocks. It was like a metaphor for the overall trail itself, the more effort you put forth, the more it demanded back from you. I was just able to will myself to sustain a sub 8min kilometre effort with the occasional spike over ten full minutes a kilometre. Walking, it seemed was not that much slower, so I experimented with it.
“Dammit GARY! This is a speed attempt, even a minute per kilometre for the next six kilometres will add up. Get yer damn feet moving!!”
It was soul shattering work. Every single stride was compromised and it was beginning to feel as if I were running on a completely foreign planet.
I’m sure if I could actually remember attempting to walk for the very first time I would say it was infinitely easier than this purgatory I was finding myself trapped in.
“You can stop”
“No I can’t”
“You can walk”
“No I can’t”
“You know you want to Gary”
“Shut up Gary! Stupid head! Just shut up and run dammit!”
I was experimenting with anything and everything to try to ease the discomfort of the surface. Eventually I found the answer as I started running IN the ocean. There was a rocky shelf covered mostly by a few inches of water. I ended up zigging and zagging around oceanic obstacles and occasionally I sunk in knee deep, but overall the sensation of once again running upon solid ground, albeit an ocean shelf, was mentally refreshing.
When I finally saw my forested escape route I jumped on it like a monkey on an ice cream cone (no that doesn’t make sense, nor does it have to as it’s MY run report, so there) A MONKEY on an ice cream cone…I was back in the forest and though the trails were getting progressively more challenging I welcomed those challenges with open arms. In fact sometimes very literally as I would ‘decide’ to hook a foot on a stump and kiss the earth with my face. One time in particular I was glad I wasn’t donning my head camera as I ceased my forward motion by firmly planting my noggin into a stump. The camera mount surely would have snapped right off.
I was shooting plenty of trail footage and though time consuming I thought it to be worth it. Then my battery started flashing on my head cam and it was gone. Just under fifty individual videos was all it could handle I guess. I still had my handheld and though I could not capture the true difficulty of the final 20km of the trail I could at least still document the worst bonk of my life!
The further south you get, the more ladder work you are faced with. The Grand Daddy of em all consists of about five hundred vertical feet via no fewer than eight ladders. Once you hit rock bottom you get to tackle a cable car, which was thankfully avoidable due to low water levels, and you are then greeted with a completely mimicked structure upon the opposite side of the river. I’m personally sending in a hand written letter requesting a zip line set up across the top of all of this. I would have easily dropped fifty bucks at that point to save the fifteen minutes of effort that it took to gain but three hundred meters of trail. Not long down the trail the Grand Mamma structure gets you and the only real difference is you get a suspension bridge crossing instead of a cable car at the bottom.
As I was tackling these Miwok village style structures and contemplating how neglected the constructors of these agonizing devices must have been in their childhood, I came across my first real hiker encounters of the day. Much like I experienced in 2007 you can virtually finish the entire trail before you are confronted with any real traffic heading your way. I was back logged for about thirty seconds. The girl standing on top and awaiting her posse to catch up took one look at me, pieced it all together and simply said,
“Are you RUNNING the trail!?”
“Yup”
“HEY GUYS, GET THE HELL OFF THE LADDERS! THIS DUDE IS RUNNING THE TRAIL, HE’S IN A HURRY PEOPLE!”
And with that the four people below all stepped aside and wished me luck. As I reached the dried river bank I was able to forgo the cable car and as I was filling my now empty water bottles, three hikers stared at me. One girl was wide eyed and speechless, and the head of the group spoke up,
“What section of trail?”
“All of it”
“What time did you start?”
“5:34am”
“What…what?”
“Blah, blah, blah speed record attempt, blah, blah, blah”
“Then GET GOIN MAN! C’mon, outta here already!”
These brief exchanges did wonders for my confidence, which was taking a beating all day long. I was feeling rejuvenated and with only about twelve kilometres to go I knew it was in the bag. I thought 9:30-something would be my worst case scenario.
As I approached one of the final pieces of ladder work upon the entire trail two hikers were about to set in on the climb.
“Hey guys, mind if I…”
“HEY! You’re that guy! The guy who ran the entire West Coast Trail and Juan De Fuca Trail back to back!”
I was floored. Someone actually recognized me, the bald running weirdo, for what I do. Of course it was ON TRAIL, but still. I didn’t know what to say, so he helped me out,
“Are you running BOTH TRAILS AGAIN?”
“Nope, just the one this time.”
“Right on man! Get goin! Great work! Looking strong!”
Of course by this point I felt like I was dying a slow death, I just didn’t know the full extent of it all just yet.
The ladders tax your body in ways you can’t even imagine. There is simply no physical test you will encounter in life that could possibly duplicate the whole body effort involved in scaling nearly a full kilometer of ladder work while running 75km of technical terrain! I was most certainly feeling it, but I was now on the home stretch.
This being the third time I was covering the West Coast Trail in its entirety I had a pretty good idea of what I was up against. The last 5km were relatively easy and I knew once I got to the 70k marker I would be on the home stretch. It was all but over, game-set-match. It was just a matter of how far under 10hr I could go at this point.
I was now but 7km away from etching my name in the WCT record books. I had run out of water, even though I had consumed FOURTEEN full bottles of fluid! I had run out of calories, even though I a tightly structured plan for constant calorie consumption, but all of this was alright because I was approaching the home stretch.
From seven km to six km was decent, not super fast but consistent. Six km to about five km slowed down a bit, but it was ok cause there was only 5km to go and I was going to close this thing out in under thirty minutes! I could and would push through because surely I could hang on for half an hour. I wasn’t feeling ‘off’ at all, just fatigued and ready to be done.
A strange thing happened from kilometre 70 till the end of the trail at 75+? Someone had made the trail significantly harder than it had ever been before. Someone had thrown in yet more ladder work, they’d also added hill climbs that felt like scaling mountain sides. They topped this off by putting in so many roots, rocks, and off camber terrain that it was completely impossible to run. Time was evaporating around me and I was starting to feel ill. My body was starting to crack. It was ok though, I was almost there, I just had to hang on for another five minutes maybe.
The trail opened up ever so slightly and I was able to run for a few hundred meters. I came around a corner and slammed my right knee into a stump that sent me reeling onto my left knee and eventually my face. I was laying on the ground and begging the trail for mercy. Had I not suffered enough out here yet today? At that moment it all came flooding back to me. I rolled over and stared at the stump that had taken my legs out from under me. I glared at it long and hard, as if in an actual stare down. Memories of 2007 overwhelmed me. It felt like déjà-vu. I recognized the exact tangled, mangled, mess of a remains of a tree now looking down on me from above. We had met before. I had fallen in this EXACT same manor three years ago to the day! I was now being forced to remember what three full years of reminiscing had allowed me to forget. THIS was the worst section of the entire trail. THIS was where you were really put to the test. THIS was what had caused me to revisit my entire detailed collection of four letter words during my last running of the WCT. THIS was were I now remembered wanting to lay down and die last time.
I was not home free. I was nowhere near the finish. I still had significant climbing left to tackle. There would still be ladders to tackle, roots to stumble over, and rocks to careen down. I had somehow managed to completely forget just how brutal this part of the trail truly was.
“You should go South to North” people had told me,
“Nah, I know North to South. I like finishing on the harder stuff” I’d respond with.
Was my own self induced ignorant bliss about to screw me and my speed attempt? Was I anywhere near where I needed to be to still pull this off?
I glanced at my watch…it said I should have been done already! There were no longer kilometer markers on the trail.
How far was there left to go?
I was still in the 9h40’s so I wasn’t fully stressed. Just put the head down and go. Get your ass off the ground, put your head down and grab this while you still can.
Another climb, another descent, now near the water line, I must be close. Around a corner and into a sheer vertical climb, taking me hundreds of feet back above the ocean, eating minutes like an all you can eat buffet.
9h50’s now. Still time. Still lotsa time. 10h13 is still so far away.
“I can still do sub 10hr. Just get the legs moving again Gary…c’mon, get yer legs moving Gary…C’MON ALREADY LETS GO, RUN DAMMIT!”
But something was not right. My body was completely tingly now and as I crested this climb I found myself light headed. I even found myself swaying side to side a bit and consciously thinking, ‘Whoa dude, don’t pass out up here!'
Downhill, it’s ok, it’s downhill, you must be there, just a wee bit further, my watch now showing 78km, it must be around the next corner! I round the corner and am completely shattered by what I see…ladders, climbing, uphill…have I gone wrong? Is it possible to miss the finish and continue on past it? NO, I know better than this, yet my brain is not functioning properly. I have since figured out that I have a small emergency bag of calories in the bottom of my pack, in the form of dried fruit and nuts…but the finish…where is the finish…
I had a ridiculously long mental debate about stopping, taking off my pack and finding my food vs pushing through. I was half way up the climb and recognized that I was crumbling by the nanosecond. I ceased, found the food and tossed it in my mouth. I’m over 10hr now…this can’t be happening! I’m going to finish in 10h14min. I can see it now, clear as day. I’m going to miss, I’m going to fail, I’m going to have to come back and go for round two again in September. I set out with a mission this year, it revolved around two trail records and a major fund raising effort for Right To Play. I would never be able to justify taking a cent in donations from people if I didn’t cover my end of the bargain. I was already making travel plans and working out the dates. Maybe mid Sept? I’ll definitely go South to North next time. I'll pack more food. I'll carry more water. I'll eat my veggies, I'll wash the dishes, I'll clean the house...please make this end!!
10h05m, 10h06m, a downhill now, yet another downhill that will inevitably lead me up and over the next mountain face. I’m toast. If the clock strikes 10h13m I’m laying down for a nap, no matter where I might then find myself.
10h07m, a clearing below, what the? Is that? Can it be? 10h08m, oh my god, I think I see a sign, I think…I think…I’m going to make it…what time is it?
Followed by this cinematic gem
I NEVER, EVER want to go back and run this damn trail again! If someone else breaks the record, A) go South to North B) try for a lower tidal line so you may be blessed with a better beach running surface, and C) you get it, you can HAVE IT!
Seriously though, I feel incredibly fortunate to have pulled this one off. Although I am still convinced that 9h30m is possible, I have no intentions of attempting it anytime soon. It will take me at least another three years to purge the lows from my mind so that I am left with nothing but positive memories of the experience. Though next time I'll be sure to re-read MY OWN run report so that I don't do something stupid like go North to South again!
RIGHT TO PLAY, please help out...we're at 93% already!!
This is a good one, complete with the accents, and I was hoping to post it last week, pre East Coast Trail Run. (Thanks to Heather for this)
Quick update from Moi, straight back to work within hours of getting back to BC, as always. Don't get me wrong, I plan it this way so that my travels have the least financial impact on things, but again it leaves me little time for the luxuries of actually catching up on my blog postings...of which I'm now falling way behind.
On the GREAT NEWS front. I'm moving into my new place for Sept 1st! Again, this is not indicative of immediate blog posting, but I'm so happy to have found a place that I'm almost giddy. The run reports will be coming as quickly as possible, that's a promise, and I'm going to attempt to come close to closing out the WCT later tonight.
In the meantime, enjoy this one...and maybe try it for yourself sometime...
No Idea Why, But Blogger Not Allowing Picture Uploads Right Now?
It's hard to believe that I'm going to be initiating this run in a little over thirteen hours from now. The last four weeks of my life have been a bit of a blur and though I still haven't posted my West Coast Trail Tail it is about 40% complete.
To be completely honest about stuff right now, I'm nowhere near 100% for this thing, and if it were a genuine race I'd be really concerned about having to pull one outta the hat. Thankfully, though a speed attempt, I know I can suffer through it and still make this thing happen. It is rare that we are ever 100% heading into an event anyways, and with a distance this great it ends up being way more mental than physical.
All I have to do is look back to 2007 when I ran the 130km West Coast Trail + Juan De Fuca back to back. I hadn't run more than 67km in distance or nine hours in time prior to that day. Though I wasn't properly trained for that endeavor my mind was locked in and it wasn't about to let a small thing like inadequate training come between me and my stated goal of a sub 24hr completion time. (23h40m)
On that note, unless things go way better than expected, this will be the first time I've gone over the 24hr barrier while strictly running. My adventure racing background will serve me well on this one.
A Bit About The Trail
If this trail were hard packed and well marked I'd wager to say it could be doable in under 24hr...but that's not the type of terrain I'll be dealing with here in Newfoundland. Though the scenery will be stunning, with sea stacks, sheer cliff side drops, lighthouses, blow holes, and even possible ice bergs and as of late Killer Whales! This will be a true adventure.
Having spoken with Ray Zahab himself and doing some online searching I've been told to expect sections of 'no distinguishable trail', mud and bog potentially thigh deep, and moose paths that often appear as running trails. Hopefully I don't end up running in circles once the sun sets. I've also decided to delay the start by two hours till 6am, as a pre sunlight start might end up being more of a hindrance than a help.
All in all, it's amazing to be sharing this one with my family. My mother has never seen me run before and she's so excited she's been cooking non stop all day long...just in case I decide to stop for a buffet style feed along the way. Dad has already poured over the maps and listed all the best and worst case scenarios, and my brother is nervously awaiting his pacing duties, which will involve joining me for the last 20-30km...he has never run longer than 9km before. My fourteen year old niece is looking forward to trying to stay awake for 30+ hours for the very first time, and my brother's girlfriend is just as worried about him as she is about me!
With support like this, there is simply no possible way that I can't and won't succeed on this journey. Sure I would have liked a few more days to prepare properly, sure I have some injuries that will likely act up, sure I'm about to tackle something I've never even attempted before, but in the end, that's really what it's all about?
It's about pushing your boundaries and exploring your own limitless human potential. For no matter what the obstacles before you may appear to be, they are never quite as difficult or as daunting you can make them out to be in your own head.
I am ready. I am excited. Let's get this thing started!
(please don't forget to click on the smiling child in the top right corner of this blog to help support the third challenge in my Conquer The Coasts attempt)
Yes, this is 100% me trying to buy more time till I can actually get to my run report. I'm flying to Newfoundland tomorrow morning and attempting the 220km East Coast Trail on Friday, starting at 4am.
This video is just a slight glimpse into the substantial ladder work that is contained within the West Coast Trail. My GoPro headcam died with about 20km to go and I was not able to capture the most daunting of these structures.
These were the 'warm up ladders' early on in the run. A friend who has tackled the trail a few times himself says there must be a full kilometer of ladder work upon the 75km trail. Though that sounds quite high, I'd have to say he's not far off in his guesstimate.
Back to packing...then work...then a few hours sleep before boarding the plane home!!!
(please use the accent from the 77 hockey cult classic Slap Shot, starring Paul Newman, if you know, you know, if you don't, it's funny!)
Seriously though, I'm not trying to drag this out but my days are being consumed by trying to find a dog friendly place to live in North Vancouver. The roller coaster ride continues. Thankfully though, as previously mentioned, due to the sincere kindness of a friend I am secure until I finally work this thing out. I had intended to get to my run report all week long and in the end an impromptu trip to The Sunshine Coast this weekend was a WAY BETTER OPTION!
(Kathy, Moi, Ruthy)
I was certified as a Dive Master in Honduras in 2003, and in a very indirect way that experience specifically lead me to my current passion for endurance sports and ultra running. 03 was one of the best years of my life, as I spent the entire twelve months cycle touring Central America. I covered over 4,000km on the bike, spent a full month surfing in Nicaragua and Coast Rica, and mixed in four months of working on a dive island. On the Island of Roatan I would forge life long bonds with some of the most genuine, honest, kind, and entertaining individuals I have yet to meet in my life.
One friendship in particular has grown, that being with my friends Luke and Emily Laga, who reside in Wisconsin. Luke and I both got into running late in our lives, comparatively so, and we have since flown across the country to help pace each other at separate 100 mile endeavors. Luke and Emily, up until last night, were the only friends from the island that I've since seen. It was a slightly reluctant departure from Roatan and the island lifestyle way back in late 2003, and I feel like a piece of me still resides there upon those immaculate sandy beaches and the teaming with life dive sites below the water.
I always assumed I'd get back down there, and in all honesty I'm kinda shocked I've never made it happen. One friend by the name of Kathy had moved to BC a few years back, but our paths had never crossed as we always lived in different towns. A second friend Ruthy, who was one of my instructors and someone I always truly knew I would see again, has since created a post diving life for herself on Roatan with a very successful business. Her vacation away from her island life was to consist of a trip to BC!
(pickin some blackberries along the way)
I found out a month back that I'd finally get to catch up with these two incredible people and I'd been counting down the days ever since. This past Tuesday they changed plans slightly and decided upon a Sunshine Coast getaway weekend, which only served to make the now palpable excitement even better!
(checkin out Skookumchuck Narrows, 'strong'/'water', with tidal flows of up to 30 KPH!)
I needed a break from my daily roller coaster house search. I needed a good excuse to get away to The Sunshine Coast for the first time this year. I was excited to go camping in a completely new destination near Egmont on Klein Lake. Most of all though, I was ecstatic to be catching up with two people I'd always considered life long friends and to help finally create new memories together. We got drunk around tea lights (fire ban), we traded stories of the last seven years our lives, and reminisced about our shared time upon the island. We swam, we lounged, we swam some more, we hiked, we traded more stories, we chilled, we went out to dinner, we caught a ferry back to Vancouver, and I dropped them off about an hour ago.
(Ruthy and Roxy working off their hangovers)
It was but 24hr, but sometimes, 24hr is all you need.
Coupla more vids till I can get to my run report. I've been working every day since coming off of the trail on Wednesday afternoon so it's been tough for me to get to things so far. I finally have a big day off tomorrow which should allow me to catch up on things properly.
I've been hearing some questions in the last few days. Questions about 'is it legit' and how can I prove it if there was no one there at the 'finish line'? I'm totally cool with that. HEY I GET IT! If I ever do end up running the trail again I'll go South to North, first and foremost because I now believe it's faster that way, and secondly because I guess you could sprint into the lodge at the end and have a park official there to validate everything.
I knew that I would have to be taken at my word for the most part on this one. Being a fully self supported, point to point run with no intersecting points whatsoever will do that. Sure I have a picture of a GPS watch saying I ran 80km in 10h08m...but couldn't I have 'paused' the watch along the way? During my stops? During even one stop? Couldn't I have taken a break 'off the clock' without anyone knowing? Well the answer is obviously yes, that might be possible...before GPS of course!
I'm curious as to Frank and Kevin's experience in 1997? I can't imagine it was anyone but them involved since park staff didn't even know what the previous record was.
With a speed attempt the watch starts with the first step and does not cease until you reach the finish. I had an eight minute stop at the beach vendor around km 44, and that's all a part of it. There are no time outs, no car delays (road hockey), and no nap breaks. I started at 5:34:28am and finished at 3:43:20pm
I had a friend by the name of Sarah Logan officially start me with a ten second countdown. I shot a video on my GoPro head cam but it was too dark to pick it up. You can at least hear us talking and she confirms the start time. I also intended to shoot a finishing video with my head cam but the battery died after shooting 37 individual videos...go figure! I'm forwarding all my footage onto a friend by the name of Erik Nachtrieb so that he can hopefully make something outta nothing and create a worthwhile recap of the day. In the end I was very thankful to have carried a back up camera just in case and that's what I shot my finishing video on.
Oh yeah, and on that note. No I have never seen The Blair Witch Project, and yes in hindsight I realize it's quite dramatic. The honest truth though is that I have never cracked like that in my entire life and I was completely out of it when I made the finish. I'll go into detail in my eventual run recap, and yes I know I look somewhat foolish...but that's what it was...that's literally all I had left. I actually had to cut out five full minutes me shooting video of the sky when I fell asleep on the spot. If you didn't watch it the whole way through, I do at least eventually sit up and start talking somewhat coherently for a few seconds as I'm getting my wits about me!
Anyways, the point of all this is that I just figured out this feature from Google Earth. It takes a full minute to load on my laptop, but give it a second and you can click all the way down to individual black boxes with times in them. You can see exactly where I started and finished, and if you locate the beach vendor, which is just over half way through, you can see my full eight minute break, all on the clock, while I'm running in circles and having some intriguing conversations!
(I had to remove the auto loading Google Earth feature as it was freezing up my computer and hence I have no doubt others were having issues as well) Here is the here's the direct link to the downloadable file
I figured I'd throw this one in here too. It's me tackling the first cable car crossing of the day. It's amazing how much energy you expend on this trail through ladder work and cable cars alone.
I hope this is enough to dispel any further doubts or questions. I'm a man of my word and honestly my reputation means more to me than anything else. If anyone has any specific questions, good or bad, please do not hesitate to drop me a line!
I'll have the recap done in a few days, and Erik will be working on the video side of things too. Since I went straight back to work just hours after getting home I'm still attempting to catch up on everything. Sorry for the delays.
Here's my 'finish line celebration' video. It's all I've got for now, plenty more to come though! Thanks so much for everyone who helped out along the way and for all the words of encouragement pre and post run. It's a pretty special community we exist in and I feel incredibly fortunate to be a small part of it all.
After the original goal of attempting the trail in May fell through, a secondary plan presented itself. This itinerary called for a group of eight individuals to link together and tackle this trail this past weekend. Each running their own pace, and effectively eliminating the HUGE logistical nightmare that is The West Coast Trail. Unfortunately this too fell through and alas I was left on my own to figure this thing out!
The 75km WCT is a point to point run with both access points located in obscure coastal towns, and with no direct route between them. To put this in perspective, in 07 when I ran the WCT & JDF trail back to back, it took me 12h20m to get through the WCT. My one man wonder crew at the time, Carlos Castillo, took over EIGHT FULL HOURS to drive around and meet me in Port Renfrew at the Southern terminus of the trail! If everything goes well on Wednesday my run time should be relatively close to the drive time!
Because of this it's taken me days to piece this all together. I picked a date, got the days off of work, and was then forced to figure out the rest.
Monday
-Work till 5pm -Ryne Melcher drops me at Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal for 7pm crossing, arriving in Nanaimo at 8:30pm -My Aunt picks me up in Nanaimo and drives me to her hometown of Port Alberni, arriving around 10pm -Grab some z's
Tuesday
-Board 'Lady Rose' for a four and a half hour 'water taxi' to Bamfield -Make my way to trailhead, collect trail permit ($160) -Back to Bamfield, eat, lodging, eat, sleep
Wednesday
-5am taxi to trail head, since I'm running point to point and not returning to Bamfield I will have to discard all items I'm not running with. I'll be sporting the oldest clothing I can find from Mon-Wed! -Start run anywhere between 5:30am and 6am -Ideally run a sub 10h13m trail time, that being the current record, which has stood for over a decade! 1997 to be exact.
Anyone unfamiliar with the trail seems to think it a foregone conclusion that the record will fall. Anyone who knows the trail, is fully aware of the fact that this is a serious endeavor with a 50/50 shot of success. The biggest issue is that the trail has become increasingly tougher over the last decade, NOT EASIER as most trails usually do. After a few windstorms earlier this decade, previously runnable sections of the trail were rerouted via vertical ladder work, up, over, and around obstacles rather than clearing the trail back through the middle.
This is of course in addition to the five cable car crossings, the mandatory water taxi crossing, the suspension bridges, mud, roots, rocks, and of course the beach running sections. All in this trail is a killer, period.
I had hiked the WCT in three days in 01, and as mentioned ran it as part of a larger goal in 07. I was completely shocked by the differences and higher technicality of the route in such a short period of time. I'm honestly going to have to destroy myself to succeed on Wednesday.
Wednesday Afternoon
-2:36pm Hopefully celebrate a trail victory! -4:30pm bus from Port Renfrew to Victoria for 7pm -Cousin picking me up and presenting me with his own clothes to wear home -Grabbing dinner and being dropped off at Tsawassen Ferry Terminal for the 9pm sailing, arriving back on 'the other side' for 10:30pm -Bus to downtown Vancouver for 11:30pm arrival -Mr. Melcher picking me up in my car from downtown. Dropping him off and hopefully finding myself spooning my dog by 12:30am
Thursday Morning
-Back to work!
All in this endeavor will cost me close to $500, so basically what I'm sayin to myself right now is,
MAKE IT COUNT ROBBINS!
Wish me luck...
AND, please, please, PLEASE don't forget that I'm still trying to raise $5000 for Right To Play. As of tonight I'm just fifty bucks shy of reaching 50% of my goal. Please help out if you can.
I'll be doing my best to update my progress via Twitter, but to my knowledge there is zero phone reception upon the trail and maybe none in Port Renfrew as well. I'll text updates as soon as I can!
Last but not least, if you have a few more minutes to spare, feel free to read my 2007 run report. I referenced it myself last night to get back into the right mindset. That being one of trying to conquer a torturous trail!
I would just like to wish all runner's partaking in this weekend's Burning River, White River and Canadian Death Race the best of luck!
-Burning River 100 Miler in Ohio, the US Championships this year. I'm not about to review the list of who's who racing it as I'm tight for time. Best of luck to all round good guy and great runner Nathan Yanko out of San Fran though. Met the guy at HURT, got to know him a bit at MIWOK and have become a fan. He's made this a goal race which means he'll be right in it to win it!
-White River 50 Miler in Washington. Again not time to review a list of who's who, all I'll say is that Canada is sending 'The A TEAM'! Aaron Heidt and Adam Campbell who ran Trans Rockies Run together last year are both heading down. Let's hear it for a 1-2 Red and White finish...though Montrail runner Dakota Jones, along with many others, might have something to say about that!
-Canadian Death Race, 125k in Grande Cache Alberta. My name is still on the starting list...but unfortunately I won't be racing it. I struggled with this decision right up until Monday before accepting that it's just not possible for me to successfully run 1) Death Race 125k 2) WCT 75k and 3) ECT 220k in a span of five weeks...I know, toughen the hell up right!
My initial schedule called for a WCT speed attempt in May and once that proved impossible due to unfavorable trail conditions I realized TDR might be the piece of the puzzle that would no longer fit. It will be a mixed reaction weekend as I watch this one go down, but since my 'Conquer The Coasts' was announced in support of Right To Play it has taken priority over all other endeavors.
My personal speed attempt upon The West Coast Trail will happen NEXT WEDNESDAY August 3rd!! Excited, nervous, and anxious to finally attempt to make this dream a reality!
Back to The Death Race for a second, again I'm not about to reference starting lists but here's my take on what I currently know:
The Women's race will be INTENSE! Even with two of Canada's top female ultra runner's having to give it a miss, that being Jen Segger and Tamsin Anstey, the field is still stacked. It's really too bad because this would have been the first time all these incredibly talented women would have faced each other head to head.
You still have: -Ellie Greenwood -Tracy Garneau -Denise McHale -Nikki Kimball??
Ellie just got accepted onto the UK 100k team for World's this fall. If she knocks that run outta the park as many expect her to than the annual 'Ultra Runner Of The Year' voting could come down to Ellie vs Tracy. Tracy having won HURT, American River, and WS is on a HUGE ROLL. Can anyone stop her right now? Denise, Ellie, and possibly Nikki will certainly push her to the max. I can't wait to see how it all unfolds!
MEN
Is Hal Koerner running? I've heard yes and no? Here's what I do know:
-Phil Villeneuve -Adam Hill -Jack Cook -Greg McHale -Simon Donato
Not quite as exciting as the women's though Jack Cook is a multiple winner and current CR holder. Even if Hal shoes up I'm giving the nod to Phil on this one, and that's simply based upon his INCREDIBLE technical running abilities. He's been training like a madman for this specific race as well so I know he's dialed and ready to compete. Hard to bet against Hal, but gotta go with a good old Canadian boy!
The REAL QUESTION that will need answering at The Death Race... How many of the men, if any, can prevent being 'skirted'? With a field of women like this, they'll all be running scared!
First off I have to admit that this is probably the longest I have gone without blogging in the almost four years that I've been doing this.
Long story short, there have been some life changes as of late. I don't currently have an actual place to live as finding somewhere in North Van that allows dogs can be challenging to say the least. Life is still good. I have very little to complain about, though I have no current routine and no at home internet. I'm sure things will work out for the best in due time.
This past weekend was the inaugural Fat Dog 100k, 100miler, and relay in Manning Park. I know a lot of people seemed to be under the impression that this was 'my race' simply because of the fact that I talked it up so much in the last six months. I was/am simply a volunteer who insisted on taking the final aid station of the race. I wanted to be there when people were at their worst in the hopes that I might be able to make a difference to some people's races. Outside of setting up this aid station I had no influence over the race whatsoever. It would simply be unfair to all those involved to imply that I did more than this.
I just want to start by saying this. I had volunteered for races before, but I had never donated my time to help out at a 100 mile event. You simply have NO IDEA how much work goes into an event like this until you see it all first hand. The logistics involved in getting a race like this off the ground are simply mind boggling. My hat goes off to Heather Macdonald for her amazing ability to take a conversational idea and build it into reality in under twelve months. Had I been in charge we'd still be working on the permits! (and I'm really not exaggerating too much on that one)
There were over 70 volunteers who dedicated their entire weekends to this event. I will briefly entail what my experience was, but I would like to state that there were numerous people who did two and three times as much as I personally had to. Again my hat goes off to these selfless individuals.
From North Vancouver you arrive in Manning park in under 2.5hrs, and that's in a vehicle that is quite honestly impossible to speed in! My 81 Suub has done me no wrong in the almost two years that I have owned it. It's quite simply the best $1,000 I've ever spent! Ditching a brand new leased Nissan was one of the best decisions I've made in the last few years, but that's another story altogether.
I left North Van on Thursday night and camped out in Manning for about 6hr of sleep. Most people were up and gone at 2-3-4am. I had the luxury of 'sleeping in'. I loaded my car and headed out to my aid station, which was another 2hr away. Upon arrival I hiked all of my supplies, including a 70lb generator, to a trail intersection 1km away. It took me nearly two hours and ten kms to do so. I was sweaty, exhausted, and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but I knew it was nothing compared to how the runners would be feeling.
After another 2hr I finally had the station set up and looking somewhat enticing. I was expecting the first 100km runner anytime after 2:30pm. Some people said maybe closer to 5pm but I wanted to ensure I was ready to go in case we had underestimated the pacing.
The great thing about an excursion into Manning Park is that there is no cell or internet service. It's like a cleansing of sorts...except of course when you are organizing a 100k/mile running event. An hour passed, then two, then three. I wanted to sleep but was on edge wondering what might be happening down the trail. At about 5:30pm recent Canadian Badwater finisher Lorie Alexander appeared. She had contemplated running the race, being the nutbar that she is, but instead settled on helping me out. Honestly I would not have been able to do it without her. Thank you Lorie for everything that you contributed to the event and my own experience!
Lorie brought with her relayed news that runners were still nowhere near us. I had also been awaiting my water to show up (I had 20L with me, but 200L more had to be utilized) and this would have entailed an additional 90+min of hucking the stuff around. Since the runners were still nowhere near us, and since the location really wasn't sufficient by any definition of the word, I made the on the fly decision to utilize the now three people to pack up my current location and add an additional ten minutes of running to the race.
My rational was this. I was manning the final aid station, the most likely place to see people pull the plug. If a runner had to drop at least this way we were already at the road and would have access to cars, heat, and immediate transport to deal with any possible emergencies. Even 1km is 1km too far if you are dealing with a serious medical incident. On top of that the location was crew accessible and a relay point, which meant there would be a decent amount of traffic throughout the night. In the first location I literally had to kick over bushes and brush to fit in the chairs, table and tent. If any crew decided to show up they would have been huddled in the trees playing 'who can donate the most blood to the bugs' for hours on end. This way they too could nap in their vehicles. Finally, this decision saved us an additional 6hr of take down effort after the race. We had managed to fully erect our station with plenty of time to spare. It was getting late and we still had not seen a runner. Slowly but surely, one by one, they eventually found their way to us. The stories were consistent. A course that was unfortunately long, a few sections with flagging issues, and a race that was billed as runnable when in fact it was very technical. It was readily apparent the frustration upon peoples faces. Some hid it well, some did not, yet all but a few managed a smile and a laugh before they tucked in for the slog on to the finish.
I witnessed some unbelievable efforts out there this weekend and even though I took three days off of work and drove almost 800km return, I would not have had it any other way.
To the 100km runners: Every single one of you was faced with a challenge far greater than you anticipated. To those who finished, I can say with confidence that you are ready to pursue your first 100 miler in 2011 if you so desire. To those who made it to me but no further. I was closer in distance to your 100km marker than the actual finish line. I meant what I said. You could have and would have finished just about any other 100km race on the planet this past weekend. Be proud of what you accomplished because I for one am amazed at the tenacity you displayed and the toughness you possessed.
To the relay runners: Most of you were trail virgins...welcome to our world! You and your crew kept things lively and interesting all night long. I hope you either decide to pursue a bigger distance yourself next year or organize another team. You added an element of fun to a race that was taking its toll on those around you.
To the 100 mile runners: What can I say? I only saw 15 of you and every single one of you continued on to the finish line, even when I explained to you that the final '26km' was going to take at least six hours and probably upwards of seven to eight. A disproportionate number of you were 100 mile virgins. Do you really understand what you tackled this past weekend?? There isn't a 100mile course that I know of that could stop any of you. Know that and do what you will with that knowledge. You are all champions in my books by every definition of that word.
To those who dropped: I can't imagine the mental struggles that must have ensued early on when distances were proving long and sections were difficult to navigate. I hope you experienced enough of the course to take away some of the natural beauty with you. I am confident the Race Directors will do everything they need to to fully dial in this event in 2011.
The Fat Dog 100 will go down as an epic event in its inception year. The course is amazingly stunning and the people involved in organizing the race are completely passionate about what they do. With time and luck on my side I'll be back to serve up some hot bacon, dogs, pizza, soup, and Newfie Screech again next year, and I sincerely hope to see all of you there again!
In the meantime, if you ran this race and have some free time, please drop RD Heather Macdonald a line. Let her know your thoughts on the event and the experiences you had, both good and bad. The only way a point to point mountain run of this kind can succeed is with the genuine feedback of the participants. I think it's incredible what Heather and her crew were able to accomplish this year and I know that with a few simple yet relevant tweaks this race can and will become a classic. Full Results
I wasn't supposed to be on the starting line of Western States 2010, yet I knew months in advance that I'd somehow find myself there.
I am a stern believer in fate, destiny, and serendipitous moments, almost to a flaw really. I could tell you stories of how I ended in in New Zealand for New Years Millennium based upon a case of strawberries, or how I traveled Central America for a year based upon a banana's country of origin, or the confidence I found prior to HURT in January due to a bumper sticker. A rather innocuous string of events one morning led me to belief with absolute confidence that I would indeed be attending 'The Big Dance' in June one way or another. I did myself no favors however, finishing third at Mountain Masochist in November, and DNF'ing Miwok in May. At the very last minute though, Montrail ended up with a few unfulfilled sponsored slots in their lap and hence I discovered that my belief in such seemingly random occurrences was once again confirmed to be truth.
If you don't know the back story to my lead in to Western States it goes something like this...I ran 98 miles in the entire month of May because my vitals were low and I was borderline anemic. Thirty of those miles were during my actual race in San Francisco on May 1st. After my DNF at Miwok I took three full weeks off, then eased back into a few weeks of running before 'tapering' back down for the race. Once you factor in a taper leading into the Miwok 100k you could basically say I tapered for two full months into Western States. However, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had done everything in my own power to ensure a successful race down in Squaw Valley. Though my body may not have been hardened through mass mileage in the final eight weeks before the race, I had energy the likes of which I had not possessed in months and my legs had spring in them for the first time all year. I headed to California with a plan and a silent confidence in my absolute ability to pull it off.
"Oh you know, I just want to have a positive race experience. I just want to run smart and see what happens. I'm in the race, I might as well give it a go. I won't do anything stupid. I know I'm not primed to do much down there. I've got nothing to loose though and I'll call it a day if I feel like it's the wrong thing to be doing."
These were my standard answers to people whenever I was confronted with the usual 'why on earth would you even attempt a 100 mile race after such little mileage and so much down time.' Inside though I knew I was feeling good. I knew my body was rested and ready to explode. I knew I'd been smart, recovered well, and was genuinely feeling like a runner with a purpose again. I knew I'd have a great race weeks before I even made the journey to the starting line.
In 2009 I raced like the inexperienced idiot I was. I thought I'd finish top three in my second ever 100 miler and first ever WS. I went for it, paid a price, and limped, literally, to the finish line. I hit the river crossing in 8th place and finished the race in 49th. I had learned some harsh lessons, but most of all I felt like I'd 'paid my dues' to the course. I walked the final twenty miles to the finish and if nothing else, at least I knew every single root, rock, and turn that I'd have to conquer to have a successful second shot at the thing. I had the entire 100 miles in my head, and I knew exactly how I had to run it to be successful.
5am...the gun explodes and excitement is palpable!
I got caught up in the hype last year and blasted over the first climb up The Escarpment. This year I simply stared in awe as a string of silhouettes sprinted silently on ahead. I was back around 35th over the first climb and took solace in the fact that I was positioned around such WS veterans as AJW and Erik Skaden. Once we crested the climb I was taken aback by how incredibly cold it was. I suffer from raynauds circulation issues and the stiff breeze removed all dexterity from my hands for the next few hours.
We knew in advance that this was a 'snow year' and sure enough we had miles of the white stuff to slip and slide over. It did nothing but favor me though, being a Canadian and all. I was slowly making my way through the field when I turned a corner and saw a pack of ten runners streaming along. All were people I recognized as being very talented and efficient, yet there was little evident snow experience amongst the grouping. I was very easily able to pass the entire pack in a short span, and as I turned an additional corner I was almost brought to laughing out loud. Three runners were very literally sliding backwards while trying to ascend a snow slope. I took one look, saw a clear route just off to the side of the snow, scurried on up, across the top and left them behind. All the lead slider said to me was,
"Huh, so that's how it's done!"
As we slowly left the snowline behind us I found myself ahead of where I wanted to be so early in the race, so I backed off and allowed a grouping of runners to catch up and surpass me. I just kept telling myself to stay relaxed, not force anything, and to try to forget that I was even in a race to begin with. I had some great conversations with some incredibly kind people and the terrain ambled along below our feet.
As mentioned, it being a snow year, the course had to be slightly altered and we found ourselves passing through two new aid stations at Talbot Creek and Poppyhead. For miles on end I tried my absolute best to dance around the water/mud features and keep my feet dry. I was succeeding for the most part till we came to a full on river crossing. Shortly after this I lost my shoe in a pile of mud! First time my shoe has come off like that in years and I had to laugh as a few people passed me. This was in no way, shape, or form similar to my experience just one year earlier.
I hit Poppyhead Aid Station in 12th with a time of 2h43m. I was completely shocked to learn that the leaders were but seven minutes ahead, with Anton's grouping only five minutes up! It was enough to make me feel like I needed to back off the gas a bit, even though I knew I'd been very conservative up until that point.
As we departed Poppyhead we started down a flatish forest service road, which would filter us onto a mile of pavement and eventually a singletrack undulating trail around a lake. I was in a talented grouping of runners but a few hundred meters up was Canadian Glen Redpath. I had picked Glen in advance of the race for the Master's win/top ten. Considering he ran a 14h23m 100 miler earlier in the year, and has a wealth of experience, I trusted that he 'knew what he was doing' and I made the decision to put in a surge and bridge up to him. As I closed the gap he shoulder checked and I simply said,
"Hey Glen, just me, mind if I tag along?"
The trail around the lake was my kinda running. Constant undulation to keep the leg muscles entertained, and beautiful scenery to keep the mind distracted. Outside of Glen slipping on a rock and ending up fully submerged in a small river crossing we blew through this section without issue. My body however, was officially acting up for the first time.
During my last real mileage weeks in early April I was starting to find a double lower abdomen pain that was becoming increasingly harder to ignore. Once I tapered, dnf'ed, and stopped running the pain disappeared. TA DA! Problem solved right...ahh, not so much. Here I was just over 3hr into a 17hr excursion and it was the worst it had felt it all year. My mind of course started to play with this,
"Oh well. That's about right I guess, 3hr would be one of your longest runs in the last six weeks. I'm not surprised really. Everyone knew you'd fall apart out here today. I think even you knew deep down that you couldn't pull this off. Might as well slow down and call it a day G. You can probably cheer people on from Foresthill..."
And HERE is where I KNEW definitively that I was back to my old self and pretty much recovered from my energy issues...
"Ya know what Gary...FUCK YOU! Quit yer fucking bitchin and focus on the task at hand. OF COURSE IT HURTS, you're approaching a marathon distance for running already. It's supposed to hurt, GET OVER IT!"
And with that, the pain very honestly ceased within minutes...and I went back to enjoying the beautiful terrain we were flying over.
Upon arriving at the Duncan Canyon aid station we pretty much deduced this years course to be about twenty minutes faster than the regular route. This was confirmed numerous times post race with people as well. As we started into Duncan Canyon Glen and I dropped the one other runner present with us and upon climbing out of the slight canyon we found ourselves playing in the white stuff again. Eventually we rolled through Robinson Flat (30miles) to see our crews in a time of 4h31m now running in 10th/11th. This was further up than I thought I'd be at that point in the race, but I knew I was running well within myself.
I had an awesome crew and I can't thank them enough! Phyllis Lum and Wendell Doman of Coastal Trail Runs, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help with everything!! Your positive energy and focus on getting me out of each aid station as quickly and efficiently as possible was priceless to me on the day.
Glen and I departed simultaneously and we went to work finding traction in the snow once again. As we crested our short ascent and turned into the first sizable descent of the race I started to gap Glen. I was staying completely conservative but downhills are usually my bread and butter and I figured if I knew I wasn't taxing my legs whatsoever that I had to roll with it.
I eventually passed a few more runners and was surpassed by Phil Kochik. I knew Phil from running around Mt. Hood with him and a few others last fall. I had Phil in my top eight picks pre-race, as he had performed at WS before. I figured it worthwhile to match his pace and we ran close to one another for the better part of the next four hours. It's funny to even say something like that...to run with someone in the middle of a race for 4hr's...funnier still to say it made up less than 25% off our time on course. Hundred milers really are a peculiar event that attract an even more peculiar bunch...me included I guess.
It was as we dropped into our first real canyon, on our way past 'Last Chance', now 45miles into the race, that I started to face my first real issues. I ALWAYS have right leg problems, usually based around my ankle, but for the first time in recent memory I was having LEFT leg problems AND for the first time ever I was having knee pain, coupled with decent ankle pain. My first thought was,
"This sucks, wtf!"
Followed by,
"Meh, at least it's my left side and not the right side. It can't be that bad if I've never felt it before!"
And that was it. I stopped processing that my knee was surging with pain upon every single stride that I completed down into the canyon. All I was really thinking at that point was,
"Just survive the canyons. Just survive the canyons. Just survive the canyons."
The knee pain never stopped, I just had bigger things to worry about! (four days after the race it finally subsided)
At the bottom of the canyon I heard AJW come screaming down the trail like he'd been shot out of a cannon, then I passed Phil as he was horizontal and completely submerged in a pool of water just off the trail. Ten seconds after this Phil came burning past as he had decided that he was going to run the entire climb up to 'Devil's Thumb'. Personally I was 'just trying to survive the canyons' and I went about power hiking the entire thing. I kept shoulder checking but did not catch another glimpse of AJW.
Towards the top of the climb Montrail's Jesse Malman was manning a video camera. He was filming me and asked how I was doing. Even while power hiking up the climb I was finding myself in a bad state. The heat was rolling in, but it was nowhere near as hot as 09 and realistically was nothing to complain about. My energy levels however had evaporated and all I could muster in response was,
"I just hit a wall"
Survive the canyons, survive the canyons, survive the canyons...
I crested out of Devil's Thumb and then began the arduous descent back down towards El Dorado Creek. Up until that point I knew I'd been fueling properly. I knew I'd been pacing properly, and if anything I really felt like I was taking it a bit too slow on the descents. More than anything I just wanted to finish strong and since I was currently in 9th place I really felt no need to unleash and risk consequence. The low I hit coming out of Devil's Thumb really did scare me, but thankfully it lasted only ten to fifteen minutes and as I popped out of El Dorado and into Michigan Bluff my spirits were significantly bolstered...I'd survived the canyons! At least the main canyons that really beat me down one year earlier.
For the second time in the race I got to see my awesome crew and after hitting up another mandatory weigh in (I stayed fully consistent within 1/2 pound all day long) I did a full clothing change. I was sopping wet and to put on dry clothes felt like a rebirth of sorts. I bounded outta there like a newborn deer and exactly one hour later I picked up my pacer, teammate Matt Hart, at Foresthill, seeing my crew for the third time.
Only 60km-38miles / 7hr left to go...
I had picked off Phil leading into Foresthill and unfortunately knew his day was fully compromised. I was now in 8th and with twenty miles to go to the river crossing I heard Leigh Schmitt was twenty minutes up on me (turned out to be 23min). It gave me something to work towards.
Though we exchanged few words (10hr of running had left me desiring to expend as little additional energy as possible), Matt and I worked well together. As he simply stated,
"I'm just here to keep ya honest!"
Knowing what this section consisted of from last year made it no more pleasurable or tolerable. The river that you are aware you eventually have to ford is tantalizingly close and the sound of flowing water is constantly present. Contrast this with exposed sections of trail that made it the hottest portion of the day for me, along with the fact that you descend towards the river only to regain your lost ground time and time and time again and it really will only be remembered forever more as my least favorite part of the entire race!
The one thing I did vocalize to Matt was,
"Ya know Hart, I think it's about damn time that some of the runners in front of me start dropping out, or at least start slowing down a bit!"
I knew I was making good time and I was still attacking this section with a singular focus on conserving as much as possible for the final twenty miles. Aid station after aid station were confirming closer splits towards Leigh and what would then be seventh place!
With less than 1km to go to the river I spotted Leigh and his pacer just up ahead. We had taken over a full minute per mile out of them! As we hit the river itself I failed to notice that Leigh was sitting in a chair and thought he'd somehow beat me across the river. I filled my bottles, grabbed some gel, downed some coke and electrolytes and hoped in the boat for the crossing. (the river was too high this year to ford safely so a raft was utilized)
I popped out on the opposite side and kept on moving,
(that's Matt catching back up in the red jersey)
Hal Koerner was standing in the river as I exited the boat and I now found myself sitting in sixth place overall! I knew what the climb up to Green Gate consisted of, and though I very well could have run it, I just wanted to power hike it so that I was fully ready to close out the final 20 miles the way I knew I could. Since I had no idea what was going on behind me I was fully surprised with Glen Redpath came flying past on the climb. I hadn't seen him in hours and though I was confident I'd catch him again, it left me wondering what else may be going on back there? I kept telling myself that in a field like this you are never safe. You have to stay the wolf the entire time, for the sheep get eaten alive, and at this point in last year's race the vultures were already pecking my eyeballs out!
Matt kept trying to get me to run the climb, probably more because he knew I could have, but I resisted the temptation. I had taken on some blisters shortly before I picked Matt up at 62miles and there was one on each ball of my foot, along with a few on my toes. Ain't nothing you can do about em so I never vocalized this to Matt. There's nothing worse than someone constantly saying,
"How are your blisters doing?"
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about them...thanks..."
I've been there before and I know what it consists of. Twenty minutes, ignore, ignore, ignore. They're never quite as dramatic as you think they are once you remove your socks anyways!
Again at Green Gate I saw my crew, again they were great!
I thought I saw Glen in a chair as I departed Green Gate but I was mistaken for five miles later I caught a runner and was surprised to see that it was Glen himself. Here I thought I'd been chasing for 5th and I was simply pulling back into 6th.
It was great having Glen along this late in the run and though we ran directly with each other less than earlier in the race we most certainly helped push each other along. Glen kept asking about AJW, since they were in the master's fight against one another, but I hadn't seen AJW since before Devil's Thumb and I couldn't understand his genuine concern. Upon referencing the splits I was truly shocked to see how many runners were right behind me as I hit the river crossing. I can't help but wonder what mental battles would have ensued had I been just two minutes slower hitting the boat and hence been swallowed up by a small chase pack...ignorance turned out to be complete bliss as I was still only running my race and hadn't been influenced one ounce all day long!
I was using music in a race for the very first time...and it honestly made a HUGE difference! My blisters were acting up, the body was shutting down, and there was under fifteen miles to go. I was in an all out battle with Glen and though he openly said he wasn't competing against me, rather trying to outrun AJW, we both knew that 6th was better than 7th and which ever one of us hit the tape first could claim to be the first Canadian runner on the day. In my own head,
"Ain't no damn way I'm running for 17hr out here to be the SECOND Canadian across that finish line!"
Me to Matt,
"Do you mind if I plug in and tune out right now? I need to zone out in a hurry!"
I was running with one ear bud all day and when I put both in it pretty much took me to another world! I could no longer hear my breathing or my footsteps. I'd been running for the better part of fifteen hours. I was stating to feel more like I was floating down that trail than actually propelling myself. Everything still hurt, but it just hurt less. A Foo Fighters song kicked in and I actually played air guitar for a bit. It was such a magical distraction from the absolute pain of that moment.
Eventually the ear phones would come out as I hit an aid station and after but a ninety second break my blisters would not allow me to exit any aid station running. I had to pound me feet a few times first to accept what was forthcoming. Inevitably Glen would arrive at an aid station just behind me, transition faster and pass me, and then I would catch up and pass him again a few minutes later. It was a true race, a test of wills this far on, and I was loving it.
I knew where I was going to make my move. I knew where I was going to take sixth place for good and hold it until the line. Having hiking the course last year was one of the best things I could have done.
We departed Highway 49 in unison, donning headlamps for the very first time. There was but 6.5 miles to go in our 100 mile odyssey. I was a step in front this time, and I had taken enough supplies to carry me through to the finish. I wasn't about to stop at either of the two remaining aid stations and allow my blisters the better of me once again. We headed into a slight climb, which filtered us out into a flat meadow before what I vividly remembered to be an excruciatingly steep descent to 'No Hands Bridge' from last year. Truth be told it's not that bad, but at 95 miles into a race it's just steep enough that if your legs are toast it's a little slice of hell on earth.
I knew my quads were fine, in fact by that point in the race I knew I'd played my descents a bit too conservative all day long. It didn't matter though, I was about to finish Western States exactly how I had dreamed of doing...while actually running!
I laid into that descent like I was running a five km time trial on completely fresh legs. I simply let loose because I knew that I could. There was one switchback half way down where you could look back along the route. I could see Glen's headlamp already 300 meters back. My blisters were now screaming for mercy and that went through my head was,
"Don't tell me this hurts! This feels too damn good to hurt dammit! This is what you came for, this is what it's all about, this feels f@#king amazing! You're about to snag sixth place at Western States!!"
I blew through NHB aid station, simply yelling my number as I pulled out one ear bud and confirmed they heard me. Across the bridge, shoulder check for lights, nothing, hammering up the final climb, my body full of adrenaline now. I felt no pain, I ran like a man possessed. I think I'd struggle to run that final climb as fast as I did at any point in time. I simply wanted this thing over with...and I wanted one more thing...
Some might think this completely trivial, and to that I say you are mostly right. The fastest ever Canadian time at Western States was way back in 1991 by local Knee Knacker legend Peter Findlay. He ran a 17h02m59s. I've known this 'Canadian Record' for quite sometime, and though I obviously have my goals set higher than just a frivalous Canadian Record it was still something that I was shooting for. I had a lengthy talk with Peter after my run last year and he told me a similar story from his first experience, followed up by the above time in his second running of the race. It made last years debacle a little easier to swallow. I knew from the time I hit Green Gate that I was on pace to challenge this time. I was honestly shooting for sub 17hr and I was going to leave everything I had left in me out on that course to try to snag it!
Through the final aid station at Robie Point, 98.9 miles down...one mile to go now. A tedious paved, uphill mile that I won't underestimate next year. I took out the music and tried to 'enjoy' the run in. Numerous locals were sitting on their decks cheering people on. I thought I could soak it all up but in all honesty I shut it down just a little too early and that final mile was a wee bit torturous!
PLEASE MAKE LET THIS END!
Onto the track now, three hundred meters to go. Just twelve months from the time that I couldn't even muster enough body strength to run around that track and now I was sprinting it in! I couldn't believe what I was about to finish...
17h06m20s
SIXTH OVERALL
(fourth fastest closing 20miles behind only Geoff, Tony, and Nick Clark)
-Finish the race -Run intelligently -Sub 17h30m -Top eight -HAVE FUN with it -Give myself something positive to build upon leading into the 2011 version of the race
Finishing sixth overall means I automatically get to return again next year, and my goals for that race will be significantly different than they were this year. For now it's time to enjoy a break before the real work begins... Full Results
So how did it happen?
