Thanksgiving is over and for many thoughts have turned to the next big day.
No, not Christmas. Sooner.
On Saturday morning, Placer High School in Auburn, California will play host to the annual lottery for the Western States Endurance Run. Thousands of applicants, having completed at least one of the official qualifying 50 mile, 100 kilometer or 100 mile (or some distance between those three) races in 2013, will wait expectantly, fingers crossed that theirs will be one of just 400 (or so) names drawn to take part in the storied race in June of 2014.
This past year has been by far my favorite year of running but I didn't actually do much racing and what racing I did do was rather forgettable from a competitive standpoint. The posted results were pretty underwhelming and there were even a couple of DNFs along the way. It wasn't until late October that an official Western States qualifier was eked out with a sub-11 hour finish at the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK 50 mile race near State College, Pennsylvania.
Each consecutive year that an entrant fails to have his or her name drawn in the lottery, she or he is assured of a second "ball" in the next lottery so long as a qualifying race is again completed in the preceding calendar year. Such was the case for me in not having been drawn last December, so the finish at Tussey increased my odds from poor to slightly less poor.
All I had to do was complete the registration.
Back in early November, I logged into Ultra Signup and found myself staring at the monitor, fingers hovering over the keyboard, thinking about the path that had led me there.
Back in 2009, I ran my first ultra, the New River 50K in southern Virginia. At the time, I hadn't actually met anyone who had run that far at one shot. For the life of me, I can't recall what made me think that I could nor can I remember how that race had been chosen as my first. The start of a bad habit never really broken, I ran too fast early and faltered late...but I did finish and obviously have continued to come back for more.
As I suspect happens to many people who get hooked on long-distance trail running, I started seeking out races all over the country and, upon learning about the race and its history, immediately moved Western States to the top of my must-do list.
The increasing popularity of trail running and ultra racing has made Western States more and more exclusive. The number of applicants jumps exponentially each year without further expansion of the field due to caps put in place in 1984 with the enacting of the California Wilderness Act. That act helped to create the Granite Chief Wilderness through which the course passes as well as many other wilderness areas in the state of California and that same act continues to protect these areas today. I, for one, am a huge proponent of the race cap even if it means that many runners must wait years to get into Western States and some will never get in at all. It will become even harder next year as 50-mile qualifying races are eliminated entirely and folks scramble to register for the longer events that will be the only way to earn entry into the lottery.
All of which was rattling around in my head as I sat in front of my computer. I wanted in, but so did many, many others. Why should I be allowed in over anyone else? Was it really MY dream, THE race that I simply had to do over all others? Did I really want to toe the line MORE than anyone else?
"This past year has been by far my favorite year of running...."
It's been my favorite year of RUNNING, but that doesn't necessarily have much or anything to do with racing. My done-in-a-day run of the Black Forest Trail in May was an incredible experience and I've revisited that day in my head, in storytelling and in writing many times. A couple of morning runs with friends in and around Boulder in July stand out in far greater detail than most of the organized events in which I participated. So too do so many solitary runs here at home as well as numerous small group outings with friends on the nearby Horseshoe, Conestoga and Mason-Dixon trails. I had a blast for the second year in a row at TransRockies this past August but, honestly, my favorite moments at TRR consist not of the race but of minutes of the days and nights spent there in conversation with friends on and off the course. Pacing for my dear friend Kelly at the Leadville 100 was another experience that will remain vivid for the rest of my years, but I was there for him, not for me, not even for the race itself. I was there with a friend, trying to help him achieve his dream and that was what made it so meaningful. It's a cherished memory, but the race itself wasn't and isn't one I ever need to do myself. Sugar Pie, my four-legged companion, arrived late in the year and has transformed every outing into something special. A late season through-run of the Old Loggers Path with her and a handful of new friends confirmed that I would take that type of adventure over an organized event any and every day.
I dream of running, not of racing.
And it isn't all I dream of...not nearly. In fact, much of what I dream of doesn't involve running at all.
Yes, I would love to run Western States and may yet one day, but, honestly, I would be lying if said I actually dream of it. But I know others do and sitting in front of my monitor I realized that I needed to leave those dreams to others until or unless the race becomes that for me, especially if my bowing out increases the chances of someone else's dream coming true.
On Saturday morning, Placer High School in Auburn, California will play host to the annual lottery for the Western States Endurance Run...you can bet I'll be paying close attention to who "wins" their way in even though I've removed myself from the running by deciding against registering. I'm excited to send congratulations to all who see their dream come true and can't wait to see how those dreams continue to take shape between now and next June.
I'll keep dreaming too, but of other things.
And, holiday or not, I'm going to keep on giving thanks as well. Giving thanks and hoping for the future. I have much reason for both.
I am thankful, immensely, for my wife and hopeful that she and I will both still be drawing breath together decades from now and hopeful too that every now and again her hand will reach out to me or squeeze back when I reach out to take her hand in mine.
I am thankful, boundlessly, for my daughters and hopeful that they will never let what they know (or think they know) or all that they've experienced get in the way of striving for what they don't know and have yet to experience. I am hopeful that they are never unaware of the love and faith in their abilities that their parents have for them.
I am thankful for my immediate, extended and adopted families for shaping me, accepting me and reshaping me anew when necessary (often) into a me that I too am able to accept. I am hopeful that together we grow, flourish and continue to celebrate the myriad of ways in which we are different and the same.
I am joyfully thankful for this planet for both possessing natural, untrammeled wonders and for hosting the triumphs of civilization. I remain cautiously hopeful that distinction and balance can be made between the two and that the failures of civilization aren't mistaken for triumphs and allowed to render nature extinct, not in my lifetime nor the lifetime of any creature that comes after.
I am thankful for hope. Real hope. Not sloganeering, not wouldn't-that-be-nice daydreaming, not wishful thinking without effort made toward realization. Real hope with real effort.
I am thankful for dreams and hopeful for dreams, realized or simply sought after.
Before this exhausted train of thought clatters another section of
rail farther down the track, let me say that Race Director Mike Casper does a
masterful job with the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK 50 Mile Relay and Ultramarathon. The course could not have been marked more clearly and overall race support was fantastic It
is my understanding that there were some changes made to the course this year
and I have not run the race before, so I can’t offer any comparisons or contrasts, but I can attest to the fact that the now single loop snakes through a lovely
forested swath of Pennsylvania and does so at a jaw-droppingly beautiful time
of year, coinciding nicely with peak foliage season. It well lives up to its “for the hill of it”
slogan with more than a mile of total vertical gain spread out over 4 or 5
significant climbs.
Aid stations were
plentiful and well-stocked with fluids, fuel and folks. Good folks.
The official race website was/is chock full of information, including
some of the most detailed (and on point) section descriptions I've seen. E-mails sent in the days just prior to the
race keenly pointed out just those items of greatest significance ahead of packet
pick-up while providing quick (and functioning) links to any and all other info a
runner might want or need before toeing the line.
There is a lot, a whole lot, to love about the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK, but, as
life works, we aren’t all smitten by the same pretty face. In fact, we all seem to have differing and
even changing opinions of what constitutes “pretty” and in my current state, I
feel like I’m waking up lying next to someone who looked a lot more attractive
the night before.
To be less crass, step away from the “morning after” meme
and return to my earlier theme, it might be more appropriate to say that I feel like I've been run over by that train from the first paragraph. I'd signed up for Tussey back in summer after realizing that I was without a qualifying race for the 2014 running of Western States and also without a 100-miler on the calendar to make up for that absence. I knew little about the race other than that it wasn't far from my Lancaster County home, it was known to be "fast" (I'd need to go sub-11 hours to qualify for WS) and that fact had much to do with it being "all roads" which I took to mean mostly roads. Surely. The race became almost an afterthought once I decided to run the Oil Creek 100 for the second straight year and in the process sneak into the Western States lottery simply by finishing within the 32-hour cutoff time. It had taken me 28 hours to finish Oil Creek in 2012 but all went well enough and, if anything, I was feeling more fit this year so I returned to Titusville with little concern about the outcome. Oops. And so, after a DNF at Oil Creek, Tussey had again become my one shot at a Squaw Valley starting line come June and the bad back that had led to my short day two weeks earlier had some serious misgivings about the course being "all roads". Thank goodness that couldn't possibly be true. Surely.
Race morning broke briskly with temperatures in the mid-40's with a steady breeze that made it feel much colder. As the start line at the Tussey Mountain ski resort is literally right next to the parking area, most runners stuck close to their cars until right before race start. I did, at least, and because of that failed to take part in the usual pre-race mingling that I so enjoy. I did manage to cross paths with Carli Moua just before the gun went off and we spent the first few hundred yards of the race catching up, each sharing the reasons why we expected to find the day challenging. After a very brief downhill start, the course gave its first taste of what was to come with a hard right-hand turn off of the pavement onto an incline up a hard-packed fire road. That climb kept going for nearly 3 miles and included almost 900 feet of up. It was runnable for sure, but that early in a 50-mile race it left me wondering if actually running it was a good idea, not that that stopped me from doing it. At some point early in the climb, the sun rose and I was glad to have eschewed a headlamp at the start. With the light of day, the beauty of the autumnal forest came into focus and with wind no longer a factor, the temperature was absolutely ideal for a day of movement. Within those first 3 miles we reached the intersection of the Mid-State Trail and I couldn't help but notice that we ignored it and stuck to the fire road. With the first ascent completed, we reached the first aid station/transition zone (remember, relay comes before ultramarathon in the race name) and not feeling taxed, hungry or thirsty, I rolled right past and headlong into the 7 mile descent that came next. As advertised, the pace was swift even though that term is relative for those of us in the middle-to-the-back of the pack. I glanced at my Suunto right around the first hour mark and discovered that I was moving along at sub 9-minute mile pace. I nearly panicked but a quick check on my breathing, my heart rate and the state of my legs confirmed that I hadn't gotten too carried away. We'd passed up another trail, the Wildcat Gap Trail, but I was certain that sooner or later we'd get off of the road and then the pace would settle into something closer to what I was used to. Surely. We did leave the fire road behind but, unfortunately, it was for more pavement as we neared and then turned into the parking lot at Whipple Dam State Park. About a mile before that turn, my back fired off a warning shot that made me wonder what the day would bring. Though I wouldn't normally do so that early in a race, I asked for Ibuprofen at the aid station, determined to be proactive rather than letting things escalate like I had at Oil Creek. Pills gulped, apprehensively, I pounded back off onto the pavement. The fourth leg had another short, steep climb and I did my first walking of the day to try to appease my back and do a systems check. Other than the back, everything seemed to be holding together and my pace had backed off only slightly with the half marathon mark being reached right at 2 hours. It really was a lovely morning running within the tunnel of yellows, oranges and reds that clung fleetingly to the trees. The few breaks in the trees to our left or right showed sweeping views of the valleys below, also cloaked in fall colors.
We descended the road down into the Alan Seeger Natural Area where pines intermixed with the deciduous trees and added some depth and shadows to the landscape. We were twenty miles into the day and I was really looking forward to getting onto some singletrack and running beneath the forest canopy instead of just to one side of it. My legs and back couldn't have cared less about the scenery but they were definitely campaigning for a change underfoot. No dice. Leaving the transition zone at Alan Seeger, we hung a right onto yet another road and began the longest up of the day. I'd made up my mind the day before that I would purposely powerhike this section but that pre-planning wouldn't have been necessary. My legs appreciated the change of pace but my back was unhappy. Luckily, I fell into stride with Donald Halke II, a name and individual I "knew" through Facebook but had never had the pleasure of actually meeting. Don has led, continues to lead, an amazing life and has overcome much since suffering a heart attack a few years ago. I was grateful for his company, his wonderful storytelling and the treasure trove of life experiences that inform the stories he has to tell. None of that eliminated the pain that I was feeling but it was a really nice distraction and helped 4 miles and 1,300 feet of climbing pass by without feeling as interminably long as I'm sure it would have without Don there. He pulled away before the crest but had towed me most of the way whether he realized it or not. Soon thereafter, the halfway point of the race came and went and the wheels we're hanging on, if barely. Alluring trails seemed to shoot off in every direction, taunting with whispers of their magical contours, varying terrain and cool creek crossings. But the road went on and on and we runners with it. Traffic on the road had increased, as the waves of relay team starts that had kicked off an hour after the ultra began had caught up with all but the front running 50-milers which meant that corresponding waves of crew vehicles were migrating from transition zone to transition zone on the same car width-and-a-half fire roads with the runners. While this never outright hindered progress, it did leave you looking over your shoulder for much of the day and begrudgingly stepping from your preferred lines to make way for automobiles. Not surprisingly, this became far more bothersome as fatigue increased and pain settled in. To be fair, that nuisance was somewhat offset by the enthusiasm and moral support that came from the relay runners and support crews. Each "great job, ultra" that was uttered, and there were many, made me feel guilty for my inner grumbling at the congestion that the relay created. Still, it took its toll. I'd knocked back another couple of Ibuprofen when my back and right IT band appeared to be losing steam in unison. I was hurting and was really surprised to glance at my wrist and learn that a sub-6 hour 50K was in the books.
I knew full well the leaders were either finished or nearing the finish, but, never mistaking me for them, I was pleased to know that the sub-11 hour finish that I'd come seeking was still well within reach, especially with the steepest and longest ascents completed. We passed up the Mid-State Trail yet again and fire roads gave way to pavement once more. We weren't going to be getting on any trails. Tussey really was all roads and I was going to need to get over it and get on with the rest of the race. To hearken for just a moment back to my opening statements, the race website couldn't have been ANY clearer in mapping out the course section by section and only the blind or the very dense could have had access to that information and still wandered out on the course expecting trails. I've got pretty good vision, but, man, can I be dense. We remained on paved roads until the aid station at mile 40 where I was thrilled to see the familiar and welcome face of Marie Garmat. She'd had success at Oil Creek where I had not and she seemed surprised to see me back at it just two weeks later. By that point in the race, I too was wondering what in the hell I was doing there, but Marie's encouragement coupled with the comprehension that there were only 10 miles to go shooed me back onto the course with relatively high spirits. She also hooked me up with a hug and what I hoped would be my final dose of Ibuprofen. Mercifully, the pavement soon thereafter changed back to fire road, definitely the lesser of two evils that late in the day. I had certainly given away some time in the middle hours of the day but was still maintaining a roughly 10 hour overall pace. There were minutes in the bank if I needed them, but I was growing concerned that every last one of them would be spent. My "run" up the final 3.3 mile climb before the ending descent was slow but steady. I'm a pretty solid powerhiker and usually do a good job of remaining relatively upright while doing so but lifting my head made my back scream so I just stared at the ground two-and-a-half feet in front of me and trudged, trudged, trudged. Halfway up I became fixated on the Coke I knew was waiting at the aid station situated at mile 46. That thought drew me like a tractor beam up over the last steep incline and along the short down slope to the transition zone. I lifted my hand and smiled weakly at the encouraging claps and cheers being served up to every runner entering the aid station. My eyes locked with those of the kind woman at the table pouring drinks as I tried to telepathically let her know what I was coming to get. She grinned and asked me "what I was having" but my eyes had already swept over the table and relayed the bad news. "You don't have any Coke", I stated more than asked and she looked pained at the proclamation. "No, I'm sorry, we ran out some time ago," she confirmed. "But I've made note for next year that we should have more," she offered warmly. I slumped noticeably. I noticed. So did she. After a brief pause and recognizing the absurdity of my petty distress, I apologized, grabbed a cupful of water and got back to hiking. There were only 4.2 miles left to the finish and nearly every step was downhill. With no concern for roots, rocks or uneven ground, this should have been an ideal finish to the race but I was in no shape to take advantage. I shuffled along for minutes at a time at something nearly resembling a run, but mostly I walked. All day long, small "camps" and cabins had perched just off the road or nestled farther back in among the trees. These rustic shelters romantically reminded me of past backpacking and camping trips. Throughout the morning and afternoon I'd daydreamed in passing about returning with the family to these retreats on less busy days to watch the leaves turn and listen to the birds and squirrels at play.
Whether because I was simply done in or because the Chester County Camp looked to be the place for me, I paused to snap a photograph and nearly retired to the front porch. I couldn't have been more than 3.5 miles from the start/finish line and Route 322 was just another mile beyond there. I had my phone with me but couldn't get a signal. I contemplated typing out a text message to Lindsay, letting her know where I was and telling her to pack the car and bring the kids. I could leave the message unsent, flag down the next runner who passed and have her or him hit "send" once a cell signal was reached. It seemed like a reasonable plan, except it would have meant that I had run 47 miles of road and left without my qualifier. I turned from the structure and continued on my way. A few hundred yards later, there was an even more picturesque cabin on the other side of the road. This one. Maybe this one was the one. As I shook off that ridiculous temptation a second time, something triggered a final "second" wind and I began moving forward a bit more quickly. I hurt, for sure, but the end was so close and, frankly, being done for the day was highly motivating. I wouldn't be sending for the family but I was ready to get back to them. I passed a few people who'd passed me in the last few miles and felt almost silly to be moving by them at the pace that I was mustering, as though I'd been playing possum (don't get me started on possums) all along. Of course, if I had been, I wouldn't have waited until 10 hours into the race to break character. The final descent deposited me back on the short section of road that had led from the start to begin the day and a minute later I'd crossed the line and finished in 10:09:33.
Thank you Hokas...the only thing that didn't hurt after Tussey was my feet and lower legs.
Pretty?
No, it wasn't pretty and I don't believe I'll be back to run the Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK a second time, at least not a full 50-mile go 'round. I'm not getting any faster and am not about to put in the road miles or speedwork necessary to do much improving on that type of course. Though it was easily my fastest 50-mile time ever, it reaffirmed how fast I am NOT and left me staggered for days afterwards when usually I'm back to near normal two days later.
I had accomplished what I set out to do and that was as close as I was going to get to being king for the day (unless that finish materializes into a drawn ping pong ball come Western States lottery day).
And there were those glimpses of siren song singletrack winding off into the woods.
While in Colorado last August to run TransRockies I, unwittingly, found myself as a cast member in what was affectionately (I think) dubbed the Year of the Beard. Some guy by the name of Rob Krar was playing a similar role.
Well, sort of.
He was also busy tearing the ass out of the course with his partner, Mike Smith, ultimately winning the 6-day event by, um, a healthy margin. A really healthy margin.
I, meanwhile, was picking myself up out of the dirt and thanking the heavens for having a teammate, Sean McCoy (love you, man), who didn't seem to take it too hard that we weren't going to be threatening anyone for the win. He also good-naturedly overlooked the constant distraction that was my beard.
That beard didn't do me a bit of good with regards to the race itself, but it also may well have been the icebreaker that introduced me to Rob (and many others, for that matter). I only ever actually saw him one time on course and even then only because there was an open, doglegged section of dirt road that let all of us middle-and-back-of-the-packers see he and Mike vanishing off into the distance. Luckily, in Vail after the end of an exhausting Stage 5, I did get a chance to spend some time chatting with him and his now wife, Christina.
Beard or no beard, he was just good people. She and he both.
A year later, Rob has made a major splash on the ultra-racing scene and is poised to be in the mix late in the day at his very first 100-mile race, a race that just happens to be the one and only Western States Endurance Run, arguably the most iconic hundred of them all.
It was my pleasure to recently hear in great detail Rob's journey from being an accomplished middle-distance track and field athlete in college to being a burned out and injured road runner and, eventually, reinventing himself as successful trail racer at increasingly longer distances. Getting to retell that story on iRunFar in the days leading up to Saturday's big race was a joy and an honor that I will cherish.
Another joy, always, is helping the iRF team cover some of the most prestigious ultra races from around the globe, and Western States, of course, is at the top of that list. With iRF founder Bryon Powell lacing up his kicks to take another crack at the course himself this weekend, those of us who help moderate the online race coverage will be paying that much closer attention to how the day plays out.
I'll do my best to be unbiased, but I must admit that I'll be pulling hard for Rob and Bryon to have the performances I feel they're both capable of having with the work they've put in and the talent they possess.
If you're enough of an ultra-junkie to keep revisiting your monitor screen for the latest updated over the many hours it takes for a 100 mile race to play out, you already know how great it is to have a resource like iRunFar to deliver (nearly) real-time peek ins. For those of you who haven't checked in before, I encourage you to do so on Saturday.
Here's a link to iRunFar's live coverage of the 2013 Western States 100 which kicks off at 5:00 AM, PDT on Saturday morning:
Between now and then, you still have time to watch and listen to interviews with many of the race favorites, find out who race fans are predicting will vie for the win, and read a number of pre-race articles and historical features on the race.
There will be an amazing collection of talent assembled at the Squaw Valley starting line and it will include grizzled veterans with 100-mile long resumes of trail success and some relative newbies with speedy credentials yet to be tested at 100 miles (count Rob among the latter). Weather reports all seem to agree on sky-high temperatures that will surely impact the race, especially as the afternoon drags on and runners drop deeper and deeper into the canyons carved out by the American River. And, as always, there's the history that is Western States animating every inch of the trail while awaiting the completion of another storied chapter.
I first became aware of the name Gary Robbins in the Fall of 2010. A shoe junkie, I'd caught wind of the soon to be released Montrail Rogue Racer, a stripped down offering from a brand that hadn't rolled out anything even remotely "minimalist" before. I asked the internet to tell me more and YouTube introduced Gary's grinning face after a few moments of ridiculously demanding Northwestern uphilling. Gary, then sponsored by Montrail, offered up his first impressions of the Rogue Racer before bombing back down the 3,000 vertical feet he'd just climbed. The terrain revealed by the headcam that he was wearing was a preposterous tangle of roots, ruts and rocks that almost required a redefinition of the term "technical".
Forget the Rogue Racer.
I didn't know who this guy was, but I sure liked his style.
Six months later while visiting Escalante, Utah and nursing a minor Achilles issue, I discovered that Gary Robbins was in town too and just getting over an injury of his own. He'd suffered a Jones fracture in late October and it had laid waste to the tail end of his very successful 2010 and all of 2011 up to that point.
It was April.
Basically, he hadn't run at all, much less tackled anything like the trail I'd seen on YouTube, since that Rogue Racer video had been filmed and posted.
I'd never heard of a Jones fracture. As a textbook would report, it is an injury to the fifth metatarsal bone (located at the base of the small toe where it meets the foot) and occurs on the top of the bone in the midfoot. More simply, it's more or less a runner's worst nightmare in that it is located in an area of the foot that is greatly impacted by any and every given footfall. Worse yet, this type of break can show a stubborn unwillingness to knit.
But the fracture had, at last, healed and as I sat and talked with Gary he was beaming with the anticipation of his first post-break long run that very next day and the looking forward to training for and racing the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in the Alps that August alongside a field that was already stacking up to be the strongest assemblage of North American, European and other international runners to ever toe a 100-mile starting line. His relief was evident and, even having just met the man, I was immediately excited for him and sure I'd be rooting for him later that summer.
In some small way Gary's enthusiasm and optimism on the immediate heels of the challenges he'd faced over the previous months of rehab made my injury seem insignificant and completely manageable. I'd been feeling pretty low as I'd been unable to run during the couple of weeks leading up to the trip to Escalante and even my activities while there were limited by the very strong suggestion of my physical therapist. My spirits were lifted after just a few minutes of getting-to-know-you with Gary.
In the days after I'd returned to the East Coast and Gary had made his way back home to North Vancouver, British Columbia, I decided to reach back out to him to see if he'd be willing to let me interview him regarding overcoming injury and remaining hopeful during rehabilitation and periods of not being able to run and, after the fact, coping with the lingering memories of having been let down by one's body.
He agreed, but completing that interview took a lot longer than either of us expected.
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.*
Gary Robbins does not possess an ultrarunning background. He doesn't even have a running background. None at all, in fact. As he told me, "it was 2009 before I had even done a 100-mile running week ever in my entire life and, prior to 2004, I had run less than 100 miles in my then 26 years on the planet." That last bit might have been an exaggeration, but, based on the sound of the voice on the other end of the telephone, I didn't think so.
Regardless, by 2007 he'd run a handful of ultras and won North Vancouver's Dirty Duo 50K that May. In August of that following year, having switched gears to make ultrarunning his primary training focus, he won the first 100-miler that he entered, crossing the finish line of Squamish's Stormy Trail 100-Miler in a blazing 17:39:03. Several 50K and 50 Mile podium finishes followed over the next year-and-a-half and the only performance that really fell short of his expectations came on a tough day at the 2009 Western States Endurance Run. He'd become one of the top ultrarunners in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest but needed a breakthrough performance to bring him broader recognition.
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
The H.U.R.T. Trail 100-Mile Endurance Run, more commonly referred to simply as the H.U.R.T. 100, is a notoriously punishing race that takes place in the tropical, volcanic mountains above Honolulu, Hawaii. Consisting of five 20-mile loops, the course touts its roots, rocks, puddles and "mud wallows" (yes, mud wallows) and 20 total stream crossings. The trails are narrow, sometimes treacherous and teeter along exposed ridges and dizzying vertical drops. The highest point on the course is only 1,800 feet above sea level but the total elevation gain is an intimidating 24,500 feet.
Long story short, it's a beast of a course and has been won by some big names since its inception back in 2001. In 2009 eventual Ultrarunner of the Year-winner Geoff Roes had shaved an astonishing 15 minutes off of the previous fastest finish, lowering it to a 20:28:00, a time that still very much confirmed how H.U.R.T. stacked up against other storied 100-milers with significantly faster course records.
As evidenced in the footage I'd seen, Gary liked technical courses and he loved attacking downhills. There's just as much "down" as "up" at H.U.R.T., so Gary liked his chances.
He should have.
He found a way to peel another 16 minutes off of the course, blowing away Geoff's one-year old record with a 20:12:00.
"I flew to Hawaii and at that point I was a relative unknown.I was known in my local community but I wasn’t even the favorite to win the race and I broke Geoff Roes’ course record.Personally, that was my goal.That’s what I went there for and I believed I could do that, but, I remember that people weren’t picking me."
That June Gary returned to Squaw Valley for another crack at Western States. On the historic day now memorialized in J.B. Benna's film Unbreakable, Gary avenged his disappointing performance the year before with an impressive 6th place finish of which he remains extremely proud.
Photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama
"It’s funny, because I actually remember it more like a victory than I do a 6th place finish and part of that was because the year before I went to Western States all piss-and-vinegar having done one 100 miler and tried some things and blew up and walked the final 20 miles to the finish line to finish 49th.A year later I went back with the desire to improve upon a mistake that I’d made and that 6th place...I remember speaking of it numerous times, and my brain going 'you didn’t win that race, it just feels like you did because you won something in yourself'."
Shortly after Western States, he established the fastest known time (FKT) on Canada's West Coast Trail and followed that up with a corresponding FKT of the East Coast Trail in his childhood home of Newfoundland. While doing so, he raised $5000 for Right to Play, an international organization that uses sports to educate and empower children facing adversity.
"I was really just on top of the world in terms of where I wanted to be and how I wanted to go about things and I was building continually on successes."
Those successes had garnered several sponsorships, most notably that of Mountain Hardwear/Montrail. In October, Gary was flown to Oregon as part of a Mountain Hardwear running conference and learned that the company had decided to include him in more of their advertising and better promote him among their retailers. It was the first real evidence of his increased exposure, the success of his running and the fact that he was being rewarded for it.
"I was in with Max King and Geoff Roes. They’re buddies of mine but at the same token I have such a massive level of respect for them as runners. Geoff was THE man…I mean he was undefeated in 100-mile races. It was just a culmination of a lot for me and I felt like it couldn’t have gotten any better."
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don't.
Because, sometimes, you won't.
The very next day, October 26, 2010, Gary broke his foot.
"It was such a weird experience because I was running with Max and Geoff and didn’t want to be the weak link. I slipped on a snow covered rock, folded my foot in half and was in excruciating pain but I didn’t even make a peep. I ran another 2 miles with them before we stopped. That was supposed to be our turn around and Max said 'I think we should go a bit further' and I said 'I think I broke my foot'. And I remember Geoff just looked at me and was like 'what do you mean you THINK you broke your foot? You haven’t even said anything?'"
At the hospital in Bend, x-rays were taken and a nurse confirmed that the foot was broken. Her exact words were "and it's kinda bad."
Well respected orthopedic surgeon Dr. Dory Boyer made it clear that the healing and recovery period for a Jones fracture could be lengthy and strongly suggested surgery. After initially leaning that direction but reading conflicting reports that raised concerns about issues with the screw and the flexion point of the foot, Gary chose to go the route of immobilization until the two break points united.
"As a teenager I always felt that surgery and war wounds were cool but now as I was getting a bit older I was like 'no, I have to think this through, this is my body and I need to prevent anything foreign from going in it if I can.' It’s not cool to be able to say I have a pin in my foot if I don’t need it in there. So, I was adamant about not getting surgery if I didn’t have to."
That decision would be questioned throughout the process.
"Even when I broke my foot, I thought 'oh, whatever, it’s October, it's November, I’ll take a couple of months off. It sucks but I’ll get through this.'"
Gary prepared to be on crutches for 6 weeks, but repeated x-rays showed no healing and crutches remained a necessity. Six weeks crept to eight weeks, two months became three.
He'd embraced running late in life and had never had any intention of it being his sole identity. The severity of the Jones fracture and its refusal to improve made it that much more imperative that he not lose himself to the disappointment of not being able to run at all much less competitively in the short term. To stay positive and reconnect with a life not defined solely by sport, Gary reached back out to friends and family that knew him as far more than just a runner.
"Basically when I first was sidelined, I made a list of all my very good friends that I hadn’t seen, had not taken the time out of my training, out of my day, out of my life to spend time with. I made a list of all the people that I truly have great friendships with and I went 'I’m gonna see every single one of these guys in this process.'"
He revisited Banff, where he'd lived for several years, and caught up with a number of old friends. He flew home to Newfoundland and spent Christmas with his family. The human interaction pulled him through and helped keep him from focusing solely on his injury, his not being able to run and his loss of fitness.
But he still longed to get back at it.
Though it took far longer than predicted, the non-union finally did begin to take and on February 1, 2011, Gary was off of crutches and back on his own two feet. He was still registered for both Western States (June) and UTMB (August).
Having gone from a non-runner to a successful, competitive runner in such a short period of time to begin with and possessing a mentality that allowed him to go far and fast, he jumped right back into training and training hard.
"I didn’t contemplate getting injured again. I was told that pain should be my only indicating factor of if I’m doing too much and, realistically, I didn’t have a lot of pain in my foot."
Immediately, he was consistently doing more sooner than the timetables provided by his doctor would have suggested or advised. He ran a 10K four weeks earlier than the doctor said he should. He logged a 20+ mile run the day after we first met in Escalante and finished 3rd at the Capitol Peak 50-Miler in Olympia, Washington the following week. And did it all pain-free.
He was back.
You can get so confused
that you'll start to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
"And people around me who were outspoken were saying the same thing: 'I don’t think this is smart.' And then I think a lot of people were biting their tongues because they didn’t have the place to say that. But the people that had the right to say that to me said it. More than once."
But he didn't have pain in his foot and he shelved all of the other advice and input and clung to that one easy-to-measure guide given by the doctor, "if you have pain in your foot, slow down and don’t run." He didn't, so he didn't.
Two weeks after Capital Peak, Gary and his girlfriend and fellow ultrarunner Linda Barton flew to Hawaii for a mix of vacation and training. The plan was simple; get up early every morning, log 10-20 daily miles of technical, mountainous running with a goal of 100 miles for the week and then retire to the beach after training each day for relaxation and recovery. They stuck to the plan and it was everything they'd hoped it would be.
On day 6 of their 7 day stay, Gary and Linda were running separate sections of the H.U.R.T. course that Gary knew so well. In the midst of his 85th mile of the week, Gary rolled his foot and quite literally heard the bone snap.
And this time the diagnosis wouldn't be a surprise.
"I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, I KNEW it was the exact same fracture line."
But getting to that diagnosis would require some significant work. He didn't have his phone and he didn't know when or even if Linda would pass through that section of the course. He wasn’t even certain that there was anyone else in the vicinity so all he could do was begin inching his way toward the nearest trailhead.
Crawling and hobbling, Gary needed 45 minutes to navigate a single mile. Reaching a main intersection, he was finally able to call out to some volunteers who were busy with trail maintenance. The volunteers called search-and-rescue and Linda was contacted. There'd be no ambulance waiting to whisk Gary away from this remote section of the island. He was shuttled instead by a basket dangling beneath a helicopter that evacuated him to a point at which an ambulance could then transport him to the hospital.
Gary had been wearing his GoPro when the injury occurred and he'd kept right on filming.
"I went through a period of almost shock and I actually had to delete a lot of the video footage because I could only watch it once and I didn’t want anybody to see some of the things that I went through because what happened at that moment wasn’t just the pain of breaking my foot. It was the overwhelming, flooding knowledge of what I was gonna be going through again and I was watching all my running dreams just dissipate and disappear before my eyes and the biggest and hardest thing to take in in those nano-seconds of processing what’s happening was having to ask 'how can I ever trust my own body? I don’t know if I’m ever going to get past this.'”
His first thought was UTMB. The race that he'd been dreaming of for a couple of years, the race that was being billed as playing host to perhaps the most competitive 100-mile field ever, a race that he'd intended to train for specifically and single-mindedly in the hope of having another one of those magical days that met his expectations and far exceeded the expectations of others, was gone.
And that was only the most immediate of the dreams that had slipped away. For all Gary knew, he'd never race competitively again.
After flying home to B.C., Gary paid an all too familiar visit to Dr. Boyer. Surgery was again prescribed and even scheduled before Gary decided to forego it for a second time.
"I was going to give it one more shot and I was really going to rehab it properly once it finally healed."
Once healing occurred, it could be determined if competitive running would be possible. The doctor had planted the seed that Gary might eventually need to revisit what he'd been doing, consider lower-impact options like cycling and possibly even avoid mountain running entirely. The reality was that the type of technical downhill running that he loved the most delivered a tremendous amount of stress on joints, tendons and ligaments and his foot had obviously given beneath the strain of that punishment.
The second x-ray, taken a few weeks later, was worse than the first. Deja vu.
Getting a non-union Jones fracture to "take" is not a guarantee. Gary knew this, perhaps better than anyone. He still wanted to avoid surgery but he was going to need help.
Dr. Boyer suggested that Gary try Orthofix, a bone stimulation healing device that introduces an electro-magnetic current to trigger both "sides" of a fractured bone to begin to fuse. It basically serves as a mediator between two non-communicating parts of the body and gets the healing process back on track. It wouldn't necessarily be quick but it was progress and non-invasive. Another x-ray, taken a few weeks later, showed improvement.
The physical process was underway, but there was psychological healing required too.
This second go-round really made Gary question his running mortality. Had he given too much to a sport where success can be fleeting even without injury?
"As much as I’m passionate about it and I love it, I didn’t even have this in my life in 2003. In 2004 I got into it and now, in 2011, I’m struggling to remember who I actually am without being a runner . I decided that I was going to have something positive, long term, that came away from being sidelined. I was going to focus my energy toward something else and accomplish something else and utilize the time so that I could eventually, hopefully, look back on it and say 'this positive came from this negative.'”
He still very much loved running, loved trail running, loved mountain running and knew that he wanted to be a runner, in some fashion, for the rest of his life. But even if he could get back to performing at a high level, he understood that at best he likely had a 3-5 year window of strong, competitive running ahead of him. He intended to stay connected to running far longer than that.
He accepted a course management role with Five Peaks, a regional trail running series. He soon began doing the same for MOMAR, an adventure racing series. That led to the decision to start a 50-mile race of his own (along with co-Race Director Geoff Langford), the Squamish 50.
He turned to a mentor, John Salmonson, the RD at H.U.R.T., for race directing advice and received far more than that.
John had run a staggering 95,000 miles over many, many years of ultrarunning and had done so at an extremely high level. After a major knee injury, he had been told by doctors that surgery was required and could not wait. John figured he could sneak in one more 100-miler, did so and was then told by doctors that there wasn't anything left of the knee to salvage. He never ran again.
“His advice to me was simple, ‘Don’t fight this…let yourself heal and take the time you need.’"
A much needed fork in the road had been reached.
Gary was still working toward a return to elite racing but was gaining perspective and fostering and nurturing a long-term connection to the running community.
I asked if that would have been possible or, at the very least, infinitely more difficult if his prognosis had been as final as John's had been.
"It’s almost impossible to answer because I wasn’t actually confronted with that reality. I never entirely lost faith in the idea that I would get back to where I was. Ever. It was never a question in my mind no matter what I was hearing from doctors or anybody else that I would get back to where I wanted to be. I was just realizing that the process was incredibly longer than I ever gave it credit for initially."
This time around he had spent 4 months on crutches and a couple of additional weeks in a walking boot. All told, his ankle had been immobile for 8 months of 2011.
Stepping out of the boot and setting aside crutches in October, Gary emerged far more wary.
"I was on edge all of the time, I didn’t trust my own body. I was hyper-sensitive, hyper-aware. I didn’t want to chance anything. It really was the polar opposite of the first time around."
His confidence was shaken and his body was going to struggle to heal the rest of the way without it. Enter Luke Nelson.
A competitive runner, a ski mountaineering racer and a physician's assistant well-versed in Jones fractures, Luke offered to review Gary's x-rays, give his second opinion and help develop a rehabilitation program. The plan he mapped out was slow and conservative, but Gary knew that it came from a fellow endurance athlete and a kindred spirit who fully understood what Gary aspired to at the end of the process.
He was allowed to run a single kilometer in the first week of physical therapy. The second week he was allowed to run a single kilometer twice. For an ultrarunning champ, it was a maddeningly slow build, but Gary stuck to the plan.
Finally, on January 1st, he ran a full 10 kilometers.
"I customized the distance in a local 50K race that happens on New Year's Day that I had done 5 times and had won once before. That for me was one of those celebrations…even though I ran 10 while everyone else ran 50, I ran 10K and I felt like I had finally gotten something back at that point."
With Luke's continuing guidance, Gary slowly tacked on mileage and received regular follow-up x-rays. Those films, thankfully, repeatedly confirmed healing and his body sent nothing but positive reports to support those assessments.
Surely Gary would have liked a do-over for 2011, but he'd gained an immeasurable amount of perspective over the full course of sustaining and fully rehabbing his injuries.
Both he and Luke made it to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc this past August. Linda came along too and high up in the Alps the week before the race, she answered "yes" to a certain popped question and made the trip, race or no race, one to remember.
Photo courtesy of Gary Robbins
As has happened on several occasions during its short history, the race was modified just before the start due to nasty weather predictions, especially at the highest elevations, and subsequent concerns for the safety of its participants. A hundred miles was reduced to 104 kilometers and a couple of top registered runners, frustrated by the decision, even pulled out of the race.
But Gary had overcome too much and traveled too far to NOT run. Nearly 14 hours after starting from the French village of Chamonix, he crossed a finish line that he'd dreamed of for so long. He wasn't standing on the podium, but sometimes dreams-come-true are sweet even if different than first imagined.
And, after all that had transpired, "there's always next year" probably has a pretty nice ring to it. "There was an appreciation through being sidelined that I never would have possessed otherwise.I always would have slightly taken it for granted without ever realizing it.I always appreciated it, it was never lost on me, but you really don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and when it was gone I just realized that this was a true love of my life, running, and it came to me late in life and I don’t ever want to be without it and it’s not lost on me now that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to run.Period."
Welcome all the way back, Gary.
Kid, you'll move mountains! ------------------------------------------------------ *During the weeks that I was transcribing my phone interview with Gary and doing my best to properly tell his story, my girls pulled Oh, the Places You'll Go from their bookshelf and added it to our nightly before-bed reading rotation. It's a book that I can't remember NOT remembering, but the words took on new meaning in light of Gary's journey and begged to be included (or maybe I begged them). My thanks and pleas for forgiveness to the timeless Dr. Seuss for letting me repurpose his words here.
