Preliminaries
2021 would be my third time running Bigfoot 200. I had hopes of performing well. Ideally, I wanted to beat my 2018 finishing time of 59 hours, 54 minutes, but I had to be realistic. The last two 200-milers I’d run hadn’t gone as planned. At the Moab 240 in 2019 and again in 2020, I spent at least ninety miles of each race vomiting almost everything I ate. The utter lack of caloric intake and the repeated loss of fluids resulted in me moving at a snail’s pace through a massive swath of the course both years. Adding to the challenge of beating my 2018 finishing time was the fact that, in previous years, the course had measured 206.5 miles whereas this year the distance had increased slightly to 209.2 miles. More significantly, 4000 feet of ascent had been added to an already-tough 42,500 feet of cumulative vertical gain.
Not only did I need to psychologically move past my two-race losing streak, but the competition at Bigfoot seemed strong. There were at least three runners I considered to be top-level competitors, and another eight I’d never met but who looked strong—at least on paper—and seemed capable of grabbing a spot on the podium.
To help me on the journey, three friends had been kind enough to offer their support. Heather, my girlfriend, would be crew chief. She’d crewed me once before at Moab 240 in 2020. Eric crewed alongside Heather that year at Moab, and managed to pace me for a hundred miles of the race as well. Garrett would be crewing for the first time at Bigfoot. I’d met him through my younger brother, and I knew he’d be a great asset to the team with his determination and commitment.
There were two specific facets of my race strategy that I changed in 2020 as part of an effort to improve my results. First was ensuring my crew had enough people to be able to mutually support one another while also providing some pacing assistance. The hours spent simply driving from one aid station to another to provide support at this race are considerably longer than for the other 200-milers, and the remote forest roads can be hard to navigate under any conditions, not to mention when a crew is sleep-deprived toward the end of the race. This was an arduous race for any crew.
The second aspect of my race strategy I changed was my approach to nutrition at the aid stations. Specifically, I decided I would walk out of every crewed station with a 500 mL bottle of Coke in hand regardless of how much fluid I’d already drank while in the aid station, and I’d make a point of drinking it within the first fifteen or twenty minutes. I also committed to eating an entire 18 ounce can of creamy potato soup at every crewed station. I didn’t want this approach to lengthen my stops, so, if I was having difficulty finishing the entire can, I’d carry the remainder of the soup in a paper cup as I left the aid station. I would occasionally substitute fruit smoothies for the soup, but the concept was the same.
Stumbling into the Lead – Start to Windy Ridge (Miles 0 to 30)
I have always started 200-milers at a slower pace than my mind and my body want me to go, but this year I decided to start Bigfoot even more conservatively than I typically did. My intent was to preserve more strength for later in the race. To help restrain myself, I carried my trekking poles in my hands for the first few sections of the race rather than following my normal practice of keeping them strapped to my hydration pack. I wasn’t going to actually use them on the flats and downs, but they would serve as a physical reminder to keep my pace slow. Having them in hand would mean that I’d likely use them even on the smaller hills as a means to save my leg strength. I’d always viewed trekking poles as a tool for selective use only on the steeper or longer ascents, so this was going to be a big change for me.
Exactly two-hundred of us toed the starting line, a rather fitting number considering the name of the race. When the race started, I made a point of keeping a moderately aggressive pace for the first half-mile, just long enough to ensure I didn’t become buried in the pack. But, as soon as the easy hill became just a little steeper, I shifted from a run to a hike while still maintaining as much speed as I could comfortably deliver. I consciously reminded myself that I was going to take this first section slow and easy.
Five or six people were ahead of me, most of whom seemed to be pacing off of Mike McKnight. I considered using Mike as a pace-setter to be a case of poor judgement some of them would likely regret. In my assessment, Mike was the strongest 200-mile runner in the race, and I was going to be very surprised if he didn’t win. Strategic pacing is critical in races of this length. What a runner does at the beginning of the race often rears its head much later in the race in the form of injuries, dehydration or exhaustion. As an example of this, of the two women who bolted out front early to take the lead with Mike, one would later drop out of the race entirely, and the other would fall back to the middle of the pack by the time she crossed the finish line.
In the first several miles, the trail took us through a few small ravines while still generally ascending as it began to wrap around the base of Mt. Saint Helens. Sometime during that ascent, I lost sight of the runners ahead of me. I assumed they were just outpacing me. While I was correct that they were moving faster than I was, what I didn’t know was that they had actually missed a turn and were outpacing me on the wrong route. It took them several minutes to realize their error.
It wasn’t long before I noticed two runners coming up behind me about five miles along the course, near the start of the vast boulder field that had been created in the explosion of Mt, Saint Helens back in 1980. When the first one caught up to me, he asked what place I was in. I told him I thought there were five or six people in front of me. This caught him by surprise, as he’d assumed I was in first place. We started talking about it some more, and a couple minutes later we sorted out the fact that I actually was in first place. The runner behind me was the first of the group of five who had taken the wrong turn and was now a few minutes behind me. A handful of minutes is meaningless in a race of this length, but it was an entertaining turn of events nonetheless. I’d gone into the race wanting to initially hover somewhere around tenth place for at least the first couple sections, and here I was in the lead.
The runner directly behind me who I’d been chatting with was Mike Groenenwegen (Mike G). It wasn’t more than a few minutes before Mike McKnight (Mike M) caught up to us, rounding out the trio that would run together almost all the way to Windy Ridge aid station at mile 30.
I made a point of being the pace setter for our trio for most of the 22 miles that we stayed together. It allowed me to run my own pace while still keeping up with the race favorite. I was certain Mike M would eventually speed up when he was ready, but for now he appeared content to follow. That changed when we headed up the dirt road that would take us to Windy Ridge aid station. The two Mikes picked up their pace a little at that point. Or maybe I slowed down a little. Either way, they gradually pulled away and disappeared behind a bend in the ridge.
Alone – Windy Ridge to Coldwater Lake (Miles 30 to 47)
The brief nature of my stop at Windy Ridge was indictive of the preparedness and efficiency my crew would show at every aid station. I’d armed them with a second hydration pack identical to the one I was wearing. By the time I arrived, they’d prepped it with everything I’d need for the next section. Then they simply swapped packs with me, transferred my phone and GPS tracker from my old pack to the new one, and focused on providing me calories and fluids. In all of the remaining stations where crew was allowed, if my time at the aid station dragged out longer than planned, it was entirely the result of my own weariness or need for additional nutrition, and never the result of anything the team did. They were truly committed to what we were doing and to taking care of me.
The day was unseasonably hot, and the air was tainted with smoke from various regional wildfires. Mike M and Mike G had arrived at Windy Ridge a couple minutes ahead of me, and departed a couple minutes ahead of me as well. I didn’t press faster in an effort to catch them, but rather kept my own pace. I didn’t see them for at least half of the next 10-mile section until I eventually saw them pop over a hill ahead of me. Through the rest of the section, I would occasionally see them but neither gained nor lost ground relative to them. Regardless of my performance relative to the Mikes, I could tell by feel that I was running this section faster than the last time I’d run the race in 2018, and I was doing it with less effort. That feeling gave me early confidence that I was pacing myself well.
My pre-race plan called for me to blaze through Johnston Ridge aid station without stopping, but, as I approached the white-canopied station, I decided I was a little low on calories and knew it would be wise to take a couple minutes to refuel. Mike and Mike were just leaving as I arrived. I stopped long enough to drink a few cups of Coke and to eat a pickle. Then I was back on the trail.
Like the previous section, Johnston to Coldwater Lake went by quickly. I was moving well and feeling strong. After descending from the ridge, I was passing through a series of meadows and I was riding such a high that I actually started singing along to the song I was listening to on my earbuds. I can’t carry a tune to save my life, so my “singing” amounted to alternately screaming and mumbling the lyrics. For the sake of other people’s eardrums, it’s probably best that my outburst occurred in the wilderness of the Cascades with nobody else nearby.
Alone Again – Coldwater Lake to Norway Pass (Mile 47 to 65)
When I came into Coldwater aid station, I didn’t immediately see my crew, so I walked fifty yards past the actual station to get a better look at the vehicles parked farther away. Still no crew. I became worried that they had gotten lost in the maze of unmarked forest roads or had possibly misread the plan I’d written. It turned out they’d missed a turn and ended up at the next aid station, Norway Pass. Rather than risk speeding to Coldwater and possibly missing me at both aid stations, they made the decision to plant themselves at Norway where there would be no chance of missing me. Fortunately, my crew got word to me at Coldwater through the race’s volunteer HAM radio operators, so I had peace of mind that they were fine and that I would see them at Norway Pass.
I’d barely made it out of the aid station parking lot and had just turned onto a path that follows the west side of the lake when I realized I was going to vomit. There was a young couple on the deck of a boat moored nearby, so I tried to move quickly out of sight so they wouldn’t have to see what was about to happen. However, I only made it a couple more steps before I had to bend over the bushes and let loose. Somehow, I vomited just enough to settle my stomach while retaining most of the calories I’d just consumed. That was a far cry from my usual multi-heave, stomach-emptying barf episodes. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. There was a good chance I was one of the happiest vomiters on the race course that day.
I filled up a water bottle by the bridge at the end of the lake right before the start of the long ascent that would lead to Mt. Margaret. I took a few sips, tucked the bottle into my pack, and then got moving. Shifting my speed down a couple gears but keeping the effort steady, I pushed through the climb, and didn’t see signs of any other runners until sometime after dark. I caught the first glimpse of my pursuers during one of the flat stretches of trail when I glanced back, a stretch where the trail weaves through the upper portions of secondary summits. What appeared to be two headlamps were visible behind me. Although I’d hoped no one would be that close on my tail, it was far too early in the race to worry about it.
At one point I missed a descending switchback and went off course, but I didn’t go far before I realized my mistake. After scrambling up a steep rock outcropping, I found the trail and then located the turn I’d missed. The Mt. Margaret out-and-back wasn’t much farther. When I hit the top and turned around, I worried the runners whose headlamps I’d seen earlier might already be at the Mt. Margaret turnoff. But I made it back down to the main route without seeing anyone, so I knew I had at least a small lead on whoever was behind me.
At night, the lights of Norway Pass aid station are visible in the valley below long before the descent of the ridgeline is over. The fact that the lights are shining from what is otherwise a sea of darkness makes it very difficult to determine how far away they are. From my previous experiences, I knew it was still a fair distance to the aid station but that didn’t stop me from being disappointed every time I rounded another bend only to have the lights appear to be no closer than they’d been the last time they’d blinked at me.
Norway Pass to Chain of Lakes (Miles 65 to 144)
Heather, Garrett and Eric were a welcome sight at Norway Pass. Unlike Coldwater Lake where I’d arrived feeling strong, I ran into Norway Pass feeling the sluggishness of a caloric deficit. And I knew my crew’s decision not to attempt to catch me at Coldwater Lake earlier that evening was by far the best decision they could have made. I needed them far more at Norway.
Eric would be pacing me out of this aid station, and he was ready to go. He was always such a positive force, keeping things light and checking on me when needed. The calories I’d consumed at Norway Pass hit me a couple miles after leaving the aid station, and with those calories my mood and energy both perked up. I found myself pushing hard.
By the time Eric and I hit Road 9327 aid station 26 miles later, we’d made it through the first night. I was 91 miles into the 209.2-mile race. I sat in the cab of our crew truck, ate a plate of pancakes and eggs, and proceeded to have a complete emotional breakdown. Not a bad breakdown. A good one, if such a thing is possible. An overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over me, and I began crying because I was so thankful for the generosity of Heather, Garrett and Eric. They’d taken valuable time out of their lives to support me, and they’d willingly chosen to persevere through sleep deprivation and dirty conditions and endless mazes of remote forest roads just to be there for me. Although the degree of my emotional outpouring was likely influenced by my exhaustion and lack of sleep, the feelings from which it stemmed were genuine then and remain genuine to this day.
Once I’d pulled myself together, I headed out on the trail. The plan was for Eric to get some rest and then pace me again in another 50 miles. I caught up with Mike G a few miles before the Lewis River aid station, which meant I was now tied for second place. We ran together to the aid station and sat down in the shade of a canopy. We’d chatted during our short run, so our focus was on getting calories, sodium and fluids more than socializing. Mike departed a few minutes before me, but soon we were running together again.
This was a tough section that had worked to my advantage in 2018, but it beat me up psychologically this year. With this year’s course change, the 5200 feet of vertical gain in 15 miles from 2018 had grown to 7300 feet in 17 miles in 2021. The trail went from a creek bed, and then up a long, steep ascent to a seemingly random turning point where it descended again to the creek. Then it ascended to another inexplicable turning point before descending yet again. This pattern repeated itself just enough times to fray my willpower. Finally, miraculously, we hit a part of the trail that I knew from my previous experience on the course meant that the relentless ascents and descents were coming to an end. At least for now.
Mike G and I descended into Quartz Ridge aid station around 10 PM of the second night, 37 hours into the race. My crew was ready for me with calories and fluids. I ate, and then laid down on a blanket and instantly passed out for a much-needed nine minutes of sleep. Why I told my crew to wake me in exactly nine minutes can only be attributed to my weary mind’s apparent need for precision. I ended up waking up on my own just before they stepped over to nudge me back into the land of the living.
After clambering back into my chair, I ate a small meal consisting of the same two items that had been sustaining me through the race: pancakes and eggs. I finally got moving after a total of 80 minutes in the aid station. That was almost as long as I’d spent in the preceding nine aid stations combined. If I’d known I was going to linger even half that long, I would have done much better to let myself sleep for at least 45-minutes. It would have helped stave off the gradual erosion of my clarity of thought that had likely started about the same time as my emotional breakdown early that morning at the Road 9327 aid station.
I was only a few hundred feet out of Quartz Ridge aid station, ascending a rocky hill, when a runner came charging down the slope and into the aid station. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the same runner whose headlamp I’d seen trailing me near Mount Margaret seventy miles earlier, Nathan Williams. Several minutes farther up the trail another runner passed me heading for the aid station and hot on Nathan’s heels.
Mike G had left Quartz Ridge a few minutes before me, but I caught up to him not far outside the aid station. We ran together for a couple miles before he slowed his pace a bit. I kept chugging along. The nine-minutes of sleep and the large volume of calories I’d gotten in the last aid station were enough to keep me focused and moving steadily.
Time passed imperceptibly as I ran through the second night. I don’t mean it passed slowly. I mean there was simply no perception of time. It passed neither quickly nor slowly. It was more as if it didn’t exist. I existed in a timeless and endless moment of running and running and running. Darkness was around me and two circles of light were ahead of me, one circle from my headlamp and the other from my flashlight. There was little thought, only being.
Pushing On – Chain of Lakes to Twin Sisters (Miles 144 to 180)
I arrived at Chain of Lakes aid station just after 4 AM, five hours behind my 2018 arrival time. This was not a positive indicator of what might be coming. Unless I regained a large amount of that time in the next 65 miles, it meant I’d be running through most or all of a third night. The second night of a race was enough of a struggle when I’d only had one or two 10-minute dirt naps, but a third night was an exponentially greater battle. If I was going to sleep for an hour, Chain of Lakes was the place to do it. I was tired, it was dark, and my body’s circadian rhythms just naturally wanted me to be asleep at 4 AM.
I wasn’t sure what was to come, but laying down to sleep felt like abandoning my goal of beating my 2018 finishing time. I wasn’t ready to jettison my goal just yet, not while I still had some fight in me. So, I pressed onward without the nap I knew my body and brain wanted. I decided to bank on making up the lost time and not spending a third night on the trail.
My crew had the back seat of the truck cleared out. I climbed in, happy to sit down for a few minutes. They brought me the eggs, pancakes and syrup that had become my high-calorie staples, and then I was out of the truck and moving again within twenty minutes. Eric departed with me in the early morning darkness. Our plan was for him to pace me for the next 37 miles, all the way to Twin Sisters aid station.
The miles ticked by slowly through this section. When the sun finally rose, I might have started moving a little faster, but not by much. I couldn’t find the energy or mental fortitude to drive myself harder. Eric did his best, but it was as if I’d forgotten I was racing. This was far from the toughest section of the course from the perspective of terrain and climbing, but it ended up being my slowest section in 2021 just as it had been my slowest section in 2018.
Eric rolled his ankle badly a couple miles out from the Cispus River, which was the last of the water crossings before the ascent to Elk Peak. He soldiered on like a trooper though, more focused on keeping me going than on his own pain. Just before the river, I peeled off to the right of the trail to sit atop a small knoll. The wide, shallow expanse of the Cispus shimmered in the midmorning sun. Beyond the water was a long climb with a never-ending series of false summits. I took off my pack to access the food in the back pocket. Sitting down to rest and eat outside of an aid station wasn’t a part of any of my racing plans. I should have been eating on the move. But the decision was certainly an indicator that the deterioration of my clarity of thought was now affecting my willpower.
I hadn’t even finished getting the food out of my pack when a sound or a movement caused me to glance back to my left. A runner was coming down the trail at a steady, measured pace. It was Nathan. We called out the usual ultrarunner greetings. “Looking strong.” “Keep it up.” “You’ve got this.” Something along those lines. I watched him wade through the river as I ate.
Eric and I finally made it to the summit of Elk Peak three hours later. We’d taken another sit-down break along the way. Eric had tried to gently nudge me away from the idea of a break, but I was having none of it, unfortunately. He knew I was simply letting my weary mind make a poor decision when my body was strong enough to keep climbing. Once we began the steep descent toward Klickitat aid station, Eric’s ankle flared up even worse than before. The added impact of running downhill gave him a jolt of pain with each step. Before we even reached the aid station, he knew he needed to stay off his feet for at least a little while or he’d risk exacerbating an already bad injury.
As soon as Heather learned what had happened to Eric, she offered to fill in as pacer. I knew the next section had 5000 feet of vertical ascent in 20 miles, and included some bushwhacking along steep drop-offs. I was reluctant at first, since Heather didn’t train a lot of hills, but she assured me she’d be fine. We left Klickitat together, Heather setting the pace and in the lead.
The flies and mosquitos in this section were awful. Multiple flies would land on our legs and arms and faces at the same time, and they would immediately start biting. When we waved them away, they’d land on another portion of our bodies a few seconds later and sink their mouth into whatever soft spot they could find. They bit through clothes as if we were naked. This went on for miles before it finally, gloriously, ended. Heather pushed us well during the rolling hills at the start of the section, and then kept a relentless, steady pace as we ascended into the mountains. I mindlessly followed.
Descending Into the Fog – Twin Sisters to Owen’s Creek (Miles 180 to 196)
It was dark when Heather and I arrived at Twin Sisters aid station fifty-nine hours after the race had started. The third night had begun. I’d been less than an hour from the finish at this same time in 2018. My goal of beating that year’s finishing time was gone, but I accepted it without letting it get me down. I knew I was giving my best on this day and in this race.
When Garrett spotted us, he immediately headed for the aid station grill to round up some pancakes for me. At every stop he’d been focused and efficient, doing what needed to be done and then getting me on my way. Knowing it would be a couple minutes before the pancakes would be ready, I took the opportunity to lay on a blanket that someone had folded onto the ground for me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed not moving, not thinking, not scanning the trail for every rock and root that might trip me or roll my ankle.
When I was once again moving along the trail, Heather was with me. She’d offered to pace me nineteen more miles to Owen’s Creek aid station, and I’d at least had enough clarity of thought to accept her offer.
As we ran and hiked, the small amount of mental acuity remaining in my sleep-deprived mind was alternately focused on the trail and Heather’s back. Wherever she led, I followed. Soon, I started having difficulty sorting out our direction of travel, and it seemed as if the trail was constantly winding nonsensically around itself. The trees that had blown down across the path in this section were countless. Massive tree trunks with their branches still intact would lie perpendicular across the trail, a steep downward slope to the left of the trail, and a steep upward slope to the right of the trail. Over, under or around, none of these was a particularly good choice. Each fallen tree was another puzzle to solve, another obstacle to slow our progress.
The last several miles before Owen’s Creek aid station are known as the Green Tunnel. It must have been a logging road at some point in the distant past, but now it was a flat swath of ground covered in tall green grass and overhung in many places with the branches and leaves of the local deciduous trees. This section was monotonous and mind-numbing on a good day. At 3 AM on the third night of a race, it seemed like an endless trail of torture. It didn’t help that the occasions during which I had a firm grasp on reality were growing further apart.
I was wearing a GPS watch and Heather was not. So, as she led us at a brisk walk along the Green Tunnel, she would occasionally ask about our mileage. Every time she asked, a conversation would ensue that highlighted just how far out of touch I’d become.
“What mile are we at?” Heather would ask.
“Eleven,” I’d say after glancing at my watch. At this point I’d remember that she’d previously told me we had to go sixteen miles. “I don’t understand why we have to go sixteen miles. It’s the middle of the night.”
“This section is sixteen miles long.”
“Why can’t we just sit down here and rest until morning?” My mind had no grasp on the fact that I was running a race. As far as I was concerned, Heather and I seemed to be walking though some random grassy plot of land at a time of night when only idiots would be out for a hike. It felt like Heather had hatched some kind of hair-brained scheme to go sixteen miles, and she wouldn’t let go of her plan. Well, I no longer wanted any part of it. “This is stupid. It makes no sense.”
“Well, we don’t have much choice. We have to go sixteen miles to get through this section.”
“Who’s making us go sixteen miles? And why sixteen miles? Why can’t we just go eleven miles? Eleven miles seems good enough to me, and we’ve already gone eleven, so why don’t we just stop?”
“We have to keep going, Wes. We have to get to Owen’s Creek.”
“Oh, Owen’s Creek. Yeah. That makes sense. We definitely need to get to Owen’s Creek.” I didn’t actually realize Owen’s Creek was an aid station in a 200-mile race called Bigfoot, but the name struck some kind of familiar chord in my mind. Sadly, that chord would inevitably fade within a few seconds or minutes. “I still don’t understand why we have to go sixteen miles just because someone says we have to,” I would eventually say, breaking the silence that had briefly fallen over us. “It makes no sense.”
A Bright New Day – Owen’s Creek to the Finish (Miles 196 to 209.2)
As we drew closer to the aid station, my brain regained some of its grip on reality, and I made a decision to lay down again when we arrived at Owen’s Creek, this time for fifteen minutes. With the finish line only thirteen miles away, and no idea how far back my competitors were, it might have been a questionable decision. On the other hand, if it would help keep my mind from sinking back into the fog of the previous section, I’d likely make up for the time lost to sleep with some extra speed.
When I woke up on the blanket fifteen minutes later, confusion once again reigned. I saw Heather, Garrett and Eric. I saw the truck. It was dark out, and there were a couple other vehicles parked nearby. I was a little unsure what was going on. As I started to stand up, I drew the tentative conclusion that I must be running the Bigfoot 200. I wasn’t certain of that fact, but I felt the evidence was pointing in that direction. As I put on my gear to run with Eric for these last miles, I concluded that this was definitely the Bigfoot 200, and this was the last aid station.
Eric was pacing me for this last half-marathon to the finish. We’d only run a few hundred yards from Owen’s Creek when Eric asked me what I thought about the race. My mind was blank. I realized I couldn’t remember anything from the race. Not one trail, not one moment, not one experience. I knew I should remember something, anything. But I couldn’t. “It’s been good,” I mumbled, selecting the most generic words I could muster because it was better than verbally acknowledging that not a single moment of the race existed in my memory.
Fortunately, another mile down the dirt road, everything came back to me – the race, the experiences, the stories. The positive effect of the fifteen minutes of sleep had given me a new alertness, but it was almost as if my brain hadn’t truly awakened from slumber until that moment.
Our pace on the road to the finish in the small town of Randle, Washington, was a steady jog. The sun came up, which helped to root my mind even more solidly in the real world. We talked about the race and joked about some of our experiences. Eric’s ankle was far from healed, but the nature of the smooth, paved road that constituted the majority of this final section made it easier for him.
Crossing the finish line was a tremendous relief, as it always is for me. I could finally stop running. I could sit down for as long as I wanted without feeling the need to get up and get moving. Friends and fellow runners sometimes ask me what it feels like to cross the finish line of a 200-miler, and I think some of them are a little disappointed when I tell them the strongest emotion that I feel isn’t joy or an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, but rather this sense of relief that I can simply stop running.
For me the joy has always been in the long training journey that leads to the race, and at certain moments that occur organically during a race: the peace I find in the wilderness and on the trail, the discipline of difficult training, the highs that hit me when my mind and body are perfectly attuned and I’m living only in that single moment when all of life’s pressures have vanished and I can truly embrace the beauty that is life.
But right then, all I wanted to do was sit down. And so I did.
I crossed the finish line in third place in 69 hours, 38 minutes. Unsurprisingly, Mike McKnight had finished significantly earlier in 57:58. Nathan Williams took second place with a time of 62:59. Mike Groenewegen finished in 9th place with a time of 78:04. The average age of other nine of the top ten finishers besides me was 34, and the oldest of them was 39. I was 53.
My crew was there with me to celebrate our team’s strong finish. I ate a couple slices of pizza as I sat beside the high school track that served as the last quarter-mile of the course. I laid down on a cot for a little while. My crew and I shared a few stories with each other and with the handful of people who were at the finish line at 6 AM. But soon all four of us knew there was an activity we desperately wanted to do more than we wanted to anything else: go to our hotel rooms and sleep. And so we did.
See you on the trails!
Wes Ritner