Struggling
Overall, my training for Tahoe 200 had gone well. I started a volume ramp-up in mid-December of 2024 in preparation for the June 2025 race. I added an appropriate amount of intensity and focused workouts to my weekly regimen, and I felt good about how my fitness was progressing.
Then, sometime in late April or early May, I found myself lacking the enthusiasm I normally felt when running on the trails and through the mountains. I was unsure what was causing these feelings, or lack of feelings. My training volume was on par with what I had done in recent years, and was considerably less than what I had been doing back in my true “high volume” years. So, training volume alone couldn’t be the culprit. Also, I have never been a runner who is constantly racing throughout the year. In fact, I race rather infrequently, so I couldn’t imagine the number of races was somehow wearing me out mentally. But there I was, apathetic and maybe even a little bored.
Nonetheless, I continued my training as planned, pushing though this unexpected emotional torpor with the discipline that has always been a strength for me. Then, with only a few weeks remaining until the race, I realized the ambivalence I had been feeling about my training had grown to include the race itself. It was as if training and racing had become jobs rather than passions. I had never experienced this before in 36 years of running.
Around that same time in May, I saw a cardiologist about some odd symptoms I was experiencing. Within a few days of that visit, a temporary heart monitor revealed the existence of problems, but further testing would be required to determine the extent of those problems. Specifically, I needed an MRI and an echocardiogram, and likely some neurological testing as well. Unfortunately, the soonest I could get appointments for the tests was after the race. As a result, I went into Tahoe with an uneasy mind. Were the issues minor, or was I on the brink of something very bad happening? Adding to my anxiety, a fellow distance running friend had recently dropped out of a race when his heart went into atrial fibrillation. He went straight from the race to the hospital where they stopped his heart and then re-started it to get it back into a normal rhythm.
All of this left me with one resounding question. Was I being foolish even attempting Tahoe 200 without knowing the full extent of my heart problems? Probably. And it was that thought that kept percolating in my mind as race day approached.
The Beginning
At noon on Friday, June 13, 2025, a pack of 260 runners surged through the start line of Tahoe 200. Quite a few of them took off at a remarkably fast clip for a 200-mile race. This was the fourth year the race had started in a wide-open parking lot. In the previous three years, fifty yards after the start line, the wide-open space had dropped to a restrictive, singletrack trail. The abrupt lack of space created major congestion at the trailhead every time. This year, a 1-mile paved loop had been added immediately after the start line to spread out the runners before they hit the chokepoint at the singletrack transition.
I moved a little faster than I really wanted to during that loop, but I kept my effort level in check. It was better to preserve my leg strength than to try to gain two or five or ten positions that could be easily regained in the 200 miles which would follow. With my conservative pace, I arrived at the singletrack transition in roughly 30th place.
I enjoyed the somewhat technical ascent out of the Heavenly area. Climbing had always been a strength of mine, and it paid off as I passed more than 20 runners who had sprinted ahead of me on the paved loop. With fresh legs, the first 16 miles of the course were a joy, and it seemed like I arrived at Armstrong Pass aid station in no time.
Armstrong Pass to Housewife Hill
My first aid station stop felt inefficient even though it took me less than 10 minutes. I allowed myself to become distracted, and I fumbled with the gear in my drop bag. The only silver lining was that it served as a reminder to me that I needed to relax and be methodical in the aid stations to come.
After the initial climb out of Armstrong Pass, the rest of the route to Housewife Hill consists mostly of a long descent with only one notable, 2-mile ascent toward the end. I took advantage of the descent to push the pace a little. The training I had done on steeper downhills had prepared my quads for the pounding, so I was confident there wouldn’t be any negative repercussions later in the race from my extra effort.
The Beginning of the End
I was still feeling good when I arrived at Housewife Hill, mile 31, in 13th place. This was the termination of the southbound portion of our initial out-and-back. From here we would return 31 miles north to Heavenly where we had started. After Heavenly, the course would take us north on a 138-mile out-and-back to finish at Heavenly.
I managed to pass a few runners on the initial, 4-mile ascent out of Housewife Hill, and then I picked up the pace again as I ran the 2-mile descent to the campground that marks the start of the long climb back toward Armstrong Pass aid station. I enjoy long climbs, and I can typically get into a comfortable but strong cadence where I seem to almost exist outside of time. My mind just locks into the moment while my legs and arms move almost of their own accord. But not very far along the journey back up toward Armstrong aid station, something in me started changing. My mind slipped out of the moment I was in, and instead I started focusing on how tired I was going to be fifty or a hundred miles from now. Soon my mind drifted to the heart problems I had recently learned about. Coupled with my feeling for the last two months that I just didn’t care about this race, my mind was ringing a death knell to my efforts. I hadn’t fully acknowledged it during my training or even during the race I was in the midst of running, but I was mentally burnt out.
I was moving slower as I jogged into Armstrong Pass at mile 49. I had dropped back to 16th place, but even that wasn’t going to last much longer. I spent twenty minutes at the aid station doing what should have taken less than ten. During the climb out of Armstrong Pass, I started feeling worse, and my mind descended into a dark place. I kept focusing on the negative: my heart issues, my apathy. My mind had been in that same dark place many times before during 200-mile races, but, normally, I could find my way back to a positive mental state. It might take a couple minutes, or it might take a couple hours, but I would eventually find myself existing in the present moment again rather than dreading the pain yet to come. Adding to the darkness was the thought that I just didn’t see any value in finishing this race.
A few miles later, I felt a strange tightness in the front of my left shoulder. I couldn’t recall ever feeling this before, and I immediately began wondering if it was related to my heart issues. I sat down on a boulder beside the trail, and remained there for several minutes. Night had fallen by this point, but the temperature was still comfortable with only shorts and a t-shirt. When I was about to stand up, I noticed the fingers in my left hand were tingling. I knew with certainty I had never felt that before. The tightness in my shoulder, the tingling in my fingers … was this all related to my heart? Should I be ignoring these “symptoms?” Should I have even started this race? A part of me suspected that I was being hypersensitive to meaningless signals I would typically just ignore, but it wasn’t enough to ease my fears.
A Not-So-Heavenly Ending
It didn’t take long after I started moving again when I experienced several bouts of vomiting and dry heaving. My pace even on flat ground became a slow walk. I lacked focus and noticed a growing headache.
Runners were passing me regularly by this time, but I had been in that sort of situation before in 200-mile races. From those previous instances, I knew significant turnarounds were entirely achievable in races of this length, and throwing in the towel was typically a mistake. I trudged along the trail.
In one corner of the rational part of my brain, the thought surfaced again that I was being hypersensitive to the “symptoms” on the left side of my body. If I had experienced such trivial signals at any other time, I probably wouldn’t have even made note of them. The odds they were related to my heart were miniscule. But I chose not to listen to that corner of my mind. Instead, I kept thinking I had been foolish even attempting Tahoe without knowing the severity of my heart issues. Several miles out of Heavenly, I decided I was dropping out.
Heather took care of me when I arrived at Heavenly. She led me to a cot inside the lodge, and I laid down. I couldn’t sleep, but I lay there for a while. Eventually, I sat up on the cot, slipped my shoes back on, and walked back outside. I told the staff that I was dropping out, and gave them my GPS tracker. It was official. I was done.
2025 was my sixth time running the Tahoe 200. In those years, my results have been polar opposites of each other. In alternating years, I either did well or I dropped out entirely. There has never been anything between those two extremes. Tahoe is the only race I have ever DNF’d, but I have now DNF’d it three times. The other three times, I finished in 2nd, 4th and 6th place overall. In light of the fact that I consider the Tahoe course to be the easiest of the three Destination Trail 200-milers, I find the dichotomy of my results to be rather odd. And if the answer to this dichotomy is not to be found in the physical nature of the Tahoe course, then the answer must be found in my mind.
I will find that answer. I’m not done with Tahoe yet. I will return to fight another round.