He then called last year’s winner of the women’s race up to receive an award. [...]]]> “This is old school ultrarunning,” said Charlie Crissman a year ago, when I was facing my first 100-miler. “Your family and friends don’t care if you finish this race,” he reiterated this year. “There are no awards for winning this.

He then called last year’s winner of the women’s race up to receive an award. Shawna Tompkins received a rather nice looking jacket for having tied with the course record the previous year.

So maybe there’s a little something.

Winning this race wouldn’t enter my imagination, which was straining to imagine a sub-24-hour finish on this course. Doing so would mean bettering my previous time by three hours and would have put me in the top 20 finishers for 2012 – a year that would see only 96 finishers of 142 starters. Eight runners wouldn’t even start, which is seen as a far worse transgression than not finishing, since the race lottery fills instantly and leaves a waiting list of 100 people – a few of whom managed to secure last-minute entry.

The Easton Fire Department graciously hosts the event and is beneficiary of much of the proceeds. This year this seemed particularly appropriate since there has been a large brushfire just East of Easton, and many of the firefighters were no doubt involved in its suppression.

From the fire department we started along a gravel road and then up Goat Peak, a climb of 3,000′ in just under six miles. But out of the gate a friend of mine jokingly jostled up and elbowed me aside on the 30′ wide road. He was all grins, which made it irresistible to shoot him in the face with my water bottle. (Oops. Was that the one with Gatorade?)

Last year I deliberately sandwiched myself in a troupe of silverbacks to prevent overzealously burning out on the climb, which worked a little too well. This year I simply jogged and marched uphill at a significantly faster clip along with a friend, Nic Plemel, and reached the top in decent shape and continued jogging along at an easy pace.

There wasn’t supposed to be any aid at the Cole Butte aid station due to a road washout, but Cascade has a well-deserved reputation for excellent runner support. Instead of the expected unmanned water drop there were volunteers ready to fill bottles and a huge cooler filled with popsicles, handed out by a cheerful lady.

“I’m very sorry. They’re hard to break apart, so you’ll have to take a whole one.”

“You’re beautiful,” I replied.

From here it was just a lovely run down fire roads and along singletrack trails through subalpine forest with Mount Rainier poking out occasionally to say hello. The sun was full and it felt about 80°F, which is perfect weather in my opinion.

Others weren’t having such a good time. My first indication of this was when Shawna Tompkins met me at Stampede Pass (mile 33), asking, “What do you need? Can I fill your bottles? Change socks? You know you need a light from here, right?”

I stared at her, and the empty spot on her shorts where her number had been previously pinned. “Uh… I’m not supposed to be seeing you.  Are you okay?”

She was okay.  Her heart was simply turned toward her husband Joe, who was running his fifth Cascade Crest, rather than on her own race.  She had dropped from the lead position, pulled her number off and began assisting every runner she could.  As Joe passed she would drive ahead and begin again.  Shawna is the model of the generosity of the ultrarunning community, and she was more concerned about making sure her friends (and many a stranger) have a good day than she was about her own race.  When I grow up I want to be half the woman she is.

Well…  er…  You know what I mean.

More singletrack comes next. More rolling hills.  The sun sets to the sound of gunfire around Mirror Lake and the recognition that peoples’ concepts of recreation are varied indeed.

I was about 30 minutes ahead of pace from the year before and felt good, but the goal of a 24-hour finish had left.  Heading down toward the evil little descent and the ropes course down a small cliff I saw the flashing red lights of Robbie the Robot ahead of me.  It turns into Genia Kasey – a friend of mine who has a fondness for visibility.  She comes with a soundtrack.  Modern country and some alt-rock are coming from speakers stashed in a pack.  She’s having asthma problems so I run behind.

The two miles of train tunnel is extra chilly this year and the wind is in our faces, so I was happy to have thrown on an extra long sleeved shirt.  Afterward I make a point of stopping by the bathroom at the Hyak parking lot for the John Wayne Trail because I know within these cubicles are heaters, running water and hand driers.  I wash up a bit and direct the hand drier down my shirt.  It feels incredible.

The Hyak aid station is across the highway and decked out in Christmas decorations as always.  Once again, last year’s winner grabs my bottles, helps me change socks and gives me a very welcome metaphoric kick in the ass.  Thanks again, Shawna!

My competitor in the Washington Grand Slam, Van Phan, passes me on the road up Kecheelus Ridge.  She’s having asthma problems.  Her pacer Gwen jokes around with me, since we both have advanced degrees in smartass.  Van ignores us.

It’s all road up to Lake Kachess, with a bit of gunfire and hollering from the ridges to keep us awake.  We discuss dimming our headlamps to minimize our target profiles, but we don’t.

After the Kachess aid station comes the Trail From Hell™.  The name is really an inside joke because far worse is yet to come, but it’s not easy and a fall to the right can result in free fall and a swim, assuming one misses the rocks below.

Along this trail I met a fellow runner (names ceased to stick several miles ago) who is making pretty good time, but he’s a road runner and hasn’t run this trail before.  He doesn’t, so he says, like taking gels while running, so he’s limiting himself to real food – except that he doesn’t appear to have eaten much of it and he doesn’t appear to be carrying any.  He simply ain’t eating and it’s beginning to show.  I’m feeling great, so I decide to keep half an eye on the guy.

We stick together through the T.F.H. and have a great conversation, until I begin to helpfully announce that I can hear Mineral Creek up ahead and that the aid station must be just around the corner.

I do this for about four miles.  Each time I claim that no, really, this must be Mineral Creek and the aid station.  I can hear this poor guy’s knees knackering behind me as hope drains from his soul, replaced by despair and hunger.

“Sure you don’t want a gel?” I offer helpfully.  Repeatedly.

“Can’t stand those,” he replies the first few times.  Later I just receive silence in return.

Eventually we see lights and find the aid station.  My friend collapses in a chair while I shotgun a cup of chicken noodle soup and tell my friends at the aid station, “Put food in this guy,” and head up the road.  He later will finish the race – his first 100.

I march up the road, feeling buoyed by the knowledge that my lovely wife will be at the next aid station.  I pass several people, and unfortunately one of them is a good friend Arthur, who should be several hours ahead of me, but who has had a rough day and will finish just behind me.  This sequence seems entirely wrong.  The sun also rises.

When Betsy appears from the aid station I burst into tears.  My race has been fabulous so far, with minimal discomfort (considering this race is four marathons long and comprises 21,000 feet of upsy-downsy on rocky trails) but emotions do tend to bubble to the surface at times like this, and my love for her is extra ebullient.  She hands me a bacon-chocolate-chip pancake.  I have married well.

There’s a kiss, an admonition to be careful, and a reminder of the location of my finish beers and I’m off.

Cascade’s final 20 miles are also its most difficult.  The trail is narrow and steep along the crest of a series of ridges aptly referred to as the Cardiac Needles.  I mentally deny the concept of nominative determinism and march on.

Thorp Mountain is the first and hardest of these climbs, and it entails both a difficult out-and-back to the fire lookout and an encounter with noted ultra photographer Glenn Tachyama.

“You look better than last year,” Glenn says as I stare up with eyes half-closed.  I grin back.

Later in the day Glenn will fall ass-over-teakettle here, bloodying his chin and breaking his hand.  It’s that steep.  I fare better, returning to the aid station where they have filled my pack with water that has been carried up on the backs of volunteers.  Thank you!

More singletrack, more ridges.  Beautiful sights, tired legs. Hands placed on knees push hard to climb these dusty goat tracks, but I’m moving better than last year.

At French Cabin they shout and holler as I turn a corner and pratfall.  Unfortunately I do this behind a tree so the volunteers miss the show.  I turn the corner laughing, with a bloodied knee and dusty face, apologizing for not timing the fall so that they could see it.  They reward me with a bacon-egg-bacon-avacado burrito, which gives me five miles worth of energy.

It is seven miles to the next aid station.  Several of these are through a gentle downhill meadow that is without doubt the most runnable section of the entire course.  The slight grade and bacon in my belly give me boundless energy and I pass a couple of runners, lamenting how we’re running out of trail and how much I’ll miss it.

The following two miles of steep rocky downhill disabuses me of this thought, as do the four miles of dusty whoop-de-doos and pavement leading back to the fire station.  But this year I’m able to run here instead of the defeated walk of the year before.  I run past the airfield where I crashed in a glider at age 16.  I run past the lodge where I had the first confirmation of my epilepsy (although I hold out hope that it’s just demonic possession, since that’s more fun).

And I run through the wooden arch of the start/finish of the Cascade Crest Classic 25 hours 46 minutes and 26 seconds after I started.  Charlie Crissman gives me a buckle and a handshake, and Kathy Vaughan hands me a small cooler where she has guarded two bottles of India Pale Ale.  Soon my feet are in a bucket and an examination reveals that there is only one slight blister, unlike the previous year when my feet looked like they had been deep-fried.

I won’t be conscious for the drive home, but I will be ready for the Plain 100 in two weeks.

Thanks to everyone who helped along the way, whether on-course or off.  None of us runs 100 miles alone.

…except at Plain.

Last year I helped crew at the Badwater 135, which is billed as [...]]]>

At least I didn’t just run the half!

Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that 150 was larger than 135. It seems absurd that a grown man of moderate intelligence would miss this point, but there’s something about running in loops that messes with the mind.

Last year I helped crew at the Badwater 135, which is billed as the toughest footrace on earth.  It starts in Death Valley and ends 135 miles later at the trailhead to the top of Mount Whitney.  The very concept of traveling that far on foot was beyond my grasp just two or three years ago, but on a late lap during the Pigtails 150 my runner from Badwater gave me a hug and some encouragement, saying something about my having run farther than she ever had.  I tried to correct her, since obviously her feat was much greater and she’s a far stronger runner than I.  But I guess she’s right.  150 is a bit longer than 135.  (But I didn’t have to deal with dust storms and 120° temperatures, so she still has the better claim to badassitude.)

Pigtails…  Oh my oh my oh my!  With 100, 150 and 200-mile options on a 9.6-mile loop around a fenced-in watershed, it is simultaneously one of the easiest and hardest races in the country.  Those looking for a fast 100 will be largely satisfied, although they have to deal with the gentle ribbing of those running the 200.  “Oh, so you’re running the HALF?  How cute.”  The 150-milers slip by largely unnoticed.

Lake Youngs decided to get revenge upon me for saying it wasn’t much of a trail by hardening the surface and growing evil little rocks everywhere.  There appears also to be much geologic activity in the region, because the hills grew overnight and the trail stretched a little longer after each lap.  A friend who goes by “LuvPre” came out and very kindly “ran” a lap with me, which was probably the slowest pace he has ever run.  So too did my friend Paige and her absurdly-fast cross-country running son Josh, who never once complained about the cold drizzle despite only wearing a singlet and shorts and walking an absurdly slow pace with me.

Lots of other people came out as well to run a bit and check our pulses, including my father and my lovely wife.

Seven of the eight runners signed up for 150 miles started.  Three of these were dumb enough to stick around to the finish.  My personal pick for the win, Mark Dahlby, came to his senses and deferred to injury, which made each subsequent lap far more lonely.  Those still in the race did their best to encourage competitors to stick with it so that we could all share in the misery.

My low point was after lap nine, when I had to stop because my achilles had been seizing up, reducing me to a (slow) walk and the prospect of seven more laps at a limping lurch seemed too soul-crushing to face.  But Robert Lopez and my lovely wife were at the aid station to keep me company and very appropriately heckle me about earlier jokes I had made about maybe extending my run to 200 miles as I sat for an hour by a heater eating soup and crow.

But the evil little tendon abated its seizure and I was able to shuffle off for “just one more lap,” which turned into another, and another.  The sun rose again and it got warm, so half an hour was spent on a cot in the back of a moving van trying in vain to sleep.  Then it was back to loop after loop and a real honest-to-goodness finish.

Largely due to attrition I ended up having the honor of crossing the finish line (in my underwear) as winner of the 150-mile race and setting a nice, soft course record for somebody to beat next year.

Then it was another nap in the back of the moving van, my lovely wife and I went home, where we ate 24 chicken wings and slept for a day.

200 next year?

Despite being a staunch skeptic and realist, I was ready to admit the existence of karmic recompense at Lumberjack for Badger’s beat-down.

Things augured poorly at first.  Two long days on my feet right beforehand meant I wasn’t optimally rested for [...]]]> (Editor’s Note: This was actually written up post-Pigtails because the author is abysmally lazy.)

Despite being a staunch skeptic and realist, I was ready to admit the existence of karmic recompense at Lumberjack for Badger’s beat-down.

Things augured poorly at first.  Two long days on my feet right beforehand meant I wasn’t optimally rested for the race, and my lovely wife’s offer to show up late for support and a ride home meant I had to coordinate a carpool and ferry ride and would have to stay the night with a friend or sleep in a tent in a soggy field.  It also rained for two days before the race – a race which is known for being especially swampy when wet.

But somehow everything came together.  I escaped work in time to catch an earlier ferry than expected, along with my co-conspirator Nic Plemel.  We made it easily to the home / ranch / Martha Stewart-esque farm of Karen and George Wiggins, where a surfeit of blueberry pancakes awaited us.  Sleep, coffee, a clear sky and the perfect parking spot successively followed, and we were off.

Lumberjack comprises eight 12.5-mile loops, mostly singletrack trail with a few fire roads thrown in.  When it’s wet it’s miserable, but this year there were only two mud patches, both of which were almost (but not quite) evadable. Most of the course is quite runnable, so that’s what I did.  I didn’t really have any serious time goals, so I looped and looped at an easy pace feeling quite decent most of the time.  Nic had taken off quickly at the start and during the rest of my race I only saw him once, ironically coming back at me on the trail to make up for a lost turn.  It seemed he was having an incredible time and my goal shifted to trying to catch up with him.

Only one change of socks seemed necessary, about the time my lovely wife showed up after running the Yakima Skyline 25K, so I got the double boost of dry feet and a smooch from my sweetie.  She retired to the back of the Honda Element and slept, while I trundled on, sticking my head in to steal goodies and give her updates.

Toward the end of my seventh lap Tim Stroh came running by.  He was on his last lap and ready to be done with it all, but he kindly slowed to my pace and chatted a bit before rocketing down the fire road to finish up.  Only one more lap to try to catch Nic.

The high school lads who were manning one of the remote aid stations were snoring in their chairs, so we runners did our best to sneak in and out without waking them.  They had really done an excellent job taking care of us and were clearly pooped.  It felt good to be among the old farts outlasting the whippersnappers at staying up late.

And almost too soon it was nearly over, and it looked like 24 hours was within reach. I did my best to mimic Tim’s dash down the last fire road, but an independent observer would probably have described my pace as a shuffle or lurch rather than a dash.  Then, climbing out of the brambles to the last 200-yard finish stretch I heard Nic’s voice.  He and Tracy Brown had seen me and were running toward the finish.

They beat me handily and were laughing about their success when I arrived to congratulate Nic on his victory – at which point he said he had one more loop to go, and that they just didn’t want to get lapped!  Apparently I had unknowingly passed by him in the dark of night and had been ahead all that time.

Both Nic’s feet and shoes were a mess, so I loaned him a pair of the latter and sent him out for his last lap.  One beer later I was out cold in the back of the Element, not awaking until he and Tracy finished their races.

Slam status: Two down.  Three to go…

Badger felt similar.

Jockeying around a neighborhood to find the start line of [...]]]>

Matt walks along McBee Ridge (Photo by Daniel Kühlmann)

Before being served with a cease-and-desist letter, the Waldo 100K used to be called “Where’s Waldo 100K” because runners would be looking for Waldo Lake – an elusive entity which can only be glimpsed from the highest peaks, eluding runners the entire race.

Badger felt similar.

Jockeying around a neighborhood to find the start line of the elusive Badger Mountain 100 was portent of the day to follow.  Half the group parked at a little park and the other half parked at the official trailhead mentioned on the map.  Group 1 seems to have won the coin flip, for that’s where the RD showed up to start us.

Several folks asked about course marking, which was a bit of a problem last year, and a small green flag was confidently held up so all could see the green markers we’d be seeking among the green sagebrush.  Some, we were told, would have reflective tape.  Piece of cake.

“Is the entire course marked?”

“Yes, the entire course is marked.  Just follow the flags to…  Uh…  Well, Badger Mountain isn’t marked, but the rest is,” we were assured.  ”Is there someone who knows the course who could lead the group out?”

Clearly we were in for a good time.

The wind picked up, the rain began to pelt us and we started up the hill, the lead pack led by two knowledgeable volunteers.  We mortals began at what felt like a sensible trudge, saving our energy for later in the race.

At the peak the leaders had disappeared into the blowing rain and the trail forked left and right.  A runner stood there with a concerned look, saying that two runners had gone left after the pack had gone right.  Badger had claimed its first sacrificial victims, but having studied the maps I knew we were supposed to head North, so I confidently headed that direction.  That was the last moment for the next 28 hours where I would feel anything resembling confidence.

Down Badger Mountain… up Candy Mountain… Down Candy and up Red Mountain…  It’s a bit of a blur, and I was making great time.  The wind had picked up to the 30+mph range, and the rain had just enough sleet pellets to sting eyeballs into a bleary mess, making navigation difficult.  Flags appeared and disappeared with quantum regularity, occasionally at ambiguous locations such as at the center of a Y-shaped split in the trail.

It’s easy to put oneself in the mind of someone marking trail, who is thinking, “I’ll put one marker in the middle that they can’t possibly miss, then another to one side or the other, indicating which direction to go.”  The plan is flawless – unless of course that second marker is pulled out, bumped, trodden upon or taken away by gale-force winds that blow constantly upon those ridges.  Then you’re left with one joke flag and a bunch of runners trying to read the dirt for tracks.

We found the tracks.  Then we crested the hill and waved to the leaders as they were coming up the hill.  They looked a little lost too, so we all felt better, until some madman came driving straight up the hill in a 4×4 pickup waving and yelling.  After recognizing the race director, the leaders turned back around and found the missed turn, saving us mortals one fruitless climb, only to be replaced with a fruitless search several miles later when the trail of flags went cold again, dead-ending into a barbed-wire fence.  Not finding any clues, we hit a nearby road for a mile, until somebody spotted a new flag (yellow this time) and we ran through somebody’s front yard to find the frontage road upon which we were supposed to be running.

The motorcycle course marshals found us sometime after this and managed to keep the ragged band of idiots together to the McBee Parking lot, where while changing socks I related my travails to my lovely wife Betsy, who fed me, resupplied me and handed me off to my auxiliary RaceWife (i.e. crew) Jess Mullen before Betsy went to run a sensible race in Yakima.

The climb up McBee Ridge was a nice opportunity to chat with Daniel Kühlmann, whom I had passed and who passed me (repeat several times) and who was carrying a little video camera on a pole like a periscope that preceded his appearance over the rise of each hill.  Daniel is a fine man who finished under 24 hours and was kind enough both to edit out the video his periscope caught of my relieving myself with my back to the wind, and also to offer some advice:  ”Face into the wind!  That way it warms you up!”

McBee Ridge goes on forever and into a year, but there were one, perhaps two little tinker carts with kind men plying their craft of runner maintenance.  Their skills were great, with the pinnacle a used water bottle filled with broth made from the distillation of youthful exuberance crossed with essence of badassitude.  Probably just Swanson’s, but a warm bottle in frozen fingers colors the perception of taste.

After the ridge came a run down a busy highway, a housing development, a long climb up a dirt road, some hugs from Delores Sentinella and Miranda Bachman, a wrong turn, a bit of advice from a motorcycle course marshall (thanks again!), a bunch more field travel, advice to Miranda’s hubby Rusty about not descending the precipitous climb up which he just rode his fat 1100GS, a descent, and finally a garage.

Seriously.  A blur.  Just like that.

The garage was kindly donated by a local dentist and served as the nicest aid station I’ve ever visited.  At the turnaround I was on a 24 hour pace, but sensibly stopped for a bit to pick up my compadre Van Phan, without whom I’d have spent most of the second half lost (instead of just some of it).  Her asthma slowed our pace at first, but soon she was running me, and her knowledge of the course was incalculably useful.  On climbing back to McBee I noticed that both the road and the rough trail paralleling it were marked, so I took one down and the other up.

We found the tinker shack once again, stopping for some bacon and soup, then we headed into oblivion upon descending the ridge – blowing past the markers and ending up on pavement with an irrigation ditch between us and the only visible group of lights meandering about on the hill.  Presumably they had found the trail, (although presumptions were sketchy at this point).  Nonetheless we bushwhacked their direction and found our way to what we figured was probably perhaps likely maybe possibly the trail to the parking lot.  I was quite intent upon this search, having misread the distance on the map and not filled my water reservoir.  Eleven miles feels quite a bit longer than three when you’re thirsty.

We found the parking lot eventually, then ran…  I’m not really sure where.  My Garmin watch had died long ago and we just followed flags out of the darkness and into the dawn.  At one point we ran into a staggering Joe Tompkins, who was running in exactly the opposite direction of Badger Mountain, the flags, and the direction we were traveling, but he seemed convinced that he was on the right track, while we were certain of our direction.  (Turns out we were both right.)

Another aid station.  Another painful 5-mile loop.  Another pointless climb up and over some jeep roads to get back to the aid station again, where they directed us back up the road where Joe had been.

There’s always a part of a long race where you question the whole damn endeavor.  Running long distances is fundamentally a silly, pointless activity, but sometimes it just hits you right between the eyes.  That moment came as I was running (shuffling) away from Badger and the finish line on blistered feet on the far side of a highway with no road in sight on which to cross.

Eventually we found the culvert that led underneath the highway.  It was no Snoqualmie pass tunnel, but it still felt creepy.  Then it was up another set of obnoxious jeep roads on another set of obnoxious hills before we could get to the magic Badger Mountain, up which we slowly trudged.

I missed seeing the hand of god, which came down and cleared the crap from Van’s lungs bringing her to life once more.  She was able to tear up and down the hills while I just hobbled along with my swelling blisters.  Finally over the crest, I started to pick up a little steam again, feeling very much, very painfully alive as I hobbled downhill.

And in the last half mile I was passed by Elvis.

My goal had been to beat world-class runner Ian Sharman, running the 50K, which started 24 hours later than the 100.  I had figured that a 28-hour pace would get me in just in front of him, but his speedy 3:56:48  (in full Elvis costume) and my 28:06:25 finish gave him the win.  Van and I finished holding hands because she absolutely refused to leave me on the final downhill.

One down.

I wrote myself a note on the back of my buckle, just in case I try to do this again.

Current standings…

Good luck,
Matt

(For those in the Peanut Gallery:  Arthur pointed out that there’s another possibility for a 100-miler in Washington, namely the Pac Rim 24-hour run in Longview, WA.  My fingers are in my ears and I’m saying “lalalalalala” loudly so [...]]]> It doesn’t count, Arthur!  It doesn’t count!  24-hour races don’t count!

Good luck,
Matt

(For those in the Peanut Gallery:  Arthur pointed out that there’s another possibility for a 100-miler in Washington, namely the Pac Rim 24-hour run in Longview, WA.  My fingers are in my ears and I’m saying “lalalalalala” loudly so I can’t hear him.)

It is indeed well-supported.  In fact, this year it was just like running in a well.

Thunder and lightning greeted us at the start, and Huntsville State Park turned into a [...]]]>

The sub-24-hour Rocky buckle

This was supposed to be my warmup lap.  Rocky is known as a fairly flat, fast loop course that’s well-supported and fun to run.

It is indeed well-supported.  In fact, this year it was just like running in a well.

Thunder and lightning greeted us at the start, and Huntsville State Park turned into a swampy mess for 30 hours as we tried to stay afloat running in circles glancing around for the alligators purported to exist in the park.  The weather wasn’t too cold, at least by the standards of we northerners, but it certainly wasn’t conducive to permitting the skin to remain attached to feet.  Drops abounded.  Or rather drops shuffled off and lay down.  Very little bounding occurred at all.  The guy with the #1 on his bib called it a day at 60 miles.  Others stuck it out to 80.  A few brave few (my wife included) made it to 90 before sensibly saying F*%K this and hitching a ride in with some cowboy aid station volunteers.

I went out too fast.  I turned my ankle.  Twice.  On the same root in the same puddle.  I spoke in sentence fragments.  My blisters popped on the run, first at mile 85, then mile 90.  I didn’t puke, but I pooped where the alligators were supposed to be.

And I got the buckle.  The pretty buckle.  The sub-24 buckle.  Only I didn’t, because one of the boxes got held up in shipping, so it’s coming in 4-6 weeks…

But I got the buckle.  And some nasty feet.

Rocky Raccoon 100: 23 hours, 40 minutes, 58 seconds.
full results here 

Here’s a (linguistically NSFW) video of the Pre-Race Fireworks

Two days later. (Should have left the camera in my drop bag so I could have had a shot at the end.) Next time!

The final race in the GSW is also the hardest, featuring at least 100 miles (107, supoosedly) of trails, jeep track, fire roads and completely unmarked woods.  There is no support.  Water comes from streams.  No pacers are allowed, and asking for directions from the [...]]]> All this for a hunk of rock?

The final race in the GSW is also the hardest, featuring at least 100 miles (107, supoosedly) of trails, jeep track, fire roads and completely unmarked woods.  There is no support.  Water comes from streams.  No pacers are allowed, and asking for directions from the Search & Rescue guys is an automatic disqualification.  At the end of all this your reward is a hand-painted rock which this runner believes to be the most beautiful award in all of ultrarunning.

Last year our protagonist finished this race in 27:11:00.

Badger is held on March 31 near the bustling metropolis of Kennewick, WA, and the winner is offered the opportunity to take home a live badger as a gift.
They usually decline.
Website

It’s usually swampy and they lose four to five runners to the Sasquatch each year.