The Planner's Plan Was an Also Ran : My 2022 American River 50M Race Report

 I want all the proteins: Sriracha chicken chunks, garlicy roast pork loin, sweet and crunchy coconut shrimp, and a 14oz bloody ribeye weeping fat. Even tofu, if I must.  Bodies are pretty incredible machines.  I mean, at the end of it, we are all just visceral, boney, (questionably) sapient meat sacks, right?  Still, our physical selves are remarkable.  They know what they want.  And this body wants two breakfasts this morning, the day after the race.  So that’s what it gets. The only place open at 5am was McDonalds so, pride be damned, I had my breakfast starter of an Egg McMuffin, hashbrowns, and coffee.  Perfect. I’ll nurse my coffee and soon enough the Black Bear Diner across the street will be open for the main event.  Well, that turned out to be a grand breakfast consisting of 3 eggs over medium, two thick pieces of buttery rye toast, an ample bump of crispy red potato home fries, and half a fried spicy hot link kielbasa. My blood said, tersely, “this cholesterol is uncalled for!” I told my blood to STFU.

Funny, but immediately after the race , though I was in major calorie deprivation, I didn’t have an appetite.  And the idea of alcohol was stomach-turning.  I did have a post-race Lagunitas IPA out of a sense of Duty because beer after an ultra is something that is simply done. It must be done lest you are consigned to the Hellfire. It wasn’t a smooth quaff, however. I had to force it.  That told me my body was in extremis.  Within an hour though, my appetite started to come back and I had severe and urgent cravings for red meat and fresh salad greens (loaded with bleu fromage dressing and croutons, if you might).  So, I drove up to the closest steak place I could find close to the hotel.  It was a Sizzler, which is pretty much the K-Mart of blue-collar steak and buffet joints. But I didn’t care.  I gorged on salad and steak, went back to my room, got into bed, and slept the sleep of Anubis for 8 hours, awakened thrice by rude and excruciating calf cramps.  Those were 30 seconds of agony each, but I managed to fall back to sleep immediately after they resolved. 

This race was much more of a gut check than I expected.  It was a paradigm case of how well-intentioned and crisply formulated plans disintegrate into fairy dust when they meet the moment.  More on that to follow.

The trip began with a quick overnight with my girlfriend, Pam, in Concord, NH.  She was working late doing law school professor stuff (I don’t believe, however, she’s as intense as Paper Chase’s Professor Kingsfield) and hadn’t eaten so I made her spicy penne al olio when I got down there.   She had a board meeting, ate, we chatted about things, worked on the puzzle, and it was soon to bed for me since I had a 2am wake up to catch a 3:15 bus to Logan for my flight.  Of course, pre-trip/pre-race adrenaline hobbled my slumber, but I got a few REMs and rose on time for espresso and continued the travel day, every minute of which gave me agita- fearing delays, drunken raging passengers I might need to subdue, and myriad other potential aggravations.  This trip worked out okay though and I got to Sacramento on sked. No delays.  No desire to self-defenestrate.   

Oh, and one random thing which has been on my mind, before I get into the actual race stuff.  And that is this:  I think there is a loose and ironic connection between the rise of Populist Authoritarianism over the past decade, and Wordle. 

Let me explain.  Wordle is a word game - you can look it up - which is essentially an exercise in deductive logic.  You have 6 chances to move from one random guess of a 5-letter word to determining what the correct word of the day is. For those of you who remember the leisure suits and games of the '70s, it is a less mathematical (and easier) version of  Mastermind.  It has become a global phenomenon and there is a reason. The reason is that this game reminds players of what human rationality can look like. It exercises skills in deduction, not the squishier forms of inductive or abductive logic, at least not entirely. Humans like the clarity of right answers if they can get there. They seek it.

(Side note-10th grade Geometry class is the singular experience that inclined me to study Philosophy as an undergrad and be attracted by logical forms, big T truth, and also why I think critical thinking ought to be broken out as a specific discipline and taught with intention at the primary and secondary school levels in this country).

But apart from mathematicians, physicists, and logicians, most normal people’s lives are not guided by the certitudes of deductive logic. Life, rather, is bounded by loose probabilities, nuance, squishy contingencies, and the liminal Bayesian space between True and False.  Life is complicated on all of the levels and while we search for clarity and certainty in the day to day, we generally fail.  Wordle reminds us that Truth derived from basic principles is possible. So we are attracted. 

However, the world is not filled with first principles.  It is filled with noxious ideology and absurdity, courtesy of the news cycle and both sides of the political spectrum consistently lying prostrate to the confirmation bias which at once binds and limits them. The nut kicks which ensue between combatants results in nothing more than white noise which frustrates and annoys the more modulated minority among us.

Unassailably logical certainty in the real world is nearly impossible to find. Enter the populists. They don’t pretend to be democratic or even value time-tested norms of political behaviour.  They don’t pretend to account for the varied and complex positions of their countries, counties, or name the constituency.  They preach a message of solutions, direction, vision, and a definable, ostensibly positive end state of their own creation.  Now, that end state and the verbal flourishes which color it can be composed of falsehoods, “fake news,” fictionalized folderal, and flawed fantasy, but spoken with certainty by a strong and articulate personality, however wrongheaded, mean-spirited, and disingenuous, the human lemming will respond and align.  Combine this propensity of the only pseudo sapient with the sheer volume of bullshit being vomited out into the world, and you have a population which is craving direction, a bright-lined vector leading to a compelling and well-sold vision of how life should be, however superficially scaffolded with untruths.  The destination doesn’t really matter. Epistemological integrity is meaningless.  What matters is the resonance of the message and its role as a  laser beam of clarity cutting through the marshmallow and cotton puffery of a confused and confusing information space.  Steve Bannon was onto something when he advocated to “flood the zone with shit.”  Shit is the populist’s friend.  It is easy to sell a simple vision in an environment of profound confusion and tension. The simple clarity of Wordle is not unlike the simple clarity of the populist’s message.  

So, one path to the answer is paved with rational analysis; the other is informed by a writhing orgy of rhetorical ecstasy. And therein lies the tragic irony of the whole business.  

So that.  Now to the race.

I arrived in Auburn, CA on a Thursday afternoon after a long but uneventful travel day. Well, that’s a lie.  Pam, being terrific and thoughtful, got me a foot hammock for the trip.  This is a rig that you hang on the seatback tray in front of you on the plane and you can put your feet in there to relax and sway.  Fantastic. A real game changer, like the neck gasket pillow. Good kit.  Thank you, Milady.

I checked into the Golden Key Best Western after the trip from Sac airport, dropped off my baggage, and walked over to Flames where I had a 24 oz local IPA and a half dozen spicy wings.  Afterwards, I headed next door to a local taqueria and enjoyed a smoky, rich, and toothsome carnitas chimichanga the size of a dachshund, and a tortilla buffet (yeah-a buffet with, like, 6 different salsa options, and queso).  So damned good, and bringing into stark relief the absolute dearth of good Mexican food in Vermont - in fact, I know of no decent Mexican place in the state.  So, that put my body into a coma at around 5pm and I fell into bed to sleep.  Part of my strategy in this race was to stay on Vermont time so that when I had to wake up at 3am to catch the shuttle to the start in Folsom on Saturday morning, it would still be 6am to my body.  That seemed to work decently.

I woke up on Friday morning, early, and stayed in bed until around 4:30.  I rose, puttered about, and walked down to the local Starbucks for coffee.  The cheery barista, a bright-eyed Latina named Elena with sass and those long, painted fingernails that make you wonder how they can get through the day without injuring themselves or others, greeted me with a mile wide smile. She pressed a decent Americano (never hot enough at Starbucks), and I sat in the comfy leather chair to think about tomorrow, race day. So much of this game is getting into the right headspace; the mental piece is key. In races over 50K I need to convince myself that I am indestructible, momentum incarnate. A Juggernaut.

That done, it was back to my room to plan the day.  First things first.  I wanted to do a nice shakeout trail run and decided upon the Robie Point Firebreak Trail.  Robie Point, as those Western States Endurance Run aficionados know, features in the last miles of that epic granddaddy of them all race. I did a little under 6 miles in and around Robie and loved it. Being California, I played lots of Eagles, and for some reason the song, Take It to the Limit, resonated that day on the run. 

"You know I've always been a dreamer (spent my life running round). And it's so hard to change."  

I’d heard so many stories about the difference between West Coast and East Coast single track and now I’d experienced it.  West Coast trails are indeed “buttery,” compared to the bony, stony, muddy, mossy East Coast's but still challenging because the red dirt changes its complexion regularly.  It can be as smooth as Barry White’s game one day and then, after a good rain, can become channelized, hazardous, and tough to get a good stride going.  This would feature tomorrow during the race.  I finished the run and, after eating a hearty breakfast of sausage, eggs, and rye at Edelweiss in downtown Old Auburn (cooked by a grizzled, tatted, and incomprehensibly adept spatula man), I headed over to Placer High School to run a lap, honoring my friend Dylan, in Montpelier, who had to drop from a furnace-like Western last year due to dehydration. Western ends with an iconic lap around the Placer High track before crossing the finish line, so that just had to be done. Such a cool quarter mile.

I showered, did some local navigation to Overlook Park, which is the finish line and the place where the 4:30 bus would leave the next morning to take us to the start in Folsom. Then from there I headed down to Folsom to pick up my race packet and schwag at Fleet Feet.  That went well. I roamed around the area on foot afterwards and ended up buying a bottle of Elijah Craig Small Batch bourbon at a local concern. Better to make decent Old Fashioneds, or so I’m told. Back in Auburn, I had a local IPA at Club Car and then walked over to a Mongolian BBQ place where I loaded up on spicy lamb, spinach, and several tons of wheat udon. Afterwards, back at home base, I took a ritual shot of pre-race Patron anejo and went to bed.  Then I woke up.  It was race day.  

Dark and chilly, I opted to wear a fleece, my buff in cap form, and light gloves for the trip down to Folsom.  I drove to Overlook Park, stowed the car, and hopped on the bus.  The inside was dense with that special pre-race anxiety and nervous energy.  Pretty typical. I ate a cinnamon roll, keeping to myself and gathering my thoughts.  I had slept some, but not much, and not deeply.  I closed my eyes for a few minutes and then we were at the start. We arrived about 45 mins before the gun went off so there was a lot of stretching and undulating and hopping about by the competitors.  I saw Tim Tollefson, who would go on to win it, toeing the line up front and chatting with friends and competitors.  Seemed like a great guy.  Friendly, supportive, but also ready to run. His finish time with an average mile pace of 7 something was beyond my comprehension. There were the standard announcements and gratitudes uttered, the clock clicked to 10 seconds remaining, we counted it down together in the lamp-lit darkness and off we went.

I had done some, not enough, research on this race, and I had goals.  Turns out that my goals were laughably naïve, but that is part of the fun.  Encounter challenges, acknowledge them, own them, persevere through them, and prevail.  In my analysis, the race would be divided into 4 basic parts (my labels):

Miles 1-7, Happy Happy Joy Joy, were to be a warmup loop on some flats and single track.  I’d take it slowly, and just get used to the terrain, and my body.  I’d assess how I was feeling, identify any trouble spots to attend to later, and just enjoy the jog.

Miles 8-31, Keep It Slow, Dumbass, were going to be mostly flat hardball surfaces with several miles of trail thrown in.  I’d need to be very careful here because I’d want to go fast.  Easy to burn out and ruin the end game. I had to modulate.

Miles 32-47, We Love It When It Sucks, would be technical single track. Not my strong suit.  I’d see how I felt. I’m not fast on trail in any case, regardless of how buttery it is, so I knew my pace would be slowish. Hopefully not too slow.

Miles 48-50, Popsicle Gruntfest, would be the notoriously steep hill of around 1000’ over three miles to the Finish.  I’d give whatever I had left to reach the end, get the medal, do the thing, and have a beer.

I wanted to run a sub-9 for this race.  My thinking was that if I could put a nice reasonable 5:15 50K together, that would give me 3:45 to cover the last 19 miles.  That’s an 11:50 pace over those 19. Seemed doable given what I thought I knew about the course, and how I saw my fitness. I even had the ridiculous thought that on the outside I could break 8:30. I know.  Hilarious.

That initial 7 mile loop was almost exactly as expected and I just relaxed into it.  The first couple of miles were slow due to darkness and the occasional conga lines ascending the trail.  Some guy took a hard and inelegant spill within the first mile and tore himself up, he laughed it off and continued, knee bloodied, number ripped off, and limping a little bit. Been there. The course was lovely with golden glowing views of the mountains and water as the sun rose slowly over the horizon. My form felt good, the trail wasn’t awful, and I was in a good flow, though I realized it was early in the day and I couldn’t get cocky.  I threw the headlamp, fleece, and gloves in the "bring back to start" box, running through the Folsom Point aid station at mi 7.1, filled up my handheld with with water and continued on, planning to hydrate well over the next leg, and intending to take my first fuel at around mile 15.2 at Willow Creek, the next aid.

My kit was simple.  Since the aid stations were spaced fairly frequently, I decided to carry my just handheld and a pocketed Nathan elastic running belt within which I had some GUs, phone, earbuds, cheaters, sports beans (by Jelly Belly!), some Clifshot gummies, salt tabs, Vitamin I, and bandages. I’d later pick up some bags of Tailwind at mile 27 from my drop.

Now I was in the relatively flat and fast part of the course and knew I would be until around mile 31.  I had to consciously slow my pace and I ended up running next to a tall wiry guy easily making his way over the course.  We chatted a bit.  He was a local from Auburn, knew the town well, tolerating my questions and giving me tips on restaurants and pubs and was familiar with the Robie Point Trail I ran yesterday.  I say, “Have you run this race before?” He sheepishly answered, “Yeah.”  “Oh, cool,” I say.  “Any tips or tricks?”  He says, “Well, you need to be fresh going into the trails at mile 31 or so. You can’t be really fresh, of course, but y’know, fresh enough.  You look on the map and that section looks like a flat nothing, but it’s not nothing.  It’s a grind. Very deceiving.” “Ah, thanks,” says I, now mildly concerned.  “Yeah, that pretty much tracks with what I’m thinking - trying to take it easy on this road section before the trails hit.  By the way, how many times have you run this?”  The guy says, “42.” This is not only the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, apparently.   I put the pieces together and said, “Holy Shit, are you Tim Twietmeyer?”  He smiled and said, “Yeah.”  I knew of Tim Twietmeyer by name because he is an ultrarunning legend, but I never knew what he looked like.  So, I was kind of embarrassed not knowing with whom I was running.  Here I am racing next to an elite in my own age group (He’s 63; I’m 60), and I didn’t even recognize him.  The guy is an institution.  Winning Western 5 times, finishing it 25 times sub 24 hrs, and running this one over 40 times - I mean, c'mon.

But I’m not generally cowed by celebrity, that time I met Tommy Makem in NYC notwithstanding.   In fact, most of them, to my mind, are assholes, full of unbridled ego and vinegar.  Not this guy. He’s an OG and possesses a classy humility born of doing and not talking.  So, we ran together for a while, just talking about things-Auburn, coaching, the power of place, local geography, taxes, running, work, etc.  I was happy and honored just to have met him.

Over the rest of this leg through Negro Bar at mile 23, to Beal’s Point at mile 27, we shifted back and forth on the course, having roughly the same pace. I was still feeling good, pretty much executing my plan.  I recall climbing up a trail section at mile 19 thinking, “OK, only a 50K to go.  Easy day.”  I chortle now just thinking about that stupid innocence. Around 23 miles or so, a bunch of us had to stop on the trail because ahead of us was a group of 5 student horseback trail riders having a lesson, and if we had tried to pass them they would have been spooked.  So, it was an opportunity to walk a bit and chat with the gaggle of 6 or 7 runners in parade.

The aid station at Beal’s Point at mile 27.4 is a milestone.  It is over halfway, the place where many racers keep drop bags, has actual bathrooms, and is a signal that you only have a few miles until you will be entering Hell, aka the Meat Grinder.  So, I recharged my water, grabbed some stuff from my drop bag, smiled, thanked the volunteers, and requested a cheeseburger.  I asked for a cheeseburger at every aid station, feigning outrage when denied. One lady said no, but that it was indeed Paradise.  I got the Buffett reference and asked for a Margarita. I, sadly, didn’t get one, but it amused the volunteers. 

The next 4.1 miles clicked off easily and I got to Granite Bay, the 50K aid station at the 5:15-5:20 mark or so. Right where I wanted to be and I felt fine.   Between Beal's and Granite, Tim warned me to hydrate well because this was a long tough section coming up.  So I drank when I got to Granite Bay, filled my bottle and off I went.  There were 6.5 miles until the next aid station at Horseshoe Bar. It was around 11:30 and it was getting hot.

“Meat Grinder.”  Sounds ominous, right?  Well, picture swimming in the open ocean and being savaged by a Great White.  Flesh is rent, bones splintered, viscera floating, soon to settle on the seabed to feed the crabs, exsanguination immediate and dark, crimson hemo-blossoms surrounding your lifeless, body-less head.  Ok?  Well, the Meat Grinder is nothing like that. That would be too direct and end things too soon.

The Grinder is a section of the course which is at its core an endless cascade of very short and steep ups and downs complicated by grooves and gouges in the dirt, rock, roots, logs tossed around like a collapsed Jenga tower, and, on that day, heat.  A more apt analogy than the shark thing, is that the MG is like being gripped tightly by a obnoxious giant with bad breath who rubs you down with course sandpaper while telling stupid jokes; then he starts gnawing on your body like a hound chewing on a piece of rawhide.  Except that this giant doesn’t have canines, he only has dull molars, and they never break the skin.  He grinds you down slowly and you soften over time.   This is the Meat Grinder.  See what I mean?

I couldn’t get a groove on with pace because of the obstructions and I ended up stopping and starting continuously. So incredibly frustrating.  And for me this, combined with the quickly rising temperatures, started to do me in around mile 33-34.  You can see it as clear as day on my Strava. I trained in the Vermont winter for this and so I think there was definitely some kind of temperature shock when I found myself running in 80F California heat with direct sunstrikes.

Twiet passed me around this time and told me to hang in there. What a mensch.  I wouldn’t see him again.  He was moving quickly and comfortably.  I wasn't. There was an inflection point somewhere in there for me and I know I lost mental fortitude and not a little grit.  I was hot, dusty, dirty, and uncomfortable but my hydration was excellent, and I didn’t feel any creeping energy fatigue from lack of fuel. I simply found myself, when I got to an obstacle, walking just a little bit longer than I had too, cursing the heat, jogging to the next challenge point and trudging through it, burning time as I went.  I knew I would finish, and then when I did some quick calculations and realized that I wouldn’t be coming in sub-9, I allowed myself to be okay with that and accept the sub-10. I left the Meat Grinder and arrived at the mile 38 aid station, Horseshoe Bar.  I drank heavily (water, though a Coors Light would have been welcome), ate some salt and vinegar chips, got a cold-water sponge douse on my back, and went on my way.  12 miles to go.

Then, at mile 39, after bulldogging my way slowly over the trail, I felt a stone in my shoe.  I stopped, sat down, removed the offending silicate, laced back up and pushed off the embankment with my left arm.  Then, the left side of my chest went into some kind of nasty spasm.  For a split second I thought I was having a heart attack and wondering who would be sad if I kicked it.  But I knew it wasn’t my heart.  This kind of thing has happened to me before.  When running these distances, our bodies have pretty much the same basic mechanical form the entire time, and it is a long time.  The legs stroke forward and aft, the core pivots, the head swivels, and the arms cycle front to back in the same plane.  They get locked into those positions over the hours so that when you change the angle of things quickly and apply force, muscles can seize.  This is what happened when I pushed off the hill 90 degrees from the lateral direction my arms had been moving all day. I gritted my teeth, groaned loudly (maybe whimpering was involved, too) and had to massage my chest and attempt to relax my arm until the pain subsided. It took maybe 9 or 10 minutes but felt like an eternity.  Then I started running again.

From there I slowed down even more.  I was out of the Meat Grinder and on better trail, but I still moved too slowly and stopped too frequently. I was fatigued and hot, but weirdly didn’t feel horrible. I think part of it was that since I realized I wouldn’t hit my time goal, it translated into “running” a more relaxed pace which, as I look at my splits, was nothing more than a very slow jog to the end.  

I passed Rattlesnake Bar without event, and got to Dowdin’s Post, only 6 miles away from the Finish. I rewatered, spent too much time joking with the volunteers, and took off.  In 3 miles I got to the foot of the final climb. I could smell the barn.  The first quarter mile was very steep, but then it eased up a bit so that the pitch reminded me of North St, back in Montpelier.  I run that road all the time so I just put myself in that gear and went to work.  About a mile and a half before the end there is an aid station named Last Gasp.  They specialize in great attitudes and fantastic popsicles.  I had three pineapple ones. Refreshed, I pushed hard to the finish, crossed the line and got my jacket and medal.  It was cool because the announcer, who I think might have been Scott Warr, one of the Trail Runner Nation hosts, gave me and Vermont a shout out when I finished.  He told me that I had come the farthest to race. I put on my slides and walked around, called Pam to check in and weepily express my appreciation for her support, and headed back to the hotel, curious how my recovery would feel.

As it turns out, my legs felt fine the next day.   In fact, after driving out to Cool to walk some trails the next day after that gargantuan breakfast at Black Bear I decided to try running again. I felt okay having done 6 miles, though I got scolded by an uppity equestrian for taking her photo without permission. I guess she thought I was perpetuating the patriarchy.  All I was doing was taking a picture of a damned horse for my girlfriend. Tuesday was my return to VT but I had a late flight out of Sac so I went for another run, a 7 miler, along the lakeshore in the morning, revisiting part of the Meat Grinder, my old friend. I wasn’t traumatized.  I had decent pop in the legs so was encouraged. The vast ocean of lupins was pretty incredible.  Prince would have loved it.

This was a good trip, a good race, and as always when running this kind of endurance event, there is plenty of time to contemplate, deliberate, cogitate, and learn, which is my default mode anyway. I wasn’t thrilled with the performance, but I’ll take it.  I placed 28/155 overall, and 2/9 in my age group having been pulverized by a legend which was, oddly, kind of fantastic. I’d like to think that the heat had an outsized effect on my performance and though it did impact my race, I think the real culprit was mental weakness.  Once I realized I wouldn’t make my expected time, I sort of said, “screw it,” and allowed myself to walk or jog much more than I would have otherwise. Lesson learned, and I need to fix that somehow. 

Another thing I learned is that I really need to get better at managing and defining expectations and predictions.  I’ve run two sub 8 hr 50M races in my short and late-in-life ultra-career:  Jack Bristol in 2019, and Montana Rail Trail in 2021.  Those were relatively “easy” races in that there was little vert, no technical trail, and took place in temperate conditions.  So why is it that I anchor my expectations for a wholly different race like AR50 on those times?  No idea. That is stupid. Yet that is what I did.  I set goals for this race based on knowing that I could run sub 8.  Ridiculous.  The right answer is to set expectations based upon the course you are actually running. I should have done more research on others’ experiences on this course.  Look at Strava and it seems like the route can be described as “run a relatively flat 47 miles and then the last 3 mile climb sucks and then you finish.”  Nope, it was far more than that. Yet another thing learned.

Now, for a burrito and an Old Fashioned.  Thanks for reading.

 

There Is Good In Cowboy Poetry: My 2021 Idaho-Montana Trail Rail 50 Mile Race Report

 

I’m not a Hegelian, but his Dialectic has been on my mind this trip. Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis.  The primatologist Robert Sapolsky observes that humans are creatures that at once have the greatest capacity for both kindness and violence.  He’s right, I think. Humans can be cruel, vindictive, and petty pricks.  They can also be citadels of altruism, kindness, and empathy.  What a sludgy dichotomy. What an interesting dialogue between those two poles.  

Sapolsky is a hardline determinist, firmly anchored in the “Free Will Does Not Exist” camp.  Behavior for Sapolsky is driven by a mélange of genetic predisposition, hormones, self-preservation, sub-atomic particles bouncing off of one another,  and evolutionarily programmed imperatives.  Free will as we think of it is an illusion - a necessary one, and a fantasm which,  if not accepted in our daily lives, would result in most of us being sucked into a dark vortex of futility, frustration, and despair. That would be less fun than listening to Björk's Biophilia on repeat.  I join Sapolsky in his view that there is no free will, and I see the psychological and metaphysical hazards of that whirlpool. Yet I do, somehow (probably because I am fairly adept at putting things in boxes), believe we have agency - volition - and that intentions matter both to define our objectives for moral behavior and to impel action. Volition, as delusional as it may be, is a necessary conceit. 

So, given all of that, it seems I ran a long race in Idaho & Montana on June 12, resolved dichotomous feelings of wild rage and centered calm during the thing, and pretended I made choices which resulted in a successful result.  So, please read on and understand that everything that I experienced and observed was pre-ordained by Physics, Evolution, and Genetics. It could only have been what it was.

I came across the Montana Trail-Rail Run in late 2019.  Fifty miles, a distance I like, running straight through the Rockies, two states, two time zones, one way, no out and backs, reasonable vert because it is an old valley-set railroad bed converted to a trail, and on what seemed would be a forgiving and predictable gravel surface. So, I registered right away for the 2020 race.  The Plague happened and I didn’t race, but Tyler, the kind RD, allowed me to defer it to this year.

The logistics should have been easy.  Fly into Missoula, rent a car, stay at an AirBnB, see the sights, hob nob with the locals, run my race, and fly back to the Green Mountains.  But events conspired against me. It seems that COVID had a massive impact on rental car availability across the country.  People weren’t traveling, demand plummeted, and rental car companies had to sell off their inventories to staunch the bleeding.  Now they are struggling to replenish their stock.  Bottom line is that there was neither a rental to be found at the Missoula airport nor in the city itself.  Nothing.  So, I had to shift gears. I looked at the region and checked car availability in Helena, Bozeman, Great Falls, and Spokane.  Spokane was the only place with vehicles, so I booked the flight.  Now the plan was to fly into Spokane, stay the night, drive the three hours down to Missoula, race my race, hang out in town, drive back to Spokane for another night, and fly home.  That’s what I did and I’m glad.  I got a chance to enjoy two different cities, each with its own unique funky vibe.

Spokane is an interesting little city.  Like so many places which have struggled with the manufacturing-to-service economy transition, Spokane is a little rough around the edges.  But blasted industrial areas are slowly being converted to mid-range housing, galleries, coffee houses, brewpubs, little bakeries, boutique restaurants, and eclectic shops.  I walked over the river on Thursday upon my arrival and enjoyed some top end sushi.  I tried a salmon and tempura shrimp roll wrapped in thinly shaved Kobe beef.  Delicate and delicious, and accompanied by a cold local IPA (though tbh Vermont has absolutely superior IPAs), it hit the spot after a long travel day.  After, I headed back to my lodging, the Montvale Hotel, a cool smallish place done up in the art deco style and featuring a bar, the Gilded Unicorn, which served up a wonderful Old Fashioned festooned with a thick brulee-ed orange slice and Luxardo cherry. So good. I enjoyed one as I began taking notes on the trip. The hostess seemed to like me.  But maybe she was flirting because she wanted to keep me there to spend money. I hear that happens. Yeah, it was probably that.

Next day, Friday, after a coffee and a nice shakeout jog on the Centennial Trail, I headed down to Missoula.  I was to race tomorrow, so I wanted to get settled in, hydrate, get some calories in me, and transition into that special mental space. It is a truism, but as one might imagine, running long distances like this is as much a mental game as it is a physical one.

But first the trip down, which was uneventful as trips go, in terms of weather and traffic.  But the rental car I ended up getting is worth noting.  I was interested in it because it had so many bells and whistles to the point it was disconcerting and, to my mind an existential threat to humanity. It was a 2022 Subaru Outback, and it had a system called “EyeSight® Driver Assist Technology.”  This is what the description says:  

“Eyesight® monitors traffic movement, optimizes cruise control, and warns you when you’re swaying outside your lane. The Automatic Pre-Collision Braking feature can apply full braking force and bring you to a complete stop in emergency situations. Advanced Adaptive Cruise Control with Lane Centering can take some of the stress out of driving by helping with steering, braking, and throttle control – both in daily traffic and on long road trips.”  

What that means in real life is that it is an autonomous AI robot - prepared, with its nation of brilliant and intuitive four-wheeled co-conspirators, to conquer the world and likely destroy it. 

I got on I90 heading south to Missoula, turned on cruise control, and was ready to settle in for the three-hour drive.  I noticed that when a car came up on either the left or right to pass, there would be a light on the outside mirror which would shine.  OK, helpful.  Then, as I relaxed a bit and the car moved slightly laterally, I would get a flashed “Lane Departure” warning and audible alert. Fair, I suppose. Then I noticed if I looked at a beautiful vista along the way and lingered there for a microsecond too long, I would get another flashing and audible warning saying, “Keep Your Eyes on the Road!”  It knew.  How did it know?  What else did it know? Who else was it telling?  It was very scoldy and I told it so.  Then I pressed a button with a steering wheel icon on it.  I noticed that it caused me to exert a bit more force on the wheel to control the vehicle.  What was this about? Well, it turns out it was keeping within the lanes all by itself.  It didn’t need me.  It had a speed to maintain, a lane to stay in, a distance to maintain between it and other cars, and so it did.  I was just along for the ride.  Odds Bodkins!  So, I put my hands in my lap, feet off the pedals and just sat there like a passenger.  But within 5 seconds I get the damnable audible flashing alert, saying, “Keep Both Hands On The Wheel, Idiot!”. “Idiot” was inferred by context. I couldn’t win.  You can’t either.  We are all doomed.

I arrived at my AirBnB in Missoula, which was enchanting and well-appointed.  All unpacked, and race kit set out for the morning, I went out for a stroll to find some food and ended up at the Tamarack Brewing Company, enjoying a mediocre local IPA and some decent wings and fries.  This was followed by an enormous custard cookie and an early to bed because I had to be back up in St Regis, an hour away, to get on a 5am shuttle to the start.  That meant a 3am wake-up. I didn’t sleep great, but I felt decently rested, somewhat adrenalized, and ready to race when I got up.  Coffee?  Check.  Greasy microwaved breakfast sandwich from grimy 24/7 convenience store across the street?  Check. 

I was on my way.  I arrived in St. Regis on time, parked, hopped on the shuttle and we took off for the Start in Mullan, ID.  I was quiet, pensive, and in Zen mode for the trip up.  It was supposed to take about 45 minutes for a 5am start in Idaho time (we lost an hour when crossing west over the MT/ID border, and gained it, of course, racing back east).  Our bus driver found the right exit, but could not seem to find the starting area, so that took an extra 20 min, and consequently the gun went off later than anticipated.  All good though.  Conditions were perfect.  Temps in the low 50s, light sprinkle, no humidity, and no Sasquatches in view. We could not see them, but they could see us.

My race kit entailed:  Patagootch Shorts, Moosalamoo tech shirt, socks, Hoka Challenger 5 shoes,  Leukotape on the nips and a blister prone toe, Body Glide in chafe areas, light poly gloves, buff on the skull,  20 oz handheld with 2 packs of Tailwind in the pocket, elastic Nathan running belt containing my phone, travel specs, earbuds,  1 x Sport Beans, 2 x Gu, 1 x Cliffshot gels, baggie with bandaids, Vitamin I, electrolyte tablets, and my laminated race plan.  I was keeping it light and lean.  Basic fuel plan was to start taking in 200-250 cals per hour starting at the 15 mile mark, and drink at least 20 oz of fluid every hour, checking pee color and if things went well avoiding the brown porter hue.

There was the expected electric excitement at the Start.  There were new 50-milers, their collective nervousness palpable, wily old vets, and talented younger runners.  So many ages, shapes, sizes, attitudes, talent - so diverse and one of my favorite things about this zany sport.  Thirty second warning, countdown, the gun goes off and the game was afoot.  My race plan had me starting slowly for the first 8 miles which was a sustained but manageable climb and got us to the highest elevation of the race, about 5000’, a ski area.  I felt good, and the running was easy on what at the time were resilient dirt paths punctuated with mud puddles to avoid.  I was at an 8:25 pace and having to reign myself back.  But I was good and just went with it.  That pace placed me in a group of 5 guys which soon became the lead pack.  There were two guys that took off screamingly fast at the start, but it turns out they were doing an 8 mile relay leg. I decided to stay with the group at this mid-8 pace for a while, and assess things.

At the 8 mile aid station, I filled up with water and took off.  The others ate a bit and took their time, so I led the race for a mile or so until the gang of four caught up with me.  I’m feeling good through the 14 mile aid station, and still in the lead pack of 5, which was oscillating such that we were together and then apart, and so on.  Back and forth like a pulsar.  I’m feeling spry, fit, and well in control of my pace and body.  I consciously slowed my pace staying behind the other 4 guys, at this point to conserve energy. At mile 19 there was a beautiful excursion over an old railroad trestle bridge and through an ancient tunnel.  So dark and eerie, and evocative of the 19th century, a time in the Old West I have romanticized.  Anyway, the lead runner had taken off and was well ahead.  Then there were two young guys hanging together at #2 and #3, and #4 was a quarter mile ahead of me.  I had been running and chatting with all these guys so I sort of suspected what would play out toward endgame. I’m no willowy sprite or anything (more like a stout ogre, perhaps) but two of the guys ahead of me were bigger men and I really didn’t see them being able to sustain the pace, and I knew that one of them, Andrew, a high school history teacher from Hot Springs, had never gone beyond a 50K and due to his job, hadn’t done much more than 40 miles in weekly volume leading up to this.  He’d be feeling it. Great guy and we spent a good amount of time together.  He’d turn out to be the 1st Montanan to finish.

At mile 25 I was still feeling fantastic.  I was fueled, avoiding glycogen depletion, and well hydrated. No issues there.  I was experiencing some discomfort in the joints and muscles but overall running very strong. I looked at my watch and saw that I could possibly be at a sub 5 hr 50K pace.  I was comfortable and so kept on going at that pace, still at #5.  I ran strong through 50K, and I think I was at about a 4:50.  But it could have been slower because I realized after the fact that my watch was recording moving time, vice race time, so it wasn’t including my various aid station stops, etc. User error.  Regardless, still feeling great going into the post 50K piece.  Miles 32-35 were a different story and marked a transition from the happy place where I was, to the shambling pain cave where I would soon exist for the final 15 miles. I knew misery would be coming because I was running a quick pace but was hoping to stave off the awfulness until mile 40.  Not to be. I overtook the lead runner, Darin, an EMT, at mile 32 at an aid station because he blew out a hamstring; but with a lot of guts and heart, run-walked to the finish.  I then overtook Andrew who had been at #4. He was just wearing out. I later found out that Andrew, about 6’2” had played nose tackle in college and weighed in at about 100 pounds heavier than he was this day.  Hell of an athlete.  So that put me in third.  I saw glimpses of #1 and #2 about a half mile up the trail at around mile 34 or so, but then I lost contact, never seeing them again.  I felt myself slowing- the temps were increasing, my feet were getting sore from stepping on a lot of stones, my quads were starting to ache, and my back (prone to injury) was stiffening.  None of this is abnormal for me, mind you, just a bit too early for my liking. 

At mile 35 I stopped to empty my shoes of stones which had been in there for a while.  My quads were sore and stiff, and I was protecting my back, so it took a long time to get that done, and when I started up again it hurt so I walked a bit to ease into it.  It was a slothy mile split. But I could still run and so I did.  Just more slowly. The last 15 miles were tough.  I tried to keep it consistent, walked a few hundred-yard stretches, but maintained constant forward motion, overly excited by each mile marker.  The wheels were not destined to fully come off this day.  

I had conspired with my friend and training pal Dylan (she’s running Western this year -Hell Yes!)  back home about music and what would work and when so she helped me develop a playlist.  I worked a lot of that plan (through only one damned ear bud for some reason-frustrating!), having just finished out a leg of peppy honky-tonk.  That was great but for this last part I found that mellow is what I needed, so I played some Gregorian chants and Italian madrigals.  That was a soothing vibe and really helped.  My quads truly began to feel the Love (=Pain) at mile 40.  I had horrible visions of my 2019 Lean Horse 100 debacle where these quads gave up the ghost at 45 miles and I ended up “speed” walking 55 miles to finish. 

To this day, my quads blowing up at Lean Horse had been a mystery but now I think I may have an explanation.  I believe it may have to do with racing on a consistently runnable course.  Lean Horse was an old railbed as well. I was running the whole way.  Same with this one.  I was running the whole way, but even faster.  Typically, in ultras there are sections of steep vert that we walk/hike, and then when on single track, one’s pace normally is slower. It allows the legs to rest a bit. That doesn’t happen on railbed races like this.  Maybe that’s the answer. Next time I do a rail bed race, I will fold long tempos into my training plan.  I didn't do enough of those.   

Another bizarre physical thing happened for those last miles, and it was similar to what happened to me in the 2019 MST 50K. As I got more and more physically spent, I tended to lean and wandered over to the right of the trail, but had no idea why. I just found myself there.  It was kind of comical.  I felt fine, not vertiginous, not ill, just tired, sore and vaguely constantly unbalanced.  I’d be running and then notice that tree branches were hitting me in the face.  This was because I was on the right edge of the trail.  I’d make corrections, get over to the left or center, and next thing you know I’m back on the right getting jackslapped by trees again.  This happened continuously for the last 15 miles. If my heart were on the right side of my body that would explain it, as it has been heavy at times recently and could have thrown off my center of gravity. At mile 49, smelling the barn, we transitioned from trail to pavement, and then from pavement to field, and then from field to the woods and into the chute and Finish line.  The race was over.  I had a great day, finishing in 7:46, which was good for 3rd overall and an age group win.  I cannot complain with any of that.  I was happy, knackered, and ready for a beer…

…which I had, washing down some good barbecue and salty, oily potato chips.  I love this part of the race because it is time to relax, let down, and share pain and stories with all your fellow racers.  I found the winner and the second place guy to congratulate them and ended up sitting down with them and cheering the other racers coming in, and there were many because not only was there our 50 miler, but there was a 50K, 25K, 15K, and a 50 mile relay.  Good times.  

The winner of the race was Kevin Dempsey, 30 yo, who came in at a blazing 7:08.  Super sweet guy, fantastic runner.  Originally from Mansfield MA, and now a professional guitarist in Nashville.  Kevin ran a smart, consistent race and really kicked it in for the last 15 miles.  The second place finisher, Ryan Robbins, 29 yo, finished six minutes ahead of me and had a ton of heart.  Ryan has a great  story which is personal and is his to tell, but the long and short of it is that one day he woke up and, in a dead-end job, the father of a young boy, and feeling like he was going nowhere, he decided he needed to do something… to be someone to make his son proud.  So, he ran 3 miles that day.  Then he ran more the next day, and more, and more.  Running changed his life.  Now he runs ultras and owns his own thriving and successful business in the greater Spokane area. His pride is palpable, and it ought to be.  The first female in was Amanda Bradley, 26 yo, from Birmingham, AL.  She was a riot.  I found her after she finished and said, “Hey, nice run!  You killed it!  How’re you feeling?” Seemingly exasperated with me and my question she answered, “ThanksIhateditandI’llneverdothisagain.”  I replied, “But you know you will, though.”  She sighed, “I know.”

This was a good race.  I’d definitely do it again. It would be a good first 50 miler.  But there are a few specific thoughts that I think are worth mentioning:

·   The race instructions need to be tighter.  There were time and location changes re packet pick-up and bus departure which were not well-communicated to the racers.

·   Volunteers were fantastic and really supportive.  It would be nice to give them cheat sheets on all aid station locations so they can tell racers how far up the course the next one is.

·   Water is best given to racers from a large pitcher, not the low volume spigot of the big plastic Gatorade vat. Also, please label the vats with Water or Hammer (etc).

·   When mixing energy drink in the vats, make it full strength so runners know they are getting 200 cals in a 20 oz hit

·   The trail is very runnable but is not crushed gravel.  It is dirt, stone, and puddle, so even though you can maintain a good pace there is a lot of dodging and avoiding things.  And running on marble to golfball size rocks after that many miles can certainly take its toll on the feet.

·   This trail is basically adjacent to the I90 right of way, so while the interstate and its noise is not always present it is there a lot.  But it makes total sense that this is where the railroad tracks would be, down low in the valleys. 

·   Being so close to the highway precluded seeing major wildlife or cryptids, but I did see a few deer, and several hundred thousand chipmunks.

·   The BBQ and festival at the Finish was fantastic.  The food was hot and delicious, the beer free and cold, the applause loud, the cowbells louder, and the comradery palpable. The award was not a medal, but a railroad spike with a finishers label on it.  Super award, but caused me to really unleash my charm with TSA at the airport.  They ultimately let me take it on the plane.

After a while I shambled slothlike over to my evil robot car, got in, and it took me back to Missoula where I showered stiffly and clumsily and proceeded to prepare myself to seek out protein and lots of it.  But first there was a certain matter of having a drink at a musty and dingy dive bar I’d espied the night before, The Missoula Club. Lots of Stetsons.  I went in and had a couple of boilermakers, listened, and engaged in conversation.  In my physically traumatized redneck reverie I thought again about the Dialectic.  You’ve all heard of it.  Thesis encounters Antithesis, and Synthesis is birthed. It was all Hegel, and Marx borrowed the concept to explain economic history.  Encounter, interact, and out comes some nuanced combination of the original things.  It is ideally a progressive dynamic. 

Some of the best philosophy comes from dialogue:  Socrates, Goethe, Hume, Shakespeare, etc.  It is also a model for how society and government could (should) work. But somehow it does not nowadays. We have two fatally flawed and dangerous fringe camps bookending, and because of their incessant noisemaking, dominating, the political space and the news cycle. Personally, I think it is a pretty wonderful thing that I can sit in a Red State dive bar, nurse a longneck, do a shot, listen to country on the juke, and have a reasonable and rational conversation around UBI, single payer health care, individual choice and personal responsibility, small vs big government, Keynes vs the Austrians, the strengths and flaws of market capitalism, and whether a unitarian or identitarian approach to political change is best. I can also do that in Vermont, my home, though George Jones on the jukebox would be harder to find.  Carve off, isolate and muzzle the fringes, and we’d be in a better place to get real work done. Pollyanna?  Yeah, I know.  Sad. So, by this time, dizzy with hunger, I ambled over to the 1889 Steakhouse where I absolutely devoured 12 oz of Ribeye.  It was wonderful and I could have eaten a second. 

Oh, speaking of pontification, I must mention here that my friend Matt and I had hatched a plan to run this race together, but he got injured and then the government in its wisdom (truly) moved him to Germany.  Still, he is a phenomenal writer and an insightful and inspired thinker. He publishes his stuff here at Wiser, Braver, More Optimistic.  Note the stylish scarf - such the Euro-intellectual.  Please read him. Matt, I wish we could have spent some time together on the path and sorted all of the things we often bat around.

The race was the apogee of the trip of course, but the days after are worth a quick review.  Here are some highlights:

·   I walked (very very slowly) to breakfast at Ruby’s on Sunday morning, where I passed some exquisite Arts & Crafts homes.

·   I saw Christian Bale’s doppelganger at Ruby’s and am still not sure it wasn’t him

·   The food intake of the day after included (for maximum systemic insult): 12 oz chicken fried steak, hash browns, rye toast, 3 eggs over medium, a massive maple donut from Veera, Szechuan beef, chicken teriyaki, fried dumplings, coconut fried shrimp, and a mint chocolate DQ Blizzard. A man hungers after a long race.

·   I visited an actual and absolutely cool AF Montana Ghost Town called Garnet, like you read about.  Again with my 19^th century Old West fetishization.  Why? (Aside:  People nowadays can’t hold a candle to the toughness of those miners and their wives.  The women ran the town. The men toiled in the gulches.  Gulches.  They are a thing out there).

·   Had a nice trail run up Mt Sentinel via Crazy Canyon on Monday. Met some hiking ladies and their daughters up top and took their pics. My legs hurt quite a lot.

 

And then it was over.  Another race trip in the bank.  On my drive back up to Spokane I stopped in Couer d’Alene and had lunch with my friend Laura for a few hours at the Cosmic Cowboy.  Great chat and catch up. From there after another morning shakeout run in Spokane it was travel back to Vermont, which was largely uneventful with the exception of serendipitously meeting my friend Sylvie at ORD, sharing the flight back to BTV and giving her an Uber alternative home.  

Thanks for reading this far.  And thanks, too, for all the encouragement and support over the years. It means a lot and energizes me.