The Crazy Mountain 100
Failing Forward
I find it rather interesting just how introspective lying in my own vomit on the side of a mountain can be. The hot Montanan sun was blaring down on me at over 90 degrees, and my head was getting fuzzy as I continued getting cooked 30 miles into a 100 mile effort. “Why is this what I wanted to do?”
Nine months earlier was the first time I’d ever tried to run 100 miles, I was in the small town of Norton, Virginia, in the wet and ancient forests of the Appalachian Mountains. So many things about that race felt like home, and the terrain was exactly the type of thing I was accustomed to. I was admittedly undertrained and overzealous, and I tumbled down into the rocky stream bed at mile 80, tweaking my knee and forcing me to throw in the towel.
I remember how it felt, laying by the campfire shivering and wet, leaning on my mother to pick me up and help keep me steady and I stumbled over to the ATV where one of the medics drove me back to my van. I remember how humbling it was to push my body to a point where it wouldn’t even respond. What’s more important, however, is I remember how hungry that experience made me for another try. More than ever I wanted to be someone who ran 100 miles, and not on roads or flat track. I was going to run 100 miles through the mountains.
The Night Before
Camp was lively and energetic. I was sitting behind my van in the shade of a bug net, picking banjo and listening to Jason Isbelle as Brendan, my pacer and training partner, came by the river to talk logistics. We made a rather simple plan. He and his wife, McKaelee, would take all the things I might generally want throughout the race and make sure I had them waiting for me three, maybe four times along the course. Medical ointments, bandages, and blister repair kit (though I don’t blister when I run. It’s my superpower) were stuffed into one large ziplock while my electrolyte powders and favorite snacks were packed into another. We stuffed these bags, a couple extra pairs of socks, and a jacket into a larger bag, and that was all there was to it.
The pre-race meeting went on with all the usual warnings. We covered how not to get attacked by bears, how to not fall off the side of a mountain, and how to neither fall victim to heat stroke or get struck by lightning. I think it surprised some people to hear all the extreme and odd ways we could get hurt in these mountains, but this is Montana and Montana is nothing if not rugged.
Back to the van for the night where Brendan and I meticulously combed over our gear and plan one final time before he drove off into the night and I sat quietly by the river and contemplated everything that had happened in these last nine months. It was truly a transformative experience, and it was a culmination of all these experiences that I’d now stack up against the Crazy Mountains to see if I was worthy of dawning that 100-miler belt buckle.
I crawled into the back of my van and felt the cool nighttime breeze dance over my face as I tried to get my mind right for the day to come.
Prayers at Dawn
It was barely 4:00AM when my alarm went off and I shuffled out of my van to throw back some cold oatmeal and stagger off to the busses. There we were, a small army equipped to go to battle with the mountains. For armor we dawned hydration vests, and our weapons of choice were trekking poles. Sunpower-driven GPS watches clung to all our wrists while we laced up our shoes made from future tech, laboratory-produced fibers. Magic, chemically-induced potions of energy gels and electrolytic tonics lined our pockets and flasks, sloshing noisily as we went. The bus was filled with the scent of every variety of sunscreen and anti-chafe creams imaginable as we ceremoniously coated ourselves in the protection they offered us from the elements. For all the energy in the air it was a surprisingly quiet drive.
I dozed off somewhere along the hour ride to the start line and awoke to the sun cresting over a field full of our compatriots. It only took a moment to register once we got out of the bus, and felt like just an instant more before we were corralled to the starting line.
A man I couldn’t see was chanting to the skies a prayer of protection in his native tongue. I believe he was an Apsaalooke man, and even though I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I felt every word of it. There we were, a conglomerate of misfit athletes from every walk of life. Ranchers stood beside tech devs. Seasoned veterans wished the best of luck to hungry young bucks like me. It meant nothing where we came from or how we got here in this great conspiracy of happenstance that placed us all together. The only thing in the world that existed was our unified mission of moving forward and up, and we were moments away from beginning that journey. He continued his praying, shouting into the heavens, filling the chilly morning air with the presence of something both human and eternal.
Mild, aurelian shimmers cascaded through the clouds that loomed sparsely above us, highlighting the dirt road that coaxed us into the mountains. A moment of silence, the final countdown of “3..2..1..” and the valley was then reborn in a symphony of cheers and whistles undercut by the percussive clanging of trekking poles tapping against the Montanan soil as over a hundred of us made our way into the Crazies.
All in all the morning went smoothly and quickly. The pacing groups split loosely into three sections within five miles, and I was somewhere in the front of the middle pack. Those first miles came easily as we made our way up the road and through the low, forested stands at the edge of the mountain range. It was all cruisy miles and good conversation for some time. It seems a little funny, yet so fitting, that within the span of running a marathon I’d been informed on newly integrated local conservation efforts, shared my vision of walking to the South Pole next year, and reminisced over what these places may have once been like before the days of European settlement. It was like a collegiate “Intro to Montanan naturalism” crash course while simultaneously jogging up hills and over scree ledges.
Heating Up
I made it to aid station two almost an hour ahead of schedule. The trees provided a little relief as the sun began its inevitable ascent over the Crazies which gave me the freedom to come down off a few descents at an 8:00-minute mile. I rounded the corner and made my way down to the grub tent as fast as I could, throwing back handfuls of pancakes and dissolving them with gulps of tailwind. I handed my bladder off to a crew member and… Conrad Anker? Sure, it was world-renowned mountaineer Conrad Anker filling my water for me.
Back on my feet and back to moving forward. I was thankful to catch my crew pulling into the station just as I began to turn off the road. I grabbed some power snacks, took a swig of rice milk (thanks Gary Robbins) and trudged on back into the woods.
Now, I recognize that taking on the Crazy Mountain 100 on a depression-fueled, impulsive 2-week notice wasn’t the ideal way to prepare for a race, but I felt incredibly healthy throughout this season. My busted knee had been fixed, my time on feet was impressively solid, and physically I was more healthy than I had ever been. What I wasn’t, however, was heat trained.
It took about five miles out from the aid station for the heat to begin setting in. I remember seeing my buddies Alex and David slowly begin to inch away from me as we left tree cover and began ascending out of the sunny bowl. I crept slowly up and over the ridge with my head pounding from the blaring sun. It seems I’d forgotten just how aggressive this kind of terrain can be from my thru-hike of the Arizona Trail just a year ago. Funny how we neglect the lessons we’d already learned as humans.
I laid down in every creek we passed by, sticking my head under the cool, snow-fed water and filling my hat full of the stuff in an effort to hold onto that refreshing feeling for the remainder of the ascent. It was good for moments, but I inevitably began losing that fight with the sun. It seemed every couple of sentences I’d speak to other runners as they blew past me needed to be repeated, which to me was frustrating that they were ignoring me until one of them insisted the things I was speaking weren’t English words.
Heat exhaustion is a bully’s way of warning you to get regulated before the situation gets worse, and so I called my crew and gave them my new strategy. “I may be very late to the next aid station. I’m going to just survive the day and try to make up time tonight when it cools off.” They agreed it was the smart move, even though we all kind of knew this was going to make my goal of a sub 30:00 hour race immensely more difficult.
Down through the next aid station after a much-needed lay down in the lake. Cow Camp brought so much energy to the field. The music, the costumes, the cheering and incredibly attentive crew. It was a great experience, even if one of the members insisted that I looked like shit. I couldn’t help but laugh and agree with him.
Back into the field quickly as I wanted to keep making progress however slow that progress was. I didn’t even make it three miles before the heat got ahold of me again. I found myself on the side of the trail with my head throbbing. My eyes went hazy and that’s when I felt it happen. Hunched over in the wood line I began throwing up every last hard-fought calorie I’d taken in at the last aid station. What a waste.
I took just a moment to sit on a nearby rock and collect myself. My head between my knees, breathing and waiting for the headache to pass when… Cam Hanes?? Sure, world renowned bow hunter Cam Hanes came by. He asked if I had salt pills and calories, and once I assured him I did he gave me a firm pat on the shoulder and marched away up the mountain.
I knew that if I could get to the top of the mountain I’d be able to fly down to the aid station, and once I was there I’d truly be able to recover, so it was time to put my head down and get to work. For as rough as I was feeling I remember this part of the course being incredibly beautiful. The spring-fed river was crashing down the mountainside, clear and cold. The trees stood sturdily, enveloping loose boulders in their roots in some shared mission to hold these mountains together across the millennia. Mossy boulders lie beside the riverbed, growing and shrinking in my gaze as I ticked off each vertical switchback. The forest had the same old, sacred kind of allure of the rainforest back home. It was immensely beautiful.
Once out of the forest the bowl overtook all my senses. It was a seemingly endless series of switchbacks that gradually (and sometimes steeply) lifted us up toward the skies. The sun was beating down violently, but even as it casted its rays of fury down upon me I spent a great deal of that section wrapped up in the beauty of it all. The world slowly shrank away beneath me as I approached the summit, and once atop it I could truly breathe in the scope of this mission, even if only for a moment before making my way down to the aid station.
Half Moon
The trail crested on the ridge and immediately dove back down. It felt like years tracking that serpent of dirt as it swung through fields of granite and moss. Around one corner was a split in a boulder where spring water poured out with the abundance of a garden hose. The water, infused with the very essence of the mountain, tasted as good as it felt to sit under, though I couldn’t sit for very long. Already an hour late and still five miles away, it was time to work again. I caught Cam for a brief hello and then it was around the lake and through the forest until I found the service road. It felt better on my feet than I anticipated, even with the occasional dance of navigating fill rock. The trail traced the river which was a wonderful sight, but didn’t do quite as much to bring life back into me as seeing my buddy Jeff.
With big, bloodshot eyes and all the color flushed from his skin, he was trekking slowly up the road. He told me he’d spent all his time at Half Moon throwing up and generally feeling awful. I replied empathetically, and we shared a brief commiserable laugh before parting ways.
Once I arrived at Half Moon my crew sat me in the shade and got to work putting me back together. Electrolytic fluid, ice packs, fruit… so much fruit. As a brief aside I’d like to note that other than a couple bars and some soup, I ran the rest of this race fueled almost exclusively off fruit, which I didn’t know was possible. I changed my socks while a race nurse checked up on me. They asked me if anything felt wrong, and the only thing I thought to ask about was in regard to how hard it was for me to swallow anything. My entire mouth was dry, and eating anything solid was such a chore. They told me it was likely just due to dehydration and maybe a mild case of heat exhaustion, “which makes sense for what you’re doing.” Fair enough.
I could’ve laid there for hours more, but Brendan and McKaelee assured me it was time to go after fifteen minutes, and I trusted their judgment as my crew. It turns out the four or five people I had come in ahead of had already left, which made my work descending feel a little pointless, but at barely halfway through the race it wasn’t really time to worry about that now.
We were told a storm may be coming through as I left Half Moon, and while the tone of the race volunteers was serious, I was elated. What’s a little lightning as long as the temps cool off?
Sunset
I began the long climb back up the road at a healthy pace. Moving uphill meant I had a better opportunity to grasp the scale of the cliffs above me. 3,000 or more feet up into the mountains was the ridge, but the massive cliffs and dense forest stood so firmly between me and there that I couldn’t even begin to see it. Eventually it did come, however. This was after trying a new fueling gel, Frog Fuel, for the first time, drinking out of the spring rock again, and having a brief but powerful cry in the moss beds as the exhaustion forced me to release what was months of mixed emotions and anxieties.
I wanted to move on once I got to the summit but was unable. The world itself, wrapped in ferocious oranges and heart-softening pinks on the horizon was too much to not take in. The last glimmers of light faded from my side of the mountain, and in that moment I felt more at peace with life than in any other moment I can recall. There I was standing atop the same mountains that Plenty Coups fasted in during his vision quest, and I felt I understood in that moment his decision to guide the Apsaalooke toward a mission of peace. How can we, as a people of a shared Earth, want anything more than for our communities and the others across the world than prosperity? As the skies retreated into their slumber upon, I felt a part of something powerful and nameless. It made me feel insignificant, and yet, at the same time, there was a comfort in knowing I was a part of something so much larger than myself. It was a space that the world will not bring to you, you must bring yourself before the world.
As much as I wished to live in that moment forever, I was still in a race, and the long descent back to Cow Camp meant it was time to work once again. This was where I began seeing DNF’d racers along the course, and that was an intimidating sight. The look of emptiness and exhaustion in some of their eyes was palpable. Beit injury, exhaustion, malnutrition, or any other number of things that play into your successes and failures on an endeavor like this, it hadn’t gone their way, and they still had a seven mile descent before the whole ordeal was over. I wondered if my next fifty would feel for me as long as that painful seven for them.
My legs felt healthy on the descent, and I really feel I could’ve made more significant progress if I didn’t spend so much time fighting with my headlamp straps. Gear can be such a headache sometimes. What’s more of a headache is the clouds of flies that made up this section of trail. The little bastards were obsessed with our headlamps, but even if they weren’t swarming us it would’ve been inevitable that we barreled through them as there were just so many. It was honestly a bit disorienting, wading through these walls of specks with one or both eyes partially closed to keep them out. I even tried putting my sunglasses on, but it caused me to trip so I gave myself up to the frustration of swimming through the bugs.
I caught my buddy Jeff, which isn’t something I thought I’d ever say during a race, just shy of Cow Camp aid station. His condition hadn’t really changed since I last saw him, and his pacer told me that he hadn’t eaten a single thing since our last meeting. He was withheld at the next aid station by the medical staff, and someone was kind enough to roll him up in a blanket like a sickly burrito until his body temperature started coming back up. This looked like the end of his race, so I chugged my soup, boldly told the surrounding racers that, based on the elevation profile, we “only have one more hard climb and then it’s pretty cruisy for like thirty miles,” then took off across the creek and into the depths of the forest.
Sunlight Peak
I caught another racer, Allison, who I’d been leapfrogging all day, shortly after the river crossing. The company along the mild single track was pleasant, and I realized this was the first time I’d ran and chatted with someone since mile 10, so the distraction was very nice as we began the long climb up toward Sunlight Peak. I didn’t get much of her story as she asked me first about my own training, and whenever I first mention my hopes of skiing alone to the South Pole it tends to take over the conversation. We probably spent a half hour or so together chatting about the race and other future endeavors before I decided it was time to start putting in some real work. The terrain got steep and rugged, and by my fourth listen of Lil Wayne’s “Shoes” I was really beginning to find my stride again. I’m not traditionally fast for a runner, but I had really begun building a reputation for myself as someone who can get up and down mountains in a rush, and now that temps were cool (the storm never blessed me with rain) it was time to prove to myself that I was still in this race.
Through the forest, by some alpine lakes, between a small herd of deer, and up through a hard to navigate section of the course before I was on the flanks of Sunlight. The ridge climb was smooth, and once at the summit the wind felt incredible. I was practically reborn, and just in time to be faced with an opportunity to go fast. I saw a line of headlamps, pacers and racers alike, slowly and meticulously picking their way down the scree field that is the West face of Sunlight Peak. I sinched my headlamp nice and tight, ensured all my gear was strapped in appropriately, and took off along the 1,000-foot cliff. Not wanting to be rude, I did make sure to give other racers ample time to get to a safe place before I sped on, but, man, did it feel so good to open the legs up again. Technical downhill charges are my absolute favorite, and even with over twenty hours on my legs I felt like I was performing like a real athlete. The trail swung along the flanks of the mountain ultimately leading me to a bluff and then descending back into the forests below. I passed seven racers in this segment, and in that moment I felt my actual race had begun.
Bozeman Run Club
Whatever the map called the next aid station, I knew it as the Bozeman Run Club aid station. These folks welcomed me into Bozeman the very day I moved to town last November, and there was no way I was going to greet them with anything less than my maximum hype. Cheers, soup, fruit, and hugs. It was a wonderful greeting. I asked about a few other BRC folks while I was there, but I couldn’t afford to throw away the high I’d developed in the last ten miles, so the meeting was short-lived. My buddy Evan handed me a tutu that was meant for another aid station volunteer who had left, and that’s how I left them: energized and in princess pink.
I knew that my Brendan and McKaelee were at the next aid station which was a mild seven road miles away, so I set myself to clocking 10-minute miles all the way to them. I bagged four of these before my headlamp… and watch… both died simultaneously without warning from either. I was really lucky to catch Sylvia, an absolute hammer of a runner who’d offered me some kind words during my whole half-conscious throwing-up-on-a-rock ordeal, and ran beside her in the glow of her headlamp. It was very dark, and I was stoked to not have to wait until another runner came up behind to keep making progress.
Picking Up a Pacer
The lines of cars in the parking lot adjacent to the aid station made it difficult to find my crew, and after spending about seven minutes peaking in their car and generally walking in circles, I decided they must be at the actual aid station. Set up just beside it, I realized I had surprised them by coming in far ahead of schedule. To be fair, I did look pretty awful at our last meeting. In fact, a member of the Cow Camp aid station remarked on my fist pass that I “looked like shit,” and on my second pass I “looked less like shit,” which is a testament to my improving condition.
I managed maybe three bites of a cup of noodle before I felt like I had to throw up again. I wasn’t going to let that happen. After spending all day dehydrated and under-fueled, I adamantly refused to waste a single calorie or drop of water that had finally made its way into my system. Some deep contemplation went into me eating a handful of gummy bears, and they ended up playing nicely. Sitting still sent me into a violent shiver, and that was my cue to get back to work; this time with Brendan in tow.
We traversed the fields and rose up over a meadow, passing Seth, another one of my favorite Bozeman mountain athletes. He was obviously in a low point during the race, and despite my intention, I don’t really think my joke about his sister waiting for me at the finish line made him laugh much. Sometimes I can ride my own stoke a little too hard and forget others feel as awful at night as I did during the day.
I told Brendan it was his job to hold me accountable to 10-minute miles during any flats and downs. I chased that number hard, and often missed it by a few frustrating seconds. Still, it was in pursuit of that pace that I was able to stay present during each mile, and before I knew it we were at our next aid station and moving toward what would be my biggest mileage day of my life. A hair over 80-miles at the 24-hour mark was such an awesome feeling, and that feat made the last twenty sound easy, at least that’s what I told myself at first.
We have a new rule: never ask an aid station volunteer how far or how high anything is. They. Never. Know. 2,000 feet to the top of Mt.Elmo we were told, and by the time my watch (now recharged) ticked 2,700 feet of climbing I was beginning to have some pretty violent thoughts toward that person. It did end eventually, and I was only passed by one person so it was fine. The hardest climbs were now officially all done, and now the only thing that could hold me back was the sun beginning to beat down on me again. That damned sun.
The ridge was comprised of rolling hills and a brief discussion about whether the distant mountain was a pluton or not. I stopped for a brief breakdown at the wood line where I could sit in the shade and change to more padded socks as I was developing a case of really painful tenderfoot. Brendan and I were game planning how to keep me from sitting down anymore throughout the race and….Jeff? Jeff?! Yes, still looking like a colorless corpse, my friend snuck by me with what must have been a forced but very genuinely-intentioned smile. The poor guy was fighting so hard to finish this thing even in the face of everyone telling him his race was over, and he had my ultimate respect for that. He gave me a fist bump and reminded Brendan that “this is where he (me) likes to fuck things up by falling. Don’t let him fall.” I thought this was a hilarious reference to me DNF’ing my last 100-miler, but Brendan, now tasked with my safety, didn’t find it as funny as I did.
Upper Meadow to the Finish
Those upper meadows were cruel and unusual forms of punishment. There was no trail along them, and they were littered with this kind of scrunch grass that made you sink a few inches with every step and occasionally launch plate-sized rocks crashing into your ankles. I hope no one from the last aid stations were mad at me for calling this “cruisy” on the elevation profile. It was very slow going, and I lost sight of Jeff rather quickly. All the same, it was forward motion, and even it was slow I tried to make it consistent.
The next aid station laughed and cheered me on for running in the tutu, and they (as everyone else did) asked me if I thought it was the tutu causing me so many heat issues. No one ever asked if it was the running 100-miles in 90-degrees that cooked me, it was always the tutu. I wanted to press on immediately, but they insisted I sit in the shade and let some ice melt in my hat. God, that ice felt so amazing. Five-minute timer ran out and it was time for the long descent into Hunting Camp and then onto the finish line!
I had Brendan play the 10-minute mile game with me again for the entire descent. I clocked a 10:27 and then a 10:11 just to see the numbers 11:02 flash across my watch. Why can’t I just get ONE mile under ten? In a fight that felt almost identical to the other three, Brendan made the comment that I looked like I was “just out on a run in Sypes.” He said no one would’ve guessed I’d already ran 90 miles, and that’s all I needed to barrel down the mountain at speed. I pushed until I heard a beep, only it was his watch beeping and not mine, so I had to sink back into my groove before losing too much time. When my watch went off I was greeted with a 9:06 on the screen, blowing through my goal by almost a full minute! That felt so good. Almost as good as passing the racer who’d caught me on the climb up Mt.Elmo.
I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of a fallen tree that appeared to be a chair-swing. In the swing I saw the blue and white of what must’ve been a cloud in the sky, but in my loopy state I saw an older woman in a bonnet. I elbowed Brendan and gave him a wink insinuating I was going to pass this gal while she took a break, and it wasn’t until much later that he told me he had no idea what the hell I was winking nudging him about. Guess the hallucinations were coming in.
Hunting camp felt hours further away than it actually was, but once I was there I laid in the river and had a pickle pop before breaking my new rule…asking a volunteer how far to the end. “Just four more miles, yeah?” “Actually, it’s seven.” There went all my motivation. Three miles hadn’t sounded like such a monumental task since I first started running two years ago. I couldn’t believe our math was off.
Ok, so seven miles. That’s just a Sypes Canyon run, and this time there’s not even any vertical gain to deal with. Just seven flat miles on a dusty..hard…exposed….hot road. Nothing to do but move forward regardless of how bad it felt.
Brendan allowed me one more soak as we made our way down the road. Sure, it was a cow’s creek and was probably full of shit, but it was cool and I was hot so I reveled in it like I was being baptized.
The trough was probably three miles from the finish, and with the other runners advancing behind me I began strategizing with Brendan. “Ok, we’ll run to one light pole and then walk to the next.” They kept encroaching on us. “Ok, we’ll run two light poles and walk one.” Still they were closing the distance. Brendan looked at me while I placed my hands on my knees, and he didn’t need to speak a word for me to get the picture. His eyes told me “you’ve fought so hard for this, and I’ll always be proud of you for finishing this race, but if you let them pass you in the last mile I will never let you live it down.” Fair enough. Guess it was time to run.
The road bled into a hayfield that made my already slow pace slower, but I knew I was in the last mile so it didn’t matter anymore. Without looking back I pushed and I pushed, and eventually I was standing on the road outside the finish line. There was my buddy Jeff with his hand out, ready to welcome me across the finish along with so many wonderful members of the Bozeman community. I shuffled forward, wondering how it is that anyone makes those picturesque sprint finish photos, and came across the line just under 31:30. Kyla, our run club organizer, took my running vest off me, and in lifting the weight of that vest she instantly lifted all the weight I’d put on myself for the last two years off my shoulders. I took a finish photo alongside Brendan, him smiling in celebration, and me broken into tears while I gazed down on my finisher buckle. This was a culmination of years since COVID took my dreams of hiking the Appalachian Trail from me. From barely completing my first ultra and falling into the river on my first hundred-miler attempt. This was the foundation upon which I hoped to prove myself as a fit, capable leader in the mountains. It was a response to me being homeless in 2018, finding myself, and wanting to prove that I had what it took to do something truly amazing. In many ways it was my life’s work up until this point.
What it Means to Run 100 Miles
What surprised me was not how I felt about the event but how it made me feel about myself. I had placed so much pressure on myself to become a competent mountain runner these last two years. I had thought this event, one that was even harder than my first attempt at this distance, would help define me as a person. I thought it would rid me of my anxieties. I thought it would help me shed my depression. I thought if I could just get through such a feat that I would forever be able to love myself as someone who was defined by doing something great, but when I returned home I was still just me. I still loved the mountains and I still struggled to get up most days. I was just as imperfect as I was before I walked up to that starting line, and proving that I could do hard things didn’t change that about myself.
In reflecting on the Crazy Mountain 100, I think that these types of extreme endurance events are not the shaping of me as a person but the expression of who I already am at the highest level. I had built that fight into me just as I had built that fitness into my body. All the things that got me to the finish line were things that I already was. It’s who I, at my core, am as a person, and whether I finished or not I still held all that qualities inside myself. Running 100-miles didn’t ‘mean’ that I was anything other than what I am, and maybe that’s the point of these things after all. Maybe I’m just me: someone who is learning and growing and trying to become a better person. The only difference is now I’m just someone who’s run 100-miles, and that will forever be a part of my story as a mountain athlete.