Timberjack 100k, September 11, 2021

After catching my first DNF (did not finish) of my life at Coldwater Rumble 100-miler in January, 2021, I couldn’t be more committed to finishing the distance, successfully, as soon as possible. 

I had to figure this thing out, and my Coach Kris Brown and I strategized around what training would look like to take on Pine to Palm 100-miler in Ashland, Oregon on September 11th, 2021. 

With a 100-mile point-to-point with under 20,500 feet of gain in my sights, I was quickly off on a training block that has become a lifestyle for me. It’s been a gift that I can’t get enough of, and also kicked off this foray into writing about what I find to be my more-noteworthy runs and hikes on my website. 

Four months saw me taking on and finishing the longest training runs and hikes of my life. I felt amazing doing so, saw and learned more than I can say, and will continue with projects like this for as long as I’m able to do so. 

But, of course, 100 miles taken at once is unlike anything else. 

I trained as smart as I could, ate more, rested when I could, so not enough, and kept feeling like I should eat more. 

It feels common to go into races with some nagging injury or any of millions of other concerns that find us as runners. I had some out-of-sorts sensations in my right knee, which has gotten to the point of pain in the past. 

Strength-training, rest, and wearing a brace have helped, and I amped up all of these approaches to the edge of over-doing them. 

I also wore a compression sleeve and the Zamst Rk-1 knee brace (four years old and still works great) on race day, which helped as it always does for me in this situation. 

Race day kit and frequent trainers at any distance, Speedgoat 4s and Clifton 7s and 8s.

Going into September, I felt confident about my odds of success in finishing one of the harder 100-mile courses we have in the states.

I got connected with a couple of new friends, Evan and Kyle, in Ashland by our mutual homie Jared, and they were awesome at sharing insights about the race, pacers, and all the other practical questions I had about this beast of a race. 

P2P’s Race Director Hal Koerner did great work keeping runners in the loop from the time I signed up in early February. His updates in August were timely around the fires that have and continue to plague Oregon. Hal was also clear about the variables around possibly canceling the event due to health concerns over air quality and COVID-19.

Whatever happened, I’d already taken the time off work, had my hotels reserved, and was fully in that pre-adventure mode, happy and prepared to take whatever hurdles on to keep the story going. Even if the race got canceled, I went in knowing I’d have a great time in Oregon with new friends, and I couldn’t ask for better than that. 

Long road trips have a special place in my heart, too, and it had been too long since I’ve gotten to camp at Lake Cachuma, where I stopped on the first night of the trip. 

I can’t breathe or relax the way I do there anywhere else, and I felt strong and sharp on my last long run along the lake before a full night of somewhat restless sleep. 

But, with the lake and crickets and birds as a soundtrack, it beats sleeping anywhere else for me.

With September 11th on a Saturday this year, I was back on the way up on Tuesday. Ventura isn’t too far north from Santa Barbara, and this is where I got word that Pine to Palm had been canceled.
New MVP Kyle then came through with a recommendation for Timberjack 100k in Bend on the same day. 

Given all the time I’d taken off work and planning and training I’d put into racing that Saturday, I prayed for the chance to take on my first 100k. 

I looked up the race on UltraSignup. Four spots left. I jumped immediately, then booked a hotel in Bend.

The fires and AQI were still a factor, but all I could be was grateful to still have an ultramarathon in my sights. 

These types of surprises and demands for adaptation are a thrill, and it was exciting to take on a new distance on a totally different course profile (three loops of approximately 20 miles with less than 6,000 feet of vert, a significant contrast with P2P’s demands) in a new place entirely.

I kept the trip going, and it went well. I saw and met old friends and new, some of whom I’ve known only by e-mail and video calls, which was great and much-missed experience.

On the last stretch to Ashland I thought it’d be fun to pull over somewhere and catch a trail run. I had easy shake-out miles on the training calendar, and I told myself the next non-smoky spot was mine. 

The AQI is always good to check on, but my eyes and texts from friends in Oregon did all the reading I needed to see I had a rest day ahead of me. 

The next day the weather had improved slightly, and the forecast said rain was en route. Kyle took me on a quick run at Toothpick Trail in the area, a gorgeous teaser of a larger system that I need to get back to and explore soon, as you can see in my video.  

Thankfully the timing of surprise showers and gloom in Bend worked out for everyone involved with Timberjack. The rain, as brief as it was, turned out to be very effective at wiping the air and sky clear for Saturday. 

I’ve been experimenting a lot with my sleep patterns, especially since fatigue and sheer lack of REM took me down a few times at Coldwater. For my circadian rhythm, the math for getting a solid sleep in before race day worked out when I forced myself to barely sleep two nights before. That way I felt more than ready to knock out in the late afternoon for a solid 7-8 hours before the race.

Per the plan, I was up at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday. 

I try to avoid being rushed in anything I do, so I had plenty of time to eat, quadruple-check everything in my drop bag I’d leave at the head of the loop, and tend to all the other in-the-weeds details you do before taking on a big day like this. 

Everything looked good. I felt as ready as I could expect, and still got to the starting line more than hour before our 6:00 a.m. game time. 

I’d dressed for warm, HOKA shorts and Chaski singlet. My prediction went out the window when I felt the reality of the situation at the trail head. I would later find out from the on-site medic that it was a crisp 28 degrees Fahrenheit that morning, which showed itself beautifully in the mud and pine needles glittering with frozen dew at the start of the race. 

I’d packed for everything in my bag, and quickly changed in my car into the warmest gear I had on hand. 

“Better to have and not need than otherwise” might be the runner’s John 3:16, and I’m grateful that I had everything and more than I needed for this day.

The race offered 30k and 100k distances, with 28 people in the latter and 42 in the former. Smaller races like this offer plenty of personal attention from the race’s staff, and everyone turned in top-notch work that kept me in a positive and supported place throughout the day.

Race Director Brandon Mader introduced himself at the starting line. He went over last-minute details, and my fellow runners and I got our whoops and claps out. 

With a short count-down ahead, we shook out our legs and arms or stood still, loosening up or bracing for a big day. 

I was nervous like I always am before a race, which I took to be a good sign. If you’re worried then you’re engaged, and that’s all this sport asks for. 

Brandon finished the count down. 

“Go!”

We went, and I kept my 100k strategy in mind, cooked up on the fly with Kris and some of the best runners I know. 

With the 100k, the common and best advice seemed to be to take the first 20 as slow as possible, hold onto the same pace on the second, then see what I could turn on for the finale. 

For me, this meant staying in the easy 9:30 to 11-minute pace on the first loop, which felt very doable throughout. 

Along the way I struck up conversation with a fellow runner with a lot more experience at ultras than me. He said I looked good for the distance, and that if I could hold onto this comfortably, then I was in good shape to turn in a competitive first 100k. 

I was glad to hear this since I really felt like I wasn’t trying much at all, which is exactly where I wanted to be. 

But there’s a lot in that “much.” 

Progressing and growing in the arena is one of my favorite things, and since these paces are slow for me in practice, and felt comfortable on the first loop, well, it seemed like I could get away with keeping to them for 40 miles, then follow some of the best advice I heard from a friend: 

“Run so that the last 20 miles feel like your first 20 miles.”

At about the 20-mile mark my right knee started complaining. 

“This feels like you’ve got something wild in mind,” it told me. “How much further we going?” 

The left knee chimed in as well, which for whatever reason only happens at high volume. 

Fortunately, like so much else in a long run, troubles would rise up and jab at me and then, with patience and time, wane to nothing. The pattern persisted, regardless of the up- or down-grade I was on at the moment. 

Pete Kostelnick and other legends among us speak to the first three weeks or so of extended multi-month projects as being some of the hardest. All sorts of issues will rise and fall, some hanging on for extended amounts of time. But then, for whatever reason, passing the three-week mark irons them out.

The distances I play in aren’t close to the scale of a continent, but I’ve found the philosophy is sound on any field. Pain, unforeseen oddities, and downright despair pits cannot be avoided, and will sometimes have every appearance of permanence.

If it wasn’t the knees, it was shooting pains in my glutes and hammies. If it wasn’t a specific muscle group or joint, it was the outright fatigue that comes with putting your mind and body into one action for an entire day.

But I had plenty of advantages going for me. 

I’m thankful to have dialed in a solid ultra nutrition plan with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, protein bars, oranges, and GU Roctane Gels. Looping in a Red Bull and a caramel-flavored cold brew at the start of each new loop was a new riff for me at this event. New variables are generally not smart to introduce in a race, but the play connected and caffeinated me well, and I think it’s going to be a cornerstone of the plan going forward. 

Another important shift I made was changing out my shoes between loops. I brought two pairs of HOKA Speedgoat 4s (my beautiful fiery AFs and Farther Together bois), and shifting between them at the end of each loop while changing my shirt and hat and reupping on gels from my bag were small changes on paper, and even smaller under the workload ahead. But they were benefits, and neglecting any benefit is unwise in my experience.

My energy stayed high until the back quarter of the second loop, when I started to need to hike. Mid-way-ish is not the most heartening place to experience this, but if you don’t see this coming at some point in a race, you’re going in unprepared. 

It’s an entry point, the place Courtney Dewalter speaks of glowingly as the place where we get see ourselves pushed to our potential, fully living the now right now, at this moment in our lives, then get to find out what we have to work through it.

“You’re in it,” I told myself, kneading my thighs like I could pull them through this with my hands. 

I finished the second loop, and at the start of the last circuit a new friend and I all but leapt into the home stretch. Starting in on the final stage is cause enough for celebration, but the more we talked the more common ground we found in values, politics, running gear, just everything you need to vibe with a person, in my book. 

I barreled down the hills in the first two miles of the loop with him, joking that I’d pay for it later. 

Soon after, I certainly did.

I had to slow down quite a bit, but somehow still managed to pull over an hour off my previous 50-mile PR, 11:05 over my previous 12:18. 

I put together as much slow running as possible from here with incremental hiking. But at mile 57, I was in a place where I was certain I’d be hiking out the last of this thing. It would get dark soon, and the mileage ahead, paired with elevation gain and exhaustion that came with the past 13 hours, I thought, pushed any running off the table. 

Then I met Dave. 

My new best friend came trotting up at a 14-minute pace or so. We greeted each other, and off he went. 

I watched him go, steady and relaxed, easy but consistent.

I can do that, I decided. 

There’s plenty of shared wisdom around integrating slower paces into training for ultras. I had done so by going on short and long hikes (including the longest of my life so far in August), but running is different. It’s defined by whenever both feet leave the ground, as opposed to hiking. And to keep the airborne pace at a slow pace hasn’t been as high a priority for me as it should have been. 

Without it, my mindset was given to either hiking or running at a 12-minute pace, until I got too tired and hiked some more. 

Dave came along right when I needed to see that running at a 14 to 18-minute pace chops away at the distance better than oscillating between a push and a crawl. It also calms the nerves with a down-tempo beat, which is exactly what happened when I stepped up to try it on myself. 

My surprise pacer welcomed the company. I told him I’d been resolved to hiking out the end of this thing before he came along, and he was happy to hear that he was helping me tremendously. 

“I’ll get us out of here,” he said.

We chatted a bit, then fell into that comfortable quiet two runners can find on a trail anywhere. A reliable pace, beautiful forest, and rising moon can say everything that needs to be said sometimes, maybe the best times. 

After hitting the last aid station with its staff of absolute angels we got going on the last three miles and change to the end. 

“Why don’t you go on ahead,” Dave said. “Show me what you got.”

I did. 

Plenty of runners can attest to the hidden depths of energy that bubble up at the end of a race. Nothing about it makes sense, but it happens all the time. We always have more than we think what we do, and atop this fact I suspect that the relief factor gives the mind free rein to tell an exhausted body to do whatever it wants to finish the task ahead. 

I’m proud to say I took the home stretch faster than any other part of the course, and came through the finish line at a run. All the feels came with me, and I paced around for a moment, giving time to and absorbing everything I felt. The staff and volunteers present gave me lots of compliments on my completion, saying it was the best of the day, one guy even saying it looked “religious.”

There was certainly an other-worldly feeling to that moment, and the combination of devotion, discipline, growth, and resilience I get out of racing certainly includes what some people call their spiritual side. And for me, this side is at its best when it expresses gratitude. 

I’m incredibly thankful that I came away with my first 100k completion at Timberjack in 15 hours and 4 minutes. Out of 28 people who started I placed 13th in the 21 who finished. 

I celebrated a bit with fellow runners and staff at the end of the race, including Dave, of course, who came through not too far behind me. I ate a bit, but didn’t gorge (the temptation is definitely there, but the body needs time to digest a reasonable amount of calories right after an extended effort, in my experience waiting about an hour or so for more works well), socialized, laughed a lot, then left to beat the rising state of extreme fatigue creeping up on me quick. 

Even during the race I was dreading the staircase up to my hotel room. 

The feelings were warranted, but damned if I didn’t summit the 14 steps in the last photo. It was a slow matter of reaching up, grasping the rungs on the other side of the handrail, hoisting myself up, and pushing the rest off my weight off my elbow into the rail to get my footing on the next step. 

I don’t know if anyone saw it at the hour I came back from the trail, but if so I was laughing along with them. 

Who would choose such a state? And what else can you do but laugh and choose joy when choosing it, again and again? 

The soreness that found me over the next few days was some of the worst I’ve felt. Just shifting my legs in bed meant breathing deep and a lot of wincing, much more so when getting out of bed. @ultarunningmemes had a great post about a branded walker for Kilian Jornet’s future, and I’d back any effort to create one for those first super-tender days following an ultra.

But, as always, the knowledge I’ve gained from all the awesome people I count as friends, experience, and garden-variety patience and rest pulled me through. 

A well-timed “Star Wars” marathon on TV couldn’t have come at a better time, either.  

Next steps are always a big part of everything I do, and I’ll end on the two big ones that have followed this race.

While I think it’s every race director’s call to do what they will with entry fees on races (we know the risk going in, and this money goes to supporting the running community (with that, make sure you’re supporting races that actually support the running community)) I was happy to see Hal’s e-mail that my entry will roll over into next year’s race. 

I appreciate his generosity and continued support of the runners that signed up for his race, and definitely plan on stepping up to the starting line at Pine to Palm 2022.

I also just signed up for my next attempt at the 100-mile distance at Born to Run 100-miler on April 15, 2021. I’ve heard great things about the event, the caliber of people and festivities around it speak for themselves, and I’m happy to support both.

In the meantime, I won’t be any less busy at taking on more challenges in the coming months, but that probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows me. 

Thank you again to my friends, family, Brandon and Justyna Mader and everyone on the Timberjack team, all of my teammates at HOKA, Kris and everyone at Chaski, and all of the many brands and groups and teams that have shown me love and support to get to where I am. I’m my best self with all of you in my life!

Stay safe and unreasonable, everybody, happy trails!