Hellgate 100K

December 9, 2006

I’ve signed up for my first Hellgate without really knowing anything about it.  Now Kari is feeding me information from the internet on what it is really like.  She tells me about all the ice on the trail last year.  She gives me an altitude plot that Keith Knipling had generated from his GPS system.  According to Keith the distance is about 66.6 miles, rather than the claimed 62.4.  Then she tells me that she talked with Kerry Owens who says that the climbs are outrageous and the cutoffs hard to make.  I think that if the cutoffs are hard for Kerry, then they’ll be impossible for me.  Looking at the list of entrants, this doesn’t seem to be popular with the geriatric crowd.  I’m hoping the weather will at least help me out.

Now the night of the run.  Kari has come to crew for me.  A blast of cold air has moved in, and this is supposed to be the coldest night of the season so far.  At the pre-brief the prediction is temperatures in the single digits, but the good news is calm winds.  Prediction is that this should be the coldest Hellgate yet.  Great.  I have poor circulation in my extremities, and I don’t do well in cold weather.

Midnight comes and we’re off running.  It’s really cold out here, but all is well until time to cross the stream about 3 miles into the run.  Despite the guy warning everyone that the rocks are slippery, my feet fly out from under me in the middle of the stream and I fall in.  My whole lower body is under water, as are my hands, upper arms and flashlight.  I notice that my flashlight is still shining bright under water.  I’m surprised that it is so waterproof -- a fact that Kari would confirm the next day in the washing machine. 

So now I’m faced with what to do.  Should I drop out at the aid station, or should I venture out into the dead of night in single digit temperatures and try to make those grueling climbs up the mountains?  My clothes are drenched below my waste and my fleece gloves seem to be loaded with about 10 pounds of water.  I’ve decided it wasn’t really that the rocks in the stream were slippery, but rather that the soles of my shoes were hardened from the cold, and that when they hit the water they provided no traction.  I notice that after getting out of the stream they are slipping on things that don’t look slippery.  I know that if I’m going to keep running I’ve got to keep my legs from freezing up.  I wring out my gloves as I’m running down the trail, and realize that they make good sponges.  So I use them to sponge the water out of my pants.  After several cycles of sponging and wringing out my gloves, the pants seem to be in pretty good shape.  

I’m carrying a dual water bottle belt pack and wearing a windbreaker that I’ve used to cover the bottles.  I go to pull my jacket over the bottles.  The jacket is frozen around the bottles, so I decide to unzip the jacket.  The zipper goes halfway down and no more – the bottom half is iced up.  The finger ends of my gloves have turned to hard ice now, too, so I pull my hands back to keep them away from the ends of the gloves.  I have a pair of thin running gloves underneath. 

I’ve now made it past aid station 3 and am headed for #4.  Climbing up the mountain the “calm winds” are affecting my eyes.  Apparently calm means anything less than about 50 knots.  My hands are also getting numb.

I make it to aid station 4 (the first hard cutoff).  Kari says I’m about 20 minutes ahead of the cutoff time.  There is a fire there, so I take off my outer gloves and warm my hands and inner gloves sticking them right next to the flame.  That gets rid of some of the numbness.  Sunrise will be coming soon, and I’m looking forward to getting some of that hot breakfast that David Horton said they’d have at aid station 5. 

Now I have another problem.  My eye sight has fogged up – bad news.  The run until now has been mostly climb.  Now there will be some downhills.  Since I suck wind going up the hills, I rely on downhills to make up time.  With the foggy vision I’m tripping and stumbling a lot on obstacles, so I have to slow down – no big help on the downhills this time.  Aid station 5, but no scrambled eggs, sausage, etc in sight.  I take an orange quarter to eat and now understand why.  The orange is frozen.  So I take some grapes – they’re frozen, too.  It’s still brutally cold.

I’ve now made it to aid station 7 about 10 minutes ahead of the cutoff.  Vision is still foggy.  Kari tells me that Bethany dropped out for the same thing.  I guess that’s an advantage that I have over the traditional front runners.  They have to strive for excellence, but I just have to finish.  Apparently the problem is somewhat common on this run.  Kari tells me that Jay Finkle had the problem a couple years ago, and now wears goggles to prevent it.  (After the run she read that the doctor at the run said the problem was “frozen corneas”.)  My eyes won’t tear, so Kari gives me some eye drops to see if that will help.  It helps a little. The Gu in the side pocket of my water belt  that I thought has been frozen throughout the run is not frozen at all.  It turns out I’ve been carrying a block of ice that apparently got trapped inside my windbreaker from the fall in the stream. 

Down the trail I’m still having vision problems, so I squirt some water from my bottle into my eyes.  That helps clear it up somewhat.  Coming up to aid station 8 a man is standing there telling me I have 4 minutes before cutoff.  It’s 2:22, so the guy is off in his time, plus aid stations 4 and 7 were supposed to be the only hard cutoffs.  I argue that point with him because I know that Janice is coming in behind me.  He says that’s not what they were told.  Kari tells me that the next leg is 6.6 miles, but the aid station people say it’s really about 9 miles and I have just over two hours to make it to the next aid station before its cutoffs.

Running down the hill the sun in my face is flaring with my foggy eyesight.  I can’t see the ground very well.  After tripping and falling I decide I can’t make it 9 miles in two hours with my poor eyesight and the sections of knee deep leaves hiding obstacles, and will be pulled out at the last aid station, so I back off a little.  I wish that someone had told us about the cutoffs at aid stations 8 and 9.

I get to aid station 9 and, rather than trying to pull me out, they are encouraging me to go on.  I start my climb up the mountain.    Half way up it starts to get dark.  I notice chem lights, but none of them are lit.  I come to a spot with 4 ribbons, two on each side of the road, so figure I’m supposed to turn off there.  But I don’t see anywhere to turn, so I continue up the road.  After seeing no ribbons for a while, I figure I missed a turn back at those ribbons, so I go back.  Still I can’t see anywhere to turn off, so I turn back around and continue up the road.  Finally I see a ribbon and follow the road up to the Parkway.  Heading down the hill my vision is still foggy, but the road down is pretty clear of things to stumble on, so I can run down.  Vehicles driving on the road kick up dust, and since my eyes can’t tear, the dust just scrapes and irritates.

Coming to the finish it’s difficult to figure which way to go in the dark, but finally I see the flags marking the path to the finish line.  18 hours and 17 minutes – now I’m thinking I could have made it in less than 18 hours if I hadn’t eased off.  On the way home Kari says “Please tell me you’re not going to do this again.  It was sooo cold.”  We’ll see.