Bighorn 100 Race report

The mountains of Wyoming were calling but only one of us was able finish100 miles in nearly 100 degree heat.

Starting a week before the race, I started checking the weather forecast for Sheridan and Dayton Wyoming, and the news wasn't good. While the high temperature was to be 77 two days before the race, it was expected to climb to 97 on the race start and only cool off a little the day after. I was expecting to deal with a lot of climbing a a decent amount of altitude for a flatlander like me, but I hadn't also been prepared to deal with heat.

"Don't know about you guys, but this day has me almost in tears and I just wish I were back on that trail."--Joy

But like a lot of ultrarunning, there are always variables that we can't control. The heat would just be one more of variables.

A little background first

This is the first entry in the Frugal Runners blog, so I might as well mention something about the theme here. Sean and I love trail running, but we are both teachers (Sean teaches high school and I (Ward) teach college), so we also don't make that kind of doctor or lawyer money that helps a lot of people enjoy this sport. The whole idea is that we have been trying to do this sport as cheaply (or frugally) as possible for years. Now we've decided to start chronicialling our adventures. The plan is that most of the blog posts will be in my voice (Ward), but Sean will pitch in every now and then. We'll just have to see how it all goes.

The Drive to Wyoming (Mon 6/13 and Tue 6/14)

The whole adventure started pretty inauspiciously. My 2015 Subaru Forester, which has been a road warrior this year with my living in St. Paul, 1200 miles away from home in Hattiesburg Mississippi, decided that the warning lights should sparkle like a Christmas tree just 4 days before I left. The plan was for me to pick up Sean in Texas. Without a Subaru dealer in town, I had to leave it to Google to sort out whether or not the car would make the 600 miles to Austin. I felt enough confidence to plan to go ahead, and thank goodness it made it there. It did so without cruise control (the check engine light being on shuts down the cruise control). Given that, Sean and I decided to trust his 2016 impreza instead for the 1337 miles between Austin and Sheridan. While the price of gas is really high right now, the math we did on this is that it would cost about $480 miles for the two of us to drive to Wyoming, given $4.50 a gallon for gas and assuming he's getting 25 miles per gallon. I'm going to go back through receipts later this week and see how close that estimate was. $240 dollars per person is much cheaper than flights to wyoming for either of us, and we would have still needed a rental car had we flown. Thus, in the drive versus fly calculation, driving is winning so far. For reference, flights from Hattiesburg would be $927, and from New Orleans they would be $822 (then I'd have to add back in some gas and parking at $16 dollars/day). Flights from Austin would be cheaper but even basic economy is over $600. Since it's a 20 hour drive, though, we needed a place to stay on the way. I found a private room with 2 beds in Trinidad Colorado for only $71 total, so that increased our cost of travel to only $275 each. Still a much better deal to drive---and more fun!

Buffalo and Sheridan WYO (They use "WYO" there-isn't that cute) Wednesday 6/15; Thursday 6/16

We wanted a little bit of time to acclimate, so we arrived in Buffalo, Wyoming (25 miles to the south of Sheridan) on Wednesday, the day before packet pick up. This time we stayed in a cabin in an RV park for $74 total (running total now up to $312). It was clean and comfortable, and that allowed us to walk around the simply charming little town of Buffalo the next morning, getting coffee and then going on a drive up state highway 16 to feel the elevation a bit. Leaving Powder River Pass (elevation 9666) , we got into Sheridan just after noon, and picked up our packets. When we got to the Best Western, it was already teeming with runners. Skinny guys and gals from all over. Someone was wearing their Western States 2021 jacket (yeah, we get it, dude). Chips verified and goodie bags in hand, we made our way back towards the hotel for a Walmart run for race day supplies. After that we checked into the Fairfield Inn and rested for about an hour. Soon we got a text from Michael and Joy, our crew and pacer. They had flown up from Mississippi for the week to do some remote work and family vacay time prior to the race. It was great to see my Mississippi buds and now things were starting to feel really real.

But what about food?

Ok, you may be asking how frugal all this driving is if we are stopping three times a day for meals on the road. If you are thinking this you clearly don't know me and Sean or have never spoken to our families about how we like to travel. Sean had cut up peppers and onions, brought tortillas and cauliflower rice so we could make bowls/burritos on the way. I made a containter of pinto beans and Sean had made some chicken for protein. (I'm currently veg and he's not). While I didn't get a budget from him, I'm sure we stayed under $5 per person per meal for these dinners. For breakfast, Sean generally does intermittent fasting, while I boiled 7 eggs for snacks and breakfast, so that was less than $1.00 dollar per breakfast. For lunch, we stopped at Subways with a stack of coupons so our total there was less than $7 per meal. Total cost for food per day was about $14 per person including ice to keep the food cool as we drove. Frugal AF!!

Raceday Friday 6/17/2022

The start

We got up on race day around 5, which was a luxury considering most 100s are starting about then. The race start wasn't till 9, but we needed to drive to Dayton (about 30 minutes away) and then take a school bus shuttle to the start another 4 miles up an unpaved road. We had the free breakfast at the Fairfield at 6 and headed out to the shuttle stop/ finish line by 6:45. When we got there around 7:20, we realized that we might have been the only ones to listen to the organizers about not waiting till the last minute since it was real, real quiet with only a handful of runners milling around. Durr... first timers always listen to the race directors to a fault. I also am a bit of a nervous nelly when it comes to being earlier for things while Sean prefers not to be rushed. We work pretty well since this usually means we split the difference and are neither early nor late.

We eventually got on a shuttle by 7:40 or so, took the 10 minute ride up to the start and then had over an hour to wait. The temperature was already climbing so we sought out a little shade and chit-chatted with several runners as we got closer and closer to the start. I'd been drinking water pretty steadily all morning so the campsites around the start at Tongue River Gorge, were being well watered by the nervous runners including us.

The First Big Climb

The main characteristic of the Bighorn 100 is its legendary 3 big climbs. The first one starts almost right away. After the national anthem and a prayer, the RD started us right at 9 and we headed up the canyon along the unpaved road. Even at 9 am, it was hot and dusty. My typical mouth breathing means I was filling my mouth and lungs with dust from the start. The road was wide enough to give us plenty of jockey-ing space which was needed since once we really started climbing, passing was going to be much harder. I chatted with runners from Indiana, Tennessee, and Minnesota (a lot of RockSteadyRunning gear out there--you betchya!). We had our bibs checked as we passed through a water station about a mile and a half in and then we started the beautiful single track climb up the conyon. This run is filled with beautiful views, but if you don't want to go too remote, the Tongue River canyon is a must see that is easily accesible from Dayton--highly highly recommend. The high walled narrow canyon had the tongue river rushing by just a few feet from the trail. The water was high and roaring as runners jogged and shuffled, trying to get into a rhythm before the big climb.

After coming out of the canyon, the first big climb really starts. We had done almost 1000 feet of the first 3500 when we broke into a meadow and were faced with the congo line. This meadow was jaw droppingly beautiful with Wyoming Lupine and Arrowleaf Balsamroot dotted the landscape as we passed through. The slow jog/power hike was perfect for getting a feel for the race before the heat got too bad. I also really liked it because it forced me to slow down and I have a tendency to blow myself up in the first 20 miles of a hundred. No chance here because if you worked hard to pass a few people, you would likely end up on 15 yards ahead of them a mile later. Why do it?

The Congo Line

As we made progress up the hill, I kept checking my overall feeling (strong, not too hot) and breathing (not bad). Since I'm an asthmatic who is also diagnosed with ABPA, my lung function is only at 67% capacity on a good day. The fear of what do my lungs do at elevation was a major concern. However, on this day, so far, so good. As we neared the first peak, I saw Sean about 200 yards ahead of me, take off up the mountain and start passing folks now that the trail had widened to a jeep road. I kept steady and then we started going down, down, down. I was not at all happy to be doing this though since I knew that with the out and back course that this would mean a major climb after about 90 miles on the trail.

Dry Fork Aid Station (mile 13.5, 12:48 in, 12:56 out)

Still in good spirits at Dry Fork.

My goal for meeting up with Michael and Joy was to stay 3 hours ahead of the cutoffs, so that would be 12 noon for Dry Fork, the first cutoff and the first place where there was crew access. Michael and Joy would crew me where they could but this is a remote race so there are relatively few access points. Since I wasn't that far into the race, I figured 12:30 was more reasonable than 12 and I came running right at 12:48 (153/248--top two thirds, so where I wanted to be), so I was a bit behind. The run into dry fork was easy, and I was feeling strong. The scenary was still beautiful, huge sweeping meadows surrounding me on all sides. My stomach hadn't gone yet, and even though I was only 13.5 miles in, I felt good about my pace and my overall well being. I had definitely felt worse at this point into a race (Loup Garou 2020, Never Summer 2016), so considering the challenges of this race, I felt good after the first of 3 big climbs. Michael and Joy refilled my water bottles (only water, Tailwind had started tasting nasty to me) I downed a cheese roll up and a cold ginger ale to help settle my stomach. After just 8 minutes I was out of the aid station and heading down a long dusty clay road--headed towards Cow's Camp.

The road into Dry Fork from Upper Sheep Creek

Dry Fork to the Wall--be like Mike

The next stretch took us down a dirt road that was completely exposed and only had a few wet spots where ranch creeks and springs were spilling onto the road. This was a pretty fast section, so I tried to keep a steady but quick pace. Just prior to Dry Fork, I saw a guy ahead of me that I thought I recognized. Sure enough, as I pulled up to him, it was Mike Smith, the 60-something guy who passed me in the last 3 miles of Loup Garou 2021 to take 3rd. Mike had finished 177 hundred milers at that time (December 2021) and I had run a few races with him before. He even shows up to our local race, the Mississippi 50 neary every March. Since I had seen his splits from the year before, I knew this wasn't his first Bighorn so after reintroducing myself, I tried to pick his brain a bit. Two things he emphasized were to grab your long sleeve shirt/jacket at the footbridge and to expect to be hammered by the wall both going up and going down. I hadn't studied the elevation map enough to know exactly what he meant by "the wall". It ends up that of the 3 big climbs, the shortest one is the toughest since it's also by far the steepest. On the way back (the climb up the wall), it happens at mile 65 so it makes you work hard when you really start feeling like you have very little left.

My amazing crew and pacer: the power couple Michael and Joy!

For this section after Dry Fork, I kept Mike's lime green shirt in sight the whole way. I didn't want to pass him since Mike has a super steady pace and doesn't slow way down like I do. I kept thinking-- just be like Mike. nice and steady.

At Kern's cow camp, I took water and I felt my stomach starting to go. The heat was definitely getting to me, and I starting soaking my hat and my buff that I was wearing as a neck band. It was hot, dusty and exposed. While there were some clouds in the distance, they seemingly never wanted to get between me and the sun. It was as if the clouds were saying: "Oh, no, please Mr. Sun, you have the right to cook these little runners, we would never dream of getting in your way." Stupid polite fucking clouds. Just be rude, interupt the sun, she'll get over it. Nope. No luck.

Eventually, I made it to some evergreen tree cover that was canopied over the trail. The trail was even nicer here, made of some nice thick springy loam, with only a few roots. Not bad at all. I made it to Bear camp faster than I expected (was that really just 6.5 miles?) and then started down the hill. The nice thing about the run into Bear camp is that you are in the woods and the temperature is much lower. As you exit towards the wall, you go back out into the sun and at this point (4:30 or so) the heat just hits you. It's like the sun had been waiting just to cook the little human runners again. Bear camp didn't have soda, so I couldn't settle my stomach with that. The water crossing had disappeared and I was going down hill, which meant I should RUN! That was a terrible decision.

Puking on the trail part 1: Revenge of the Danimals

As I sat in Bear Camp, they asked if I had any trash and that's when I realized I hadn't had the small strawberry Danimals that I had packed to go with me from Dry Fork. Now that it was 3.5 hours later, the little yogurt drink had warmed up and when it hit my stomach, it didn't have the same effect as the chobani I had at dry fork. Instead of feeling like fuel plus hydration, it felt like stale sweet milk and my stomach wasn't a fan. (This was going to be only the beginning of the complaints that my stomach that day). All was okay until I got into the heat on the way down the wall. As I pushed the pace, I warmed up and pretty soon I was bent over hurling mostly water and some watermelon morsels. The whole evacuation process took a few minutes as I just.kept.puking. Eventually, I straightened up and started back down the wall. This section is steep and for a while the trail becomes a creek such that you are slipping and sliding. I'm so glad I had my poles or otherwise I would have gone down that hill ass first. Several runners emerged from the wall looking like that had a big ole doodoo in their pants. After a while I popped out and was running along a smooth downhill with the roar of rapids down below. The footbridge was close and I pushed the pace a little to get and meet up with Michael and Joy.

Footbridge (mile 30) to Jaws trailhead (mile 48)

As I came into the Sally's Footbridge aid station I was almost perfectly on time. I wanted to be there by 5:30 PM (3 hours ahead of cutoff) and I was actually early. In fact, Michael and Joy had just arrived when I strolled in at 5:20. I didn't see Michael and Joy at first and sure enough the drive to footbridge is almost so slow that I just about beat them there. Michael came running up. I sat down. He fashioned a cup for me out of a water bottle so I could get coke at aid stations since I was tired of using my hydration bottles. I sat and my leg wouldn't stop shaking. It was really trippy. I had a bowl of ramen--such good stuff for my stomach issues and downed a coke. Things were feeling pretty good but I now had to climb the biggest of the 3 climbs to get up to Jaws. 4000 feet in 18 miles with the bulk of that climb between miles 3 and 13. I started off a little shaky, but then I started climbing as I ran along a raging river canyon. The roar was deafening at points, and there were small skree fields to navigate, but overall, I felt good. I got to Cathedral rock moving pretty slowly, but still steady. They didn't have coke so I was worried about my hydration since my stomach had stopped accepting tailwind a water a while back. At least the sun was going down and it would cool a bit.

Cathedral Rock area

Puking on the Trail Part 2: I think I've made a huge mistake

This section was beautiful. The roar of the Little Bighorn River and the steep granite walls were simply breathtaking. Unfortunately for me, so was climbing up the mountain after 30 miles. After cathedral rock, the climb got serious. 6.5 miles to the next aid station and a 2000 foot climb. A lot of it was up and then down, but a few sprinkles from a nearby shower cooled me and I kept going. About 4 miles in, though, I passed two runners sitting by the side of the trail and I thought "wow, that looks good. They are sitting down; I would like to sit down, too." I walked another dozen yards and sat down. At that point, 8 or so in the evening, a wave of exhaustion hit me, so I lay down in the grass for two. While I tried to rest, well intentioned runners kept asking "are you okay" and I wanted to say "stoppppp waaaaaking meeee uppp!!!" but I said "I'm okay, just resting" and they moved on. (For the record, this was the first of 4 times that I napped on the side of the trail). I then had the brilliant (simply brilliant!) idea that one of my issues was just being sleepy, so I decided to take a caffeine pill. I took the pill with a hard pull of water and that's when I started vomitting for the second time. The water and caffeine pill taste didn't agree with me and everything came back up. All the water and the chocaolate from the last aid station came up: hurl, hurl, hurl. I eventually got up and started going up the hill, knowing I needed to make up some time. The goal was to get to the turnaround at the top of the mountain by 1 am, and it looked like I was going to miss it. At this point, I was considering dropping at the turnaround. The main thing that kept me going was that I had remembered that as long as I take caffeine with a soda, it goes down fine and that Joy was waiting there to pace me. Joy came all this way and I wasn't going to let her down (like Loup Garou 2020).

Before the stomach went south

I made it to the next aid station Spring Marsh, feeling a bit weak, but bouyed by getting that 2000 foot climb behind me. I had some coke and coffee and was ready to go. The coffee went down just fine, which is one of the quirks of my stomach issues. It was getting dark, so I got my headlamp and jacket out and started the 1000 foot climb to Elk Camp. About an hour in, I started losing focus again and really tiring and by now I was 90% sure I would drop at Jaws if things didn't turn around. I decided to take a little nap off of the side of the trail again (nap number 2), in the dark, and now runners were really surprised when they came upon this lifeless body on the side of the trail. "I'm fiiiiinnnnneee" I would say as they would query me. I got up with a little more energy and made it into Elk camp around 11:45. There, I drank ginger ale, downed half a caffeine pill and ate some ramen. All of those things seemed to do the trick as by the time I was a couple hundred yards on the trail, I was feeling better. My light was leading me up that last 4.5 miles to Jaws and even through the trail had gotten icy and my feet were soaked, all was right in the world as I was going to make the cut off of 4am with at least a couple of hours to spare.

Jaws trailhead turnaround (01:23 in; 01:31 officially out, more like 1:45) 48 miles (160/207).

After punching through ice and snow and soaking our feet, many runners were wiped out by the time they reached the top. I was invigorated. I was getting my pacer: Woot for Joy! (read her pacing report here). Michael was going to feed me and I was picking up my Kogalla light to make the whole trip easier. I went inside the tent that looked like a M.A.S.H. unit and got some mashed potatoes with broth and then met Michael and Joy outside for a few. I downed my coke, had some ramen, got my Kogalla on and Joy and I started descending the trail. The ice and snow were still there, but I knew I was leaving it behind soon and the trail below Elk camp was very clean and the down hill was going to make it much easier. We saw a few runners coming up the mountain still and I was really feeling for them.

Elk Camp to Footbridge

After taking some advil and getting more ramen and coke at Elk Camp, we pushed on through the night chatting and getting passed by some runners as we went. We knew the expectation for getting to footbridge should be about 6 hours from Jaws, but we weren't sure about how we were doing otherwise since I didn't have intermediate goals. It looked like some of these other runners did, though, so I started jogging the downhills when I could. The moon started peaking out from behind clouds and by 4:00 am the light started turning the sky these soft shades of purple. We got to Spring Marsh just as the sun was rising and it was crazy with wind. Chairs and hats were getting blown around and it looked like they might lose the tent even. I got some food down and still felt pretty good. The cooler temps were helping my stomach and the downhill felt pretty easy. As I put away my headlamp though, I knew time was starting to be a concern. Joy and I were joking around even though the steep edge of the trail made us both a little nervous. After a while, the meadow started waking up and Joy joked that if she fell at this point, it would be like the scene from Princess Bride and she would tumbled down yelling "Assss youu wiiiiiish". The scenes along the this section including the fields of arrowleaf balsamroot were gorgeous.

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

As we made it to Cathedral Rock aid station, the temps were mild and the ramen was good, but I was ready to get going again. No coke at this aid station, but I knew footbridge was just a few miles away. The canyon was pretty but also unforgiving as we started to have to navigate skree fields on the side of the canyon then without warning a runner comes flying by us. Two minutes later another! Where were they coming from? Where had they been and why did they have so much energy. These frickin jackrabbits were annoying me. I started feeling like everything was annoying me: stupid runners; stupid rocks, stupid aid station with no coke. I was hurting but still optimistic. We could get to the aid station soon. We had to.

As I noticed another one coming down the trail, I saw it--green bib, not white. These were 50 milers, not 100s. No wonder they were so fresh! Those jackrabbits were just bouncing along the trail like they just woke up and not like they were even 15 miles into a run. As the trail was narrow, I was ready to be off of this section of the trail, but I couldn't push the pace. Just too tired as I reached 63 and 64 miles.

Footbridge mile 65 (08:03 in 151/168--damn only 17 runners behind me).

Finally, we got to footbridge and I was able to sit for 2. I got a McDonald's breakfast burrito (for real--they had McMuffins too!) and take in some ginger ale. After about 10 minutes, I felt as good as I could though my feet were starting to hurt after getting soaked. Speaking of which....

Where was Sean this whole time?

Sean, who I'd last seen going up that first climb, was about an hour and a half to two hours ahead of me by the time of the Jaws turnaround. He and I must have just missed each other near Elk camp aid station as he was coming down and I was working my way up. He's pretty hard to miss in the light, but when I'm exhausted and barely moving my eyes from the trail. Well, I don't see a whole lot. Let's say that.

I was happy to hear he was doing well, but by the time I got to footbridge, I had started thinking hard about what it would take to make the rest of the cutoffs. I knew I had to get to dry fork by 3:00 (in and out); and it was not until about 8:15 as I was getting ready to leave footbridge. That meant if I could do the 17 miles in between in 6 hours, I would be good to go. I had told Michael to be ready by 1:00, but I was missing that by at least an hour at this point.

The Wall, part 2: the beginning of the END

By now, I was hurting, but it was cool and I just had one major climb left: the wall. 2500 feet in less than 3.5 miles, including the part where the trail was a stream. As Joy and I started to scale it, the first section was nice and easy and then we went straight up. As Sean said later--the slope was just barely flat enough such that you didn't have to go on hands and knees. The stream part going back up was easier as momentum was going against the flow of the water but it was very very slow. We were with a group of other hundred milers when I had to declare: THIS HILL IS SUM BULLLLSHIIYIT.

Area just leaving Sally's footbridge. Photo Credit: Mile90 photography mile90.com

We finally got up and made it to Bear camp, but by then I felt like I was a deflated balloon. I had no energy left. And then at bear camp, there was still no soda, so now I was going to have hydration issues for the 7 miles between Bear camp and Kern's Cow camp. Right as the proverbial clouds had started forming and I started seriously doubting making the cutoff, the physical clouds burned off and the temp started rising. No bueno.

Into Cow Camp and walking it in

As more runners passed me in the last two miles going into cow camp (you can see it off in the distance, like some sort of desert mirage--"why is it taking soooo looooong?"); I was having a hard time consistently running downhill. My legs were lifeless after the wall and I was feeling myself getting overheated. As we made it into the aid station, Joy helped me get some ramen and some coke but there wasn't any shelter except inside a tent that had no breeze and was 20 degrees warmer than outside. I baked outside where there was a breeze at least. Eventually, we started walking out and I told Joy to radio ahead to Michael. We were not going to try to make the cutoff, but we were going to walk it in. The trail was completely exposed and though there were runnable sections, I just knew that making the Dry Fork cutoff would probably mean I would just miss the cutoff at Upper sheep since I would be so wiped. I stopped and napped in the shade twice (naps 3 and 4 for those of you who are counting) and we kept going. I didn't want to take the UTV loser shuttle back up the mountain because I'd done that before and it's miserable. I may have missed the cutoff, but they made me stop because of missing the cutoff. I kept going under my own power for as long as I could.

We made it into Dry fork by about 3:15 (really not bad, considering) and I downed an iced coffee drink from Dunkin (again--why does my stomach hate water but can handle these)? Michael packed us up in the Kia rental and we headed to the finish line party to find Sean.

Ward, Sean and Joy at the finish line

As we headed out from Dry Fork, we finally got a text from Sean, saying he was 10 miles out from the finish. Cell reception is nearly non-existent, so it was only at the top of the first/last mountain that he was able to let us know his status. I was thrilled for him, but it was clear he was slowing way down as he was more than 8 miles ahead of me at the turnaround and now he was maybe only 5 or 6. As we waited, we chatted with finishers and the vibe was super cool. I grabbed a beer to cool off and Michael and Joy relaxed in the shade. We'd all had a long two days.

Then, around 6 pm, there he is turning into the park and fist bumping with a bunch of runners he had met along the way (Sean is the social one of the two of us) and he finished in 33:03: He was in 34th place at the Dry Fork aid station, leaving at 11:30 and it took him 6 and a half hours to finish that last section. He immediately went to the medical tent. His feet were like raw meat. After soaking them in a stream on the way out during the first half of the race, all that pounding down the mountain had shredded them. Eventually he got bandaged up and was ready to go get some pizza.

Lessons learned

Wyoming Lupine

It was a great race and I had a great time. The scenary, meadows full of lupine and sheer canyons with roaring rivers, was breathtaking. Despite a lack of specific training, I think the heat training I did in the last few weeks helped. I think my greatest mistake is to not give me enough wiggle room with my own personal cutoff times. I could have taken caffeine sooner. If I had forced down more water and try to create a bigger gap between me and the reaper that could have done it. All in all, it was a great experience. Michael and Joy kick ass and there is no one I'd rather be on a 2700 mile round trip road trip than Sean. He got his bighorn buckle, and I'm gonna come back next year for mine.