Beaverhead 100k – 7.15.23

Every year Yuch and I (for the most part) coordinate our Western States (WS) qualifiers. This year I was on my own. In December, his name was drawn in the WS lottery and mine was not. He also decided to run Miwok this year, a race I enjoy but have already done twice. By the time I realized I needed a qualifier, all the good races were sold out and the ones that were still open just did not appeal to me. I found the Beaverhead 100k on the WS website qualifier list, and decided it looked pretty cool. True, the Tor des Geants which I will be doing in September is a WS qualifier, but the likelihood of me finishing a 60 mile race in Idaho is a tad higher than that of finishing a 220+ mile freaking rollercoaster in the Italian alps.

Despite only being 3 weeks post-WS, I was able to convince Yuch to sign up too (actually it didn’t take much convincing). I was also able to convince my friend Cameron to sign up (actually it didn’t take much convincing). Misery loves company!

The race is a point to point starting nearing Leadore, Idaho and ending in Salmon. Since most runners stay in Salmon, a shuttle bus transports runners to the start line. Here’s the fun part: the race starts at 4 am and the shuttle bus leaves from the Stagecoach Inn in Salmon at 2:15 am. %$#@! Going into the race I could not wrap my head around this. But when the time came, I was able to execute. In the days leading up to the race, I went into a deep hibernation. Two nights before the race I slept for 10 hours. The day before the race I took a one hour nap in the living room while Yuch loudly chopped root vegetables in the adjacent kitchen. And the night before, I went to sleep at 6 pm and woke up at 1 am, getting a full seven hours of sleep despite a 9:21 sunset. P.S. Ativan is pretty darn effective as a sleep aid.

On paper the Beaverhead 100k looks pretty straight forward. The course boasts 12,700 ft of elevation gain ending with a downhill. The altitude averages at around 8,500 ft with the highest point at 10,000 ft and the lowest at the finish: 5,400 ft. I don’t do awesome in altitude, but I also don’t do terrible so I figured, eh – probably not high enough to make a huge difference. My estimations which were calculated based on nothing led me to a goal of 13ish hours.

The first 49 miles of the course is on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) which also represents the border between Idaho and Montana. At the very start of the race, there was a slight bottleneck as runners funneled from a fire road to a single track. I felt claustrophobic and wished I could be alone, not concerned with those in front or in back of me. But as soon as the pack dispersed, I was left alone and felt a similar feeling that I last had when I ran Bighorn 100 last year. I felt kind of lonely, which is weird as I would not consider myself a social butterfly during training or racing.

The course was pretty with purple and yellow wildflowers flanking the sides of the trail. UltraTrailSteven had talked up the sunrise so that when it finally came, I was not as impressed as he had been. Sure it was pretty, but it was no Bigfoot (it’s hard when you start comparing everything to Bigfoot).

At 27.2 miles, I reached Lemhi Pass, where I would find my drop bag. I was surprised with how much crew and spectators there were. I’ve never had a crew, but I imagine things could be much more efficient if you had one! Filling up flasks with water, adding electrolyte powder, shaking up flasks, emptying garbage, filling up pack with new fuel, going to the bathroom…all of this takes time. Maybe 10 minutes later I got back on the trail. I was making pretty good time. “I’m surprised with how runnable this course is”, I commented to a female runner and previous podium winner for last year’s race.

The burn area arrived mid-day just as the day was starting to heat up. This section was overwhelmingly runnable, and therefore it felt long. I was getting tired of running. Running is hard. I put on a mix I made for Yuch before the Vermont 100 which he didn’t actually end up listening to at Vermont due to headphone restrictions. I listened to that, but afterwards decided the music wasn’t doing much for me. I was glad to come upon an aid station that had ice. I had brought my ice bandana in case I encountered any snow, but was pleasant surprised to fill up my bandana with ice.

After enduring the hot and runnable burn section, I was treated to some nice exposed sections where I finally got to spend some time hiking. And, scree! Scree? What scree? Aha! This must be the scree field, I thought. Definitely not worth the hype. This really wasn’t so bad.

At mile 45ish, I stopped at the Gold Stone aid station. Just as I was wrapping up to go, who should show up but Yuch! I was so excited to see him. I think I had honestly even forgotten that he was doing the race at that point. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t winning this race, so I decided to wait for him so that we could continue together. This cheered me up considerably and just having some company makes all the difference, as I shifted from inside to outside of my head. At Janke Lake aid station (mile 50.3), we were told it was another 5.4 miles to the next aid at Bohannon Creek. 5.4 miles – no problem. I could easily do this with two soft flasks. No need to fill up my bladder for a measly 5 miles. What I did not realize was that the next 5.4 miles would be the longest 5.4 miles of the race.

Around this point the course deviates from the CDT. The infamous “scree field” had arrived. OH. This was the scree. That last part had just been a warm up. My trekking poles were no help for me here, yet I continued to use them for who-knows-why reason. In fact, they probably made me slower. As I may have mentioned in previous posts, as I’ve gotten older I have developed a fear of heights or what I more specifically like to refer of as a “fear of death”. You see, when I get up on high mountains with potentially sketchy footing and/or weather, I start to slow down which appears to be more of a psychological than physical response to the terrain. The same terrain down lower without a steep dropoff would not elicit the same kind of anxiety. This is all to say that the scree field was incredibly slow.

Yuch continued ahead of me, but waited for me as I slowly and cautiously made my way over unsteady rocks unsure if and when a rock and consequently my ankle would suddenly turn. I don’t know how long this section took because my watch died, but I know I was so focused on the terrain and not injuring myself that I failed to take in any fuel during this time. My water had run out due to misjudging how long this segment would take. Poor fueling and hydration resulted in an even lousier brain, which seemed to be the most limited organ at the time.

The descent from the scree field was a monumental cause for celebration, until I realized that the descent itself was maybe even gnarlier than what we (I) had just endured. The descent was so steep and technical that I wished I was back in the scree field. Well ok not really. When you’re physically and mentally tired, everything seems hard. Bohannon Creek aid station (mile 55.7) couldn’t come soon enough. The aid station volunteers were blending and serving up smoothies which sounded amazing, but immediately bought a cold rush to my head. After the cold rush dissipated, I tried again – hoping for the smoothie to reenergize me, but the brain freeze immediately returned and I ended up ditching the smoothie.

I felt better after hydrating and fueling and was grateful that the last 4.8 miles was a downhill (but not too downhill) fire road. Yuch ran far ahead of me, not waiting for me, which was good because it was the carrot that I needed to continue moving my legs forward. As we approached the finish line, I told Yuch he should go on without me. He had been moving faster than me the last 10 miles. He could have surely finished at least an hour earlier if he hadn’t waited for me in the scree. But he said (cheesily) we had run since Gold Stone together, we should finish together. Ok, I’ll take the cheesiness! We crossed the finish line and I remarked “that was the hardest race I’ve ever done”, which I think I’ve said perhaps a dozen times. I guess when your memory isn’t so good, every race is the hardest race. A week or so after the race I told Yuch that in retrospect, the scree field didn’t seem too bad to which he replied “Too bad you didn’t come to this realization during the race”.