Bighorn 100 Mile

June 20, 2014   Dayton, WY

So…  why Bighorn?  Why Wyoming?  Well I needed to do a 100 miler as a qualifier for another run (Hardrock) that I have been trying to get in to for a few years now and looking at the list of Hardrock qualifiers, turns out that the Bighorn 100 would do the trick.  Another reason to pick this one is because it is held in June and I wouldn’t have to run through the brutal heat and humidity of the Texas summer to train for it.  I also liked that it is run on very remote mostly single track trails in the Bighorn Mountains.  I also heard that it is a really great event and that the scenery was terrific.

My training leading up to Bighorn went pretty well, put in the requisite long runs and back-to-back weekends.  I did what I could but it’s hard for a flatlander living at sea level to be ready to run the long sustained ups and downs at altitude of a mountain hundred. My hill training mostly consisted of the stair climber at the gym and whenever I could run hills while traveling overseas for work.  The only “altitude training” I got in was sitting on long airplane rides (yup, those work trips again).

A friend and I travelled up to Wyoming and the day before the run we signed in and picked up our race numbers, tee shirts, etc. and then we drove around a bit, including going to the start and down a dirt road along the Tongue River that would be used for the first and last few miles of the run.  Just killed time until the run the next day.

Dirt road at S/F.

Finally Friday arrived and it was time to drive over to the start for the 9am runner’s meeting where we got to hear all the special stuff the race directors wanted us to know about for the race (as if we hadn’t read the runner’s info booklet).  For the life of me I can’t remember what they said, but the meeting wasn’t too bad.

"Before" photo.

At last it was time to do a little running.  The thing is though the run starts at 11am and immediately goes uphill, gaining about 3,000 feet in the first 8 miles. Then it stays up in the 6,500 to 7,500 foot elevation range until about mile 27.  With Bighorn’s unusual start time, chosen since the organizers want the front runner to experience running through the night, the problem is that soon you are running up at altitude in beautiful open meadows in the middle of the afternoon heat.  The day of our run was crystal clear so there was very bright direct sunlight.  The only thing that helped a little bit was a nice breeze.

High meadow. (From the BH100 website.)

The scenery of the upper meadows didn’t disappoint, it was really great with lots of wild flowers.  The surrounding mountain peaks provided a great contrast to the backdrop of pure blue skies and the intermittent while clouds.  Along this part of the trail there were a few manned aid stations and some natural water springs, old abandon water tanks, etc., where runners can refill water bottles. They said the water was ok to drink, let’s hope so…  I should mention a little something about the footing, although the trails were well marked and easy to follow, it seems that horses and cows also found them easy to follow.  I guess at some point a few weeks beforehand a bunch of large animals were walking along the trail when it was muddy, but now it was all dried out and those foot/hoof prints were just a bunch of holes and ridges in dirt as hard as concrete.  There were also a bunch of stream crossings and extensive muddy parts of the trail. The concrete-hard bumps and holes and the mud combined to be a killer on the feet.

Elevation profile. (From the BH100 website.)

Finally at about mile 27 the trail plunges down from the high meadows toward the Footbridge aid station at mile 30 located next to the raging Little Bighorn River.  For me that also meant that it was easier to breathe, oxygen = good.  Footbridge serves as a good landmark and reference point in the run, where you need to refuel and get your lights ready for some night running.  The other thing to get ready for is the next 18 miles of uphill up to Jaws.

Somewhere along the 18 mile stretch. (From the BH100 website.)

The uphill running (and walking) in the evening and night went well for me since it had finally cooled off.  I think I was the only one still wearing short sleeves, but that is not unusual.  Much later when I was in another open meadow around midnight at about mile 40 or so I could see a lightning storm approaching from the southwest.  It started to rain pretty hard and the lightning got pretty close but fortunately not too close and before long it cleared again.

At the top of the mountain the trail flattened out which was good, but then the bad part was the return of huge mud puddles with a lot of shoe-sucking mud.  The only thing to do was to blaze through for the most part.  At the top is also the Jaws Trailhead aid station which serves as the turn-around point of the run. I got some dry clothes out my drop bag and then headed back down on the second half of the out-n-back course. That means now I got to backtrack thru the mud and then do the 18 miles of downhill back to Footbridge.  Running downhill for 18 miles has its own “challenges”, my knees and quads were not liking it after a while but I was able to move along pretty well.

I got back to Footbridge after first light Saturday morning and decided I’d take a little time to clean up my feet, put more Glide on, and change socks.  I think it helped.  I also got more gels out of my drop bag and ate some stuff off the aid station table.  That big downhill plunge on the way out… was now going to be a trudge up hill, something I later found out they call “the wall”.  Anyway I finally made it up “the wall” and started slowly trudging along the upper meadows again.  But by his time it started getting hot again with full sun, not my favorite conditions.  The trails with the mud and concrete hard bumps and holes were still there too.  Eventually I came around a corner to a large open high meadow, only to look across and up at the rim to see the Dry Forks aid station far off in the distance.  It looked like a million miles away, not to mention a million feet up.  It seemed much easier going the other way…  but eventually I made it there.  But even worse there was a bit more of a hill to climb after the aid station (this section is called “the haul” ).  But once up and over you get to take the last plunge down to the dirt road and the finish.

The last curveball that Bighorn decided to throw at me was just as I was about to plunge down.  The skies opened up with thunder, lightning, rain and hail.  I was running with a few other folks and we decided that we needed to get off the ridge as soon as possible, the problem is, nearing the end of a 100 miler it’s hard to move too quickly even going downhill.  We dodged a few lightning bolts and got down a little lower, only problem is we had to run next to a barbed wire fence.  Nothing like running next to a miles-long steel fence in an electrical storm…  Fortunately we veered away from the fence which was good, but a bad thing was that the rain created a lot of sticky mud on the trail that stuck to the bottoms of our shoes weighing them down. Not a lot of fun.

The last part of the run was down the dirt road and into the small town of Dayton.  That dirt road seems to go on forever, but finally crosses the Tongue River and turns into a town park and across the finish line.  I finished in 31 hours, 5 minutes and 14 seconds.  There were about 300 starters, 149 finishers and I came in 93^rd.  Well that’s it, thanks for reading.

"After" photo.

Thanks for the report, Sandy. This one is on my list for next year.

Thanks for sharing....nice job.  +3 on running in dried cow prints.

Thanks for posting.   I'm not sure what type, or how many, races I'll run in the future but I would like to get out west to run. The scenery is beautiful. For some reason you look better in the after picture then the before.

You made it sound easy....but at 31 + hours and those hills...I am sure it wasn't.  Can't wait to hear about HR.

Congrats!

That is so fantastic!  Its hard for me to conceive how anyone is able to make a 30+ hour run.  Those climbs are something else indeed.  Glad you survived that electrical storm at the end also!  Great report and pictures.

Congratulations, that sounds like an awesome race! Glad you got through the storm and hail.

You just make it sound so easy - looking at the elevation profile, this race must be a killer in its own way with the long, sustained ups and downs. Beautiful scenery, though!

And this report-o-phobia (report-anxiety?), I have that, too. It might count as an occupational hazard in our field!