The 2022 Badger Mountain Challenge
A 100-mile battle with my own brain
I had never before been as excited to run a race as I was in the days leading up to the 2022 Badger Mountain Challenge 100. Here it was almost time for my tenth shot at a 100-miler and I was uninjured, not depressed, reasonably well trained, familiar with the course and, for once, pretty confident that I could get myself a buckle. Even the weather was looking good. I was so excited that I started to get nervous. Too cocky: I will crash and burn, probably in some stupid and humiliating manner…. However, I made it to Runner’s Soul in Kennewick, WA, to pick up my race packet and check in to my hotel without difficulties of any kind.
My hotel room is awkwardly located and I have to carry my stuff half-way around the building and go up and down several sets of stairs. I have not packed very efficiently (a danger of driving to a race) and have to make several trips, expending precious energy. I find it impossible to eat the food I have brought for my dinner; my stomach is off. I try hard not to freak out about this. I manage to get to sleep, only to be awakened around 2 am by a loud truck that seems to be idling right outside my window. I lie there not falling asleep with the ever-strengthening conviction that I’m being punished for my overconfidence. I’m back in that familiar what the hell am I doing territory.
In the morning I’m slow lugging all my stuff back out to the car, and I’m later than planned getting to Badger Mountain Trailhead Park. It takes forever to find a parking spot. I get checked in and deliver my drop bags with only a few minutes to spare, which naturally I spend in line for a bathroom.
When the race starts, I am, of course, in a port-o-potty.
We’re starting in waves, for Covid reasons, and my wave has gone. We’re being chip-timed, so it doesn’t really matter, and Jason, the race director, tells me to just go. So I set off on my 100-mile journey by myself, which is nice: I love my ultra-running community but don’t really enjoy jostling around with a bunch of other runners at the start. My stomach is still a bit off, and yes, I am already operating on a sleep and calorie deficit, but it’s a beautiful day and I’m not injured and actually, I feel okay. Up and over Badger Mountain and all is well.
The big chocolate chunk cookie I gobble at the first aid station really hits the spot. On the far side of Candy Mountain I come to the first of two detours we’ve been told about in the pre-race meeting. The landowners are putting in a new vineyard right where the old course went. We now have to go out and around the slope where the vines will go, and weave down through the workers and heavy equipment before cutting back towards the culvert where we go under the highway.
This year I am prepared: I have a light on my race belt that provides just enough visibility to eliminate the dizzying strobe effect of the ribbed surface of the culvert, and the total darkness in the center. I’m grateful for this, as there are a number of large tumbleweeds in the path and I imagine they would be extremely disturbing in the dark. I emerge and crank up the pace; this section of the course goes along a road for a couple of miles, and it’s both unpleasant and relatively easy to run. I want it over with as fast as possible.
I get past the Jacobs Road aid station and on through the “endless vineyards” exactly on pace. I feel great; things are going just as I’d hoped. This year I am mentally prepared for the “Jeep Trails,” at the beginning of which they have helpfully placed a sign that says “Demoralizing Hill.” This is a nasty steep descent immediately followed by a nasty steep climb. The Jeep trails, which go on for a few miles, don’t look like much on the elevation chart but are a series of these nasty up-and-downs that are arguably even more demoralizing than this first one, which is a rude awakening after more than six miles of pretty easy running. Unlike last year, though, I’m not worrying about aggravating tendonitis in my Achilles, and I am not demoralized.
Here’s the thing, though: my legs hurt. Kind of a lot. This would not even be really noticeable if I were at, say, Mile 80, but I’m not even fifteen miles into this thing. Why do my legs already hurt? I decide on the obvious course of action, which is to pretend that my legs are fine. FINE.
The second detour shows up after what should have been the end of the Jeep Trails section, and includes an additional nasty climb and moderately nasty descent. This actually is kind of demoralizing. Still, I get to the McBee Parking aid station on my absolutely-not-hurting legs pretty close to my race plan goal. I take the time to wash my feet and put on clean socks — a necessary procedure after the Jeep trails, where insidious, powder-fine dust inevitably penetrates your shoes and turns your socks into 80-grit sandpaper. I shed unneeded clothing, as it has gotten rather hot. As I head out to tackle the McBee climb — the longest, steepest climb of the course — I am struck by a poison dart.
It’s not an actual dart, of course. It’s a short bit of a conversation I overhear, between another runner and a guy who may or may not be an aid station volunteer. It’s only around 11:30 in the morning, but this runner (I think) had asked about when tomorrow they’d be packing up the aid station and taking away these most critical drop bags — essentially asking how fast he needs to get to Mile 80. The reply is that they’ll be breaking things down around 7:00AM, adding that it’s not an absolute cut-off, and it’s possible that someone could still finish if they haven’t made it that far by then, but it would be really hard.
I do not recognize the toxic effects this will have on my race. I’m already leaving when I hear this, so asking for clarification would require going back. As I struggle up to the ridge on my perfectly fine legs, though, the poison starts to work its way into my brain. 7:00? Isn’t that…um…early? Can I get there by 7:00? When I get to the top and begin trotting along the ridge, I reach for my race plan for reassurance. It should be tucked into my back pocket. It seems, however, that my race plan is actually in the back pocket of the long pants I removed at the aid station. I’m not hugely bothered by this — I have other things to worry about (although MY LEGS DO NOT HURT AT ALL). In general I think I’m doing okay. 7:00 tomorrow morning is still a long way off.
I’m still more or less on pace when I return to McBee Parking, and I even remember to move my race plan into a pocket I’m actually wearing. I do a reasonable job of maintaining a decent pace back through the Jeep trails and the vineyards. The sun is getting low. It’s been quite sunny all afternoon, which makes the darkness of the culvert especially dark. I can’t see at all but try to remain calm and blunder forward. When the exit seems close and I start to speed up, I’m attacked by a giant spider.
It’s not a spider, of course. Why I think GIANT SPIDER when this thigh-high thing starts grabbing at my legs probably has to do with the 43+ miles I have covered so far today. I’m proud of myself for neither screaming nor falling down, especially when I realize that my attacker is — duh — a tumbleweed. I’d forgotten about the tumbleweeds, as I had forgotten about the light that is still on my race belt. I’m glad no one else happened to be in the culvert with me. Freaking out and crashing over a tumbleweed would definitely qualify as a stupid and humiliating way to screw up this race.
It’s mostly dark by the time I start up Badger, but I make it to the 50-mile turnaround a full hour faster than I did last year — not quite on optimal pace, but well ahead of plan B. I wash my feet and change my socks again, gulp down some soup, report to my kids that I’m half way through, and head back up the mountain. Now I do the whole thing again.
In the back of my mind, though, I have been grappling with that 7:00AM thing. There’s a perpetual calculation going on: if I get to [aid station] by [time] then I can get to [next aid station] by [time], etc. I have been increasingly starting this sequence with in order to get to McBee inbound by 7:00AM, I have to get to Chandler by [?], which means I have to get up on the ridge by [??], which means I have to leave McBee outbound by [???]. The times change every time I run this program, but more and more frequently it becomes I have to get to McBee outbound by [OH MY GOD I’M NOT GOING TO MAKE IT]. I mean, I did seem to be making decent time, and as far as I recall I’ve been more or less on plan, and nothing catastrophic has happened, and I feel okay, but…
OH MY GOD I’M NOT GOING TO MAKE IT.
I spent many hours before the race calculating and planning and writing all this out, and the resulting plan is condensed onto a nicely laminated little card that is IN MY POCKET. Looking at the damn thing would have dispelled any confusion about where I should be at 7:00AM. But much like that light on my race belt, I have forgotten about the race plan.
I’m baffled. Things were going great, and nothing has changed. I mean, except that it’s the middle of the night and dark and I’m tired and — I think it’s reasonable to admit at this point — my legs hurt. But the only real difference is the obsessive calculations based on the idea that I MUST be past Mile 80 and well on my way back before 7:00. I’ve been trying for many hours now, and still can’t make sense of this. The math doesn’t work. There’s no remedy. I suck at this sport. Fuck.
I arrive at McBee (outbound) certain that I have failed. The volunteers, however are cheerfully offering various foods and drinks and other types of aid. They’re acting like I’m not a huge loser and basically already out of the race. Aside from the extremely encouraging volunteers, who are all but physically escorting me out of aid station, the only reason I don’t just yank off my bib and announce that I’m dropping out is that this is the location of my doing that last year. I withdrew then because I had extremely inflamed tendonitis and was afraid climbing McBee would cause irreparable damage to my Achilles tendon. Now I have no excuse at all, except for madness triggered by a stupid overheard remark. At least I retain enough self-respect to want to get at least one aid station farther this time.
In my dithering, however, I make a series of mistakes. The first is that I decide that — jeep trails be damned — it’s not necessary to wash my feet, or even change my socks. The second is that I opt not to put on my extra warm rain pants, as it seems not very cold and is definitely not raining. The third is that when I pull out the little stuff sack that contains my warm puffy jacket, I stupidly conclude that it is not my warm puffy jacket but a similar-looking packable blanket that I have mistakenly put in the drop bag instead. I fail to swap out my headlamp. And I don’t change my damp sweaty gloves. I just stumble on out of the aid station, unprepared, and start up McBee, thus exponentially increasing the odds that I’m not going to make it.
The climb is hard but not that hard. I feel pretty much okay when I get to the top and start along the ridge. It’s windy and cold. I’m wishing I’d put on those rain pants. My damp sweaty clothes are not helping very much. My headlamp is dim and it’s hard to see the rocky trail. It’s fine in the daylight up here but in the dark I’m convinced there’s a non-trivial danger of stepping right off the ridge, which in some spots would be bad — somewhere on the spectrum from rolling uncontrollably down a very steep hill to falling off a cliff. I would prefer not to fall at all, let alone plummet to my death. My soggy gloves are a problem: I can’t decide whether it’s better to have dry but exposed or damp but covered hands.
It sure seems like I’ve been up here for hours. A handful of people made the climb behind me, but they have long since caught up and gone on ahead of me. A few people also went by in the other direction, on their way back, but now I see no headlamps ahead of or behind me. I am quite alone, freezing up here in the wind. This sucks enormously. I have slowly gone from expecting to drop out when I get to Chandler to believing I’m not even going to make it that far. I’m shivering and confused and clearly I’m never going to survive this: I’m simply going to die.
This is so sad. I feel terribly sorry for myself. What a fucking idiot I am. What a loser. I think about all the races I have entered, paid for and planned for the coming year, and how I not only can’t do any of them, I REALLY don’t want to…and anyway I’m actively in the process of freezing to death. I’m utterly wretched.
There is a miraculous light in the distance, and I’m afraid it is a mirage rather than the aid station…which they must be packing up by now, because all the real runners have long since come and gone; I have to hurry up and reach the light before it disappears. It takes like five hours to get there. When I finally arrive I’m surprised to discover a whole tent and chairs and tables and food, and a crew of cheerful people who don’t seem to recognize how truly pathetic I am. There are even other runners here, warming up by the heaters, drinking cocoa. I announce that NO ONE will be coming in behind me — that I’m THE VERY LAST — but this statement is dismissed out of hand. I insist that I’ve seen NO HEADLAMPS for hours, to which they respond by pointing out the various headlamps suddenly visible and making their way towards the aid station. Behind me.
The volunteers make it clear that they expect me to rest a little and move on — get back down to McBee. Obviously I CANNOT do this. I feel that my uncontrollable shivering should be garnering a lot more sympathy than it is, but no one even offers a chair until I tell them I feel weak and dizzy and haven’t been able to keep anything down for hours. I’m LYING. Blatently. Shamelessly. My stomach is fine. I’m not particularly light-headed or anything. It’s true, though, that I’m shivering and apparently very confused. I’m wondering what the fuck I’m doing and why as they sit me down and wrap me in big puffy sleeping bags. Yes, I’m really cold, and obviously very tired, and desperate to convince them to pity me. The truth, however, is I have simply given up, after fully embracing the idea — in spite of all evidence to the contrary — that I am way behind and cannot possibly finish this race.
I’m stunned to see all the runners coming in behind me, not at all discouraged or despairing, despite some being in much worse condition than I am. But even as I contemplate the perseverance of these people and the extremely unflattering light it sheds on my own wimpiness, I am experiencing a delicious spread of warmth and relaxation and release as the layers of puffy down dispel the shivering. I’m melting. I’m sleepy. I’m incredibly relieved. I’m not going to die tonight. I have failed miserably, but I’m…really…very comfortable. Relieved, comfy…warm…sleepy…
I wake up. WHAT? I can see for miles: I’m up here on this ridge and it is broad daylight. Like…morning. Tomorrow. I have, it seems, GONE TO SLEEP IN THE MIDDLE OF A RACE. “Oh,” someone says when she sees me looking around, wide-eyed, “you missed a beautiful sunrise.” I am totally, utterly stunned. I wonder if I dreamed this whole thing where I was trying to run an ultra. I have, over the years, had nightmares in which I start a race hours too late, or can’t, for various reasons, get to the start, or get weirdly distracted in the middle. Or in the midst of a race I just go to sleep. Clearly, though, I am up on this ridge, at an aid station, and the people here seem real enough. And, incredibly, they still seem to believe that I’m going to get up and run back down to McBee.
There is no possible chance I can even get out of this chair. I have been asleep for well over an hour, and obviously I have dropped out. I’m just waiting for them to start disassembling the tent and for someone to direct me to a vehicle. Nope, I’m told: there are still runners coming in. They don’t start to pack up here until around 8:00. I realize, finally, that the 7 am-deadline notion is false, and that it has completely derailed my race. A volunteer shoves pancakes in my mouth while another assists in partially cleaning my badly chewed up feet. And then suddenly I’m fine. It’s a new day! Time to run.
It’s a beautiful morning. I’m going to finish this race! Maybe. I’m absolutely joyful as I haul myself back across the ridge and out onto the single-track descent. I emerge at McBee Parking fearing I’m too late, but a guy greets me with “I’ve been expecting you!” Me, in particular. This is weirdly flattering and partially makes up for the fact that the aid station has been reduced to a bunch of drop bags on a tarp. The guy offers all manner of assistance, but it seems urgent that I get moving so I don’t try to change my socks or anything. Stupid. But I’m bursting with enthusiasm at this point: I’ve come back from the dead. I’ve been given a second chance.
Back on the trail, suddenly there are people all around, crewing, cheering, running. Usually the far back of the pack on day two of a 100 is a lonely place, but the Badger Mountain Challenge includes several races, and this turns out to be the turnaround point of the 55k, which started this morning. Almost every one of these folks see my 100-mile bib and I get high-fives and back-slaps and cheers and so much encouragement it’s incredible. I’m loving this race.
I’m carrying too much stuff. I’m wasting a huge amount of time fumbling around trying to adjust things without stopping. I am hindered, and I don’t have time for this. My jacket needs to come off and I need a hat and sunscreen and I don’t want to carry my poles for a while and I finally just stop, take my pack off and rearrange everything. I am annoyed with all this crap and that I didn’t stop sooner to deal with it. I’m also regretting the time I spent at the last aid station, but mostly trying not to think about how I basically dropped out of the race for a few hours. And SLEPT.
I barely stop at Jacob’s road: I have about 10 miles to go, and not as much time as I’d like: it is possible but by no means assured that I’m going to make it. There are still two mountains between me and the finish line. My son and daughter are there waiting, which is extremely motivating. I remember to turn on my light in the culvert to avoid giant spiders, but of course someone has now cleared out the tumbleweeds. Climbing Candy is tough. It’s hot, but there’s no time for taking it easy. I have made this harder for myself. No margin for error.
I’m sure I have NO TIME to stop and chat at the last aid station, and fail to eat or drink anything. As I scramble up the road to Badger Mountain, a woman jumps out of a parked car and asks if I want a popsicle. For half a second I consider saying no, as this random woman is not a race volunteer and could hand me virtually anything, but FUCKYEAHIWANTAPOPSICLE. I plow on up the trail inhaling sweet frozen fruity deliciousness, revived and refreshed, believing that this was the best decision I’ve made this whole race. Not to mention the best popsicle ever.
Note to self: five seconds of addressing a need can save a lot of time.
Time is running out, though. Fuck. FINALLY the climbing stops and I’m on the part of the trail that goes along the side of the mountain, which has gotten many times longer since I came the other way. I have like 20 minutes left and I’m not even going down yet. I’m trying to run but I keep taking walk breaks with the justification that I must be close and I will run the whole descent. When at last I begin going down the steep switchbacks I relax: I’m there! I’m done! But…nope: just more switchbacks. Down and down and down.
I’m running pretty much as fast as I possibly can at this point. There are more and more hikers on the trail, which seems like evidence that the bottom should be very close, but I still see no sign of it. Just more switchbacks. I come around a curve and there — surprise! — is my son, who has come up to meet me. I am SURE this means I’m very close to the bottom, but I chase along behind him for far, far longer than seems possible. I’m getting panicky: it is REALLY close to the 3pm cutoff.
FINALLY the park comes into view. I have like two minutes. I’m going as fast as I can but there are steep turns and stairs. My daughter joins us at the bottom and we run towards the chute, which is notably farther away than I expected. FINALLY there is the finish line, and there is the race director with his arms outstretched, and there next to him is the race clock, and it says…32:02.
The final cutoff is 32 hours. As our starts were staggered and the race is chip timed, it is not clear, as I stumble into Jason’s embrace, whether I’ve beat the cutoff. I’m ecstatically happy, but also panicked, clutching at the guy, babbling: Am I too late? Did I do it? Do I get a buckle? Jason pretty much laughs at this and wordlessly hands me a buckle. My kids escort me to a nice shady spot where I gratefully sprawl in the grass, admiring my prize. A jolly guy in a tutu and a “beer fairy” t-shirt hands me a can of Rainier. Celebration all around. We cheer in a handful of people finishing after me, chat with people. I feel obliged to drink the beer.
I later discover that my recorded chip time is 32:01:03–63 seconds over the cutoff, but still counted as an official finish, along with a few of the people I managed to beat. Still more people who came in later are listed as “unofficial finishers.” This race just wants to reward everyone who went the distance, and I am grateful. Still, though, I can’t help noticing that every 100 I’ve finished has been down to the wire: after 30 or more hours, a mad dash to squeak in a few minutes under (or over) the cutoff. Am I hopelessly slow, or am I somehow doing this on purpose? Hmm.
On the way home I am already wondering how much faster I might finish this race if I were to make better decisions, stay awake and kept moving. I will, of course, be back to try.
