I finally found the time to put together my collection of photos from the 2013 Hardrock 100.
This year was quite a bit different than 2011. I wasn’t nearly in the same shape as I was in 2011 but I was able to finish well thanks to fairly mild course conditions and weather and a very conservative approach.
I was amazed at how dry the course was. There were no snow fields to cross and most streams were barely a trickle of water. The first river crossing I actually had to step in wasn’t until after KT 90 miles in. It did rain on the first night from Grouse Gulch over Engineer Pass to Ouray. But I didn’t get hit with any hail or have any risk of lightning. It definitely wasn’t the same Hardrock that I remembered from 2011.
And taking a slow and easy approach payed off in the end. I spent a lot of time with planned breaks at all aid stations early in the race was able to keep moving pretty steadily the entire time. The first overnight was pretty rough. I had a pretty bad episode of dry heaves on Engineer Pass and I had a nasty sour stomach the entire night. But this was due to the exhaustion of pulling an all-nighter hiking at elevation rather than any mistake I may have made with fueling or hydration. Fortunately the sick feeling went away after getting a fresh, sunny start to the second day in Telluride. My finish splits from Ouray and Telluride to the finish were actually faster than my 2011 splits. I just started off a lot slower and didn’t have the speed or strength to finish as strong as I did then.
A big part of my ability to keep a steady pace this year was thanks to VFuel. Early in the race, I took more time to eat solid food at aid stations but after Handies, I found that real food was just too much for my system to handle. But I could keep getting VFuel down consistently without getting sick. Even later on day 2 after I felt better leaving Telluride, I gave up on trying to eat much solid food. Whenever I took in VFuel, my legs would move and I didn’t get the same boost in energy from snacking on anything else from the aid stations.
Looking back now, I’m glad that I did decide to run Hardrock. I had a great week out in Silverton with some of my best friends. And thanks to Mindy’s help, Baxter and Sheba were able to come along too. Even though I wasn’t in top shape, it was a good learning experience to take a different approach to pacing. After this year’s finish, I really don’t think that finishing Hardrock is really as hard as most people believe – at least for most runners who have experience in the mountains and have finished other qualifiers. As I learned in 2011, the course will eat you alive if you try to actually race it. But 48 hours is more than enough time to work through any issues, take breaks as needed, and steadily make your way to the finish line.
I’m not sure if I’ll go back to run it again. Someday if I feel like I’m in good enough shape to really run my best, I would like to try. I would love to have one more chance to run the course with the fitness that I had in 2011 and experience and fueling plan that I had this year. But I don’t know if that will ever happen and I don’t have any desire to go back to trudge around the course just for the sake of finishing again. It’s a beautiful course and a very well run and well supported race. But there are other races out there that I’d like to try and plenty of other trails that I still need to explore. My best memories of running Hardrock are really from the friends and family who joined me out there. Most of them are right here in Fort Collins and Boulder and would be willing to join me on just about any adventure. I really don’t need to win a lottery entry and go back to Silverton to have another Hardrock experience.
