I am SO PROUD of myself for finishing my first 100 mile race. It has been a goal of mine for a very long time and it feels so nice to finally just bathe in the fact that I DID IT. It definitely did not happen the way I was expecting it to but I know that nothing is guaranteed on race day. Scout Mountain was such a humbling experience to remind me that hard things require a lot of grit and self belief. It feels like it has been so long … too long?… since I have had an experience quite as challenging that really required me to dig that deep. This blog post details my race day experience to the best that I can interpret and remember it. Many times I lost grip on reality. Having an amazing crew and pacers with me for this race really helped me figure out what was happening, how to proceed, and what happened in the end.
Before the race started I was feeling VERY nervous. I don’t usually get quite as nervous before races. The fact that I had DNFed this race last year at mile 85 weighed heavily on me. It wasn’t the race result last year that made me feel the nerves but the injury that had caused me to DNF and then spend five weeks sitting on the couch during a very short and beautiful summer. The injury still nags me after long days on my feet at work yet did not stop me from running four different ultra efforts between now and then. It started out small and blew wildly out of proportion once I had limped it out for 30 miles before deciding that it was definitely going to affect my income if I couldn’t be on my feet at a job and also potentially damaging to the rest of my running goals. Many times before the race I had to talk myself out of negative thoughts involving the possibility of another injury this bad.
Going into Scout my running training felt more solid than it ever had yet despite all the evidence to support the work I put in, I simply didn’t feel as fit as last year. I think the biggest difference was that I am usually very consistent about my lifting routine and I totally threw it out the window this past month … maybe even longer than that… with moving to a new town and buying into the idea that most people don’t lift as much during peak run training. Even when my lifting routing was consistent throughout the winter it was still less volume than it was in previous years. I felt really nervous about missing all the lifting and simply just not feeling fit despite doing pretty much all of the training I was prescribed and hitting a couple different PRs in training. This year I definitely focused on recovery and life balance more than anything and I’m still really happy with that decision.
The gun went off at 10am and honestly I was just so relieved it was finally starting. It was definitely time to get this thing over with. My heart rate was ridiculously high for the first three miles or so and I tried not to judge myself for it. My watch said it was in the 180s which I normally take with a grain of salt but I actually could FEEL how fast my heart was pounding. I was just so nervous and I couldn’t shake it off. I got to chat with another runner named Lauren for the first couple of miles which really helped but ultimately I decided to let her go and start hiking to focus on my breathing and get the heart rate situation figured out. It wasn’t until about five miles in or so I felt like I could finally get into the flow of things. The nerves finally went away and I just let myself exist out on the trail.
The weather was hot and I knew it was going to be hot. I didn’t do any heat training at all which was silly but also I legitimately did not have time or even access to anywhere to do so once I ended my gym membership due to moving. I knew this would be a factor I was just going to have to deal with. Historically I have handled heat well but the few times it was hot this spring I definitely noticed that I wasn’t handling it as well as I normally do. I got ZAPPED by the heat so fast. I came into the first two aid stations feeling fine. Just happy to finally have shaken the race day nerves and be out on the trail “doing the thing”. I texted Tori that it was hot and I wanted to take more water with me than originally planned and also to have an ice cold wet buff waiting for me. I was so excited to see her at “Good Enough Aid Station” at mile 15. I unloaded all of my wrappers from the gels I had successfully finished and then she gave me exactly what I needed in the most efficient manner and sent me on my way up Old Tom.
Going up Old Tom felt like I was BAKING in an oven. I focused my mental energy on making myself go slower than I wanted to just because I knew how much I was getting zapped by the heat and I wanted to conserve my energy for later. I had a headache since the starting gun went off but now it was pounding and painful. Despite my efforts to take things slow and a relieving slightly cool breeze near the top of the mountain it was too late. I was already paying the price of not being heat adapted. My stomach was in a tight knot and my sides were cramping from the heat. I texted my crew and pacers at the top of the climb. “Definitely struggling to climb and my stomach is pretty upset but I know I can bounce back! See you soon!”. At the moment my legs were already not feeling as strong as I am used to them during a steep climb of a race. I knew things were not looking great but it wasn’t anything that I didn’t think I could resolve. I was certain that it was going to get better.
Running down Old Tom I took my time getting through the technical rocky parts. This was not the time to pound down a steep slope like I enjoy to do sometimes. I knew it was smart to keep it controlled because there were still 80 more miles and 15k feet of vert left to go. By the time I got to the gentler downhill I started to jog but that’s when the cramps really started to hit me. Every time I started running my stomach just felt like it was in a heavy knot and my abdomen cramps would intensify. At that point it felt like my abdomen muscles were involved more than my actual stomach. It was frustrating but I told myself to just breathe through it and jog through what I could. Things were going to turn around, I just had to get through it. This is when I started to gag on all of my flavored gels but hey, even if they tasted gross I’ve never been able to not gulp them down with some water. At least I was coming into the South Fork aid station only a little bit slower than my split from 2025. I saw Tori and instantly sat down in a chair while she changed out my vest. We swapped all the gels I had originally planned to eat for some unflavored ones and Skratch. I told her I was fighting some demons but didn’t spend any extra time than needed and continued on. The next 7 miles I had anticipated to be pretty easy did not go as planned either. I walked way more of those miles than I ever imagined that I would and by the time they were over I was just so excited to see Michaela at West Fork #1. I knew that she was going to be a rock star pacer and I was just looking forward to having some fun together. Once again we threw my original nutrition plan out the window at the aid station and subbed my gels for Skratch, some gummies, and mostly Maurten and precision fuel and hydration gels.
Leaving West Fork with Michaela was probably the first and only time I actually started to have any fun during the race. Even though things were definitely going sideways she kept my spirits so high. I told her it was hard for me to talk to her because I felt so nauseous and my throat was so dry. She was already expecting to do most of the talking. I was so happy to hear her tell me all about getting to meet Rachel Entrekin at the aid station right before I came in and how the race was going for everyone else she had seen so far. She played music for me and sang to me in Swedish and we caught up on life. I have known Michaela for over a year but this race was by far the most amount of time we got to spend together. Her passion for the trails and the sports is absolutely contagious and I knew from the beginning that she was going to be the best hype person for me out there. One of the most helpful things Michaela did for me besides generally hyping me up was audibly telling me how strongly I was moving and narrating the course turn by turn. She even told me “Okay we are going to run here” and I would do my best to keep up.
Shortly before dusk we stopped to tape the bottom of my foot at a creek crossing. And not long after that I pulled over to use the bathroom … she literally ran ahead to dig a cathole for me … and then I puked maybe a quarter mile after that. I remember the texture of the precision gel sliding down my throat just completely triggering everything I had eaten for the last couple of hours to come up. Honestly the puking felt great at first. I was just so happy I could reset myself but I knew it meant trouble. I was pretty motivated to get things fixed and going in the opposite direction. “Puke and Rally!” I exclaimed as we kept moving into the night and making terribly ugly retching sounds behind my rockstar pacer. I just wanted to get to the next aid station and try to eat some real food. We decided that the puke would be a good thing to reset my race day. She told the crew at the next aid station to get ready to change my clothes, wash my face, brush my teeth, tape my feet up better, and try to get whatever real food options we had there into my stomach. I came into the aid station and that is exactly what happened.
I remember being so disoriented sitting in the chair at Gibson Jack. So many things were happening at once but it was just all of my pacers, crew, and volunteers trying to help me at once. I tried to lock in and just answer one question at a time so we could fix all the problems and get out of there. I remember someone handed me what I thought was a cup of broth and it wasn’t until I tried to drink it that I realized it was actually mashed potatoes. Tori ended up hand feeding me the mashed potatoes while my feet got worked on and somehow I simultaneously washed my face and brushed my teeth. It was here that I met Melissa, my next pacer that Michaela hooked me up with, for the first time.
Leaving Gibson jack with Melissa I told her that I needed her to boss me around and tell me what to do just like Michaela did. I was having a hard time making decisions and I needed my option to be “no” not “yes or no”. Melissa locked in and did just that. We talked here and there and got to know each other a little bit. Intermittently I had to tell Melissa I just couldn’t answer her questions because my brain just could not think of a thorough answer at the moment and my gag reflexes were just getting triggered left and right. I remember connecting with Melissa about being a physical therapist and also ultra running life but to be honest it was really hard to hear about the running while I was running because I could not picture myself trying to run 100 miles again after this. It felt like I was just gagging every other minute. Melissa was telling me to keep eating my unflavored gels and we tried a couple of different solid food options but I was struggling so much.
The 50 mile race started at midnight at the Gibson Jack aid station we had just left. Melissa and I were maybe a little over an hour out of the aid station before the first 50 mile runner came flying by us looking so strong. I had forgotten about the other races for a moment and assumed that this runner was making a massive comeback from whatever low they were experiencing during their 100 mile race. “That could be me too!” I thought. It wasn’t until a conga line of other fast strong runners were passing us that I realized it was the 50 mile racers. It was exhausting stepping on and off the course every time they would pass us. I was already fighting just to keep moving forward while feeling super nauseous. Melissa came up with a genius idea to play a game and start running before some of the people behind us caught up and then we could pull over, let them pass and start hiking. When the next person passed us we had to start running again and so on. All of a sudden I remember Melissa handing my poles back to me after I finished eating a gel or something and I stepped off the trail, jabbed my poles into the ground for support and started puking HARD. A line of runners kept passing us and it felt like I was puking harder and harder. The noises were definitely loud and violent sounding and I heard several runners asking if I was okay and then gasp and continue running as they realized the sounds were me puking everything up. Melissa was patting my back saying “We are just letting some demons out”. I stood up again ready to go. I was so sick of being sick! And I knew we just had to get out of there and the only option was forward. After this last puke I felt very depleted, started to get dizzy and just locked into following Melissa. She had me check in on any other physical ailments and I remember everything else felt as good as it could at mile 50 something except being completely lacking in calories and having an empty stomach. I knew I was in big trouble and we had to fix it.
As we started to head downhill into Cusick Creek aid station I think I started to lightly hallucinate for the first time. I saw this black spot following me out of the corner of my eye and I couldn’t get it to go away. I looked left and right trying to make it disappear but it just kept following me. I hoped it wasn’t the beginning of some sort of black out. As soon as we got to Cusick I headed for a chair right next to the fire and whipped out my emergency blanket as my body temperature plummeted. One of the ski patroller volunteers lent me their puffy jacket. I had been having a hard time controlling my body temperature for the last several hours, shivering every time I stopped at an aid station and endless waves of getting really hot right before puking and then gagging so hard I would start to reflexively shiver again. Turns out Cusick Creek was just a straight up freezing cold pocket in the fold of the mountain. Melissa and the volunteers filled my flasks, gave me ginger ale and I slowly ate a small piece of quesadilla. The aid station also had pad thai for the second year in a row and it was so delicious except I could only handle eating one or two bites of it. I knew we had to leave and I knew I had to do it fast or I would never get up. Despite the emergency blanket, the fire, and the puffy I had to mentally try to control all of my shaking. I told Melissa to count me down and help me strip the layers, throw the hydration pack on me and get me to start walking as fast as possible. After a couple switch backs out of the aid station I started to warm up again.
The section between Cusick Creek and City Creek is where I felt like the hallucinations got heavier and time warped in crazy ways. I don’t remember a whole lot besides knowing that I needed to concentrate on following Melissa and asking her to check if the ants I saw on the ground were real or not. Apparently they were not but this race was my first time hallucinating and everything felt so real it’s still hard to believe that it was not. I felt very safe getting through this dark night with Melissa knowing she is a medical professional and very experienced ultra marathoner. The thought of getting to the City Creek aid station just kept me going. Next up I was going to get Kelsey for a very long stretch without seeing the crew. I told Melissa I needed her to prepare Kelsey to take control of things for me because I was definitely becoming inoperable. I wanted to make sure I got to the top of the climb out of City Creek at sunrise. The thought of the sun coming up made me feel triggered.
As I’m writing this I can barely remember what happened when I got to City Creek. I know I sat down on a chair and then left with Kelsey after everyone made sure I had enough food to get through the long section. At this point we figured out that gels were just not going to work and I needed to have solid foods and hail mary get down some liquids. Gummies were the only thing in my original nutrition plan that were going down. Kelsey and I headed up a dirt road that was very gradual. I had just met Kelsey in person for the first time at this aid station and I wanted to get to know her but I just could not talk much at all during this. I remember us trying to have a conversation but once again there were many times I had to say “I just can’t answer that right now.” I was so happy that Kelsey decided to fill one of my flasks with Ginger Ale and I sipped on it for miles just trying to stop all the dry heaving and gagging. The course started on a gradually uphill dirt road and then turned into a beautiful but technical rocky trail in the woods. I actually really enjoyed this steep climb we did very slowly as the darkness turned into dawn. The very top of the climb felt like it went on forever as there were many false summits but it was incredibly beautiful and I was just happy to be up there as the sun rose. This is what I consider the last difficult long climb of the course and I was looking forward to trying to make up some time on the downhills after this. Kelsey did a great job at making sure I was getting down small bites of gummies and salt pills even though I definitely did not want to. Her downhill walking pace was phenomenal and it forced me to keep moving to try and keep up with her. I couldn’t run too hard or I would just feel like throwing up again so we kept the movement smooth and flowy not jarring. She played music for me and it was nice to utilize it as a distraction. Something interesting about this race is that I did not feel sleepy once and I hardly utilized caffeine at all. I had a McDonalds iced coffee a couple hours before the start line and the only other caffeine I had was a lemon ginger liquid IV from Kelsey with 100mg of caffeine. I never planned to rely on caffeine too much during this race but only consuming 100mg the whole time is pretty shocking. That liquid IV and the ginger ale were definitely the key to ending the nausea.
At Elk Meadows aid station Kelsey made quick work of getting me taken care of with more ginger ale and a tortilla with cheese and guacamole. The aid station also had chicken noodle soup and it was so yummy. This was the first time I felt like a solid food actually went down okay although in reality I think I only had a couple small bites of both, but hey it was working … I felt like the dizziness had passed and all of the gagging after this was mostly due to the dusty course and the residual effects of having already been gagging for hours. The section from Elk Meadows to West Fork #2 went quickly but I could feel the heat of the day coming back as we dropped in elevation. Kelsey had me lay flat on my back in an ice cold creek right before we got to see the crew again and it helped so much.
Coming into West Fork #2 I was feeling emotional. I felt like I had finally just come out of the nauseating hell hole that unexpectedly defined the majority of my race and now I had to figure out how to use what was left for the remaining 23 miles. As soon as I saw Michaela I knew we were going to finish the damn thing together and she was going to figure out how to push me. The crew sat me down and put an ice cold shirt on me, brushed my teeth, and sent me on my way with more gummies. “Fun Run!” Michaela yelled as we left. The two of us had already done this last section of the course together a couple of months ago late into the evening threatening to storm and post holing around the top of Scout Mountain. “Okay, six more miles to Scout Mountain aid station” I told myself. “That’s easy”. I followed Michaela with my wet buff over my mouth still trying not to gag on the dust. We were only two miles in and my shirt was completely dry. The heat was back but the ice bandana holding close to my neck was helping. For the first time my head ache was beginning to ease. I was quickly losing all sense of time and had to ask Michaela how long we had been together. I couldn’t tell if it had been 10 minutes or 2 hours. I think Michaela caught on to this and after that kept telling me the time of day, and how long I had until she was going to shove some more gummies into my mouth as we hiked up. Gummies, salt pills, water sips and Michaela telling me what time of day it was as the sun melted away my sanity is all I could remember here. Any time we crossed a creek Michaela scooped up some water in a small cup and poured it over the base of my head and neck. It felt like the cooling helped me come back to reality every time. I could not wait to see the crew again at Scout Mountain. I have never wanted to see my crew and pacers so badly at a race before and knowing that they were going to be there for me at the next aid station just kept me going throughout the entire race. As we hiked the steep downhill into the aid station we passed some skull decorations on the side of the trail and I just laughed to myself. This is where I ended my race with the crippling foot injury last year but this time I knew I was going to go right back up that steep in and out trail and finish.
At Scout Mountain aid station we changed my socks, taped some new hot spots on my feet and sent me out with a whole bag of salt pills and gummies. Saying “see you at the end” to my crew felt so surreal. I just wanted to cry. Michaela and I went up Scout Mountain which didn’t feel too bad at all. The most annoying part was just all the dust and the dirtbikers and atvs on the trail. Michaela ran ahead of me a couple times to stop the people from kicking up so much dust. Ultimately the vertical on this course felt like it never really bothered me at all. I wish my legs had felt stronger going up it but previously having seen all 100 miles of the course was a huge advantage. To me the more vert I do the less it feels real especially if I am already losing my grip on reality. The downhills were definitely way more challenging during this race because they would make me feel nauseous and my stomach knots would get tighter. During the steep technical downhill after the top of scout my legs were shaking and Michaela was coaching me to use my trekking poles. I was trying so hard just to stay upright and not roll an ankle. Our downhill times were by far slower than the ups. The ending of the course felt infinitely relentless and the closer we got to the 100 mile mark the more thoughts creeped into my head about my body just shutting down completely.
Getting to Big Fir aid station felt like an eternity and I knew the finish line was still another eternity after that one away. We were in and out within a minute or two. “Nothing here will help you” said Michaela. She was so right and we went straight back out and up a steep punchy climb. Every single step hurt. My feet were raw and my knees plus everything below them were in so much pain. I knew this was normal and part of the deal I signed up for. I kept trying and trying and trying to actually run behind Michaela but every time I did, my dead legs did not respond at all. My muscles didn’t feel particularly sore but just like someone had flipped a switch off and despite all my efforts I couldn’t get it to turn back on. I’ve never ended a race like that before but I had also never been in a nutrition hole so deep before that I started hallucinating after puking for hours. Scout Mountain had taken everything I had in me to finish. During that moment, as much as I tried to, I was not enjoying anything. Could this race just be over already? I shared those thoughts with Michaela as we covered those last few miles very slowly. I asked her to run across the finish line with me. She held my hand and I tried my best. I had nothing left to give except my best and for once I was so proud of that.
My legs took me across the finish line, under the prayer flags, and straight into race director Luke Nelson’s open arms. He gave me the choice between a belt buckle or a commemorative pendant. Quivering, I chose the belt buckle and stumbled over to collapse into the nearest chair. At last I could let myself know that it was true. I am a 100 mile finisher. A hard fought one too. Redemption was so sweet. The whole team of crew and pacers were there to give me a hug and they continued to take care of me for the next hour and a half as we watched the last runners cross the finish line in the dark.
I took some time over the next couple of days to digest and reflect upon the experience before I let myself move on to other things. My first 100 mile race was beyond humbling and hard in all the ways I forgot that it could be. This was not a confidence building experience in the way racing usually is for me. Almost nothing about this race felt like any version of the best performance I know that I could give but it was all that I had on that day. At some point I accepted that I was certainly having one of the hardest days I could imagine out there but I didn’t let that change my will power to continue on, solve problems, believe that things could get better, simply keep moving, embrace the opportunity to do something I have always dreamed of and have worked so hard to do, feel the love and encouragement from the team there to support me, or be present in the mile I am running. Unexpectedly, I did not walk away feeling like a strong runner or even a particularly good one but rather a dangerously tenacious and gritty one.
Des Hikes Thru 