Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 08:19:03 -0700
Subject: Another Hardrock story

Strangelove at Hardrock
by John Demorest

This was to be it.  This was my last 100 miler.  I would go out with a bang
by doing the Hardrock 100:  the biggest, baddest, fire-breathing, 100 miler
in the world of trail ultras.  This was to be my Mt. Everest.

Also, I'm getting too old for this stuff.  After 13 years of doing western
trail 100 milers,  I had that "been there, done that, got the T-shirt,"
syndrome.  I thought I'd better stop while I still had some remnants of
cartilage left in my joints.  I thought I had these ultra-tests down to a
science.  I thought I seen it all.  Recently, I had lost my will to run,
lost my way, and was suffering from a disease of the spirit.  It was time
to stop the insanity and move on to the next phase of my life.

I had heard all the stories about Hardrock, studied the web site and
understood it to be billed as the "upper division, post graduate" 100
miler.  It looked formidable with it's beautiful mountains, grueling
climbs, extreme altitude, mercurial weather, snow with glissading descents,
 ice axes, and crampons, fixed ropes and so on.  Somehow, however, after
doing Western States in 1995, I really didn't get too excited or
intimidated.  I know after all these years how ultrarunners  tend to
exaggerate things.  So I went through my usual ritual of training ( I even
cut back on weekly miles due to a heavier work schedule) holding on to the
theory that having that quality long run once a week was adequate.  Also,
friend and runner Gene Thibeault was kind enough to guide me up  Mt. Shasta
to show me some of the basic mountaineering skills that would prove very
useful in the run.  Confident at this point, I was feeling like I'd just go
to Silverton, run my last race, and say a fond "adios" to 100's forever.

Enter the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado.  Everything about this
run and these mountains turned out to be extraordinary.  The scale is
simply extreme, dramatic and enormous.  It's the constant jaw-dropping
beauty of these mountains that has the greatest  hold on those that have
seen this area.  Each and every mile of this course is overwhelming to the
senses.  While the terrain is severe, it is graced with waterfalls,
literally square miles of varied and abundant wildflowers, massive snow
fields, rainbows, elk herds, deep gorges, forests, copious streams and
rivers, and alpine vistas that go beyond the imagination.  By far, this is
the most beautiful 100 miler I have ever seen and this range of mountains
is among the most beautiful  in the world.  This Hardrock trail is an
amplification of why I originally got into ultrarunning and now want to
continue.  I had a total epiphany of spirit at Hardrock.

But for all this, there was a enormous price to be paid.  I was to have to
duel with Hardrock trail demons from the Sherman aid station to the finish
line.

To paraphrase Hollis Lenderking,  my race at Hardrock can be described as
70 miles of euphoric running followed by 30 miles of medieval torture.  It
became crystal clear that I had simply underestimated this course.  On
paper I thought, hey, no problem, it's just 11 Hope Pass repeats.  Among
many factors I neglected, the altitude is actually higher, the aid is much
farther apart, and I totally failed to account for the incredible fatigue
after staying up longer than I had ever been awake in my life (including
finals week in college).  It became obvious to me that this wasn't just and
upper division course but the whole Ph.D. thesis...uncle.

I pulled out every trick in my bag of experience, and it nearly wasn't
enough.  By far the best salvo I had to fire back at this monster course
was my wife Lisa as the best crew alive, and pacers John Medinger, Scott
Mills, and Roland Martin.  At 70 miles when the chips were down, where I
wanted to go crying home to my momma, these people banded together like a
stone wall and listened to by best whining stuff as it bounced off them
like water off a duck's back.  For example, exhausted, out of gas, riding
on the rims for the last 5 miles, I got into the Sherman aid station and
emotionally broke down.  Someone at the aid station asked if I wanted to
lie down.  And so I did and while lying there, the same person asked if I
wanted a blanket.  My wife, Lisa in an astute reflex, quickly grabbed the
blanket and said "absolutely no blanket."   John Medinger then gave me a 5
minute maximum of lying down.  The last straw was when the eventual woman
winner Laura Vaughn came in the Sherman aid station.  She, not too
politely, reminded me that it was I who got her into running this
(expletive deleted) run, and had better get off the cot and finish.  I now
know, and appreciate, that I totally owe my finish to great friends with
hearts of stone.

Crew can think clearly for you at these critical times.  They'd listen to
my complaints like:  "I'm so exhausted that I'm falling asleep and seeing
things."'Yeah'..or "I've got nothing left in my legs and feel toxic"'OK
..but  can you eat this? '.Now can you walk at all?  "Well, maybe but
there's 5 major climbs left over 13,000 ft. and I don't think I can make
it."' UnHuh, well you'd better try because we're waiting here until the
cut-off.  Basically, it boiled down to the fact that there was noting wrong
with me in a life threatening way...it was just fatigue and pain...As Lisa (who
has run several painful 100 milers herself into the next sunrise) said:
"Welcome to my world."  Shut up and run.

As an idea of how long this race can be, Scott Mills (who had just run
Western States 2 weeks prior) ran his pacing leg with me for a longer time
than it took for the winner at Western States to finish the whole
enchilada.
This run truly is in a class by itself from any other trail 100.  Despite
the high level of organization, great  communications, incredibly well
marked course, this is a "pay your money, take your chances" type of race
where personal responsibility is the understood credo.  If you want the
coddling of Western States with their 27 aid stations and safety standards,
 don't even THINK of entering Hardrock.  It is billed as "wild and tough"
but that is vastly understated.

And while this race turned out to be a monster, it ironically has become my
siren.  Paradoxically, I am left with the deepest emotional tie to these
mountains and a feeling that I'd like another crack at  getting this run
right.  Happily, it looks like my promises and lies of "never running
another 100 miler" will continue.  As in the movie "Dr. Strangelove",
where obsessive-compulsive men are driven to their destruction by their
passions, so go I.  My spirit has always been nourished by the notion that
"if a little is good, a lot must be better."  And like Dr. Strangelove,
when the application for Hardrock comes out, my legs and arms will start
their neurotic, subconscious spasms. However, I've been keeping a journal,
post race of Hardrock about the pain involved after the race day to day so
I can accurately remember everything when the application envelope arrives
for next year's run.  I have written about the blisters while trying to
walk through the airports,  the spasmodic coughing that resembles a 3-pack
a day smoking habit after 30 years, the swollen ankles, shattered quads,
sore knees, raspy voice, leg aches down to the bone, chaffing and so on.
Perhaps I'll just go back to pace next year but, unfortunately, I can all
to well anticipate a vision of the future moment as I tear open the
Hardrock application envelope and, as in the final line of "Dr.
Strangelove", exclaim:  "Mein furher, I think I can (Hard)walk!!!"

(c) Copyright 1997, UltraRunning