BK Runs 100 Miles

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part VI — The Finish

Ali and I left Grizzly Basin at 6:05 PM.

The final cutoff was behind me. For the first time all race, I believed I was going to finish.

I just had to survive another 20+ miles.

We gradually descended into one of the most beautiful mountain basins I’ve ever seen. Giant mountains surrounded us on every side. For some reason, I felt safe down there.

Then the s**t hit the fan.

We dropped to around 6,500 feet, climbed to 9,300, dropped back to 7,500 and climbed again to around 9,500.

Around miles 90-93 alone, I had roughly 2,100 feet of gain. Mile 93 was about 1,100 feet.

At one point I looked up and saw a headlamp impossibly high above us.

“You have to be kidding me.”

Turns out it was a butterfly reflecting my headlamp. 😂

I’d been awake for more than 40 hours and the hallucinations had officially arrived.

Trees and stumps became Stormtroopers, Pokémon, Shrek and even a baby black bear. I knew I was hallucinating, but I couldn’t convince my eyes until I got close enough to see what was actually there.

I mostly kept this information to myself. Sorry, Ali. 😂

The climbs were brutal. I finally turned to her and said:

“Is this climb ever fu***ng going to end?”

It did.

Eventually.

The descents might have been worse. Every downhill step drove my blistered feet and toes into the front of my shoes. It felt like stepping on glass.

I was also losing my balance. Ali repeatedly had to stabilize me. One time she couldn’t catch me and I landed flat on my back on a rock hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

But quitting wasn’t really a thought anymore.

The pain was temporary. The finish was out there somewhere.

Toward the end, Ali and I barely talked.

“Be careful here.”

“Good job.”

“Keep going.”

She ultimately paced me for about 35 miles of this race. During these final miles she was doing a lot more than pacing. She was keeping me moving, keeping me upright and making sure I got home safely.

At some point she told me she’d run through a wall for us.

I believe her.

Finally, we could see Box Y Ranch.

Cars started passing us.

“WAY TO GO RUNNER!”

“YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!”

I’d give them my usual “WOO HOO!”

About a quarter mile from the finish, I saw two silhouettes walking toward us.

I immediately knew who they were.

Carly and Eliana.

Instead of coats, they had blankets draped over their shoulders. I joked that they looked like superheroes.

Honestly, that was pretty fitting.

They had last seen me at Roaring Forks, more than 70 miles earlier.

While I was out in the mountains, Carly and the kids had been following a Garmin dot that sometimes wouldn’t update. They woke up throughout the night checking it. At 6:30 Saturday morning they celebrated when they realized I’d survived the McDougal cutoff.

Eliana had been genuinely scared when I wasn’t arriving where I was supposed to.

Peyton apparently had a different opinion:

“Dad isn’t going to give up. The only way he isn’t going to make it is if it isn’t his choice.”

They woke up again at 2 AM Sunday to drive to the finish.

Before Eliana could even see me, she heard me yell “woo hoo” at one of the passing cars.

“That’s Dad’s woo hoo.”

When we finally reached them, Eliana hugged me.

“Good job, Dad.”

Then Carly wrapped me in the biggest hug and kiss.

She looked over at Ali and tried to thank her for bringing me back safely.

Her voice cracked.

That one got me.

At 5:42 AM, after more than 46 hours, I ran the final few yards.

After everything this race had thrown at us, the finish line was exactly what you’d expect from the Wyoming Range 100:

A piece of printer paper with FINISH written on it in Sharpie and taped up. 😂

I touched it.

Done.

Erik, the co-race director who had told me at McDougal Gap, “I better see you at the finish line,” was there.

I told him:

“I never break a promise.”

He remembered.

He told me he’d been tracking me ever since McDougal and rooting for me. He said I’d made one of the best rallies he’d ever seen.

Then he took the buckle I’d carried for more than 100 miles in a plastic sandwich bag and said he could give me a better case for it.

The same buckle Liz had put beside my face when I wanted to quit at Blind Bull was finally mine.

After pictures, hugs and celebrations, we went inside for breakfast.

Eggs. Sausage. Pancakes.

I was so exhausted Carly said I was falling asleep while chewing.

Pretty fitting way to end it. 😂

I started this race wanting to finish one of the hardest things I’d ever attempted.

But what I’m most proud of is what I hope my kids saw.

Keep going when things get hard. You’re capable of so much more than you think.

But perseverance doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

Sometimes you need someone to quietly walk beside you. Someone to tell you the truth. Someone to put a buckle in your face. Someone to push you when you don’t want to run. Someone to keep you upright. Someone to bring you oranges. Someone to worry about you. And someone who simply never doubts you’ll make it.

I may have been the one who touched that little piece of paper.

But there’s no chance I get there without all of them.

105.9 miles. Wyoming Range 100. Finished.

Ali Stacy Elizabeth DiSalvatore West Carly Knight

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part V

I came into Greys River at 4:10 PM and picked up Matt.

Matt had been waiting all day for his turn to pace me, and he was fired up.

Ali had already given us our assignment: 6 miles to Grizzly Basin in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Do that and we’d arrive more than an hour before the final cutoff.

Matt had already promised me, “I’m going to push you so hard. I’m going to be the best pacer you’ve had.”

And he meant it. 😂

Fortunately, this was one of the most runnable sections of the entire course. Mostly flat dirt road along the river.

So Matt started making up games.

“Run to that aspen.”

“Run to that turn.”

Then we spotted another runner ahead of us.

“When he runs, you run. When he walks, you run 10 seconds longer.”

Somehow Matt’s 10 seconds occasionally turned into 30.

He also gave me three “no’s.” Three times during the entire section I could tell him I wasn’t running.

I never used one.

Most of the time I actually ran past whatever landmark he’d given me.

And we started passing people.

After spending so much of the race watching other runners go by while I struggled, something about passing people at nearly 80 miles gave me another gear.

As we approached Grizzly Basin, Matt had one final request:

“Once you become visible, I need you to turn that corner in a near sprint so I can be the pacer that led you to your strongest finish.”

Of course he did. 😂

So I did.

We reached Grizzly Basin at 5:47 PM.

Six miles in 1 hour and 37 minutes.

We had beaten our goal and arrived 1 hour and 13 minutes before the final cutoff.

For the first time in the entire race, I thought:

I’m going to finish this thing.

The aid station volunteers handed me some Asian chicken dumplings that had absolutely no business tasting as good as they did.

Then we took my shoes off.

That’s when we discovered the next problem.

Huge blisters were forming across nearly the entire bottom of my left foot and most of my right. Liz, who is a PA, immediately went to work on them.

And waiting to take me back out was Ali.

She’d paced me for the previous 13 miles and had gotten exactly 1 hour and 37 minutes of rest while Matt and I were gone.

The final cutoff was behind me.

The sun was heading down for the second time since this race started.

There were still more than 20 miles left.

And soon every step was going to feel like stepping on glass.

Carly Knight Ali Stacy Elizabeth DiSalvatore West

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part IV

I left Blind Bull with Ali around 11 AM. I had just spent 10 minutes lying on a mattress telling my crew I felt like absolute s**t and didn’t know if I could keep going.

A couple quesadilla triangles, an Orange Monster and a lower body temperature had brought me somewhat back to life. Not completely, but enough.

The heat was still there, but for the first time we were getting some cloud cover. Every little patch of shade felt 10 to 15 degrees cooler.

Then we got our first look at Deadman.

From the bottom I could see the old lookout sitting way up on top of the mountain. It looked like it was 2,000 feet above us.

I looked at Ali and said, “You have to be kidding me.”

She simply said, “Let’s just take this one step at a time.”

It was such a small comment, but it was exactly what I needed.

Deadman was one long sustained climb. The lookout was visible almost the entire way, slowly getting closer.

Climbing has always been one of my strengths, so I knew I could get up there. What worried me was getting back down. Loose skree, tired legs and steep descents had been my weakness all race.

At the top we found another runner laid out on a table while his pacer worked on his cramping legs. After what had happened to me earlier in the race, Ali basically decided we didn’t need to hang around and watch that.

So down we went.

Ali was much faster downhill. She’d have to wait behind me then watch me crawl, slip and stumble my way down the mountain.

When we finally got down and onto flatter surfaces something started happening.

I started passing runners who had passed me hours earlier.

Ali made sure I noticed every single one.

After feeling like I was falling apart for most of the race, it was the first sign that maybe things were starting to turn.

At one point we were getting low on water, so Ali disappeared into the woods with her filter looking for a stream. She found one, decided there had to be an even better source farther in, and eventually realized she wasn’t entirely sure how to get back.

Meanwhile, I just kept moving.

She eventually found her way out and was surprised by how far I had gotten.

As we got closer to Greys River, Ali gave me the goal for the next stretch. The section after Greys was six runnable miles to Grizzly Basin. We needed to cover it in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. If I did that I could arrive roughly an hour before the final cutoff.

At 4:10 PM, we reached Greys River.

And I could hear Matt before I could really see him.

“YEAH!”

He had been waiting all day for his chance to pace me and was fired up.

Then he told me exactly what I should have expected from Matt:

“I’m going to push you so hard. I’m going to be the best pacer you’ve ever had.”

I still wasn’t convinced I was going to finish this race.

But I was moving better. I was passing people. And I had another pacer who had been waiting all day to get me down the trail.

We had six miles to find out if this race had finally turned.

Ali Stacy Elizabeth DiSalvatore West Carly Knight

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part III

I left McDougal Gap just after 5 AM with Isaac.

After barely surviving the cutoff and promising Erik I’d see him at the finish, I had a little renewed purpose.

I was also exhausted.

I’d been awake for more than 26 hours, and I made one big mistake at McDougal: I forgot caffeine.

About halfway through the section, I realized it. I was lethargic and just didn’t want to move quickly.

We even passed a couple runners sleeping beside the trail. Trust me, it looked pretty appealing. 😂

Isaac just quietly kept me moving.

I’ve known Isaac through our kids playing soccer and we’ve done some great hiking trips and 14ers together. As you get older, I think you realize how important it is to have guy friends around you who push you in the right direction.

That’s another thing I love about these races. Hours on a trail give you time with people that’s hard to find in normal life.

Then the sun came up.

It was beautiful, but I wasn’t exactly excited to see it. By 10 AM temperatures were already climbing into the 70s and I knew what was coming.

By the time we reached Blind Bull, I was about two hours behind my original race plan.

I looked at my crew and said:

“I feel like absolute s**t. I don’t think I can keep going.”

They basically ignored me. 😂

Nobody discussed quitting. They just went to work.

I asked to lie down. They pulled out a mattress and I closed my eyes for about 10 minutes.

Then Ali started covering me with ice.

An ice bandana. Towels soaked in ice chest water. It was so painfully cold I was breathing hard and fast.

She didn’t care.

Her Leadville coach had just finished Badwater 135 and they’d talked about managing heat. Apparently I was getting the full treatment whether I liked it or not.

Then Liz put something beside my face.

My belt buckle.

Every runner had to carry their buckle for the entire race. Finish and it’s yours. Quit and you give it back.

I just stared at it.

I’d already carried that thing more than 60 miles.

I wanted it.

More importantly, I kept thinking about how special it would be to someday pass it down to my kids.

Then somebody handed me an Orange Monster and the volunteers made me a cheese quesadilla that tasted like absolute heaven.

Two triangles, some caffeine and a lower body temperature later…

Maybe I wasn’t done yet.

I’ve jokingly called my crew a bunch of as****es for not letting me quit.

I’m really glad they didn’t.

I got off the mattress and headed back onto the course with Ali.

I felt better, but there was still a very real possibility that I wouldn’t make the next cutoff.

At that point there wasn’t much else to do.

Just keep moving forward.

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part II

I left Roaring Forks around sunset with Liz, my first pacer, and about 90 minutes of lost time to make up.

My crew had also figured out why my Garmin tracker hadn’t been updating. Apparently while I was out struggling with the heat, they were watching my dot stop moving and wondering if I was stranded somewhere along the trail. 😬

They moved the tracker from my waist to my shoulder, it started working again, and Liz and I headed out.

I was pretty beat up from the heat and cramping, but the temperature was finally dropping and I felt like the night might give me a second life.

The sunset was incredible. We were down in a basin with the mountains silhouetted against the sky.

Maybe we enjoyed it a little too much.

There was runnable dirt road leaving the aid station and we walked it. At the time I wasn’t worried. We had all night.

Or so I thought.

When it got dark the race completely changed.

This was probably the hardest section to navigate. Sometimes there were flags but barely a trail. We saw runners going the wrong direction and at one point could see a group of headlamps WAY up a mountain where they definitely weren’t supposed to be.

Then there were the creek crossings.

My crew had met a guy named Henry who told them he’d built bridges over the crossings and we should be able to keep our feet dry.

Henry and I apparently have different definitions of a bridge. 😂

We crossed water probably 40 times. Some nearly knee deep and absolutely freezing. At first the cold water felt great on my feet. By crossing 30, my feet looked like they’d been in a bathtub all night and I never wanted to see another creek again.

We also started seeing what the race was doing to people. One runner was being wrapped in an emergency blanket. We came across others who were confused about where they were. At that point it didn’t feel like we were racing each other anymore. Everyone was just trying to get through the mountains safely.

One of the best parts of those miles, though, was getting to know Liz.

Before this we’d run together once. That’s one of my favorite things about trail running. You spend hours with someone without phones, TVs, meetings or somewhere else you need to be. You just talk. Music, family, life and all the weird connections you never knew you had.

Eventually we started getting close to McDougal Gap.

With about nine minutes until 5:00 AM, we asked someone coming toward us how far we had left.

He told us it was down the road…

but more than nine minutes away.

Liz asked, “What do you want to do, BK?”

I said we’d miss our planned 5:00 arrival, but we’d still get there before the cutoff.

Liz looked at me.

“Oh no. The cutoff IS 5.”

Well…s**t.

We started moving as fast as we could.

We passed Denis, the race director, coming toward us. He recognized me and told me my crew was ready.

At that point I thought it was over.

And if I’m being completely truthful, part of me was relieved.

I was physically and mentally exhausted. I even told Liz, “Everyone has to have a DNF at some point.”

Except apparently this wasn’t going to be mine.

We made McDougal Gap with just enough time for my crew to refill everything and get me back out before 5:00.

I was the last runner through the cutoff.

As I was leaving, Erik, the other race director, looked at me and said:

“I better see you at the finish line.”

I told him I promised he would.

Isaac was waiting to take over pacing duties.

The race wasn’t over.

Not even close.

Wyoming Range 100 Race Recap: Part I

A few people have asked how the race went. There’s really no way to explain 100+ miles and everything that happened in one post. Now that I’ve gotten some sleep I have been sitting in this recliner reflecting since I can’t get up and walk to do anything else.

So for anyone interested, I’m going to put together a race recap in a few parts. The race was way too long, and I have way too many thoughts, to cram it all into one post.

Friday, August 7 started at Middle Piney Lake near Big Piney, Wyoming.

We were up at 2:45 AM for the 2.5 hour drive to the start. My entire crew was there, including Ali and Liz, who had driven in from Salt Lake City the night before and basically got a couple hours of sleep at the start line.

At 7 AM, it was cool and crisp. I was shivering. A little from the mountain air and probably a little from the nerves of not knowing what the next 40+ hours might bring.

There was even a bull moose across the lake. A pretty good reminder that we were about to head into some very remote country.

The early miles felt good. I’ve been here before. Stay patient. Don’t race a 100 miler in the first 10 miles.

Then came Wyoming Peak.

The first major climb topped out around mile 10. There was what looked like an old collapsed wooden lookout near the top. It was also an out and back to the summit, so for the first time we got to see the leaders coming back down.

Little did we know one of those runners, who had finished 3rd at the Cocodona 250, was on his way to breaking the course record.

I also learned something about the Wyoming Range pretty quickly.

These climbs weren’t going to be gradual. They were going to go straight up.

I came into Box Canyon at mile 17.1 at 12:24 PM, actually 17 minutes ahead of my planned pace.

Then the day changed.

Temperatures climbed into the upper 70s and low 80s. That may not sound particularly hot, but under a cloudless sky, completely exposed around 10,000 feet, it felt brutal.

On the next major climb, my entire body started cramping. Quads. Hamstrings. Hips. Even my triceps from long climbs using poles.

I sat down, took salt and watched runner after runner pass me, many of them stopping to make sure I was okay.

That was probably my first dark moment.

I remember thinking, maybe today just isn’t my day.

My training hadn’t been nearly as consistent as I wanted it to be, and for the first time I seriously questioned whether I had done enough to get myself to the finish line.

Your mind goes some strange places when you’re struggling alone in the mountains. At one point I even wondered, if I actually encounter a bear out here, do I have enough left in me to deal with it?

Eventually the cramping eased enough to keep moving.

Water was becoming another problem. The conditions were so dry that I was rationing what I had and trying to time it so I would run out right before each aid station.

The stretch from Box Canyon to Roaring Forks was 15.2 miles. I couldn’t make it on what I was carrying.

I had brought a filtering water bottle and eventually stopped at a stream to refill. Without that little piece of equipment, I honestly don’t know how I would have made that section.

Then, about a half mile from Roaring Forks, I heard something large violently crashing through the brush beside me.

I had seen free range cattle earlier, but my brain immediately went somewhere else.

Grizzly.

I reached for the bear spray.

Turns out I had unknowingly spooked a big brown cow hiding in the trees.

Thankfully I figured that out before becoming the guy who bear sprayed a cow in the middle of Wyoming.

At mile 32.3, I finally reached Roaring Forks and saw my crew for the first time since the start.

I knew I wasn’t doing well and I had lost a lot of time. But this wasn’t my first rodeo. One thing 100 milers have taught me is that your legs, stomach, attitude and morale can all change on a dime.

A terrible few hours doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have a terrible race.

Liz joined me as my first pacer.

We had 22.3 miles to cover before McDougal Gap. Night was coming, and I knew we had some time to make up.

But I still believed we had plenty of it.

I left Roaring Forks knowing one thing for certain:

This race was going to be so much harder than I ever imagined.

And the most interesting part of the night hadn’t even started yet.

Well… it’s been a while. 😅

I know you’ve all been dying to know where I’ve been. 😜

Truth is, I’ve been battling a left Achilles issue most of the summer. Turns out starting a training block in the wrong shoes isn’t a great idea.

A few weeks ago I switched to the ASICS Novablast 6, and they’ve been a game changer. I’m finally running in my normal gait pattern again.

Last night was our one and only crew meeting before the Wyoming Range 100 on August 7-9. We covered pacing, nutrition, logistics… and who gets to bite my toes and rub my legs. 😂

But I left realizing something.

The race matters.

The finish matters.

What matters even more are the people who choose to help you get there.

Who are the people willing to give up their weekend so you can chase your goal?

Trail running describes these people as your crew.

Life should have a crew too.

I’m incredibly grateful for Carly Knight Matt Langford, Isaac Christian, Ali Stacy, Elizabeth DiSalvatote, Eliana, and Peyton. This is the dream team who are coming to this year’s race with a new level of experience .

In three weeks, we’ll see what Wyoming has in store. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be moving through the mountains for about 40 hours… basically an entire work week. 😅

Who’s in your crew?