Quick Bighorn 100 Miler Recap

I finished the Bighorn Mountain Wild and Scenic Trail Run 100 miler yesterday. The race certainly lives up to its name. I’ll post a more detailed report in the near future, but here’s a rough recap.

Bighorn was definitely the most difficult 100 I’ve run to date. The combination of mountain weather and terrain made it significantly more difficult than the Midwest ultras I’ve run. This was also my first 100 miler without a crew or pacer. Even though I was expecting a hard race, Bighorn was still a humbling experience.

Some things went well. Some things went bad. Really, really bad.

On the “good” side, my pacing, eating, lighting, and shoe strategy worked well. I’m pretty confident I’ve come close to mailing down what works best for me regarding all of these variables.

On the “bad” side, my weather recon, clothing choice, and hydration strategy turned out to be nearly disastrous. All three were related to my expectation of much colder weather during the daylight hours.

I also made an ill-advised decision to try to jump over a mud pit and tweaked by knee. Based on the pain and swelling today, it looks like an lcl injury. In retrospect it was a bad decision because I was already muddy. I paid a steep price as the jump occurred at about mile 52ish. By the last 15 miles of the race, I was reduced to a slower-than-walking hobble.

Despite the problems, I still managed to finish in a little over 32 hours, about two hours under the cutoff. I learned many valuable lessons, which will be put to good use in the rest of the hundos I have planned this year.

I should have the full race report up later this week, including the pics I took along the way!

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