My husband Sam is an ultra runner. According to Active.com, “Ultra running is any distance OVER the distance of a marathon (which is 26.2 miles)”. Most ultra marathons take place on trails but some also incorporate roads.  You may remember me talking about his ultra running in past posts like this one . The race he did this past weekend was the grand daddy of them ALL. Ultra races begin at a 50K distance (31 miles), then 50 miles, then 100K (62 miles) and THEN…100 miles. Yes. You read that correctly. A 100 mile race that you run with your legs. If you had told me five years ago that Sam was going to run a 100 mile race that would take over 24 hours, involve no sleep, cold and technical climbing I would have laughed. It would have been a worried laugh, mind you. But I would have laughed.

Well, I’m not laughing now. On April 12th and 13th Sam ran the Zion Ultra 100 miler in Zion’s National Park and can now check off perhaps the most grueling physical experience of his life off his list.

Sam has been consistently preparing for this 100 mile experience for almost a full year. His race schedule has been peppered with multiple 50 K’s and a 50 miler just last month. Each Saturday has been set aside for long runs, with additional 2-3 days a week of hill training and various trail work. His overall nutrition has been dialed in to accommodate the mileage he has needed to run, the shoes he prefers to run in (Altras) have been fine tuned for his needs, his lighting and tech stuff/audio has been refined ALL to bring him to the Zion Ultra 100. AND HE DID IT!

Sam chose the Zion Ultra 100 as his first (and possibly only?) 100 for a variety of factors. The weather was supposed to be fairly mild to cool (running these endurance races in the heat can literally be killer), the time of year worked well for our schedule and we have family and support in Utah. Sam convinced our friend and his regular ultra racing/training partner Sandra to run the race with him. This was Sandra’s second ultra and having her by his side for the entire race made this experience all the better for Sam.

We flew out to Las Vegas from SFO on the Wednesday before the race. We had a few hours to burn before Sandra got in so we got our requisite Cafe Rio and then headed to Heart Attack Grill on Fremont Street. We went to this crazy place about five years ago and I really wanted to go back for a chocolate shake. It did not disappoint; luckily we split the shake or I wouldn’t have been able to move. We hit a few other sights, took a nap in our rental mini van (so classy!) and once we picked up Sandra we drove about 2 1/2 hours to La Verkin Utah.

We stayed in the BEST Airbnb we have ever been in. Why was it so good, you ask? THE BEDS. Best beds ever. Best bedding and towels and home layout and location – literally the complete package with a darling owner to boot. We knew early on that we did not want to be in a hotel for this 100 mile experience; we wanted access to a kitchen and laundry and needed separate spaces for sleeping and staging areas. It was also important that the location be a quick distance from multiple sites in and near Zion National Park. This house was perfect; we will absolutely stay there again the next time we are in Zion.

We spent Thursday running grocery errands, getting Sam and Sandra all checked in so that they could get their bibs and shirts, getting pacer info, dropping off the drop bags, driving the aid station route (I was the driver for this race and wanted to get my bearings before dropping off or picking people up in the dark) and resting. It was a full day but we got a lot accomplished.

We had a team dinner with me and Sam, Sandra, our pacer Veronica and our pacer Randy (Sam’s cousin) and his wife Leslie. And suddenly it was getting dark and late and time for bed because everyone was going to need to be up around 4:30 AM.

That night while Sam and Sandra prepped for race day, I fully prepped the van with everything needed for the next day. If you are going to do a 100 mile race you really need a crew and pacer. People do it without either…but not many. I was acting as both crew chief and driver and then we had two pacers, one to be dropped in at mile 53 and one to be dropped in at mile 80. There was a fair amount of gear and fuel to be loaded in. We were super grateful to Randy and Leslie who drove down from the SLC area with the back of their car filled with folding chairs, a cooler, foam roller, blankets and towels – all things that were too difficult to take on the plane from San Francisco! I threw in a blanket and pillow for myself knowing I would be sitting at one of the aid stations for several hours and would want to nap.

We headed to the start line the next morning about 5:30. Excitement was high. It was dark and cool but not cold. Thankfully, there was also no rain. I could tell Sam just wanted to get on with it and after we took a few photos he and Sandra set off with 260 other 100 mile racers.

Once Sam and Sandra took off, I dropped Veronica back at the house so that she could rest – we were going to need her fresh and rested at Mile 53 so back to bed she went! Randy was staying somewhere else nearby and we needed him to rest as well so that he would be ready to join Sam and Sandra at Mile 80. After dropping off Veronica I headed to the Miles 13/21/28 aid station at Grafton Mesa. Once I got situated in my parking space, I made up the middle seats of the van into a bed, checked all of our supplies and took a power nap.

I was able to see them three times which was great. They looked fantastic and were staying well within the pace they had set for themselves. The skies were overcast which was great for tamping down any heat – this was important because the ENTIRE course is completely exposed.

While waiting for several hours at this aid station I binge watched “Catastrophe” which is GENIUS and did some pompom crafting to keep my anxiety at bay. I was able to track Sam and Sandra’s progress and pace through Sandra’s Garmin; this was the PERFECT way to keep tabs on them and see if they were on pace.

Sandra was able to take some awesome photos while they were running. I’m so glad that she did because this was the only way I could have seen what their experience was like. Here are a few of my favorites:

After I saw our runners at mile 28 I said goodbye and headed back into the town of Virgin to grab a proper lunch and rest back at the house. The next time I would see them would be to drop Veronica in as a pacer at mile 53.

Sandra was able to take a number of other photos during this stretch; here are a few:

Around 4:00 PM, Randy came to meet us at the house and with Veronica and all of the necessary fuel bags we headed to Virgin Desert Aid Station. Now, I had driven with Sam and Sandra to check out the entrance to this aid station the day before…but we had also driven to four other spots and so it was all blending together at this point. Long story short, we had a really hard time finding the entrance and naturally, it wasn’t marked with anything related to the race. I was sweating bullets and offering up a lot of silent prayers that we would hit the aid station before our runners came in. Back and forth we went trying to find it and after comparing the race map to Google maps we FINALLY found it. I was so relieved. Like, SO relieved. We found the perfect place to park just past the timing mat for the Mile 53 Aid Station, got out the camp chairs, pulled the drop bags and watched them run in. At this point they had covered 53 miles.

Sam’s quads were starting to get pretty tight at this point; Randy helped him with some stretching. He and Sandra still looked great for having gone 53 miles at this point. They both changed clothes, added jackets and additional layers, swapped out fuel, reloaded hydration and hit the foot station for some energy. They were parked at our staging area for maybe 15 minutes before we dropped Veronica in and Randy and I saw them off for the next portion. Once they left we knew we would not see them until Mile 80. The sun would be setting soon and temperatures would be dropping.

Randy went back to the house he and Leslie were staying at and I returned to ours. Now I had approximately seven hours to myself…but I was too keyed up to sleep or even relax properly. I watched the final season of Catastrophe, cleaned up the back of the van to prep for the evening, religiously tracked our runners on Sandra’s Garmin and basically drove myself crazy with anxious energy. Finally I took a shower around 10 PM to chill myself out. Naturally I got sleepy (not ideal) and dozed for about an hour. Around midnight, Randy came to the house suited up and ready to roll. Then I got a text from Veronica. Uh oh. She had torn something in her foot and had to pull out at Mile 70, leaving Sam and Sandra to tackle the remaining 10 miles before we could drop Randy in as pacer at Mile 80. My main concern was retrieving Veronica; someone from the race brought her out of the canyons and down to the finish line staging area and I went and got her. She was limping pretty badly so I was happy to get her home, medicated and fixed up. Veronica is a beast; she has run FIVE 100 mile races and paced many others. She is tough as nails so I knew she must be hurting to have to pull out 16 miles into pacing. She insisted on coming to Mile 80 with me and Randy to help assess Sam and Sandra when they came in.

At Mile 73 we were no longer able to track Sam or Sandra. Sandra’s Garmin had run out of charge. The race website only provided timing mat times, not live pace or tracking. Suddenly we were blind to where our runners were. This was super duper NOT good. At this point it was 1 AM, cold and very dark. I was full on stressed. I decided that we should stick to the approximate schedule Sam had made; on the early side he anticipated they would come into Mile 80 around 2:00 AM so off we went. Once we got there and set up, Sandra was able to send a text saying they were at least 45 minutes away. This became closer to an hour. It was about 37 degrees; so so cold. Thankfully I had brought my lightweight down blanket and with that wrapped around myself I stood by a fire at the aid station.

Again, without tracking data and spotty text transmission we had no way of knowing when our runners would come in. Randy stayed in the van trying to stay warm and loose since he was our 80-100 mile pacer. At one point while I was standing next to the fire, I looked up at the sky and took in the hundreds of twinkles far above me. The smoke mingled with my breath in the air and in spite of being cold and anxious I was so happy. Here I was in the middle of nowhere, at 3:00 AM, surrounded by other strangers also waiting for their runners, cold and tired and honestly so happy. That little moment of bliss is one of my favorite experiences of the entire 100 miler.

A little after 3:45 AM Sam and Sandra came in. Sandra looked pretty good. Sam looked very tired. The only thing he said over and over was that he was sleepy. He didn’t have much of an appetite and was just so tired. Both he and Sandra talked about the HORRIBLE Flying Monkey trail that was flat out dangerous in the dark. It had been a perilous downhill climb – one mile took almost 45 minutes in the dark, on tired legs. One wrong move meant serious injury. Flying Monkey was a bit demoralizing. I rubbed his legs and kept telling him that he was doing a great job. We got both of them ready to roll and Randy took his place as the pacer. I overheard Sam tell Randy that the next 20 miles would take seven to eight hours and to be ready for a slow shuffle/hike. With the kind of course at Zion Ultra 100, running the entire thing is impossible. You have to accept that you are going to do a mixture of running/jogging/shuffling/walking. At this point, Sam was in the shuffle/walk stage.

Randy, Sam and Sandra headed out down a trail in the darkness, their path illuminated only by their headlamps. It looked pretty desolate. From this point on, I knew we would not see them until the finish line. Sandra’s watch was still not giving us any tracking data so the best we could do was send them on their way and wait.

Veronica and I headed home and we both crashed around 5:00 AM. I woke up around 8:30 AM to a text from Sandra saying they were 30 minutes from the finish line. WHAT?!?! Veronica and I flew out of the house and made our way over to the finish. But they had miscalculated their arrival to the finish and now we had some wiggle room with the time. I walked through the expo and picked up a few gifts for Sam and our crew. Then Veronica and I chilled in the car, half dozing, half anxious about our runners coming in. We still had no way of tracking and when Sandra called it was very hard to make out what she was saying. Suddenly, they had come through the finish line! I felt horrible; we had missed the actual finish! After 100 miles we had totally missed their finish and had been 200 meters away! I still cringe thinking about it. BUT. There was no real way to know when they were going to arrive. I should have just stood (or sat) by the finish line and waited there instead of in the van. You live and learn; next time I will park it next to the finish line for an hour if need be!

I wasn’t sure what my emotions would be like seeing Sam finish 100 miles. I didn’t know if I would get teary (I got totally teary when he finished a 100K a few years ago)…but I didn’t. Instead I felt joyful and content. I never doubted that he would finish running 100 miles. I knew that the only thing that would have kept him from his goal of FINISHING would have been injury. I knew he was mentally and physically strong enough to accomplish his goal and so the phrase that popped into my head once I saw him was “Oh COURSE he finished! Of course he ran 100 miles! I’m not surprised at all”. I felt pride and joy that he had completed his journey and I was so happy to have him back.

The amount of mental discipline it takes to complete a 100 mile race is something few people can comprehend. The physical stamina and intense preparation is also hard to wrap your head around unless you do it yourself or watch it up close. I’ve had a front row seat to Sam’s entire journey and I feel as proud of him as if I had done the dang race myself. This guy is full of grit and determination and desire. There is nothing he can’t accomplish.

Sam completed the Zion Ultra 100 in 28 hours and 53 minutes, coming in 55th out of 262 runners and 47th out of 115 men running. He burned 12,598 calories and had the equivalent of 237,254 steps. Sandra actually finished as top 5 woman overall! Not that we are surprised; Sandra is the definition of beast mode.

Will Sam run another 100 miler? I don’t think it is off the table. He will put his qualifying ticket into the lottery for Western States, the “Olympics” of ultra running and we will see if he gets in. He said that the hardest part of the experience was running through the night on tired legs in the darkness. That is something he is in no hurry to repeat. He will be taking several weeks off of running but, unsurprisingly, is already considering what his next race or discipline will be. He is toying with running a fast marathon (his goal is under 3 hours) or either a full or half Ironman (he has already completed a half Iron).

Sam’s 100 mile journey has served as a tremendous inspiration to our four kids, particularly our older two who are avid runners. They understood how difficult it was to run that far for that long and were able to appreciate the sacrifice and determination it took for their dad to finish. What a teaching experience!

When we were standing in the security line at the airport following the race, I had an overwhelming urge to shout “This guy just ran 100 miles! 100 MILES!”. Sam was grateful that I did not act on my impulse but it took some legit self control not to blab to anyone within earshot. I was (and still am) so proud of what he accomplished and wanted everyone to know about it!

As for me, I found that my past experience running four Ragnar relay races prepared me really well for the nighttime madness. Having to basically stay awake for 20+ hours while following runners, driving the course in the middle of the night and making sure runners have everything they need requires a certain amount of practice and intuitiveness. While the lack of sleep just about killed me, I was on the ball for all of my crewing/driving duties. Thanks for the prep, Ragnar!

Thank you to all of our friends and family who supported Sam on this insanely awesome adventure. Special thanks for Veronica and Randy for pacing in challenging conditions and having the best attitudes. And a very special thanks to Sandra, the best running partner in all the land; if you’ve got Sandra on your team you will succeed, guaranteed. Finally, thank you to Zion Ultra for putting on an amazing race with fully stocked and manned aid stations, awesome swag, a truly unique belt buckle and beautiful course. Our only complaint? You’ve GOT to get rid of the Flying Monkey portion of the race OR run it only in daylight. Also, please mark those tiny roads clearly for the aid stations. Help the crews out!

This concludes the Zion Ultra 100 race recap! Where will Sam race next? I can’t wait to find out…once I’ve had a nap 🙂

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