Second Hardrock, Same as the First.

 Just a little bit hotter and a little bit worse!

I finished my second Hardrock last week. It was a fun experience. I ran 1 hour 47 minutes slower than my 2017 time (in the same counter-clockwise direction) but it was a million degrees hotter, the course is two miles longer, and I took an additional 1.6-mile wrong turn. I placed essentially the same: 35th this time, 36th last time. I feel like I normally finish as the median runner, but when the going gets very tough, I do relatively better. I think the easiest explanation might just be that elevation wrecks some really good runners and I barely notice it up to 13,000 feet. Thanks, genetics. Or, when a race is high enough and steep enough that almost everyone is hiking, I'm a relatively fast hiker with better endurance. Regardless, it worked out reasonably well for me again.

Training

I've been telling myself since last October that I should hire a coach to write a training plan for me, or at least write a plan myself. I never got around to it. What I did manage to do is, once I was selected in the lottery in December, look at my 2017 race calendar and say, OK, let's do something similar: frequent races ramping up in distance. So I did two 50Ks, a 50-miler, and 100-miler in March to May. I managed to run 220 to 340 miles every month this year, plus some bike commuting. So volume-wise I was probably doing well. 

Acclimation & Pre-Race

After fan-boying at Western States at the end of June, I flew to Montrose, Colorado on July 1. I rented a small SUV, and the seats folded down flat, so that's all I needed. I camped one night up South Mineral, then a few nights up Cunningham, a few nights at a condo in Purgatory, one night with friends in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park to check that box, and the night before the race in Silverton. I also went to Mesa Verde to check that box. I ran 70 miles with 26,000' vert the week before (not of) the race. In my Washington, DC training it's hard to get more than 8,000' in a week--that requires travel to a race or renting a car and getting out to the Shenandoah, so the Colorado week was a significant step up, but I don't think I overdid it.

Pre-race zen on the Gunnison River

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde NP

In Colorado I got it in my head to summit a 13er a day, so I did six 13ers (Whitehead, Rhoda x2, South Hayden, Little Giant x2, not quite North Twilight), but no 14ers, which I now think was a mistake. There's a non-trivial difference between 13,000 feet and 14,000 feet for me, so I definitely should have gotten up into that zone to prepare.

Summit of Little Giant Peak

 

Part of me was saying that I was happy to just be on the starting line while still being employed, since 23% of my division was fired, and I had to move away from my partner in Reno back to DC. Of course I would have also loved to have beaten my previous time, or my original goal of 3 mph (my default speed for many a long-distance backpacking trip.) 

The Race

After weird high-elevation dreams for a couple nights at our Purgatory condo, I slept the night before the race in the temporary campground in Silverton. My crew had early dinner together in the park, and then before sunset serious haze started rolling in from forest fires. Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP was evacuated and closed for a fire on the south rim, where I'd just camped the week prior.

At race start, the air was pretty foul, though apparently below AQI 150 in Silverton (though 200+ in Ouray). I woke at 5:00AM, moved the car right next to the start line, and checked in for the third and final time. It was cold, so I put on arm sleeves that I had lying around, and sat in the car until just a few minutes before the start. 

I got in the corral, and realized I was separated from Ludo (the returning champion) by one person, so pretty close to the front. Oh well, let's go with it. The race started, and a historic fire truck, belching quite noticeably smelly exhaust, led us the mile through town across the bridge to the ski hill and the first trail. (Can we not run behind this cute but exhaust-spewing historic vehicle in the future? The forest fires made the air bad enough; why make it worse?)

I jogged the flatter parts of the climb up Little Giant, and didn't get passed by anyone except when I stopped to tighten my shoe laces. Looking back to Silverton, the air was disgustingly dirty, and I was more than a little concerned about running 100 miles in thin, dirty air.  

Dirty Air in the Morning

I rolled into Cunningham aid station (9.3), grabbed a gel or two, filled my bottles, dropped my trash, and kept moving. I stopped at the latrine and was frustrated that I had to wait 10 seconds for it to open up. (Ten whole seconds!) Then on the climb out I looked at my 2017 splits that I'd saved to my phone and realized that somehow I was already ten minutes behind. OK, we'll just run smarter this time. We won't have two 30+ minute aid station stops, and we won't die on the climb out of Telluride. My 2017 first half was amazing--ahead of 3mph pace, more of a 30-hour pace. 

I spent much of the next 5-10 miles running with Mike Wardian, a fellow DC-area runner, except he's elite and runs fast 5Ks and marathons. He got ahead of me when I took a short wrong turn (shortly after you first see the Maggie's tent (15.4) way down below you, you have to stay alert to go over a shoulder to the right. Luckily another guy was making the same mistake and people behind us saw us going wrong and yelled at us.) I eventually got ahead of Mike by a few minutes and didn't see him for a while.

It started warming up, and I was ecstatic to have my arm sleeves, which I dunked in almost every creek crossing, along with my hat, which I let run down my back. The cooling effect was delightful; I basically credit these sleeves with saving my race, since it was miserably hot out there. The temperature was probably only in the high 70's (maybe mid-80's in Ouray) but there was no cloud cover--no monsoon season buildup. I'd noticed this for a few days prior to the race--I'd finish a training run/hike and from 3-6pm instead of ducking from lightning you'd just be wincing in the glaring sun. At that elevation, when there's no cloud cover, the sun is intense.

I ran into Sherman aid station (29.8) about a half hour slower than 2017, but about a mile was added to the course somewhere around the Pole Creek aid station (20.4), my arm sleeves were keeping me cool, the aid station folks got a lot of food in me with minimal conversation required, and I was ready to rock. They iced me up with my ice bandana, sprayed me down with sunblock, and told me I'd be on an exposed section for a few miles. Exposed means road, right? Right?!

That's what I was thinking as I kept a great pace out of the aid station, over the bridge, past a confidence marker flag, and to the road junction, with no flags. Where the hell are the flags? Oh crap, that flag wasn't a confidence marker, it marked the turn. I confirmed it with GPS on my phone, and ran the ~0.8 miles back to the turn. Dammit. 1.6 or 1.7 bonus miles of hot exposed road running.

I got to Burrows aid station (34.0) four places back from where I'd left Sherman, and 20+ minutes slower than my 2017 split for the section. Everyone at the aid station gave me a wildly different number, from 30-35 miles, of how far along in the race that aid station was supposed to be. (34.0 says the race manual.) Then I left my poles there and had to go back and get them, so I didn't exactly start the section up Handies with aplomb. I felt good passing a couple people early on, but closer to the top, they, and a few other people caught back up to me. There was finally some cloud cover, but no real risk of storm, as all the clouds were off in a direction we weren't headed. There were some dogs at the very summit who did exactly what I wanted--they started licking all the salt off my face as soon as I knelt down to say hello. But other than that one instant of joy, I continued to struggle, barely getting a gel or two down, and getting passed again on the short climb out of American Basin, and not really descending as well as I normally would on the way to Animas Forks (44.6). This section might be a half mile longer than in 2017, but it took me a half hour longer and I was passed by 5 people, the most of any section on the course.  

Handies looking towards American Basin

Yuch jumped in to pace me and we made quick work of the road climb. I only had to say "ENOUGH!" once to remind him that we weren't supposed to be talking about politics since I was on vacation. We did this section about 15 minutes faster than 2017. At Engineer (50.6) I had the lovey surprise of rolling in, asking "What've you got that's hot and vegan?" only to have the answer be "Is that the Onion?!" and getting a hug from a thru-hiker friend from Salt Lake who's apparently been the aid station captain for the last three years. She's great and I could have chatted with her for a long time, but the aid station is a pack-in with limited supplies, on a downhill section just before the longest, funnest, most runnable downhill on the entire course (Ouray Bear Creek), so I left and passed 6 people as I yelled out the count of the switchbacks (13! Thirteen slick slate switchbacks!)     

The pointless ups and downs section from the highway crossing to the north end of Ouray (58.6) felt less interminable than 2017. I spent about the same amount of time in the aid station, and felt like I made good time up Camp Bird Mine Road to Governors aid station (66.2). We ran the runnable sections, passed a couple people, and got passed by one. It got a little cold and windy, but it was more important to keep moving than to put on a jacket--anything I put on quickly got too warm. I spent a few too many minutes in Governors and moved on to Krogers (69.8). This was the first climb I really had to stop and deliberately breathe, sat down for a minute, and got super annoyed at the pacer who passed and asked four "can we do anything to help?" questions before just leaving me the hell alone for a minute. There was much less snow at the top than there was before, so Strava says I did the very top faster than 2017, but otherwise the section took me 20 minutes longer than before. 

We didn't exactly crush it down to Telluride (74.7); I remember thinking the road was annoyingly unrunnable. Just a little too steep to be fun in my current condition. And then near the bottom Mike Wardian came by at 9 minutes a mile (according to his Strava--it felt a lot faster than that) and all he had time to say was "Left!" to let us know he's passing. 30 seconds his later his pacer blew by about just as fast.

I ditched my headlamps just before Telluride aid station and deliberately took my time. I used the toilet, ate some noodles, gagged down a cola-flavored Gu liquid energy (terrible flavor, never again. Strongly dislike.) I tried to eat, but mostly I sat there getting cold and starting to shiver, so after too long, I moved out. Yuch swapped out for Jenny, and we started up the Telluride Bear Creek climb. I passed one or two people shortly out of the aid station, but I didn't really feel like I was crushing it, and I definitely had to stop and lean on my poles to catch my breath, especially near the top. Coming down Oscar's towards Chapman (84.4) was as annoying a boulder field as ever, and now that the sun was fully up it was getting hot again. There's no water until the very bottom just before the aid station, and the aid station was hot and had no ice (I thought it was somewhat driveable, if not by crew, so I was expecting some) so that was a bummer. I stayed a few minutes too long, and slowly moved on through the hot forest towards Grant-Swamp. I didn't mind the scree climb but I wasn't a fan of the false summits.

Is this even real?

Jenny at Grant-Swamp

 

The view is of course incredible, and I love the descent, but I didn't quite destroy it like in 2017. I was happy to see all the day-hikers on that section who cheered us on, but it was hot, and the Kamm Traverse section before KT aid station (91.0) was exposed, overgrown, and fairly miserable. I was happy to stand in Porcupine Creek for a minute, but the climb out was exposed and not shaded despite being below treeline. I was glad that other runners told me the climb was split into three chunks, so that it didn't come as a complete surprise (despite having done it in 2017). I also ran part of the climb as my last training run, just getting to the point where I thought I'd gotten past the false summits and knew where the real summit was.

This absolutely isn't the top

Nope! Once you get to the top of the second section, there's a huge open grassy plateau before you, and you see the trail contouring across it, ostensibly towards a low shoulder and a very easy pass. Then you get there, and the trail goes left, over to another grassy mountain, and then literally straight up it on no trail, route perfectly perpendicular to the contour lines on your map for another 600 vertical feet. JFC. I forgot about this part. Once you get up there you can eventually see why you don't go over the low pass you were looking at a while ago (sheer cliffs in the Lime Creek drainage), though looking at a map there definitely is a trail over it down to the Colorado Trail and Molas Pass. 

Finally we dropped down to Putnam aid station (96.6), where for some reason my complaining about flat no-ice SodaStream-made Ginger Ale made the whole aid station laugh and ask for my blunt opinions about the appropriate level of carbonation in soda and concentration in Tailwind energy drink. Some hiker came along and told me to get moving, so I did. 

Down the rock section, where I was passed by a fast Japanese runner who fist-bumped me and said "arigato" and then was gone so fast I had to ask Jenny if that had actually happened or I was seeing things. (I was definitely seeing things; I was very sleepy-tired, my pattern recognition system was making all sorts of incorrect guesses, and I was experiencing a lot of new things as deja vu). We crossed the river and the highway, passed one more runner, and as I was beginning the final descent to the finish line I noticed I had a couple minutes before a nice round number (36:30) so I ran hard. 

I finished in 36:29, and then promptly puked and started coughing. Everyone told me the red stuff was watermelon and not blood, and that's what I choose to believe as well. 

Finish

 

Thanks to pacers Jenny and Yuch and friend-since-3rd-grade crew chief MFS, always ready with a Star Trek or Simpsons season 4 reference!  

Splits Chart

The race keeps a good history of splits, and you can click the people + peers tab to see where I passed/was passed. 

2017 , 2025 

 

2017					2025
Split	Mile	Elapsed Time	Segment Time	In Aid	Split	Mile	Elapsed Time	Segment Time	In Aid
Start	0	00:00	--:--	--	Start	0	00:00	--:--	--
Cunningham In / Out	9.3	02:18 / 02:19	2h18m / 1m	1m	Cunningham In / Out	9.3	02:29 / 02:29	2h29m / 0m	0m
Maggie In / Out	15.4	04:21 / 04:23	2h02m / 2m	2m	Maggie In / Out	15.4	04:33 / 04:35	2h03m / 2m	2m
Pole Creek In / Out	19.7	05:26 / 05:29	1h03m / 3m	3m	Pole Creek In / Out	20.4	05:55 / 05:58	1h19m / 3m	3m
Sherman In / Out	28.8	07:51 / 08:04	2h22m / 13m	13m	Sherman In / Out	29.8	08:18 / 08:25	2h20m / 7m	7m
Burrows In / Out	32.6	08:55 / 09:01	51m / 6m	6m	Burrows In / Out	34	09:41 / 09:47	1h15m / 5m	5m
Grouse In / Out	42.2	12:22 / 12:49	3h21m / 27m	27m	Animas Forks In / Out	44.6	13:45 / 13:59	3h58m / 13m	13m
Engineer In / Out	48.7	14:57 / 15:07	2h08m / 10m	10m	Engineer In / Out	50.6	15:55 / 16:01	1h55m / 6m	6m
Ouray In / Out	56.6	16:54 / 17:12	1h47m / 18m	18m	Ouray In / Out	58.6	17:49 / 18:06	1h48m / 17m	17m
Governor In / Out	64.5	19:35 / 19:46	2h23m / 11m	11m	Governor In / Out	66.2	20:27 / 20:41	2h20m / 14m	14m
Kroger In / Out	67.8	21:12 / 21:20	1h26m / 8m	8m	Kroger In / Out	69.8	22:32 / 22:39	1h50m / 6m	6m
Telluride In / Out	72.8	22:48 / 23:02	1h28m / 14m	14m	Telluride In / Out	74.7	23:58 / 24:31	1h19m / 33m	33m
Chapman In / Out	82.1	27:21 / 27:55	4h19m / 34m	34m	Chapman In / Out	84.4	28:34 / 28:53	4h02m / 18m	18m
Kamm Traverse In / Out	89.1	30:12 / 30:18	2h17m / 6m	6m	Kamm Traverse In / Out	91	31:56 / 32:06	3h03m / 9m	9m
Putnam In / Out	94.7	33:08 / 33:12	2h50m / 4m	4m	Putnam In / Out	96.6	34:51 / 34:58	2h44m / 7m	7m
Finish	100.5	34:42:24	01h29m56s	2h37m	Finish	102.5	36:29:12	01h31m12s	2h25m

 

Nutrition

I heard someone on a podcast describe the race as a high altitude eating contest, and it's so true. (Unfortunately I only heard the episode after the race--c'mon DBo, get that RSS feed up sooner!) I didn't vomit during the race, but maybe as the saying goes, if you've never missed a flight, you've spent too much time at the airport. That is, I should have eaten more, but it really became such a chore. I did gag on my second or third gel (I made it 17 whole miles before gagging), but I never puked. The on-course Maurten gels have the consistency of a dead snail, but the Never Seconds and lemon flavor of the Gu Liquid Energy gel that I had plenty of actually went down fairly easily the whole time. I should have taken more. 

The berry flavor of the Never Second has 40mg of caffeine, and I probably ate 6-7 caffeinated gels during the race, but for whatever reason, their cumulative effect never seemed to give me a noticeable boost, unlike when I take a 200mg caffeine pill (which I was carrying and should have just taken in addition when I was getting sleepy.) 

I should have eaten more potatoes, but half the time I tried them they weren't adequately cooked. There was supposedly a lot of pumpkin pie out there too, though I didn't get offered it often (maybe many of them aren't vegan?) 

Anyway, the race shared details of what each aid station was going to have; I definitely should have read that list beforehand. 

Gear

I've run in my trusty Ultimate Direction Peter Bakwin pack for the last 14 years, and it still works, but it's definitely falling apart. I searched for a new pack that could hold hard bottles (which have wide mouths and can thus hold ice, and can be insulated to keep that ice colder longer) but nobody seems to make them anymore. I ordered the UltrAspire Momentum 2.0 and gave it a try but every arm swing rubs the tips of the bottles so I returned it. Literally the only other pack I've seen that can accommodate wide-mouth bottles is the Orange Mud, which doesn't have a lot of carrying capacity. Maybe I'll try and it combine it with a waist belt.

My shoes were nearing the end of life before the race, and I struggled to find a replacement. I've worn La Sportiva Karacal since at least 2022, going through 8 or 9 pairs and never getting a blister. Apparently I'm the only person who liked them though, as they were discontinued. The sizing was truly ridiculous, inconsistent with even other Sportivas, so I wore a full size larger than anything I've ever worn before. 

I thought I'd splurge on a super shoe for the race. Sportiva Prodigio Pro were sold out everywhere, so I tried some Speedlands (the Cocodona) but it gave me the same weird side-bottom heel tic-tac sized blister that Speedgoats do. I ended up with a pair of Hoka Tecton X 3, but they run large so I was slipping around inside them. I really liked having them on the climb up Camp Bird Mine road, but was not happy with the slippage on cambered downhills. I bought them direct from Hoka.com, so they have a generous return policy; we'll see if I like a size 9.5 better. I also got a pair of Nike Zegama 2 and really like them, I don't know why I didn't just wear them in the race.  

Getting There

Don't try and carry sports drink powders in your carry-on baggage. 

Room for Improvement

I still think the race lottery is whack. They made the massive improvement of adjusting the number of women runners equal to their proportion of lottery entrants, but the formula still grants higher odds to people who have run the race many times before. There's a lot of talk about "the Hardrock family," but any family that deliberately lets older siblings come back for a 17th serving before the younger kids gets anything is messed up. "Hey, you've already had 16 servings, well done being born sooner, you deserve more!" Run it once or twice in each direction, and then make room for someone else. (I'm totally satisfied with the counter-clockwise direction.)

Pre and post-race meetings were too long. The MC-ing really needs to be tighter and respectful of everyone's time. The awards ceremony should start after only 30-40 minutes of breakfast, not nearly 90 minutes so people don't end up baking in the noonday sun.

There are supposed to be pay public showers at Anesi park in Silverton. It was out of tokens or the entire building was locked the times I checked.

Aid stations were great, but the sweet potatoes were not cooked through (basically crunchy) at multiple aid stations, making them inedible. For all that talk of pumpkin pie, I didn't actually see it at that many aid stations.  

I have to keep eating. I can't stop eating because I'm scared I'll puke. 

A condo is not worth it, and the cheap ones in Purgatory are further away then you're going to want to drive, and the Durango side of the range isn't as pretty to look at. Just camp in the the race campground and mooch a shower from a friend, it'll be fine.  

Stay hydrated in the afternoons. If you wait until the headache sets in, it'll be late and you'll end up having to wake up a half dozen times to pee in the night. 

Do more of the course itself in your acclimation. You'll be glad you know exactly how far you have left on any given climb. And don't worry about spoiling the surprise of the scenery, you're probably not going to be in the state to enjoy it 100% during the race, so enjoy it the week before.

The End 

After the awards ceremony and lunch with a friend on Sunday morning, I was walking back to my car and saw Zach Miller sitting on the stoop of his bus outside the school gym. "Are you Zach Miller and is this your bus?" 

Him and his wife gave me a popsicle. 

Very much a bus, not a van