Mike Place was the last runner accepted into Hard Rock 100 from the wait list just the day before the race. I had agreed to pace him for the last half of the race if he got in, so I quickly got ready and headed for Colorado. I arrived that night and with only a couple hours of sleep arrived in time to watch the start. I saw Mike at the 10-mile aid station and he didn’t look well. I commented to Matt Watts after he left, that I doubted he would make it to my pickup point. During the rest of the morning I tried to get some rest and it wasn’t until about 2 p.m. that I noticed in the results that Mike had dropped at 15 miles. It turned out to be scary, but he was OK. I decided to drive to Laramie in time to make the start for the Happy Jack 24-hour run.
I arrived about 10 p.m. and got a good night’s rest and arrived at the start ready to go at 9 a.m. This is a loop format race on a tough 6-mile course that involved about 500 feet of climbing during each loop. There wasn’t a lot of flat running, most of it was up and down. There are different divisions to race in, solo 24-hour, team relays, 12-hour runners, 6-hour runners and 100-mile solo. I hoped to go over 100 miles, and hoped to win the 24-hour solo division.
The new race director did a great job on the race, much improved than past years. The first loop went well, about 55 minutes. I enjoyed the course but could see that it was going to get tough. We reversed direction for the second loop and I enjoyed that direction more, easier to run up the hill. Using the bib numbers I could somewhat tell how I was doing in the standings. As it got warmer in the afternoon, my pace slowed and I was about a half lap (3 miles) behind the leader. But as things started to cool down, I found my second wind about 30 miles in and started to run fast. I caught up with Catherine Speights and enjoyed chatting during the last mile of the loop.
On the next lap, the thunder storms came in. During the climb, I came across a girl, part of a relay, in tears. The lightning terrified her. I stayed with her, waiting out the worst of it, including pelting hail. Catherine caught up and we all continued on. The rain poured and the trail turned into water falls. Our pace really slowed. The girls went on ahead but on the downhill I felt great and flew on ahead.
The rain continued and really poured. I took a break in my car, recovered, rested, and prepared to go out into the storm again. A bunch of runners were waiting out the storm under the tent and as I went back out, for fun I sprinted past all of them out into the storm, back onto the course. They all cheered loudly. Pretty cool. During that loop it seemed like I was the only solo runner out there, with a few relay teams still braving the storm. After about four hours the storm finally ceased, it was now dark and the stars came out.
The storm took its toll and many runners quit for the night. After awhile, I could see that there were only four relay teams on the course, me, and one other guy, running the 100-mile race. When I finished a loop, I finally checked the standings. I discovered that I had a huge lead, about 10 miles. I was even 6 miles ahead of the 100-mile runners.
My motivation to really push the pace went down because I had such a huge lead and I knew I no longer would reach 100 miles before the 24-hour mark because of the storm delay. I decided to take a long rest since all my competitors were doing the same. After 30 minutes, I was raring to go again. “That was a short rest,” commented the race director.
Throughout the rest of the night my lead grew, reaching 18 miles. When dawn arrived I saw Catherine again on the course, the second place runner. I decided that I would stop early in order to clean up, get a snooze, so I could drive back home after the awards. So I stopped at 21.5 hours with 78 miles, good enough for the win by 12 miles. Link to results.
It was a fun time and I was glad I ran. I felt great afterwards and recovered very fast because I had taken it easy.