What it Feels Like to Fail

Darkness is starting to fully settle in.  It is almost pitch black on the north slopes of Mount St. Helens, and I am laying right in the middle of the fallout from its fateful eruption 34 year ago.  Looking across the valley I can see a line of fireflies crawling upwards towards Johnson Ridge Observatory. Of course, these are really runner headlamps, where I should be right now, heading on to the next aid station miles distant.  Instead, I find myself laying on my back, unable to move anymore.  The cramps have totally stopped me, and I am unable to move without setting off another round of them.  Legs, hips, feet, back, arms, neck, and even hands.  I cannot even get the electrolytes out of my pack.  Sipping from my water flask hoping to get enough electrolytes in to move again.  How have I found myself in this position?  Only 25 miles into a 200-mile race and this is a total disaster.  What started so promisingly at 9 am this morning has careened past failure and now seemingly bordering on survival.  All I can do now is salvage my own dignity and save myself.

Well, if you are wondering how in the world I got myself into this predicament, to this day I am not 100% sure.  Yes, I know I signed up for Bigfoot 200, my first effort at one of the harder 200s out there.  I think I was likely drinking when I signed up, and honestly Ultra Signup should have a 36-hour back out clause for this reason.   Regardless, I was reasonably prepared for this challenge.  I had finished a hard 100 a few months earlier, Cruel Jewel, and had been focused all summer.  Lots of mountains and climbing in the summer heat would seemingly have me ready for this event.  I had done other hot races to include Keys 100, so it is not like I didn’t know what I was doing.

Getting out to Randle, WA where the race shuttle hauls you out to the start a long way away was a feat in itself, as well as race logistics when planning on a solo effort.  I had planned well, trained well, and was in top physical shape.  Watching the weather for weeks I knew it was going to be hot.  Not Virginia humidity but that western super arid heat that can often catch an east coaster by surprise.  Forecasts were for temperatures at lower elevations to be over 100 degrees, but how that would translate higher up on the mountain slopes, I was not totally sure.  Boy, did I find out.  After the long shuttle ride, the race started at 0900 after some motivating festivities led by the race director.  This is an exceptionally well organized and run event by the way, in case you are interested one day. I was reasonably confident at that point.  Why shouldn’t I be?  I had done nearly 50 ultras of various distances and had never failed to finish.  Combine this with 30 years in the Marine Corps and never failing to complete a physical or mental test and there is no way I could fail.  Right?

The race started hot, with nothing blocking the sun except the distinct haze of smoke from major local forest fires.  Somehow this made it hotter, it just smelled like things were burning. Climbing the southwest slopes of Mount St. Helens we headed into the blast zone, a collection of black sand and dark rocks from the eruption, it was like being on the moon.  If the moon was hot and dry.  I don’t know for sure what the moon is like, I am not a space person. It was super cool though, an environment like something I had rarely seen despite traveling the world for thirty years.  I could feel the heat though, pounding down, reflecting off the dark ground and no shade to be found.  I did my best to drink and hydrate but my stomach started turning early on me.  Additionally, in dry heat you fail to notice just how much you are sweating as it evaporates quickly, unlike the humid east coast where it clings to you in waves.  Regardless, I pushed fairly hard intending to get ahead of cut-offs early to save time to sleep later over the next four plus days.  This was a mistake and likely the combination of my stomach not wanting more fluids, the dry heat, and pushing too hard caught up to me as I was crawling into the first aid-station at 12 miles or so.  I was not too worried; I had been there before and knew with some food I would be ok.  The aid station was crowded and scorching hot, with no breeze, so I cut this stop short, failed to get any real calories in, and moved out quickly.  The next aid station was Windy Ridge, about 18 miles away through some really tough terrain.  It started off ok in the woods with some shade, but something was not quite right.  As I crossed a bridge over a gorge my calves started to cramp and then my muscles and upper thighs went next.  I did my best to hydrate more and eventually was able to continue.  As I entered another super dry section, a ten-mile area of scrub brush, old ash, and rocks, the wheels really fell off.  After climbing a long effort up to the trail that meandered along the base of the mountain, everything cramped.  Arms, legs, core, hands, and back.  Crazy I did not think that possible, nothing like this had ever happened to me.  Taking in fluids made me sick as did any effort to force electrolytes in my system. 

I had not given up hope of making it at this point, so I would take three to four steps, deal with the cramps, then repeat.  Sure, I was down, but in my mind all I had to do was make it to the next aid station and I would rally.  As much as I want to believe we can overcome anything with a positive attitude, my body disagreed.  Several times I had to lay down, and this was torture as a new wave of cramps would ensue, but it was the only way to stem the nausea and weakness I was feeling.  For hours I continued this ridiculous drama with many I had left behind in the beginning coming by now.  “Are you ok?”  “Can I do anything for you?”  Yeah, shoot me I think I said more than once.  Several times I looked down and had an colony of ants making its new home all over me.  Too distressed and tired to even care.  But the thought of failure kept coming back and I couldn’t accept it.  I would force myself up and do the short moves, a couple steps at a time.  Grinding down and up the dozens of gullies and small ridges that line the flanks of the mountain.  Drawn towards Windy Ridge but watching the time buffer slowly dwindle.

Descending a deep gully, I saw several bivy sacks and the stench of vomit and other bodily functions hit me.  Several folks, the carnage of this smoking hot day, were done, waiting on a rescue team to come save them.  I couldn’t bear the thought of this.  So, I stumbled by, asked if I could help, laughing out loud now, as I could barely help myself.   My goal was still to make it to Windy Ridge.  It was at least seven miles away at this point, so it sounded good at the time.  I set my next goal as the oasis, a wet area with a stream.  Maybe this would be the thing that got me all fixed up and on track.  It seemed to take forever to get there and I think I hit my low point during this period.  Sitting on the side of the mountain as darkness overtook me.  Alone, not a person in sight, not thinking well, not physically well, and emotionally defeated. The thought of failure hung heavily over me throughout this time.  I hung onto the idea of not being rescued to push me, despite my despondence, and I slowly made my way to the oasis.  I plopped my ass right in the middle of it, wallowing like a pig in a mud hole. I forced seemingly gallons of water into my system, and emerged with a sense of purpose. I pushed hard for the next several miles and could see where Windy Ridge was, again the fireflies pointing the way.  I eventually made the dirt road that I knew led to the aid station and pushed up the steep approach, stumbling into the aid station with five minutes to spare.  The aid workers folks were awesome and positive but said you need to get going to beat the cutoff.  The medical guy came over checked me out and said, “your race is essentially done.”   We can let you go, but you won’t make it without treating your cramps and dehydration.  You need a lot of things and you are out of time to get any of them.  This was hard to hear, but I accepted that.  Failure takes many forms, and clearly my race was a failure – one that was eight months in the making, and that was – is really hard.  I held on then and now to that one piece of dignity I somehow salvaged in the darkest moments I have known in 25 years of extreme endurance events.  I saved myself and struggled one yard at a time to safety.  Small wins sometimes can mean the most, and not being rescued was one of those I won’t forget. 

The first DNF of my ultra career stung significantly but I always knew it would not be the last.  If you try hard things, eventually you will miss the mark.  It’s not the failing that matters, but what you do next.  It pushed me forward to many more super challenging races, finishing most.   The Bigfoot experience made those successes even more rewarding.

I went back to Bigfoot in 2023 and bounced out at mile 130, the casualty of a major ankle injury two months earlier in training.  Who am I kidding, I was way ahead of cut-offs, my mind convinced me I was hurt worse than I was.  I was in bad shape, but not to the point of that it should have stopped me. Oh, the mind is tricky in the end and can convince us of things that are not true – a life lesson on more than just athletics for sure.  As I turn 60 in a month, I still wonder if I have it in me to do it again.  We shall see, the thought of not finishing there is a hard one to live with.  As I close this tale of woe, I was touched recently by this quote and it captures what these races mean to most of us, regardless of outcome:

” these races aren’t about winning or losing or even finishing.  It’s exploring oneself and the human potential that lies within all of us.  No matter what place you came in or if you DNF’d, you came out a better person.”  David Goggins, 2025 Bigfoot finisher

Great quote, I think it captures exactly what I took away from those lonely hours on Mount St. Helens.