Kodiak 100 Race Report

I had an incredible time running the Kodiak 100 miler, finishing in 22:32.  While it is the UTMB Major and I do want to run a 5th UTMB someday, UTMB was not the main draw for this one, as I’m planning on Tor next year.  It just looked like a cool race and fit the race calendar well.  I also had several friends and athletes I coach running it, so I knew it would be a good time.

I enjoyed the race even more than I thought.  The course is beautifully scenic with unique terrain.  While it “only” has 16,000 feet of climbing, it is a true mountain race circumnavigating Big Bear Lake.

With 3,000 runners across the distances, it feels like a big race with a festival atmosphere, but you still have the small mountain town charm.  It has a vibe of European mountains meet the American west.

Start to Doble 1: Mile 0 to 30.3

Josh and I hitched a ride with Rajay (thanks, Rajay!) to the start, and we met up with Charles.  We made our way to the overcrowded elite corral and set off at 1pm through a big crowd of spectators.

I knew altitude would be a huge factor for this race.  We were starting at 7,000 feet with most of the course between 6,500 and 10,000 feet.  The average race altitude was 7,300 feet, the highest of any course I’ve run.  I generally do well with altitude, but I knew that it would be tough to manage the sustained altitude after coming from sea level the day before.

I intentionally went out conservatively, and the field was packed up front with hundreds of runners going out way too fast.  I felt like I was racing in Europe …

Josh and I got split up for a bit, but we synced back up and started working together.  We topped out on the first short climb and started the long and incredibly scenic descent.  I felt amazing as we ran low / mid 8s down the mountain.

We hit the first aid station ahead of schedule.  I made sure to refill three bottles here, as we had almost 11 miles uphill in the heat of the day to the next aid station.  I hit this aid in 99th place but wasn’t at all concerned about placement, knowing tons of people were getting out over their skis.

Most of this next stretch was on some weirdly tricky trail.  It was twisty, turny, and overgrown with prickly bushes.  There was lots of soft sand and cambered sections where you had to be careful not to slip.  While the climb was fairly gradual, it was tough to get a rhythm and slower going. 

In the second half of the climb, my stomach was starting to go south, and I was bonking.  The heat and altitude were a tough combo.  I had expected that the toughest part of the altitude would be keeping nutrition on the rails.  My stomach was sloshing, and my energy was fading.  I set to work righting the ship, upping the electrolytes.  At Camp Whittle, I slammed ginger ale and salt pills. 

I started feeling much better and managed to avoid disaster with little time lost.  The next section from Camp Whittle to Doble was highly runnable with big, open views in high valleys.  I shared some miles with a few guys and hit some good splits.

A few miles before Doble I met Ben, a nice dude who lives right next to me back home.  It was his first 100 miler, and he was crushing it.  I almost made it Doble before getting a headlamp out but cracked just before so I didn’t hit a rock and end my race early.

I was about 25 minutes up on my planned sub 24 splits.  I had made it through the heat of the day, and things were now cooling off.  I took a longer stop at Doble to get my drop bag, replenish gels, fill bottles, and grab some chips / soda. 

I set out into the night onto single track exactly where I wanted to be.  The warm up was over, and it was time to get to work.

Doble 1 to Sugarloaf 1: Mile 30.3-65

For the first time in the race I checked my position and saw I was 67th.  Geez, it was a stacked field.  I had figured a sub 6 hour 50K in the mountains at altitude would put me a bit higher up.

I had planned to take the first 50K easy and then really start pushing on the Sugarloaf climb at mile 65.  For this middle stretch, my strategy was to ratchet up the effort a bit and run more intentionally while still taking good care of myself. 

I started to steadily pass people on the way to Burns Canyon. I restocked at the aid station and bumped into Ben, who must have passed me in Doble 1. 

It was a beautiful night with bright stars, and I was loving life as I approached mile 40.  We hit a more technical downhill section with some loose, large rocks.  Coming from the beast coast, I still found this highly runnable and was hitting 9-10 miles and regularly passing other runners.  Two people near me hit the deck hard, and I stopped to make sure they were ok (fortunately they were).

We bottomed out and had a painfully runnable ~6 mile forest road section with an aid station along the way.  I willed myself to keep running at a good clip.  After Cactus Flats aid, we crossed the highway and finally hit a steep climb.  Hooray!

The first half was great and right up my alley – steep uphill grinding.  The second half was abysmal.  It seemed like we cut off trail to link back to Doble, going up through an overgrown creek bed.  I managed it well and kept passing people but was excited to pop back onto a real trail shortly before Doble. 

I made a fast transition here and set out to repeat the section to Burns Canyon.  I had worked my way up to 39th place since the last time I was at Doble.  It was finally time to throw in some tunes, and I dialed up the effort another notch.  Side note, you should listen to T-Pain’s live album “On Top of the Covers.”  You’re welcome.

I made great time to Burns Canyon, thrilled with how the race was going.  The first part of the next section to Sugarloaf was more runnable than I thought.  Then out of nowhere we veered left to a steep wall of loose rock.  It wasn’t a terribly long climb, but I hadn’t anticipated it.  I tried not to think about how much I would have liked poles here.  I passed a runner near the top, and we commiserated about the surprise ridiculous climb.

After cresting the wall, I saw two headlamps not too far in front.  Turns out it was good friend Alyssa Clark pacing Joe Corcione!  It was great to see a friendly face, and I chatted with them for a bit.  I felt good though and wanted to make use of it, so I pushed on to Sugarloaf. 

I hit Sugarloaf # 1 about 45 minutes ahead of splits.  The volunteers here were awesome and hooked me up with my drop bag.  I resupplied and changed headlamps, making sure I was ready to tackle the big climb up Sugarloaf to 10,000 feet.  It was go time.

Sugarloaf 1 to Finish: Mile 65 to 100.5

The first part of the climb was steep.  It was another time when I would have liked poles, and my original plan had been to grab poles from my drop bag for this climb.  However, UTMB has a rule that if you use poles you must keep them on you start to finish.  There were enough runnable sections that I didn’t think the tradeoff was worth it.  While I’d recommend poles to most people running this race, looking back I think leaving them behind was the right choice for me.

I hit the turnoff to the out-and-back section and saw Charles, who went on to an incredible 20 hour finish.  I passed a few people on the way up, and it was nice seeing people coming down from the summit and cheering each other on. 

It got rocky and hard to navigate in the dark at the top.  We stayed up high above 9600 feet for about 3 miles, as there were a few rollers going to and from the summit.  It was cold and windy, and I debated putting on layers.  I settled for just throwing on some gloves.   I figured I could push hard and try to get back down from up high before I got too cold.

I finally hit the turnaround point.  A solitary volunteer was up there checking us in throughout the cold, dark, windy night.  I told him he was a legend and started to work my way back down. 

I was hungry and depleted, and I was excited to hit the next aid station.  At Balky Horse aid station I threw down some calories and grabbed some cookies for the road.  We were getting close to daylight, which would be a nice boost. 

We descended down a rocky double track and the going was getting tough.  My legs hurt, and my feet were not happy.  I ran the whole race in the Terrex ASUs, which were awesome on the fast and runnable sections but really pushed the limits of what my feet could handle in the last 50K.  Despite the pain, I willed myself to run a decent pace all the way down.  The sun gradually came up, illuminating the surrounding mountains with orange and red hues. 

As I approached Sugarloaf again on the short out-and-back section, I saw Josh coming up.  He had a bad, violent reaction to the aid station nutrition product, Naak, and had serious issues early on.  He was powering through though and getting it done.  I stopped a minute, gave him a fist bump, told him how great he was doing, and told him to get it done and get the 8 Running Stones for UTMB.  Josh did indeed finish, and I was so proud of him for finishing a tough race with so much adversity early on. 

Sugarloaf 2 was a wild ride.  I was solo here last time with volunteers providing me a full pit crew, but there were dozens of runners this time around, and the volunteers were overwhelmed.  I finally found my drop bag and managed to get myself sorted.  It was time for the homestretch. 

We had a fairly mellow 7 mile stretch before the last two big climbs.  However, that meant lots of running on tired legs to bring this thing home in sub 24 hours.   At Sugarloaf 2 I was 55 minutes up on sub 24 splits, but anything can happen in the last 20 miles.

As I climbed, I saw a runner flying towards me.  I hadn’t paid attention to the 100K course, but they were running in the opposite direction towards Sugarloaf.  My brain wasn’t working so well, but I soon realized I would be running backwards through the entire 100k field of 600+ runners. 

It was awesome and breathed new life into me.  I felt like I had my own personal parade with over 600 people cheering for me, and they were all so amazing and encouraging.  On a downhill stretch I realized I was running high 7 minute miles. 

Finally my parade ended, and we hit some punchy, steep, paved hills through a neighborhood.  I popped out at the Bear Mountain aid station, thrilled with how that section had gone.  As I refilled bottles and grabbed some food, I was shocked to have a runner with his pacer come into aid behind me.  No one had caught me all race, and it was surprising given how well I felt the last section went.  I guess he also felt the fire of the 100K parade.

That was my cue to leave.  I had run most of this section on my shake-out run with Josh the day before.  We started with a climb and then had a wildly steep 30%+ grade descent back to the road.  I knew this section would be hard and that the steep downhill would hurt at mile 90.

I moved as best as I could up the climb.  I was working so hard and felt like I had been pushing for 19 hours, which I supposed I had been.  The relentless altitude kept taking its toll.  We crested the climb and hit the turnoff for the crazy steep downhill.  I managed it better than I thought I would with tired legs and popped out onto the road. 

Now I found myself coming into the back of the 50K pack, who were running in the same direction as me.  At first it was nice to have some company again.  The last big climb loomed, the steep grind up Snow Summit.  This was a cool feature of the race where they put an aid station at the lodge on top of the ski lift and opened up the lift to spectators and crew.  This whole section had a very European flair and big party atmosphere.

The climb quickly turned onto single track and would stay on single track to the top.  Now I was packed in with 50K runners.  Despite being over 90 miles into the race, I was climbing faster than the 50K field, or at least I wanted to.

Some people noticed my bib and would help clear a path.  Sometimes I had to just settle in behind others and pass whenever I could.  I really wanted to push hard to hit the goal time and just to get this thing done.  But it was what it was. 

The summit aid station was packed with 50K runners and tons of spectators.  I grabbed some coke and water and got out of there fast – it was time to finish this thing.  We would have a long and winding downhill back to town, which ended up being almost 10 miles thanks to some re-routes of the course on mountain bike trails.

I was now further up in the 50K field, and the runners were nice company again.  The trail was a bit wider, and they were running closer to the pace I was able to hold.  I passed people on the first half of the single track section and then settled in behind some runners holding a strong pace.

I was totally exhausted at this point, and it was really helpful to just hang on someone’s wheel and check out.  All good things must come to an end though.  The 50K runners turned off, and I’d be on my own for 4.5 miles to the finish.

For the first 2 of those miles, there were some gradual uphills on forest road.  It was so runnable, but it was so hard to force myself to run.  My downhill legs were definitely better than my uphill / flat legs at this point.  A mountain biker told me I was cresting the last hill before it would be all downhill to the finish.  Bless you, my man.

With killer views of Big Bear Lake, I did my best to run hard downhill and close this thing out.  Suddenly a runner flew by me doing 4:30s.  My tired brain was momentarily confused until I realized it was the 50K winner coming in to the finish like a hurricane.

We turned onto pavement with only a half mile to go.  Up ahead I saw a run with a pacer.  It again took my brain a minute to register, but it looked like he was also running the 100.  As I came up, he finally saw me and realized I was in the 100 also.  He charged off and started sprinting to the finish.  Huge sigh.  Everything hurt so much.  I sped up, but he was stronger.  I am a fan of racing it to the line and respect the guy for pushing it.  But I was also fine with not winning this one and ended up 4 seconds behind him.  At least we made it exciting for the crowd!

I crossed the finish line in 22:32, totally spent.  I gave the race everything I had.  I pushed hard from wire to wire, fighting against altitude the whole time.  I didn’t make any mistakes, managed nutrition the whole way, and didn’t even sit down once.  It is rare to hold things together across 100 miles, and it’s always satisfy knowing you got the absolute best out of yourself at a race.

I really enjoyed this race and would highly recommend it.  It is a stunning course and a true mountain race, worthy of the UTMB continental championship.