The "Volcanic 50k+" running around Mt. St. Helen

First, let me get this out of the way. Calling this a race is being very open minded....and optimistic. This event is a DARE. Running this course will definitely challenge your perception of things. First of all, your perception of running. There's very little running involved. Of course the talented freak of nature elites at the front manage to somehow finish in the 6-7 hour realm but most of us mid-packers and back-of-the-packers who usually finish a 50k somewhere in 5-7 hours end up somewhere between 9-12 hours on this course. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of runnable sections, VERY runnable sections but the rock crawling, boulder hopping sections in between can leave you so drained physically AND mentally that you're just happy for the momentary break. That's actually one of the really cool things about this race too. A lot of times when you end up walking during an ultra, even though everyone does it and it's totally accepted and expected, you would still rather be running. However, on the Loowit trail circumnavigating Mt St Helen, it's such an amazing place that slowing down and taking in every view is really easy to be at peace with.

    I won't go into the amazing history with Mt St Helen, a quick web search can tell you more than I ever could but I'll give you some of my "history" with the volcano. I can remember the eruption back in 1980. I was about 15 years old and while I knew roughly about Seattle, meaning I knew of the Seahawks, I was just a teenager living in Nashville, TN and this concept of a volcano erupting and leaving a wake of ash and debris for miles and miles all over Washington state was a little inconceivable to me. That was something that happened on south pacific islands out in the middle of the ocean where nobody was affected, so it just got shelved away in my mind somewhere. Fast forward 23 years later when I'm now living in Portland, OR and I get a more clear perspective.

Spirit Lake

    Seeing the mountains, looking at maps and understanding the "Ring of Fire" makes it a bit more clear. Then I visit Mt St Helen. Mind blowing. Now I understood. I understood why indigenous tribes looked at volcanoes as a "god" and that an eruption meant that he was angry. Why they made offerings of virgins and such. This idea would sit with me and I din't need to question it. I understood. Over the years I would make several trips to the mountain. Taking out of town visitors to the Johnson Ridge Observatory, doing road bike events riding from the city of Toutle, WA to the Johnson Ridge Observatory and back, doing mountain bike rides on the Ape Canyon/ Plains of Abraham trails, but I had yet to attempt his Loowit trail circumnavigation.

    I'm gonna go of course here but bear with me. One of the guys on my old cycling team used to call me "Shiva" because of the way I would ride hills. He said I rode like I was trying to destroy everyone. That wasn't really where my head was at, I just enjoyed riding hills but I liked that description. Anyway, heading into this race, it had been a rough season and just a rough year in general. A VERY rough year. I had toyed with the idea of pulling the plug on this one but knew I had to run it. For many reasons, most of which I had no idea. Then while camping out in the race parking lot the night before, lying in my van it hit me. This was my Shiva. This was both my opportunity to destroy whatever was going on inside me and my own "destruction" and my opportunity to honor it. 11 hours and 31 minutes of destruction and honor.

    From the start we headed into the woods and after about two miles we came up on our first boulder field and I realized packing a pair of cycling gloves was a good idea. For the first of many sections I would be using my hands almost as much as my feet. Holding on to boulders and "tripodding" with a hand on one rock while each foot balances on two more rocks. This was kinda fun....for awhile. It took almost two hours before I could really start to run any real length of more than a few feet. By the time we made it to the 2nd aid station most of us had found our pace and acquainted or reacquainted ourselves with our running group. The people we would be leapfrogging with over the next 20+ miles. There was the guy who I've probably ran 5 or 6 ultras with over the last couple years and his wife. The couple who I just ran almost step per step with at the "Haulin' Aspen" marathon a few weeks ago, the husband of the two using this as training for his first 100 miler in a couple weeks. The guy I ran several miles with at the "Elk Mountain 25k" with last year who happens to be a horse shoer by trade. One of the guys I DNF'd with at the Mt. Hood 50miler" back in July, here to redeem himself (and he did). And not to mention the people I got to get to know while out there. One guy I climbed boulder to boulder with while managing some very sketchy situations for a few miles talking about life and such. Those shared miles probably kept us both out of some really dark places. There were the two pairs of ladies who leapfrogged with me the entire day. at almost any given point during the race I could look ahead and see two women and look behind and see the other two women. Sometimes the pair would switch up on the lead and sometimes the distance would be too far for us to see each other but they were always there. The humor in these four women during that last boulder field in the depths of frustration and exhaustion was priceless. Especially while we watched the rescue helicopter hovering above us all the whole time.....did we really look that bad? even from the sky? Yeah, I'm sure we did. I've had some amazing, beautiful, painful and frustrating experiences in these 15 years of racing. On bike and on foot. There's so many common threads to these races, the community, the racers, the aid-station volunteers, the scenery, the "dark places" your mind goes, the "light places" your mind goes, the toll on your body....the list can go on. But every one of these events can bring something unique too. wether external or internal. This was the closing race of my 2014 season and it couldn't have been more perfect. I left it all out there keeping ONLY enough to make it to the finish. Destruction completed and honored.