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Photo credit to the very talented Emily Cameron
There’s a few things that get people to a finish line of a 100 mile race. And they probably are not what you think. It’s not superhuman genes, it’s not incredible fitness, and as much as ultra runners may joke about it, it’s not being a little crazy.
One thing you need, is a really good reason.
I had two reasons for signing up for Cruel Jewel 100, a notoriously difficult 100 mile race in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Like many others, I was on the chase for tickets to enter me in two lotteries. No not, the money kind. The running kind. Hardrock 100 and Western States Endurance Run are two legendary events that have grown to such popularity that thousands apply each year for a few hundred spots. To get tickets to enter the lottery for Hardrock and Western States, I had to finish Cruel Jewel.
It’s embarrassing to admit now, but this felt like a relatively sure-bet. I have faced incredibly difficult races, in incredibly difficult conditions and always made it to the finish.
My second reason for signing up, was that I’m sure that I am a very good 100 mile racer, who hasn’t had a chance to put together a very strong race yet. I thought Cruel Jewel would be it. All I pictured was a very smooth race, and never considered the possibility of what I actually encountered.
So, my two reasons for going to this race were to get tickets into impossible odds lotteries, and to put together a very strong 100 mile race.
We all need some ego death once in a while.
Photo Credit: Emily Cameron
Part 1: Not what I expected
The race started at Camp Morganton at the heat of noon, with a boot-drawn line in the dirt to indicate the start.
I started up the road behind a runner named Brian with an incredible wolf tattoo on his calf. It reminded me of two wolves I’ve done many of my long runs with, April and Kate. I had a good training block leading into the race, and was feeling prepared and fit.
We soon hit the first aid station, and despite being 4km in, I stopped to fill water and get ice. It already felt like my shoes were ovens, and the ice I had taken in a bandana at the start was melted. I knew to expect Georgia to be hot, we added heat training to my program in preparation, but what I wasn’t prepared for, was the humidity.
This wasn’t a heat like lying on a beach in the caribbean, or like getting in the car before the AC has turned on. I was living the sayings “the air was thick like a blanket”, and “suffocatingly hot”. I felt like I was breathing through wet fabric, and still not getting any air. Just 10km in and I was breathing heavy even when walking small hills. I kept thinking of my promise to Pat to ‘keep a lid on it’ and wondered, how do I pare back when I’m already walking?
I got back to Deep Gap aid station, then Stanley Gap, controlling the controllable, my hydration, nutrition, and ice. But even this early I was cognizant that it was already feeling hard. With experience I knew that the game of ultras is highs and lows, controlling what you can, and troubleshooting. So when I saw Pat again at 30km, I put my feet in an ice bath, and switched my vest for a belt, in the hopes it would feel cooler.
Photo Credit: Emily Cameron
Part 2: Wheels are coming off
As I completed this 10km section before seeing Pat again, it really set in that this was feeling too hard for the first 1/4 of a 100 mile race. Scary thoughts started popping up. Things like I don’t want to run ultras anymore. That I’m not going to do Big Foot 200, my goal race for this year that is twice as long as Cruel Jewel. That I’m over doing these races and these days are behind me. I’ve never had these thoughts before, and I didn’t know where they were coming from.
I tried to combat this with thoughts of Courtney Dauwalter (GOAT), who set the course record at Hardrock on a year when she described it as hard from the start. I thought of Tara Dower (QUEEN) who wanted to DNF Cruel Jewel a few years ago but rallied to finish on the podium. I’m not Courtney or Tara, I wasn’t trying to set course records or podium, but I took inspiration from their ability to have a low early on, and still persevere.
Photo Credit: Emily Cameron
Photo Credit: Emily Cameron
Despite the low I was in, it was still only 5hrs into the race, and I could convince myself that things could turn around. So when I reached Pat, I repeated my foot ice bath, and left Wilscot Gap to start the hardest section of the race. While it would be at least 6 hours until I saw Pat again, there were 3 aid stations in between. These aid stations were my only moments of relief where a replenished ice bandana cooled me enough to mitigate nausea that had kicked in. But with hours between the aid stations, the ice would melt, and the nausea would return.
And so I’d repeat the cycle. Get to an aid station. Get ice and momentarily cool down. Keep moving. Feel the ice dwindling in my bandana and slowly slip into a funk with every melted drop. All while breathing through a wet sock at a walk, with 120km to go. I know this sounds negative. And it was. It was a low I couldn’t escape.
Which brings us to the second thing you need to run ultras. A strong mental game. For me, this means being positive, and solution-oriented. This has always been a strength, and the reason I felt so confident about finishing this race. In over 20 ultras, the only time I’ve thought about DNFing was at Canyons 2023 when I stopped due to severe knee pain that I worried would impact my ability to continue training for my 'A' race that year, and do lasting damage.
I’ll be the first to tell folks doing ultras that for every low there’s a high, and you just have to hang on and it’ll come. This was the first time where there were no highs to accompany the lows. I was now in a 10 hour long funk. I had no energy to think of solutions, all I could think about was continuing to walk forward. As I walked, I thought about why I was there, and realized my reasons were pretty flimsy.
I came to prove I could have a strong 100 mile race, and instead was brought to a misery-ridden walk 10km in. And my chances of being drawn from those lotteries even if I had the tickets? Pretty slim.
In those moments, these weren’t the reasons that even got me to Wolf Creek aid station. Instead, I thought about Pat, who had spent so much time and energy helping me plan in the lead up to the race, and travelled with me to Georgia and followed me aid station to aid station. I thought about my friends and family at home, watching the tracker, and sending so much love in a group chat we had created for the race. I didn’t want to disappoint them, and I didn’t want to waste Pat’s time. I felt embarrassed about people putting their energy into supporting me, and me having no desire to finish. But that’s what I felt. Absolutely no will, and no strong reason to finish.
Photo credit: Emily Cameron
When I got to Fire Pit aid station, the last stop before seeing Pat again, I was told I was 3rd female. I told them there was still a long way to go while I tried not to throw up the boiled potatoes they had prepared. The volunteer reminded me it was a long way for the other women as well. I left Fire Pit and threw everything up. I was actually hopeful this was a fresh start for my stomach. And even better, it was now night. I had been looking forward to the night, thinking the heat would break and I’d be able to cover as much ground as possible before the sun was up. Typically you look forward to sunrise in these races, but I was dreading the heat I knew it would bring.
I don’t have the words to describe how I was feeling through this section. Genuinely the nausea wasn’t that bad, and physically I felt fine. But I was mentally in a daze, and couldn’t think of anything but how bad I felt, and how hard it was to breathe. It was like having a new car body but with no engine. Everything is able to go except what makes it run. And so I continued to walk to Wolf Creek.
Part 3: The end?
Wolf Creek, Wolf Creek, Wolf Creek. The next aid station is quite the mind trick. When you see your crew here, you’re almost half way. Once you leave them, you do a 6km out and back before heading out on a 36km no-drop section. I knew if I wanted to drop, which I so badly did, that getting to Wolf Creek was the last convenient time to do it. I could just get in the car with Pat and go to the hotel.
Despite how terrible I felt, I still got to Pat exactly on our time predictions. So how did I celebrate? I sat in the chair and cried. I hadn’t had a good moment in the race since it first started, and the prospect of feeling this way for another 20+ hours was heavy. I explained to Pat what I was feeling, and he encouraged me to keep eating noodles. One of the RDs, Sean, was sitting next to us and later described Pat and I’s conversation as two people talking around dropping without ever saying the words.
I sat in that chair for a while and had deja vu of Fat Dog watching woman after woman come into the aid station while I sat in a chair wondering how much longer I’d feel this way. I thought a lot about Fat Dog during Cruel Jewel. At Fat Dog, I battled intense nausea, yet I never thought about quitting. That was a race where I had aspirations for the course record, yet didn’t give up when that possibility seemed to blow up 60km in. At Fat Dog, I thought about how hard it was going to be, and how long it was going to take, and I wondered how I’d be able to do it, but I never considered stopping. Yet during Cruel Jewel, stopping was all I could think about.
If you’re going to drop from a race, you want to be really sure about it. There’s no going back. And while you’re in it, there’s always hope. Hope that another high will come. That you will start feeling better. So I got up, said goodbye to Pat and headed up to the turnaround, giving myself one more chance for that to happen.
As soon as I left the aid station, I was sucked back into my dark hole. By the turnaround I was convinced that was the last test I needed to be sure I was done. Knowing I wouldn’t be seeing Pat again at the aid station, I opened up the messages in the group chat filled with incredibly badass friends and family. They all know what it takes to get through hard things, and each reminded me that I do too. The problem was, I know I can do hard things, and I knew I could do this race. I just had absolutely no desire to.
Photo Credit: Emily Cameron
A common barometer for dropping in an ultra is whether you’re injured or risking a lasting injury by continuing. We talk about this almost exclusively in the context of physical injuries. And yet, these races are mental challenges sometimes more-so than they are physical ones.
Like is so common in everyday life, mental health challenges are harder to observe, and treated differently than physical ailments. Aid station after aid station people told me I looked too fresh to drop. And it was true, physically I was too fresh to drop. Writing this on Monday, I feel fresh enough to go for a run. But they couldn’t observe what my mind had been enduring for hours. But it’s much less common to talk about preserving our minds for future events, the way we do our bodies.
I’m lucky to have had a coach, Adam, that instilled in me the importance of protecting a love of the sport. We talked about building mental callouses, like we do in training our body. But just like we balance not pushing our bodies to injury, we also protect our mind. As much as I may not have had any physical injuries, it felt like every mile I continued, I was inflaming a mental injury. I worried that by pushing for another 100 km, that injury would have lasting damage.
So you probably think I dropped when I got back to Wolf Creek, right? Well to continue this story, we have to go back to Wednesday before the race, while Pat and I were boarding our flight to Atlanta.
I was seated on the plane, and see Steve, a very tall gentleman, walking on board wearing a Western States shirt. I think to myself, who else is travelling Vancouver to Atlanta in a WSER shirt and Hokas unless they are going to this race? Then he sits in the seat next to me. What are the chances that the two runners from Vancouver in the race get randomly assigned seats next to each other on the flight? We part ways on arrival to Atlanta and I only momentarily see him on this out and back section of the race.
Back in the race, and back from the out and back to Wolf Creek, I sit in my chair, eat the rest of my noodles and tell the aid station I’m planning to drop. The longer I sit there eating my noodles the better I start to feel. This is where I learn that if I do continue out of this aid station, it is very difficult to drop until I reach Pat, ~36km and ~2000m later. Committing to a section that could take me 8hrs when I’ve already been in the depths of hell for 14+ hours at this point, feels impossible.
Then just like he walked down the airplane aisle, Steve walks into the aid station, looking ready as ever to tackle this race. I tell him I’m dropping and he suggests we go up Coosa, the next big climb, together. It felt like a scene in a movie where Steve is on one side of me encouraging me to continue, and the aid station volunteer is telling me someone just dropped, and I can get a ride back into town. Steve’s earnestness and supportiveness feels like such an enormous, generous gift that I can’t turn down. So I hop up, stuff my vest, and tell the aid station that against all odds, I am out of there.
I'm in disbelief Emily Cameron caught this moment!
For the second time, I leave Wolf Creek telling myself it’s my last chance to turn this race around. Getting to chat with Steve on the climb clouds the difficulty of the day for a little while. But it doesn’t take long before I start thinking about turning back. Steve is absolutely crushing the climb, which is incredibly inspiring to see at that point in the race. I tell him he got me out of the aid station, and he can absolutely drop me. It feels like I blink and he’s gone. What a unit!
With Steve long gone, and no longer needing to try to stay on his heels, I pause to regroup and get some food down. Standing still I’m incredibly dizzy. It’s the last straw in deciding to turn back. So yes, I did drop at Wolf Creek, but not before hiking 4.4km and a few hundred meters up Coosa, just to turn around and walk back down.
There were many victims of Cruel Jewel this year, and I joined the DNF lineup, waiting for a ride out. I sat next to a woman who explained that she just got so hot, is having a really hard time, and knows that it’s only going to be worse when the sun comes up. It was funny to hear someone verbalizing exactly what I had been thinking for so many hours.
In all my other race experiences, my natural rebuttals would have surfaced. I’d be telling myself I’m still ahead of my time estimates. That if I slow down, I’ll breathe better. That when the sun comes up, I’ll just take more ice. That maybe soon I’ll be able to start running again. I’d be telling myself that I’m still doing great. That I’m a great closer. That I thrive when it’s hard.
But, I had nothing. And at the end of the day, I do these races because I love the highs after the lows. I love the moments that show me how amazing my body and mind are to be able to do these races. And instead, this race was showing me a side I didn’t like, and the only way to describe how I was feeling was miserable.
So while I wanted to chase the highs of a great race, and get my lottery tickets, like the Rolling Stones would say, you don’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. What I needed, was a reminder of the importance of a really powerful reason to tackle such big efforts and to not take them for granted. What I really needed, was an ego check. And maybe one other thing I needed was a chance to show myself that I know when the time is right to call it in these races.
I spent countless hours during the race convinced I wasn’t going to run Big Foot. I thought about the fact that if I cancelled, I could pace my friend, Amber, at Kodiak, and be fresh for my bike trip with another friend, April. And yet, the conversations today are already about the learnings Pat and I will take into Big Foot. I’m confident that had I continued with Cruel Jewel, those conversations would be very different today.
So how do I go from a DNF to preparing for a race twice as long? My training won’t change, I was physically prepared. But I will be putting a lot more attention on reinforcing my reason for doing the race. Like I said, it’s the main thing you need to finish an ultra. How can I be so sure? Well after DNF’ing, Pat and I used our free time to volunteer at an aid station where runners have 14 miles to the finish. Watching runner after runner come in, I can assure you, we saw folks of all ages, body types, and abilities. We saw every combination of gear and fuelling strategy. I also saw a woman with photos of loved ones attached to her pack. And recognized a man I met at the start line, who was back for redemption. These warriors had fitness and grit for sure, but they also had a powerful reason to continue.
As always, runners get the opportunities to learn these things about themselves because of the tireless efforts of the RDs, volunteers, crews, and pacers. Ultra running is a weird little world, and these are the folks that make it go round. The ones at this race were unparalleled. I feel like I learned about the people in this region by experiencing the aid stations and wonder how I can integrate more of those qualities in my life.
Thank you.
A special shout out to my #1, Pat. Sorry you went all the way to Georgia and all you got was 18 Uncrustables.
And Emily Cameron for some of my all-time favourite race images.
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