"Yo"
"Wanna do a really really stupid 100/24hr in January?"
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| Night view from the Mount Beacon observation deck |
A quick history lesson for y'all's asses
From 1902 to 1978 the Mount Beacon Incline Railway transported hundreds of thousands of tourists to an observation deck 1,000 feet above the Hudson River. With sweeping views of the Hudson Highlands, Mount Beacon became one of the most popular peaks in the region. Although the trackway and lower station were destroyed by a fire in 1983, the ruins of the powerhouse at the top are still standing, and more importantly, the observation deck still offers some of the finest views in the area.
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| The incline railway in its heyday via hvmag.com |
The trail to the wheelhouse doesn't quite match the railway's ludicrous 65% grade, but it packs a nice round 1,000 feet of climbing into 1.0 mile (okay, it's more like 1,030 feet and 1.02 miles, but who's counting?). Jay's plan was beautiful in its simplicity: climb to the old powerhouse and descend as many times as possible in 24 hours.
Wait, didn't I just run a 100 miler two weeks ago?
Despite knowing about this event months in advance, I still scheduled my solo Hillier Than Thou 100 just two weeks before it. To put it mildly, I was coming into this crazy adventure in less than ideal condition. I didn't want to be sidelined for more than a few days afterwards, so my goals would need to reflect these limitations.
As I often do, I devised a tiered set of goals, with the most important at the bottom and the most ambitious at the top:
- A Goal: 30,000 feet of climbing
- B Goal: Climb the height of Everest (29,029 feet)
- C Goal: Finish with energy left in the tank
- D Goal: Don't get hurt
Assuming my legs could withstand a second 24 hour event in the span of 18 days, these goals all seemed reasonably achievable. Twice in 2020 I had climbed 20,000 feet in under 13 hours for the Springathlon virtual races [1, 2], so I had almost twice the time to do 1.5x the gain. On paper it was doable. But to quote Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
The Great Beacon 24hr Everest 100 Challenge™
(yes that's the official name of the event)
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| Told ya. |
At 10:15am on the chilly morning of January 15, four runners started up the Mount Beacon trail: Jay, Mike DiBlasi, Steve Lange, and myself. If you peruse those Ultrasignup pages, you'll find that the other three guys are significantly faster than I am. So when they all started running up the trail, I stayed back and enjoyed a leisurely hiking pace. I decided I wasn't going to run a single step uphill.
Let's take a second to describe the course. There's only one mile of trail, but when you do it dozens of times you learn all the intricacies of it.
- The Approach: A crushed gravel path from the parking lot to the ruins of the lower station. By far the easiest section of the trail.
- The Stairs: About 100 steel steps. Really easy footing, but steeper than they look.
- The Switchbacks: The longest section. Washed out doubletrack that's littered with loose rocks. Hikers like to walk 3 or 4 across through here.
- The Jumble: The rocks get larger and the trail narrows as you get higher. This is the point where you cross into real technical terrain.
- The Ledges: A series of short but steep rock ledges. In the winter these are covered in ice, which is either a lot of fun or a harrowing experience depending on what kind of person you are.
- The Loop: Just before the wheelhouse, you make a right to the viewing platform, then scramble up a rock formation and circle back to the main trail.
That was way too much information for a mile, but now you know what we spent 24 hours on.
So anyway, the three speedsters did their speedster thing and left me in the dust while I sauntered forward with seemingly no sense of urgency. Steve was planning to be out for 8 hours, while the other two were in it for the long haul.
The approach was nice and easy. Two state park employees were spreading fresh gravel on the path, but it was easy to work around them. The stairs and switchbacks were uneventful. But the jumble and the ledges were covered in a layer of wet ice, and I struggled to maintain my footing. I regretted not bringing any kind of traction devices. Was I really going to be able to navigate this section safely for 24 hours?
Just past the ledges, I spotted the pack of speedsters heading back down. They weren't going too much faster than me, but I've made the mistake of trying to keep up with those guys before and I knew it wouldn't be pretty after 24 hours. I made it to the viewing deck after 28 minutes, celebrated by peeing in the bushes, and then headed back down the slick descent. Loop one was complete in 41 minutes.
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| Foggy view from the summit later in the day |
Back at the bottom, Steve stopped to change into some fancy shoes with carbide spikes (he was much better prepared for winter conditions than the rest of us), so I caught up to him. He graciously stayed with me for the next few loops and we chatted about upcoming race season plans. He was using this as a training run for an Everesting attempt on skis later in the season (which was successful!).
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| Selfie game on point |
With a 1,000 foot ascent every 42-45 minutes, we racked up elevation gain quickly. The icy sections softened in the heat of the day and our legs got used to the unstable footing. My Hoka Speedgoats also performed admirably on the slick rocks. I'm becoming more and more impressed by them every time I use them.
After a few laps together, Steve took off to run with the speed demons again, and I was once again on my own. You would think that running that same mile section of trail would get old quickly, but (1) the footing was challenging enough that it demanded my full attention most of the time and (2) I was a able to distract myself with various food-based rewards every few laps. With the slow pace and the chilly weather, my seemingly bizarre combination of iced coffee, California rolls, and Kalamata olives all went down easily. Shout out to Cole Crosby for introducing me to the last two items as race fuel. These supplemented my baseline fuel of a Spring gel each hour (Speednut for the win).
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| Sushi + running is a much better combination than you would expect |
I hit the one-third mark (10,000') right around sunset with seven hours elapsed, which meant I was an hour ahead of even splits for my A goal. Perfect! I was almost immediately rewarded for this milestone as my good friend and mountain aficionado Mike Siudy showed up with two fresh hot pizzas and some hazy IPAs. You have to love a sport where this stuff counts as race fuel! I downed half a beer and grabbed two slices of pepperoni pizza to go, resisting the urge to kiss Mike on the mouth as I left since, you know, social distancing.
I hiked very happily to the summit while I ate, and on the way down I passed the now-foursome of Jay, Steve, and the Mikes just behind me. The sun had fully set and we were entering the crux of this endeavor: 14 hours of darkness. Thankfully, Jay would go on to lap me shortly after this, and he, Siudy, and I would sync up for a loop together.
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| Just a normal Friday night for the three of us |
Beyond the summit, Jay went on ahead and Mike stayed with me for a few loops. It was the first time we had seen each other since my failed Manitou's 100 attempt the previous June, so we had a lot to catch up on. Mike is never short on words, so our laps together passed quickly. I made sure to have my one and only wipeout of the day right in front of him as my way of saying thanks for his company. While descending through the jumble, my left foot slid out in front of me and my right leg stayed in place as I collapsed into a clumsy half split. To Mike it looked like I had just wrecked my knee, but thankfully my sturdy legs survived intact.
After five or six total laps, his biggest outing in a few months, Mike had to get home. Somewhere around here, Steve also called it a day after setting a personal record with 13,000'+ of vertical gain. Now the three of us were alone on the mountain all moving at different paces.
It was time to try something that I had never done before: listen to music while running. Yeah, I know, most people have done that before but for whatever reason it has never appealed to me. On the roads I need to be able to hear cars coming, and on the trails I want to know if hikers or other runners are approaching. Running a 1 mile section of trail with two other runners seemed like the perfect time to finally try this. I popped in some earbuds and started blasting my playlist of 90's alternative rock. And wow, yeah, I get why people do this now.
A light rain started falling and the temperature dropped. I bundled up a little more and pulled out the big guns: Hamilton. With a two and a half hour runtime, the Hamilton soundtrack had gotten me through some long car trips before, so why not a long section of wet trail? I sang along loudly. I rapped the entire Lafayette part of Guns and Ships perfectly, though with great difficulty. Mike and Jay probably thought I was a lunatic.
But there was a fatal flaw in my plan: the orphanage (if you've listened to Hamilton, you know what I'm talking about). I was already feeling a little emotionally raw from the exertion, and this song made tears well up in my eyes.
"The ooooorphanaaaage...." I whimpered softly.
Suddenly Jay was saying something to me as he passed. I pulled out an earbud.
"What was that?" I asked.
"I said, you're the hardest dude on this mountain."
"Erm..." I paused and composed myself. "Thanks Jay."
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| The view overnight looked like this except instead of a panoramic vista it was impenetrable fog in every direction |
I hit 20,000' of gain with 15 hours elapsed. My pace had slowed in the dark, but that still left 9 more hours to climb the remaining 10,000'. Very doable as long as I took care of my nutrition and clothing.
The good news was that around 4:00am it stopped spitting rain. The bad news was that around 4:05 it started absolutely pissing rain. The temperature was 36 degrees. We still had six hours left on the mountain. We wouldn't want Everesting to be easy, now would we?
I put on my survival suit: two long sleeve shirts, a down puffy jacket, a rain shell, and waterproof mittens. I also changed into a fresh pair of shorts because my dumb ass didn't think it would be cold enough to run in pants. I was now wearing almost every article of clothing I had brought. If this didn't work then I was out of options. I scarfed down a few slices of pizza and some donuts for good measure and started hiking back up the trail, which now resembled a flowing river.
I shivered violently for the first few minutes as my heart rate started coming back up. It's amazing how quickly your body temperature can plummet in this weather. A simple change of clothes can end your whole race if you're not efficient. The only solution is to put your head down, get moving, and let your body warm itself back up. By the time I reached the summit, I was warm enough to take off my hood. Crisis averted!
The survival suit worked to perfection over the next few hours, and I was able to zip/unzip layers as needed to regulate my body temperature. After hours of pitch black and driving rain, the sky finally started to lighten. Alex called as she was driving to work, which perked me up immensely! With only a few laps left, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and my legs were still feeling good. I was going to finish this thing!
I figured out that I only had to do one loop per hour to hit 30,000 feet, and I did not intend to work any harder than that. I took my sweet time with the last few loops, pausing at the summit to admire the nonexistent view and to soak in the absurdity of what we had decided to do with our weekend. Ultrarunning is a silly sport, and god damn do I love it!
I hit 30,000' with half an hour left and 59.6 miles on my watch, and I decided to go back out and find Jay and Mike to hike it in together. I wanted to make sure there was enough of a buffer on my vertical gain that some Strava rounding error wouldn't cheat me out of 30,000', plus 60 miles was a much nicer rounder number than 59. Also if I waited at the finish, I would have been tempted to break into the victory beers that I was saving for the guys. It all just made sense.
We reached the parking lot together after 23:54:38 elapsed on Mount Beacon. Jay had lapped me twice for 32,000'+ (almost a "Hardrock"), while I just barely eclipsed my 30k goal, and Mike set a huge PR with 20-something-thousand feet of gain after working through some quadricep issues over night.
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| I'm not sure whether this was the dumbest thing we've ever done, and that fact speaks volumes about our decision making. |
Big thanks to Jay and Mike for setting such an audacious goal and peer pressuring me into joining them. Not that I require much pressure, mind you. I'm sure we'll have many more crazy adventures together over the years, but this one will always be memorable.
