A few years ago Jeremy Hinshaw came up with the idea of a 100K ultra marathon through the front range of the Chugach Mountains (the Chugach Front 100K, ha!) in Anchorage, Alaska. This brutal course starts in Indian, climbs multiple peaks and passes, and ends in Rainbow, managing to link together established trails for 99% of the route. The first year he held the race only a handful of people signed up and no one completed it. The second year no one signed up. The summer of 2020 would have been the third year but Jeremy was moving out of state and prior lack of enthusiasm meant that he would understandably not be hosting the race. I’ve had my eyes on this beauty of course for awhile, and with Covid cancelling races left and right, I decided to train for the 100K and run it by myself in July. My previous longest run was a 50K at burning man a few years ago. That was was as flat and wacky as you can get, so I knew I had to spend a lot of time in the mountains to get prepped for this race that had 18,000′ of elevation gain.
https://www.strava.com/activities/3783410419
Let me give you a quick run-on sentence course description. Start in Indian, run up and over powerline pass, climb Little O’malley, up and over the ballfield to Williwaw Lakes, down the valley to middle fork, climb up and down Near Point, climb Wolverine peak and take the ridge to Rusty Point, come back down and take the trail out to Basher road, get back on the trails near gasline, run around the hillside trails for a bit then climb back up to Prospect Heights, run up Powerline to Glen Alps then climb Flattop, Peak 2, and Peak 3, down Peak 3 on to Rabbit Lakes trail, run to the lake then come down Mchugh creek until you hit the Tunagain Arm Trail, then head south for a finish at the Rainbow Trailhead. Then you are done!
About a week before the race, my buddy Ryan Beckett decided he would like to suffer as well and agreed to join me for the run. Noah was going to be my lead support crew, banana themed of course, and Kianna was flying up from Salt Lake to provide support and run the second half of the race with me! Can’t ask for a more supportive girlfriend than that now can you! With snacks packed and an all-star crew assembled we were ready to rock.
We started the run at 4AM, taking advantage of the long Alaskan daylight and giving us a chance to finish at a reasonable time in the evening. We started off slow and efficient and soon enough we had met up with Noah about 10 miles in as we were coming down from Powerline Pass. I was already getting hotspots on my toes so I took the opportunity to tape those puppies up. When I was putting my shoes back on, the quick lace system snapped in half, shoot durn!!, luckily Noah is a hero and drove all the way back to my house and grabbed some extra shoes to swap out at the next meetup point. Check this guy out, crew MVP at the four-way below Near Point and Wolverine!
We rolled into mile 20 feeling great, swapped shoes and snacked up, and headed up for a quick up and down of Near Point. For some reason we both dropped out bear spray for this quick section to save some weight. Not half a mile down the trail we ran into a friend that was heading back after getting charged by a grizzly, immediately reminding us of our poor decision making. Luckily she was happy to do the near point section with us since her run had got cut short and we felt safer as a group of 3 with one can of spray. Things started going downhill on the uphill (ha!) and my calf started cramping pretty bad. I popped a few salt capsules and chugged the rest of my water to try and get things under control. At the top of near point things were still hurting so we stretched and massaged with my poles to try and keep the cramping at bay. Was not expecting issues this early!
I was able to get my poop in a group on the downhill and by the time we met up with Noah for a refuel before heading up Wolverine I was feeling tired but in control. We made it up and down Wolverine and Rusty point relatively smoothly, refueled with Noah at 4 corners, and then headed off for a long unsupported section on the hillside trail system until meeting up with our friends and fam at the hillside parking lot on upper Abbott road. During this section we passed the 50K mark and I found myself in uncharted territory distance-wise. This was also the section that I completely lost my appetite, started gagging on GU’s, and initiated a slow downhill spiral to the finish line!
About 35 miles in, Beckett still had his appetite and was feeling good enough to charge on ahead, while I walked the section up to Prospect Heights to try and get my poop back in a group. From Prospect Heights, Kianna started running with me. Talk about a cannon of much needed positive energy! At Glen Alps I was able to gobble down a little bit of ramen (thanks Emily!) to fuel my ascent of flattop, ‘The Impossible Mountain!’. Against all odds we made it to the top and had a quick banana break. I really didn’t want to eat but Keeks forced me, thanks babe!
The ridge up to Peak 3 nearly broke me. I think this was the darkest moment of the race. I don’t remember much other than being extremely nauseous and tired nd trying to not thing about how I still had 18 miles to go.
Eventually we stumbled down Peak 3 and were back on the more established Rabbit Lake trail. After we made it to the lake it was mostly downhill the rest of the way, easy!
Kianna continued to force GU’s down my throat, in my best interest but against my will, and we carried on down the McHugh Creek trail. This trail was nice for a bit but quickly turned into my least favorite section once it got too overgrown to see your feet.
About a mile before connecting with the Turnagain Arm Trail, we ran into a suuuper cute baby black bear in a tree and immediately stopped and started looking for signs for mom. Turns out she was right at the base of the tree blocking the trail! Shoot! Not wanting to get attacked by a bear so close to the finish line, our only option was to bushwhack straight downhill through all the pokey stuff until we hit a trail again. Luckily the trail switched back and we only bushwhacked for about a quarter of a mile and not all the way down to TAT.
One last quick water break at McHugh with the Noah and the fam and we were off for the last 3.5 miles of the race!
I did my best to chase Kianna through the woods and eventually we were at the top of Rainbow hill with a 1 mile cruiser downhill separating us from the finish. We heard Noah’s distant gobbles and were stoked that he had ran up the hill to bring it on home with us. As we approached Noah I realized his gobbles were warning gobbles and I heard him yell at us to turn around because there was an angry black bear right off the trail. Kianna didn’t catch the warning and by the time she noticed the bear, the only option was to keep running towards the safety of Noah and his bear spray.
Now here I was alone on the wrong side of an angry bear. It is wild how fast you can forget the miles in your legs. I opted to try and skirt around the bear off the right side of the trail, unfortunately there is only about 10 feet of wiggle room before a pretty sharp drop off. I inched my way towards my friends, spray drawn, and keeping my eyes glued to the bear who was making all sorts of angry huffing and grunting noises at me I had never heard from a bear before. I eventually swam my way through the alders back to Noah and Kianna and was more than ready to get the hell out of there and let adrenaline carry me through to the finish.
Woohoo! Finished in under 18 hours! Super stoked to crack a beer and proud of my top 10 finish! Ryan and I even earned “Top Banana” awards. Big special thanks to all my friends and family that came out to cheer along the way, to Jeremy for dreaming up the course, Noah for being everywhere I needed him to be all day long, and Kianna for flying all night and immediately running a marathon with me and reminding me constantly to eat.
I learned a lot about what my body and mind are capable of and I’m super excited to apply all those lessons to my next big race!