Trail and Error, Wasatch Front 100 Is a Run-In With Nature and Psyches

A runner's flashlight marks the trail through Brighton resort on a moonlit Saturday night. Some 125 runners made their way from Kaysville to the Sundance Ski Resort within 36 hours. (Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)

BY BRIAN MAFFLY
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
    BRIGHTON -- One day a year, the ski lodge at this Wasatch resort becomes an all-night nursing home for stricken runners who are struggling to muster the strength to trek the last quarter of a 100-mile foot race.
    The bulk of the runners appear between 2 and 4 a.m., step on a scale, then tend to their bodies that have been seriously stressed in the 75 miles since leaving Kaysville at 5 a.m. the previous morning. Their stomachs are empty from vomiting, their legs are getting stiff from the mountain chill, their minds hallucinating from sleep deprivation.
    At 2:30 in the morning last Sunday, Tom Noll was in trouble and pondered a 20 percent possibility of not going to the finish 25 miles away at Sundance Resort. His problem wasn't the dehydration, sore joints and sickness that fells most of the Wasatch 100 DNFs, but rather a caloric crash suffered hours before when he became dangerously cold on Francis Peak early in the race.
    "I started underdressed. The wind was really nuking on the ridge," said the 45-year-old Boise runner, after spending an hour and half at the Brighton lodge, getting his legs massaged and trying to eat some hash browns. "All my calories went into keeping me warm."
    Fifteen hours into the race and Noll was still paying the price, but he went onto finish in 31 hours, 8 minutes.
    Wasatch 100 runners usually tarry a long time at the Brighton aid station, one of 15 along the course and the only one under a roof, curling up on the floor for a nap or just sitting back with cup of hot chocolate in hand and a catatonic expression on their faces.
    Observed runner Ruth Zollinger: "Brighton is kind of a death hole."
    Actually, the real death hole is 14 miles back down the trail at Upper Big Water (mile 61), according to the veteran Wasatch 100 racers such as five-time champion Dana Miller.
    "Dana described Big Water as the morgue and Brighton as the hospital," said runner Richard West of Bellingham, Wash. "If you get to Big Water and you're not doing well, you're dead. If you can get to Brighton, they can patch you up and send you on."
    Some people call this ordeal fun. There must be something fulfilling about running 100 miles of mountain backcountry, achieving a total elevation gain of 26,000 feet. Otherwise people would have stopped doing it in the years since 1980 when Greg Rolins and Laurie Staton-Carter ran the inaugural Wasatch 100 in 35 hours.
    Last weekend, 187 runners started at Kaysville's East Mountain Wilderness Park and 125 made it to the finish at Sundance Resort by 5 p.m. Sunday for the 36-hour cutoff. Those stragglers were greeted by a large crowd gathered for the award ceremony, where the coveted golden skull was awarded to Karl Meltzer and Susan Yates, who won the race in 20:52 and 23:45, respectively.
    Yates, a 28-year-old Salt Lake native, had not trained in months due to her travels with the international humanitarian organization Visions, so she had no expectations of doing well, much less winning and becoming only the fourth woman to run the race in under 24 hours.
    "For me, it's a mind game. I believe in the power of the mind. It's about that and how much pain you're willing to endure," Yates said.
    Unbeknownst to Yates during the race, the main contenders for the women's title both became ill in the Mill Creek backcountry between Big Water and Brighton. Ann Trason, the sport's hottest racer who owns course records for many high-profile 100-mile events, hurt her leg in a fall early in the race, then became weak from vomiting near Desolation Lake and pulled out of the race. Laura Vaughan, a five-time Wasatch winner, and Yates ran up Mill Creek Canyon together on a pace to break 24 hours.
    While Yates was strengthened on a huge plate of spaghetti and bowls of soup at the Big Water aid station, Vaughan began to feel ill and her pace slowed to a crawl. She reached Sundance in 31:26, slow for her, but good enough for her 10th consecutive Wasatch finish, earning her a special honor as one of the event's most prolific participants.
    The runner with the most finishes is Salt Lake City's Rick Gates, 43, whose 29:29 finish Sunday was his 16th.
    The Wasatch 100 is one in growing number of "ultramarathon" events, defined as anything longer than the 26.2 miles of a marathon. North America features 26 of these 100-mile races, which attract one-time marathoners who are tired of racing on pavement against intense competition. But many ultrarunners have never run a marathon, which shows 100-milers and marathons are practically two different sports all together.
    "In ultramarathoning, everyone is talking to each other. It's a social event," said Bobby Keogh of Cedro, N.M. "In marathons, no one wants to talks to you. You rip your guts out and go as fast as you can."
    It is not a young person's sport. In fact there were almost as many finishers Sunday in their 60s (four) as in their 20s (five). The oldest was 69-year-old Grant Holdaway of Vineyard.
    With his finish Sunday in 28:22, Keogh, a 51-year-old high school teacher, achieved a Grand Slam, awarded to anyone who finishes in a single summer the Wasatch 100 and three other prestigious events, the Leadville 100, Western States and Old Dominion.
    The event is put on with the help of 250 volunteers, such as aid station worker Melanie Eatchel, who became renowned for serving popcicles in past years.
    "It's thrilling to see people who can endure such a climb," she said while preparing sandwiches in the Lambs Canyon aid station.
    Organizers weigh the runners at many of these stations. If their weight dips below 7 percent of their baseline weight, they are held at the station until they eat and drink enough to get back into a safe zone, said race director John Grobben.
    Hundreds more participate in the event as runners' support crews and pacers. Starting at the Big Mountain aid station at mile 39, runners may be joined by a friend.
    "I enjoy being a pacer," said Tom Jow as he prepared to run with Ruth Zollinger from Big Mountain to Lambs Canyon. "I'm part of a team and I get treated as one of the athletes."
    Jow's role was to help Zollinger cover the 14-mile stretch, regarded as the course's most grueling, in three hours, remind her to consume supplements and water and lend moral support.
    About 7 1/2 hours into the race Saturday, Ann Trason was the first woman into Big Mountain, where she stopped only to step on the scale. She walked through the parking area as she traded water bottles and gear with her support crew before taking off behind her husband Karl Anderson, who paced her to Lambs Canyon.
    "You have to remain very, very focused," said Paul Alsop, who paced Trason from Lambs. The Draper man is himself a six-time Wasatch finisher. "There may be times when I was being ugly and snapped, but don't take it personally."
    That night at Brighton, many of the runners complained of feeling awful and fatigued, but in the morning at the finish Sunday, everyone seemed improbably happy and energized after having traversed a mountain range with no sleep.
    "The worst part of it will be when I'm trying to sleep tonight," said West. "I'll be back on the trail. I know I'm dreaming so I'll run off cliffs and into trees."