The sign says it all, 100 miles of difficult terrain, be prepared for 10 days. That of course holds true for your average hiker doing reasonable day treks and sleeping in the provided lean-tos along the way. However, for myself and my trail partner, Brian, we had other plans. I am not sure I have the words to truly express this experience as it was my first 100, my first time on these trails, my first time running overnight, my first time with a trail partner I barely knew, and so many other firsts. There are just no words to truly express the beauty of our first sunrise on the trail or the sunset on White Cap Mountain. No words to truly describe the angriest chipmunk I have ever heard and seen in my life. No words to express the gratitude you feel when 42 miles into a difficult journey your crew leaves you glow sticks along the dark trail to light your way to the first night time check point. I am filled with appreciation, awe, respect and love for all that happened on the trail and I will do my best to convey the experience, provide my takeaways, and try to give those interested a small understanding of what this adventure meant to me.
More importantly before the tale begins, I have a few people to acknowledge and express my deepest gratitude and thanks to. First and foremost, I need to thank our family and spouses for understanding and affording us all the time away to make this journey happen. These things could never happen without the love, support and understanding provided by our families. Second, I need to share my love to my crew of Val (Scout) and Mindy (Squirrel). Both of these women are absolute rock stars, and amazing athletes, who dedicated so much time and energy to follow two smelly dudes through the cold dark woods all weekend and to help us prepare before. Their knowledge, experience, organization, efficiency, and fun loving energy absolutely lead to the success of our journey and it couldn’t have happened without them. Finally, but certainly not least, I need to thank my trail partner, Brian. He had his own reasons for joining me on this adventure, but to commit to such a thing with a guy you barely know from a few TMR group runs, who has never run an overnight nor gone past 62 miles, and to be patient, composed, and an absolute rock through the entire journey is amazing. Brian in his own words is “short and fat” (he is not fat) and will never be the “fastest runner”, but he is at the top of my list of amazing athletes I have run with. He has 5-6 years of dedicated running experience, but he jumped into the deep end and already had 4 hundreds under his belt. His experience, knowledge, pacing, patience, and athletic prowess saw us through this entire trip and he has my deepest respect and gratitude from one athlete to another. It would never have been the same, or even happened without him leading the way 90% of time. I hope to one day serve in the role he did for me for another on their first 100 miler.
The Maine 100 mile wilderness is something I learned about in my later teen years. It has been on my bucket list since then, but did not take the form of an ultra run until last year. I never found the time to take the 5 days I imagined it would take me to hike what is reported as one of the harder sections of Appalachian trail, so it sat there in the back of my mind for nearly two decades. Fast forward to 2019, where I had gotten into ultra running a few years prior, started eyeing the idea of doing my first 100 miler and started joining Trail Monster Running (TMR) group runs, where I hear these rumors of TMR giving out a buckle to anyone who finishes the wilderness in under 48 hours. To those who don’t know, a buckle is the medal given out for those who finish a 100 in under a certain cut off time at races around the world. They are very special, and each unique to their event. This changed my perspective on the wilderness and what had been a seed for so long, was now springing roots in my brain. However, it didn’t quite jump to life quite yet, as I had other plans for 2020 and wanted my first 100 to be Riverlands, as we all know from my previous writings that plan went to hell in a handbasket riding the covid train.
Then as we also know, I rode that train right in to a planter fasciitis/Achilles injury for most of June and July, 2020 by not training smartly. I had all this built up training, drive and energy from Riverlands training, I simply didn’t know what to do with it. Then on my last long run day before my break in June, I was out with Scout, who would become part of my dynamite crew, and she mentions another TMR, Brian, thinking about running the 100 mile wilderness this fall if his current 100 mile race plan gets canceled. She knew I was interested in doing it one day, and that little bit of water is all it took to spout my seed into a sapling. I had no other plans, I wasn’t going to the BFC 50K this year, it really would be the perfect opportunity, especially if there was another runner willing to go for it at the same time! Not long after that run I messaged Brian to inquire about his interest and it was confirmed, he was very interested and would join me if his race was cancelled.
Then began the waiting game for over a month and Brian’s race stayed on track. No cancellation and it didn’t appear they had any intentions of canceling it. It looked like maybe my sapling needed to shift to an alternate plan, something big, but less burdensome and risky then the Wilderness. I knew from speaking with Scout that she would not want to crew for me if I was in the wilderness by myself for my first 100. So if I didn’t have a partner then it would be a no go. Then another TMR runner, Todd, went out and did the Downeast Sunrise Trail as a solo run, another thing on my bucket list and I decided that would be my fall back up plan to expend this energy that had been looming since May. I told Todd just this in a Facebook comment and that I was just “waiting on a friends race to cancel or not” . Lucky for me, Brian was paying attention to that particular chat, because that was the final push he needed. Brian decided to message his race’s director and ask for a deferment to next year, deferment granted and Brian was in! Early August the final decision was made, the crew was onboard “as long as they could go to Elaine’s” (a bakery in route. They didn’t make it, sorry ladies), and we would roll out the 3rd weekend of September.
Over the next month or so, planning and thinking was basically all I did. I made a few different lists of gear, cloths and food. Ended up bringing way more then I needed, but that is okay because we had the space. I asked a lot of questions of Scout and Brian. Started reviewing maps, and key points. TMR’s founder, Ian, had done this course twice before and had a very organized plan of crew stops and details that were a great help. I bought a gps tracker to follow along and be able to message without cell service, I finalized my lists, and started building up my training again. Finally, the sapling was a full grown tree. We were doing this thing.
The week before the kick off morning, 5 AM on September 19th, was very long and I was bouncing off the walls. I am usually a good sleeper through the night, but not that week. I spent every night waking up every couple hours on edge with eager anticipation. I saved my official packing until Friday morning, so as to not go too crazy and to give me a time waster before heading out that afternoon. Brian and I were sleeping in our vehicles that night so that we could get up and go, plus we both knew it didn’t matter where we slept. Sleeping wasn’t really happening.
Friday morning rolled around, food was prepared, clothes were packed, water jugs were filled, and gear was gathered. By noon on Friday, I was ready to burst out the door, but had to wait around until 2 for a package of Spring Energy gels to arrive. This turned out to be the smartest decision I made. I know those friggin gels were sitting at my post office since noon, due to my delivery notification, but I was abruptly told by the post master that she has “until 2 to get packages ready for pickup and I would have to come back” 2 PM hit and I was back at her window. She still wasn’t ready, but she at least ran out of excuses, shuffled through the boxes, found mine and sent me on my merry way. Finally, I was on my way to meet Brian, who was hours ahead of me, at the Monson AT trail head parking lot.
I arrived at around 5:30. Brian finished preparing a few items then we headed down for a pre-run dinner. We honestly weren’t expecting much in the way of food, but Lakeshore Pub ended up having some surprisingly delicious food. This was probably the biggest surprise I had all weekend. Seriously, it is Monson, Maine, middle of no where ATV type country, who would’ve guessed?!
By 7:30, we were back in the parking lot, tossed in Brian’s containers in the bed of my truck. The truck would be picked up by our crew the next day in time to meet us at 2 PM for the first crew stop, 30 miles and 5 mountain summits into our journey. At 8 PM, alarms were set, bedding placed out in the vehicles, and let the tossing and turning begin. All in all I think I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep, because between getting my mind to settle, getting comfortable, and listening to the in/out of the vehicle that pulled in around 10:30 and decided to leave the engine running all night, it was not a night were easy sleeping was found. However, at 4 AM when my alarm went off I was ready to roll anyway.
The hour to our start went by faster then I expected between getting dressed, lubing up all the necessary areas, starting up the gps tracker, making and eating my hot oatmeal and coffee breakfast and doing the last gear check, the official start was upon us. We started our watches promptly at 5 AM and away we were going setting an easy pace down the headlamp lit trail. Let our 100 mile journey begin!
The first hour of running was super easy paced and it would be basically the pace we would set the entire trek. The terrain was what one would expect for Maine and was root filled, rocky, up and down technical, with some slab of rock and boulders tossed in. This would also be the common theme throughout the journey only really giving you small breaks of nice trail here or there. We did make an attempt at a brief stop when the sun rose, the orange beams of light coming through the trees was stunning. They were like someone was shining a giant orange colored beam flash light along the trail, but alas no picture was to be had and this would be one of the many moments reserved just for us.
Our first real pause moment, and brief “where the hell did the trail go” moment was 6.6 miles in at Little Wilson Falls. We took a breather, and admired the beauty of where we were, took off our jackets from the chilly morning start, and away we went, charging towards the first of many climbs of Barren mountain in about 10 miles.
Along the way to Barren we did have one surprise (well, a surprise to me, apparently I didn’t pay attention to my notes that said “stream crossing” ) and it would be a fording of a the first stream, Long Pond. Shoes were off and my impatience of a few hikers lead me to cross a little further up stream then the designated shallower section with the assist rope. It turned out to be pretty deep and slippery in areas and so early into this trip, I did not make the wise choice. I did get lucky and managed to cross without slipping or, getting soaked to the bone in what I can only describe as water straight from the artic, but it was stupid. Brian smartly waited for the hikers to cross then forded himself across at the designated area, and was only a couple minutes behind me of which I spent waiting on a rock for him, before we started the steady, but not so steep climb up Barren.
The ascent to Barren summit and the subsequent mountains of Fourth, Third, Columbus and Chairback that the trail would take us on were respectively easy climbs at our steady pace. I say respectively easy climbs because none of them were grueling at our pace and my training in the White Mountains prepared me well for steeper longer climbs then these. I believe it was at Fourth or Third mountain that we did our second brief stop to grab some more solid calories from our packs. It was around noon and I decided to eat my first burrito of avocado, sweet potato, black beans. Before that I did keep a steady stream of calories of 200 calories an hour in the form of tailwind, a cliff bar, and some honey waffles.
It was around 1 PM that we hit the final first section summit of Chairback and got to admire a real view before our last few miles to the first crew stop at the Gulf of Hagas. Our spirits were high and with a goal of arriving at Crew stop #1 between 2 PM and 3 PM, we were right on track.
Not long after the start of our Chairback descent down Brian was running short on water and decided to fill us his flask from a stream. He had a sterile light pen and purifies his water in a matter of seconds. It was small, quick and handy and definitely something I will be adding to my future gear. I would say the entire endeavor took us under 2 minutes and we were gliding down the trail again. Well, I like to think of myself as gliding down the trail, Brian says “I control free fall” down a descent, “slipping and flailing” and he isn’t sure how I don’t hurt myself. And he isn’t going to tell me to “slow down”, but I should. I freely admit I let gravity do the work for me and free fall down a mountain, but I like to think my body knows what it is doing and unconsciously knows where to land. It is when I try and control my downward trajectory is when I get injured.
Injury free, we arrived at crew point #1 at 2:50 PM. It was a quick resupply of water in my bladder (almost empty), my empty flask of tailwind, a couple of my homemade electrolyte pills, 800 calories of bars, gummies, and another burrito. Stuffed some food in my mouth, I don’t remember what, and within 20 mins Scout and Squirrel had us on our way. Scout followed us down the half of mile to the west branch of Pleasant River at the Gulf of Hagas, in case we fell in and needed new shoes after the long crossing. We both made it across fine, and this time I didn’t feel the need to find deeper risker water. Only took 30 miles, but maybe I was getting smarter?
The first couple miles after the stream crossing were probably the only real runnable trail we have been on all day and I started going out a bit quick, and Brian suggested I slow down. We have 15 miles and about 5 hours to cover and are right on time, no need to rush. I do and not long after we are turning back onto the rock and root ridden single track trails that is the AT. Of course Brian starts running when we hit this section, because somehow that is more acceptable then my running on easier trails? I forgot about that moment until just now, as I am writing this, what’s up with that Brian?!
At 5 miles we stop at a stream and Brian fills up a flask again. I think he just likes doing it at this point. There was definitely plenty of clean water back at our crew stop. Again it doesn’t take him long and we start up the long climb up the Gulf Hagas Mountain and Brian powers up this climb and the subsequent climbs of West Peak and Hay Mountain like a bat out of hell. Seriously, between 35 to 40 miles are the first real tough ascents of the day and he was superman flying up the mountains waiting patiently for me several times. Maybe there is something in that fresh spring water of his? hmmmm…..
This is also the section where I earn my trail name from Brian and Petrol comes to life. As many of my trail friends know when I eat and run, I fart and I fart a lot. Can’t help it, and it doesn’t really matter what I eat. Unfortunately for Brian he was in the zone of influence on more then one occasion, and the wind going up Hay was not in our favor and whereas I wasn’t catching him up the mountain, my cloud of death certainly did. Brian decided at some point that I was Petrol and I felt it was super fitting.
It wasn’t long before the sun was setting, our headlamps were coming back out, jackets going back on, and at 40 miles in we were climbing what was to be our last big climb of the entire trail, White Cap Mountain. This turned out to not be that true as there was one or two climbs left that really felt far worse then anything we did in the first 50 miles, but at this point I was just excited to be down climbing for awhile. We had done nearly 14,000 feet of climbing through this first day and I was definitely feeling it. Then I turned around…..
Every step we had taken to get to this point, was absolutely worth the most perfect sunset we could have asked for. The view from the summit was so surreal for us in that moment that no final picture could have possibly captured it. We stopped for a solid few minutes just admiring the silhouetted mountain range against the orange twilight sky. It was worth every second, but the cold wind and desire to keep moving didn’t keep up there for long and we started our 3 mile decent to crew stop #2!
Along the way we ran into a couple with a tent set up in the Logan Brook Lean-to who we were pretty sure were getting busy, but why the hell not? Dark night, beautiful stars above the tree canopy, deep red embers burnings in their fire…..wait, what the hell kind of story am I writing? They couple were kind enough to stop whatever it is they were doing and point us in the direction of the water source as Brian needed some more superman stream water. Not too long after our coitus friendly couple we ran into a glowing object hanging from a tree and some weird ass plastic Dalmatians sitting on a large rock. We debated about what turned out to be a glow stick for a minute or two, but ultimately settled on taking it and leaving the dogs. For the next mile and half we found many more glow sticks all leading us to our first night time stop at crew point #2, Logan Brook Road.
We arrived at crew point #2 at 8:35 PM. I had figured it would be about 5 hours for us from when we left crew#1 and it took us 5 hours 25 mins. Not too bad of an estimate for someone who has never done this before. We did another quick re-supply of water, trail wind and food, stuffed more calories down my gullet, did a quick change of shirt, change of socks/shoes, greased up the feet, changed headlamps batteries, and 23 mins later the crew had us on our way again, not wasting any time.
The next 13 to 14 miles were pretty uneventful. That is one of the nice things I think about night time running. I felt no obligation to stop and admire the wilderness around me. It is too friggin dark to do anything beside just keep you head up and keeping moving. We had two crew stops: Johnston Pond Road at mile 52 miles and and Jo-Mary Road at 59 miles. Both stops were the same with quick re-fills of bladder and flask, change of headlamp batteries, coffee, lube up some parts, change my contact lens (this went reasonable well) and move your ass. I did switch my primary calorie source to my spring energy gels at the suggestion of Scout, because I couldn’t stomach the idea of food anymore. She was totally right on about the gels and thankfully I had waited for them to arrive. Even with the the change of food and contacts, we were quick. The first stop taking 22 mins and the last night time stop being 13 mins! This would be our fastest crew point and we departed into the dark of the night at 1:48 AM.
We had 15 miles to go crew stop #5 and expected to be there by 7 AM. We were flying and if we kept up this pace we could be finishing in 33-34 hours! Both Brian and I were riding a high out of the latest crew point and had the utmost confidence that we could keep cruising through the night.
Then 2 hours and 5 miles into this section the wheels came off the Petrol cart. It was like a light switch. My lower back seized up, my mile pace cut in half of what we were averaging and I started falling asleep walking. I was stumbling all over the trail like a drunken sailor. I almost fell over several times, thankful Brian was there to catch me. A message to Brian: I swear that bat who sprung out of the tree was trying to kill me, but thank you for arresting my fall. Things were not going well AT ALL. I remember saying to Brian, “if things don’t change, I can’t continue”. His response was perfect and something along the lines of “we are 10 miles from nowhere, you have no choice”. The important part about all of this, despite how slow I was moving, at least I was moving. It took me a few miles into realize most of my issue was sleep deprivation and not my back. I just needed to lay down and that became the goal. Just make it to the next lean-to and take a power nap. It took two hours, but we made it to the Potawadjo Spring Lean-to and I promptly cocooned myself under my emergency survival blanket and fell asleep.
This left Brian shivering and cold, letting his muscles lock up and left him wondering what the hell he was going to do. All I can imagine he knew at the time was that some asshole he barely knows just curled up into a ball and fell asleep, the gps wasn’t sending out messages, and how they hell is he going to get him out of here? Little did Brian or I realize, since it was my first experience at this, is that 20 mins later I would spring up and be ready to go fresh as a daisy.
That is exactly what happened, I remember coming out from under my blanket, seeing Brian shivering cold, saying to him something about “let’s go” and him asking about my back. I could feel that I was, in his later words “not his favorite person for about 45 mintues”, so I just said, “it seems better”. I knew full well that my back was fine and I was fine and my little power nap was all I needed, but I wasn’t about the relay that information to someone who I had just basically but through hell.
Not long after we were moving again, I was able to get crew messages out that we were okay, but behind schedule. We also saw a sign that said 32 miles to Abol Bridge, our final destination. This was the first real moment I had where I was absolutely certain that we were going to make it. We were only a 50K away from the finish! I couldn’t really share this excitement with Brian at the time, because we weren’t talking. I felt terrible for causing his legs to cease up, but there was little I could do about it and he was still moving forward. We had 7 or so miles to get to our crew for stop #5 and I wasn’t completely convinced Brian was joining me beyond it.
It took another mile or two, but I remember making a comment to Brian “that your legs seem to be moving well again” and that was all it took to break the ice from our stopping issue and we were back to conversing again. Mostly complaining about the shitty terrain. We were really tired of roots, rocks, and up and downs. It took a lot of grunting, moaning, and groaning, but with a mile to go we ran into some hikers who said our crew was ready to go and eagerly waiting for us and soon saw Scout running back shouting to Squirrel to start boiling the water, we were coming in. Finally at 8:22 AM we arrived at Nahmakanta Lake, only 90 mins beyond our predicted time! I think this was just the mental boost both of us needed, as the wee hours of night and early dawn felt so very long, we just thought we were hours and hours behind schedule.
Our crew was in fact ready to roll, not long after arriving they were serving up hot oatmeal and hot chocolate. I know neither Brian nor I packed hot chocolate, but thank goodness our crew knew exactly what needed. Everything was delicious, Brian warmed up a bit in the truck, we re-supplied our gear and once again without there being a shred of doubt that we were continuing S&S crew had us back on our feet and back on the trail in under 20 mins! Those two truly are amazing and know just the right things to say, my favorite being back from crew point #1 or #2, with “Harden the Fuck Up”.
By our calculations, we only had 5.7 miles to go to crew#6 at Pollywog Gorge. I will never forget Scout’s parting words from Nahmakanta Lake, “don’t forget there is a hill in this section”…..Hill my ass…that fucking thing might as well have been Everest. By far the worst ascent we had experienced. It probably has a lot to do with being over 26 hours and 70 miles plus into a run. This section runs you up, down, up, down, up, up, up, up, down, down, up, up, up, up and wait, let us loop you back down to this stupid lake again, and then back up. At one point Brian turns and says “it is hard to remember where we really are”. Trying to bring back our attention to the absolute beauty we are surrounded by. It didn’t work for either of us. This section SUCKS! The worse part about it is, before the trail sends you winding, switching backing all the way down to road where we thought the crew would be waiting, is you hit the summit sign for Nesuntabunt Mountain at a whooping 1,520’…..Seriously a 1500 foot mountain. Fuck you.
So at the end of this very high Everest like mountain climb we hit the road, no crew. Then I remember that you cross this road twice and the crew is at the second intersection, not the first. But wait a minute, I am already past 6 miles from where we left the crew for a 5.7 mile section and my watch is never accurate, it is always under the actual distance. Then I recall a conversation between Scout and Brian back at crew #5 stop that the last part of crew stop #6 isn’t 20 miles like the map suggests it is really 18 miles and it dawns on me. This section is 8 miles not 5.7 miles and why the last section is shorter, ugh great.
Brian and I cross the road, we are both pretty mentally over this trail and its crap. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot but to figure out you have another 2 1/2 miles to go before a break, when you are tired, depleted, exhausted, whatever word you want to use, it is rather deflating. And this very section, is where later on after our journey was completed and the next morning on the drive home is the birth place of Brian’s trail name, Joker. Welcome to the party. I will save the tale of Joker’s birth for Brian to share with those he wishes to.
We continued to slog through this section which had its on fair share of some up and downs, but nothing compared to before the road crossing. Finally, after what felt like a never ending loop to no where we spot Scout on the trail, doing what she does, scouting. She was happy to see us and they had gotten worried, for a brief second until we informed her that this section is actually 8 miles not under 6. She ran ahead of us to prepare some more hot water, as we both wanted noodles. We arrived at our final crew station at 11:39 AM.
The crew was once again was spot on to what we needed. We shared some laughs, ate some good calories, made sure we greased up some last parts, and restocked our vests one last time. At this stage I was basically down to drinking water between stops. From crew stop #5 and #6 I hadn’t eaten anything and barely drank any tailwind. I figured I was okay. I was still eating enough at the crew points and everything was still working in the inner bodies processing department. The good thing for Joker was less food meant less gas. You’re welcome.
Crew stop #6 was our longest stop by far, but we were on our way in 37 mins. We figured we would cover the last 18 miles in about 6 hours. See you at the finish were the parting words to our crew and something about Scout expecting us to catch an AT through hiker, we didn’t.
The next 18 miles, were very much the longest 18 miles of my nearly 30 year running life. Joker started out leading as he had been our steady pacer the entire trip, but by time we got 3 miles in he was done. His shin muscles were giving him issues and for the first time in 85 miles Brian asked if I would lead. He thought having someone in front would help him focus to keep going. My leading the last 13 miles to the end was an easy request, it really was the least I could do for him, and we were off. It was a go a mile or two and rest a minute game, but we slowly checked off the miles one after another. The ascent and descent of Rainbow ledges reeked havoc on our bodies, but we pushed on. There was really no stopping at this point and in the final 3 miles Joker was back on my heels and we pushed the pace right to the finish line, happy to see a few more glow sticks to let us know we were near. There waiting at the Golden Road that crosses Abol Bridge were the smiling faces of Scout and Squirrel cheering us to the end and presenting us with our hard earned belt buckles! I no longer had any more firsts to make on this journey and my idea tree had lived its life! We had finished in 37 hours 24 mins!
That was 37 hours of grueling work. I learned many lessons for my future endeavors, and have since experienced many emotions that I have never had after an ultra before. I want to process and reflect on both those things more before I share them. For now I am happy to report that after 37 hours, 20k in elevation, many liters of fluids, thousands of calories, and a few scrapes, cuts and bruises, I have finished my first 100! It is glorious and I’m truly one happy runner.
Running with Love 