Late Entry Archives: Desert Rats 100k Recap
Breaking through in Fruita.
58 miles down, roughly 7 left to grind, early April temps in the mid-80s hitting extra hard with ostensibly no heat training in the tank, hydration flasks sucked dry, visual field getting wavy as if a small dose of psycillocibin was rearing its head. Regardless of the race result, I’ll remember this earned experience for life. Maybe teasing out part of the “why” behind it all…
Fruita, CO + my pre-race build
Fruita is a hidden western-slope gem, about 1.5 hours from Moab, an equidistant 4-hours from Denver and Salt Lake, easily accessible from the regional Grand Junction airport. The town sits along the I-70 corridor surrounded by beautiful mesas, covered in mtn bike and dinosaur motifs, politically purple as it gets, with a burgeoning food and arts scene (Best Slope Coffee serves a mighty fine breakfast burrito). An albeit random but nevertheless worthy home of one of five U.S. based UTMB races, the defacto world series of trail running.
Conflicted feelings on the UTMB org aside, I wanted to race in Chamonix. Signing up for this race came with the A goal of a top-3 finish and automatic qualifier into CCC.
Prior to Desert Rats, my longest race was the Grand Traverse, a 40 mile point to point between Aspen and Crested Butte. I ran this as part of a triple crown challenge, with the other two races being skimo and mountain bike contests (the bike being the day after the run). My training leading up to that race peaked around 55-60 miles a week but included 5-10 hours on the bike as well. It also included heaps of self-induced pressure and stress.
Heading into Desert Rats, my focus was on getting in the miles without letting a missed day or rough run spur self-critical thoughts. Thoughts that negatively impacted my happiness and relationship during my Grand Traverse triple-crown build.
Overall, missioned accomplished. I headed into race week with 3.5 months of consistent training after a low-volume winter. My build peaked with two 90 mile weeks, my average load being in the 70 mile range for the 3 months (feel free to check it out in detail here). I mostly enjoyed my training and arriving in Fruita with cautious optimism and stoke.
Desert Rats is not a hilly course, gaining under 7k ft of vert over 62 miles, but it does cover a mix of rocky trails and sandy jeep roads with short, frequent, climbs. It’s overall a fast course, while not necessarily a quick one. Because of this, I specified my training as such, with a moderate weekly average of ~10k of vert coming between long runs and lower grade hill workouts.
Pace + Nutrition Strategy and Planning
I am planning to make a separate post focused solely on “how to plan for your first 100k” which will cover the nitty gritty details of how to mentally wrap your head around a 9+ hour race…for this recap, I’ll keep it fairly high level.
My girlfriend/partner Caton pulled hero duty on race day and the night before. I leveraged ultrapacer.com to help her, and a couple of my buds who came out for the race, gauge aid station timing. This tool ingests a GPX file, allows you to add aid stations, nutrition notes, and goal times, and spits out a summary chart that factors fatigue and grade into splits. Looks to be someones side project and I found it to be wildly helpful.
Come race day though, nothing beats old-fashioned pen to paper. It’s like creating a cheat sheet for a test – the simple act of writing it down makes the actual sheet unnecessary as it’s already engrained in your brain. For nutrition I targeted 90g of carbs per hour, leaning heavily on SiS Beta Fuel, Maurten, Spring (lol), and some aid station Naak + real food fare. I wore a Salomon waist belt, carrying a handheld flask with an extra flask stashed in the belt. I used a mix of Tailwind and Skratch high-carb for liquid hydration.
Other small details/preparations: morning of breakfast burrito and cold brew, bandana with pocket for ice, advil, sunscreen, salt capsules, and headphones just in case I needed a music pick me up.
Race Day
Not gonna lie, the legacy grassroots Desert Rats event combined with the sponsorship money of Hoka + UTMB made for quite the cool race day vibe. After the morning pre-race routine of my hyphy playlist and taping the nips, we caught a shuttle via an old school bus from Fruita Monument High School at 4am. I was NERVOUS. My legs were shaking, thoughts were spinning. How was I about to run 62 miles? We narrowly made the start, leaving barely any time for a honey bucket stop, but also less time to spiral. Alas, once the gun went off, a sense of calm swept over me. As hundreds of headlights bobbed out into the desert through a tunnel of Hoka inflatables, I felt part of a great organism, setting out on a shared journey.
I saw Caton at the first/second aid station (we passed through it twice) around mile 10. The sunrise was in full swing at this point and I was sitting around 7th/8th place after keeping things chill on the initial technical singletrack, navigated in the dark. My legs felt good, not great. The energy of the festival hit at this aid station, and I switched into race mode.
After flask and fuel top offs, the lead pack set off on a 20 mile stretch of mostly singletrack along stunning mesas. I could see the lead group of 5 runners 1-2 minutes ahead and got a chuckle observing their jostling this early into a 100k. The eventual winner, Raj (a stud on the flatter ultra scene), was between me and the lead pack. Knowing his pedigree, I felt good where I was.
The final stretch of singletrack in this section crossed a ravine, a steep drop, sketch bridge traverse, and steep climb. I passed 4 people over this mile. Early conservative miles and extra vert in training paid divdends. The approach to the 50k mark took runners along a stretch of jeep road through a small canyon, passing a few sites where campers whooped and hollered, providing a little more bounce in my stride.
As I cruised into the Rabbit Valley aid station, I was neck and neck with Julien Chorier. A dedicated Hoka athlete who has a win at CCC on his impressive resume. We were in 3rd/4th, with Raj a few minutes ahead and a mystery charger five or so minutes in front of him. The air in the valley carried a hot density, forcing me to take my time at this aid station. Caton, Boo, Zach, and Pandorf were all there. Like a pit crew they loaded me up with new fuel, ice, sunscreen, and hydration. Pandorf even read a card to me he had bought at the dollar store that morning. It made me happy to see how much they were enjoying themselves.
The next 20 miles took us out on a lollipop along more singletrack and mesa views. I managed to put a gap on Julien here and catch up to Raj. I learned that this part of a 100k is all about maintaining and fueling. I drank and ate what I could, pushed a few sections, missed a fork and wound up at a cliff’s edge before scrambling back up to the trail (everything looks the same in the desert), and made it back to Rabbit Valley tied for 2nd with Raj.
He absolutely motored through the aid station, likely thinking I posed a threat (which I very much did not). After enjoying another 5 minute stop with my crew, I set back off along the jeep road, sights on the finish and defending my 3rd place spot and auto-qualifier into CCC.
Things got hard here. I was clipping off 8:30s, gently keeling from side to side as dehydration really set in. Along the climb to the final aid station, I passed our mystery leader, walking it in. I offered him salt chews and words of encouragement, but I could tell the early miles of pushing had come back around for him.
Before diverting to a frontage road for the finish, the course took runners back through the steep descent one last time. This is where my first experience with running induced hallucinations really set it. I didn’t actually see anything that wasn’t there, but the desert landscape was breathing. Leaning into to enjoying and appreciating the experience, this stretch was slow going as confidence in my footing was at an all time low.
Emerging onto the frontage road unscathed, I pushed the last mile to the finish. Seeing my crew, a few unexpected friends from the Denver trail scene, and savored the moment. Crossing the line in 2nd place. 65 miles under my belt and an auto-entry to the 2025 CCC locked-in.
Other Musings
Every ultra/trail event is elevated by the volunteers, Desert Rats was no exception. Even though it is under the UTMB umbrella, the grassroots energy is still felt. The aid station volunteers were all amazing
Early in the year I struggled with muscle cramps at the Big Alta. I felt them creep in a few times during this race, but practiced remaining calm, stretched things out, and had pickle juice shots at every aid station
Running from behind – it’s good for me at this point in my running arc and ability
I wish I had run faster, humans are silly
Planning out my recovery is something I did not do this go around. A few days later I went to Jungle at Red Rocks and may have been up until 4am. Historically I’ve leaned into a heavy run hard / party hard post race pattern. Something to grow from
This style of race suits me well. I’m not the best high-vert runner, nor the fastest flat runner, but I love a good rolling singletrack that requires a mix of strength and pace