Hardrock, Part 3 Matt Mahoney This time somebody died. I last saw Joel Zucker of upstate New York at the Telluride aid station at noon on Saturday, July 11, 1998, about 75 miles and 30 hours into the Hardrock 100 mile run in Colorado. He was complaining of a migrane headache that might cost him his third finish at this extremely demanding high-altitude trail race, but he later finished under the 48 hour cutoff in 47:37, and seemed to be in good spirits at the awards in spite of two nights without sleep. The next day while driving home with his pacer, he went into a coma and stopped breathing -- a cerebral hemmorhage. The following day at a hospital in Albuquerque, with no hope remaining, his family turned off the life support machine and donated his organs. He was 44. Last year I failed to finish both the Hardrock 100 and the Leadville 100, also in Colorado. Still needing a qualifier for Western States, my wife Joan and I flew to Minnesota in September for the Superior Trail 100, which I finished in 30:02, about four hours under the cutoff. Western States is the original and still best known of the 100 mile trail runs, the Boston of marathons, the Ironman of triathlons. It had taken me three years to get in, qualifying each year, missing the lottery, then getting in under the two time loser rule. Now, finally, with two weeks before Hardrock, I was going to use it as no more than a final long training run. No Floridian has ever finished Hardrock, a record that still stands. Training for Hardrock without hills, rocks, snow, or altitude is a daunting task. Hardrock has 33,000 feet of climb, eleven passes over 12,000 feet, and a high point of 14,048 feet. It is equivalent to running the Pikes Peak marathon four times nonstop, two days and two nights regardless of the weather, which can range from the 20's to the 80's, with rain, snow, sleet, and hail all quite common. The trail is rocky, muddy, and narrow, crosses streams and rivers up to two feet deep with strong currents and ice-cold water, and traverses the edges of steep cliffs that drop hundreds of feet to one side. Your feet are constantly wet. Some climbs and descents are on a 100% grade, or 45 degree angle, on scree (loose gravel and mud) or snow, which can be soft and slushy during the day or frozen solid at night. Less than a quarter mile is paved. Training for Hardrock involved a succession of long runs; the Harold Tucker 50K beach run in January, the Ocala Marathon in February, the Knight Trail 50K in March, Barkley in April -- 40 miles in 29 hours unaided in the Tennessee wilderness with 20,000 feet of climb, and 37 miles in May at Wickham Park. I left for Colorado almost 4 weeks before Hardrock to begin the altitude acclimation process, hoping to build my hemoglobin levels and avoid high altitude pulmonary edema, which felled me twice at Leadville, a mere 10,000 feet. Because El Nino brought unusually heavy snow to the Sierra Nevadas of northern California, the first 20 miles of Western States was covered with snow, and the time limit was extended from 30 to 32 hours. I had intended to run without a crew or pacer, but at 62 miles, just after midnight (the start was 5:00 AM, June 27), I was surprised by an offer from Dave Littlehales to pace me to the finish, which I accepted. I had only known Dave through the ultrarunning mailing lists on the Internet to which I subscribe (one of them administered by Joel). He had run a 2:50 marathon, and a 4:37 since taking up racewalking, but the 9 hours it took us to cover the next 28 miles of hilly trail left his quads trashed, and I had to abandon him and run the last 10 miles alone. It was very close: 4 minutes under the cutoff at the 95 mile aid station and 6 minutes at the finish (31:54). Without Dave's help, I could have easily lost several minutes through navigational errors in the dark and not finished. I would have no such luck at Hardrock. After the race I bummed a ride back to the start, found a campsite, and slept 14 hours. It hurt to walk the next day (Monday), mostly due to blisters on the edges of my feet. I ran without socks to toughen my feet for Hardrock. By Tuesday I was able to hike several miles without discomfort, and by Thursday I was back in Colorado and hiking several hours each day on the Hardrock course to familiarize myself with the nighttime sections and to continue acclimating to the altitude. On Saturday, I ran the Silverton 10K at 9300-9800 feet, finishing fourth overall in 52 minutes, a 7 minute improvement over last year when I was 13'th out of 58 runners. My normal sea level time is 41 minutes. I ran Hardrock without crew, pacer, drop bags, or socks. I slept 10 minutes the first night and none the second night, taking 300-400 mg caffeine each night and none during the day. All went well for the first 93 miles, as I stayed 2-3 hours ahead of every aid station cutoff. But late during the second night, the trail I had trained on just a week earlier looked completely unfamiliar, very strange. Although I felt wide awake, I made stupid decisions, often going off course and continuing ahead through horrible terrain instead of going back to find the trail. At 2:00 AM I lost the trail of flags every 100 yards that marked the course through an area of marshy arctic tundra on a mountain top at 13,000 feet under a full moon and freezing weather. I wandered for three hours, unable to fix my position on my trail map, until the next runner came along, Fred Vance, who was suffering from pulmonary edema and gasping for air on every climb. We finally figured out where we were as the sun rose for the third time, and returned to Silverton in an unofficial tie for last place in 51:38, past the 48 hour cutoff. The finish didn't count. In four days, Fred would be starting the Badwater 135 mile race from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney in temperatures of 125 degrees. To Joel, no other race mattered except Hardrock. No other trail race was as difficult or as challenging. His three finishes here, the first two by only 10 minutes, were some of the happiest moments of his life. It's funny how my own finish, so close, but slipping away at the end, now seems so insignificant.