I cannot overemphasize what a great race this is. The course is absolutely phenomenal, the last shot I coaxed from the camera, of runner’s beginning the descent off Hyalite Peak, only hints at what was to come. For much of the 16 miles after, you could see into the Yellowstone River valley and the northern reaches of Yellowstone park to the east, and expansive views of Lone Peak Big Sky resort and environs to the west.

The weather was perfect. It got a bit warm in the early afternoon, when the backs of my calves got burnt, but soon enough clouds scudded in and we got a good breeze. Enough to cool things off, not enough to make lightening a concern. There was one idiosyncratic rain storm that blew out of nowhere with 30+ mph winds. It lasted 3 minutes, just long enough for me to dig my rain jacket out and put it away again almost immediately.

After all the self-supported mountain bike races I’ve done, my desires and expectations for races have become pretty distinct. I like the down-home comaraderie of a relatively small group of people coming together to chase their passions, and have little use for pagentry or excess.

The Devil’s Backbone starts exactly how all good races seem to, as a labor of love for Tom Hayes and Liz McGoff. They hiked/ran it years ago, thought it would make a cool race, and in 2004 Tom got three friends (a fast guy, a slow guy, and a middle of the pack guy) to do the course as a trial run, with Tom running logistics. Everyone thought it a worthwhile experience, and this year was the fifth running of the race. (Last year they ran an alternate course because the Hyalite cirque was totally snowed in.)

We met at Tom and Liz’s house in Bozeman at 1730 on Friday. Race bags were given out, schwag was raffled, Tom gave us the relevant beta and admonitions, and those who chose had a nice dinner of manicotti, salad, pizza, bread, beer, and lemonade. After a few hours I took off for the start/finish TH, geared up, and had just settled in to the camp chair to read when Chris and Twila Moon rolled up. Chris in the MT LaSportiva rep, Twila works for Big Sky. Chris ran the 50, Twila did a relay with a friend. (The relay option is neat, in that one leg of the course is plenty tough, and the second person doesn’t have to wait at the turnaround. They start when they get the chance, and the times are added.) We chatted for quite a while (it’s still light until almost 2200) and finally sacked out, set to wake up early.

It was chilly before dawn at 6900′. The theme for the day quickly emerged: I knew what I had to do, and got it done. Get up, suit up hiking clothes and warm clothes over. Make tea, eat a high-calorie breakie, drink some water, poo, tape and bodyglide the feet, delayer, suit up, and GO! The group strung out immediately on the easiest miles of the course, with some relayers and fast folks dropping the hammer straight away. By only hiking all day, I’ve got a built in guarantee of not going out hard, and just walked my race, chatting and enjoying the day. My legs had felt great the night before and great that morning, and as the first moderate grades rose up before us I could tell that it was going to be a good day. The last months training, and the last weeks taper, had done their work.

And I was having a blast. Everytime you crest a hill on the course and see something cool off in the middle distance, you soon realize that you’ll eventually be hiking over or around it. It’s good for the psych if you use it wisely, and don’t dwell on when the turn around (or any given point on the return) will appear. I mostly succeeded in that. My only goal for the first half was too keep things rolling steadily. My natural pace along the “flats” and descents is right around 3.3 to 3.5 mph, so as long as I didn’t nap and most importantly kept a foot on the gas on the climbs, I couldn’t go wrong. The altitude was certainly evident, as usual it took the last little bit of sharpness off my ability to push hard going up, but I was still feeling good.

After a few miles of ridge traversing south from Hyalite, the trail drops west to the low point of the ridge section (8800′) to avoid some cliff bands. It stays low for maybe 1/2 a mile before shooting back up. Except for the first (and last) section of trail in Hyalite canyon, these are the biggest sustained climbs and descents on the course. I put on the iPod for the first time climbing out of the basin the first time, and decided to see if I could do some damage. I think I passed eight people on the climb, all but Chris and Twila for good.

The climbs on the ridge were funny. Up to Hyalite peak you have about 3500′ of climbing, and you have to get the rest of the 11500′ somewhere. The rounded alpine ridge and fall line climbs, combined with being around 9500′ most of the time, made all the 3-400′ rollers seem enormous. My Suunto proved it’s worth once again, on many occasions I’d be crawling up a hill at what seemed like a preposterously slow pace, only to look down and see that I was doing 15 vertical meters a minute, which was my maximum rate of climb for the day. (I could’ve hit 17-8 over that course if I had been perfectly acclimated, and max out around 22 during intensity training.) Good for the mental side of things.

The southern most miles of the ridge took on a mellower character, gentler hills, faint trail, riotous little tundra flowers. Coming around the final hill towards the turn around, I was rocking out to Tsaichovsky (same Firebird finale in the video) and got hit with a race-and-sublimity-of-the-known-world induced sobbing fit. It was noon, I’d been hiking since 0530, what am I to be in such a place in such a state? The song wound down and I got it together (I kept walking the whole time), and clasped the little Gerber I wear on a cord around my neck all the time. My parents gave it to me when I was little, it was my first knife, and I’ve carried it every day since fourth grade. I glanced up briefly and thanked my dad for getting me into this while crazy running around the woods thing.

I rolled into the turn around in exactly 7 hours, which was ahead of schedule. Coming in under 15 hours was looking very attainable. I had intended to keep the aid stop to 10 minutes, but needed to air the feet and consume a certain amount of food, and that didn’t get done until 17 minutes had gone by. No point in pinching minutes no to give up hours later. I started the long, gentle ascent back to the ridge just behind Tom the RD, and with a very full belly went nice and slow, because for a few miles pushing the pace at all seemed a gastronomically perilous choice. Tom, who had started early to cut steps through the cirque cornice, and had a leisurely outbound journey with an old friend, obviously had some gas in the tank. Once back on the ridge he put the hammer down big time, the gap between us stretched quickly, and soon he was out of sight. He finished nearly an hour ahead of me.

Chris caught me quickly, and we yoyo’d or hiked together until right before the drop into the basin. We were both moving well, though the race was starting to feel pretty real at that point. Feet were tenderized, the descending power of quads was starting to show itself as a finite quantity, fueling became paramount. I stopped eating Clif bars, kept up a steady flow of Mike n’ Ikes and water, and started eating salami every half hour or so. I knew I could finish strong unless I did something unnecessary and let the wheels come off. Mostly we conversed little, rocked out own tunes in our own little worlds, and kept up the relentless forward motion.

I had stopped walking once on the way out, and as efficient as that had been, knew that more stops were inevitable, mostly to deal with chaffing and feet. And they were. Right before the big descent to 8800′ a small blister on the inside of my left ankle gave way, and I had to stop and sort that out. Chris got ahead, and the tactician in me wondered if that was the definitive move. I was almost positive I had more gas in the tank, and knew I had much better climbing legs. But he was determined, and would surely run plenty of the last five miles.

Nothing to do but continue and see what happened. I cycled through the tunes to get The Firebird Suite back on board for the big climb out. Chris was sitting off to the side of the trail right at the start of the fall line singletrack. “Last big climb!” I said as I rolled past, adding something to the effect of having only 1500′ of vert left to gain. Perhaps not the most encouraging thing to say, but the diesel was revving. I put my head down and hammered the climb. All the way back, I’d been maxing the climbs at 11-2 meters a minute. I held 15 all the way up this one, and just like that motivation was at an all-day high. There was a lot of ridge between me and the drop down the cirque, but that was just dandy. There were plenty of short little climbs too, and I dug into every last one of them. Energy was running a little low and pace was slackening on the final switchbacks to the trail which traversed over to the cirque, but that just meant my pacing had been that good. Over 12 hours in, and everything was still hewing to or slightly exceeding my best laid plans.

The descent down the cirque snowfield was a very fast glissade, poles providing a reliable brake, though I did nail my ass on a barely covered rock near the bottom. It was almost all downhill, and time to get it done. I hustled, but in the end could only sustain my all day pace. The flexors, extensors, and ligaments were too worked to pick things up for more than a minute or two, and I refused to even try to run. Time goals (sub 14 hours, negative split) be damned, I decided to not change horses. The final wooded 4 miles provided fertile ground for mind games as I waited for trail junctions to come along. I honestly hallucinated trail signs on two separate occasions. The second time I had the presence of mind to be suspicious of myself, so I stopped and craned my neck at the sign 50 meters off in the trees. I was sure it was a trail sign, and was more than a little amused to discover it was in fact a stump. A hallucination I suppose, but such a conscientious one! Eventually of course I finished, with Chris less than ten minutes behind.

The DB 50 is indeed a hard course, and it’s difficulty is not revealed by the numbers. 11000’+ is not that much climb for the distance, and the elevation is hard, but not that hard. I was able to walk down stairs to brunch Sunday morning with only mild difficulty, the best shape my quads have ever been in after a 40+ mile day. The pads of my feet are not nearly as sore as they were after the C2M 100k, though I think the Fireblades are partly responsible for that. What both Chris and I experienced were blisters on the sides of our heels, places neither of us had ever had any before. The going along the ridge is tough, the tread is often loose and off-camber, and the there were plenty of snow drifts to climb around and over. The unevenness worked my feet in new ways, and also made my core and arms (poles) the most sore they’ve ever been after a big hike.

In summary, it was an ideal day. Planning and execution came together just as I wished, and I had the best executed race of my life.

Feels good.