high lonesome 100 ultra: my volunteer experience
Alarms twinkled and beeped at 2am on Saturday morning. July 27. We’d landed midday Friday at Denver International, kept the atmosphere calm after a three hour excursion from the runway to Salida knowing the following morning we’d traverse, largely without reception, to Fooses Dam on limited sleep in pure mountain darkness. Some weeks prior, we’d signed up to help operate the 4am to noon aid station shift, located around mile 75 of the High Lonesome 100 UltraMarathon. We didn’t know Fooses sits so far from Denver. That was surprise number one.
The High Lonesome 100 (I’ll call it HL100 from now forth) saw its inaugural course in 2017 and, according to fellow volunteers and runners I spoke with, improved beautifully between each of its three races. As a road runner, the 100-miler – and the 50, the 50k, and all those distances above 26.2 – is an entirely foreign affair. Training, individual levels of willpower, the number “100,” the initiative involved by race staff and, most relevant to me in this instance, of volunteers, were not concepts I put much thought to before signing up to help out.
J had the idea of working an aid station, I suspect largely because he wanted an excuse to return to Colorado after a personal travel drought. I didn’t object. Having never manned the other side of a running race, I wondered about the process, logistics, and emotive payoff volunteering provides. A 100-mile trail race, though, is a whole different beast. We drove into Fooses down a narrow dirt trail well before dawn cracked and shook hands with faces I couldn’t discern at all in the deep night beneath glowing headlamps. I caught glimpses of jawlines and smiles occasionally as staffers drifted beneath the three easy-ups sheltering snack tables and water coolers, and a cooking station ready with boiling water, cast iron, and packets of ramen for cold and hungry runners.
The first runners of our shift floated in a mere few minutes after we settled into the campsite. We watched the handling of their needs the first couple times around before Rob, our captain, debriefed us on the system. Fill water bottles with Tailwind. Heat noodles. Replenish precooked quesadillas, fry bacon and scramble eggs. Grab gear check bags, help hold them open. Throw out trash. All the while, offer applause, words of good will, encouragement, and optimism. Send the runners down the next 8.5-mile stretch to Blanks replenished and nourished. We fell into the cooking roles quite naturally, warming fresh perogies and, nearer sunrise, compiling breakfast tacos with bacon, eggs, and cheese.
Sometime around 6:30 we relieved two fellow volunteers at the crossing of State Road 50. The shadows still lay long at this point and we shivered pleasantly in the cool, desert-like early morning. The frequency of runners was thinner at this point of the race and we experienced prolonged stretches of peace. I alternately snapped my Canon and dug my hand into a bag of trail mix. I wonder if the runners might appreciate some music, he said, climbing into our rental and turning on various genres of upbeat yet modest tunes. When we had foot traffic, he stopped runners prior to their crossing to ensure safety and I stood on the opposite side of the road to point runners to the trail connector. During this cycle the sun stretched its arms over the hill peaks and the cold rapidly disintegrated, leaving wide swaths of light and warmth down the pathway and along the shelves of compact earth forming the foothills. As attentive as I was when runners approached, the downtime allowed me to appreciate the terrain. Mountains whisper different poetry than oceans. The words in the rocks’ narratives are more like echoing, thrumming, mournful odes to centuries. I felt aged and youthful both.
No runner departed Fooses without genuine gratitude. The smile of one man for whom I layered a breakfast taco glued itself to my mind for many hours following. I was, and am, amazed at how humans, after running 75+ miles, can find within their fatigue nothing but thankfulness. In a way, though, I do understand. When I ran Big Sur I nearly busted into tears at Mile 24 when the workers handed off a palmful of strawberries. Though I don’t know firsthand, I’d imagine the ultramarathon becomes lonely, especially in the wilderness, at 14,000 feet of elevation, above the treelines, in the gulches, in the rain and the midnight starlight, in the company of mental chatter and doubt and discomfort. The sheer warmth of human companionship in such open space must feel humbling and reassuring. It would for me, I bet.
We cleaned up Fooses at 11a, its cutoff time, after tending to one final runner and sending him and his pacer on their quest. J and I hauled the gear bags into the trunk and drove to the finish area, located near Buena Vista and the hot springs. Runners at this staged hiked uphill on paved road before turning onto a grassy knoll eyeballing the finish chute, manned by a photographer, family, fellow finishers, and staffers. We hung around to witness the culture of a 100-miler completion zone. The first claps echoed soonafter, and as we saw an approaching runner the entire village rose and applauded and shouted encouragements until the athlete crossed, often jogging, and called the race complete. Because the race is so small – slightly over 100 runners – everyone seems familial. A small, supportive town. Everyone involved in the race rallies around the athletes as a whole, and as singular human beings. How raw and rich with humility.
We absolutely intend to lend a hand at next year’s event. I don’t believe I’d ever run an ultramarathon, let alone a 100-mile epic, but I appreciate and love the vastly different culture created by such an intimate, challenging, exhausting event. A century’s worth of miles, five digits of climb, one unforgettable experience. And I was only peering through a single window.
Read more about HL100 on its website, including background, qualification requirements, course info, and galleries of races past.
