Fat Dog

I don’t feel like I can possibly craft a summary that truly measures up to the emotional roller coaster that was Fat Dog 120—the hardest race I’ve ever done.

As always, the journey started long before the start line.

It’s been a hard summer. Long days. Early nights. School material that’s shaken my self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth to the core. I’ve questioned—over and over—whether I’ve made the stupidest decision of my life… or the best.

Right up until the day before our flight, I went back and forth on whether I should even go. The backlog of schoolwork I’d face from missing just a few days felt insurmountable. The mounting pressure has been catching up with me, and I’ve been stuck in a state of near-constant physical and emotional exhaustion.

Lee, I suppose hoping for the best, made all of my drop bags and an aid station/pace chart. I didn’t have the time or bandwidth to look at a thing about the race, or absorb what she’d try to tell me about it.

Finally, the day before our travels, two days before the race, I decided it was on, I was going.

When people ask, “Why run 100?” I always try to explain that running is only a fraction of it. Out there, you can become wild again. Raw. You strip off the coats that a backwards oligarchy has been wrapping around you for decades. It’s just you and nature. You become an animal again.

Hungry enough to eat off the ground.
Thirsty enough to drink from a creek.
Focused enough to roar at a bear.
Unabashed enough to piss and shit in the goddamn woods.

These ventures embody what it means to be alive. A living breathing persevering animal. When I’m away from that for too long I lose a piece of myself. I become susceptible to becoming a societal monkey. (If I ever tell you that a kitchen remodel is on my bucket list, please hijack my ultrasignup stat [this jab excludes Amy Kling whose badass kitchen remodel was actually a restore back to original period, anyway, I digress..] After these last few months, I desperately needed to tap into that part of me, so whether or not it was irresponsible, I decided I was going.

I loved that there was a group of us, and getting to see faces I don’t often see.

Starting off with a two hour bus ride to remote Manning Park was different.

I started tired. One of the bigger climbs of the race is at the beginning, and the altitude was getting to me unusually hard and fast.

At mile fourteen I tripped hard on a rock. From then on my hamstring and hip would trouble me on and off. At mile 17 I realized my pace/aid station chart which included my drop bag locations, fell of my pack. Having not even made my own bags I was flying totally blind. There are times I got to an aid station thinking and hoping I’d have a bag there, and alas, there was nothing. Which was very emotionally hard.

In contrast to Cocodona the course was stunningly beautiful. If anything helped out there it was that.

The aid stations were far apart and extremely meagerly rationed. “You can have vegetable broth or ONE Oreo cookie..” a volunteer said to me holding out a picked through carton now containing three lonely Oreos, “oh or a pickle..”

It was like karma for what I put my wagon party through while playing Oregon trail when I was like 7, “it’s bare bones from here until the end, I’m on the farmer budget, we can’t afford meager rations on this here ride!”

There was a point where all I friggin’ wanted from this world was a salted coke and it was roughly 30 miles before I got to an aid station that had anything other than creek water to drink.

Drop bags were much farther spread, and it meant carrying a lot of weight. Water, fortunately, was safe to drink from streams without a filter. In fact, I witnessed the aid station jugs being filled in the creek, so I had to chuckle later when someone said they just weren’t comfortable drinking creek water and would wait until the aid station.

Night one, from 2-5:30am, I was falling asleep on my feet. It costed me dearly. I was barely moving. Fate would have it that after trying to take a dirt nap I found my friend, Nettie. It saved me from the witching hour sleepies, and they never came back. I did have catching up to do though. I spent the entire second day working hard to make up time, knowing the worst of the climbs were yet to come. I constantly went back and forth from thinking I’d be able to make the cutoffs in time or not.

Sometime after sunset on the second night, more than 100 miles in, I got to the most “real” aid station of the race, famished.

They had vegan quesadillas. My watch had just died five-ish miles prior at around 104 miles, I had 10 hours until the cutoff. I thought it was in the bag.

Then a volunteer looked at me and said, “If you want to finish, you’d better go now.”
“It usually takes nine hours to finish from here…” he said, trying to shoe me out before my quesadillas were ready.

I was confused by this, until later when I realized that the race was about eight miles longer than advertised and there were multiple horrific climbs yet to come.

I hauled ass.

My hip pain had been extending, and by the time I got to Strawberry something, the last aid station, 10.8 miles from the finish, I knew I was in trouble. My body was crumbling, I could barely stand up straight, and going up hill I had no control, my back couldn’t hold the weight of my body, I’d fold over against my will.

I faked fine at the aid station. Up against skepticism I forced a smile, waved and headed out to the skyline climb.

As soon as I started going up I knew I was in real trouble. I could not stand up straight at all.

I’d seen this before. A runner that missed the cutoff at Hardrock came in this way. And I’d seen videos shared online of another runner that was crumpled up like this, but until it’s you it’s difficult to comprehend a body being so defiant and unwilling to do something so basic, unwilling to be upright.

I felt the race slipping away again. After I’d worked so hard to get back into the safe against cutoff zone. After 116 miles with only 10 to go, I could not be at anything other than a 90 degree angle, pushing on my thighs for support.

I literally tried crawling to see how much faster that would be. Then I started digging around for sticks. I found a couple of awkwardly shaped sticks and started using them to lean on and pull myself up the mountain. It was pathetic and painful, and occasionally I’d abandon a stick for a better shaped one. Just up this mountain and down to the finish didn’t feel so “just” anymore.

A runner and his pacer went to pass me, and then they stopped with concern.

“My back… I destroyed my back. I can’t… I can’t stand up… but I’m trying to find a way to make it work and get it done, so…”

I nodded to my sticks.

The runner said, “Take my trekking poles!”

“No, no, I can’t. I’m not going to impact your race…”

Then his pacer stepped forward and said, “I just started. I’m fresh. This isn’t even my race. You’re going to take my poles, and I’m going to see you at the finish line. What’s your name?”

“Karmell…”

“Karmell, I’m Renee, and I’m going to see you at the finish line. I know it. I’m going to see you there.”

I broke down. I knew it was the only way that I’d have a fighting chance. I accepted the poles, which she adjusted for me (I’ve never used poles before), and they were off. I believed, in that moment, that I’d see her there, at the finish.

But that climb. It kept going.

The sun started rising as I went above the lower tree line. “I hope I don’t have to go up that,” I thought, seeing a peak in the distance.

Sure enough, had to go up that.

Then it happened again. Another peak. The path twisted and turned and led to that peak.

“Well that’s got to be it, it’s all down now,” I thought, following the trail down into the woods, physically spent, dehydrated, behind on calories. Without a moment to lose.

The trail dove down and I felt so incredibly relieved—“just down now!”—and then, unexpectedly, the trail came back out of the woods and revealed another peak, with an even steeper climb than the last two.

I fell to my knees and ugly cried. I literally screamed out loud, “No! No no no!! Please! No! I can’t, I can’t. Fucking no more climbs!”

The possibility of a finish was all but gone. The summits of the Skyline Trail seemed like they’d never end. I’d need to average over 4 miles per hour, and I was literally on my hands and knees crawling while pulling trekking poles because the path was too narrow and rocky right then to use them.

I thought about something Nettie—our friend who has never DNF’d a 100 or 100+—said on our podcast: “It never always gets worse. Eventually it has to get better.”

And Jess, who compared 100-milers to an epic in which you can be your own villain or your own hero.

And I thought about Lee at No Business in 2020, when she’d jacked up her hamstring on a skateboard just prior, and all of the reports from runners coming in were that she was very bad off but in good spirits—and several hours after her projected time, she came in limping, but smiling.

I thought about the Women’s 100 Miler Project, where we ask women to be brave and realize how strong they are.

And I kept moving. There was literal crawling. There was using my trekking poles as crutches. There was pausing to force-feed myself a gel and an Oreo when sweet was the last thing I wanted, but knowing I was pushing my physical limits to the absolute max—and doing it without calories wasn’t going to do me any favors.

For two more peaks, I did this.

And then the real descent came.

My legs were okay. It was everything above them that was not. So, looking at the time and knowing I had to pull at least 5 miles per hour—and looking at how runnable the mountain descent was—I developed a run for my condition.

I was completely hunched over. Almost a 90-degree bend from the waist. I held one trekking pole up for balance and used the other as a third leg. And I ran. I fucking ran like that.

I must have been a terrible sight to see, but I did it.

Not only did I do it—*I fucking passed people.*

At a 90-degree hunch, yelling, “Don’t mind me! Threw out my back! Passing!”

I was moving so fast that hope started to return.

The scenery began to change. The land was flattening. I was at the bottom of the mountain—having done it, having gone at least 5 miles per hour for 45 minutes.

I saw some bystanders and they asked if I was okay.

“I just need to know how far until the finish!” I said.

“It’s just up ahead, just out of the woods!”

Fifty-five minutes. I had 55 minutes to get there. But I knew I couldn’t hold this pace much longer—I’d soon crash from overexertion, dehydration, and lack of calories.

After what felt like an eternity, I emerged from the woods… and the finish line—the finish line I expected to be right there—was on the other side of the lake.

My heart sank. Less than an hour. In my state, can I get around it in an hour?

I wanted to fall to my knees and cry again. I didn’t. I was stern with myself. I didn’t come this far to lose any time to that.

Still bent over at a 90-degree angle, I shuffled forward. There was finally enough space to use both trekking poles, which helped tremendously.

Around the lake wasn’t as far as I feared, and when I turned the corner toward the finish line, the crowd was silent. There was pavement leading to the line. I sidestepped into the grass so I could continue to use the poles.

The last hour of intense running had worn me down and exacerbated every agitated part of my body. Each step came with a tremendous pain penalty. I could feel eyes on me, but I didn’t waste effort looking up.

Tears spilled from my eyes—some from the pain, some from the finish line being so close, and some for *everything*. I winced with every clicking step forward.

As the crowd realized what was happening, they began to roar.

I was told later that everyone got up out of their seats—like a ripple effect—and then everyone else realized they should be standing too, and they *went crazy*.

I didn’t see it—only the ground.

With about ten feet to go, I intentionally dropped the poles in the grass. I wanted to cross that line under my *own* power.

Someone was talking to me. I didn’t even realize it was Lee until she touched my shoulder and took my hand. For a split second, I had her hand in mine, but then I thought—*no*. My own power. There could be no question of that.

So I let go. Grabbed onto my knees. Still hunched.

Only after I crossed the line did I grab onto her and lean on her—more than was probably fair, considering *she* had just run nearly 130 miles herself.

And then—well, I cried.

The belt buckle. The RDs. I barely remember them in that moment.

There was a guy named Ben that I’d leapfrogged with for the last third of the race. He was the last person to pass me, appalled by my state, up on the Skyline.

He saw us at the resort restaurant Sunday night, several hours after the finish, and confessed that after passing me on Skyline—even though I said I was going to the finish line (but probably wouldn’t make the cutoff)—he was really concerned about me being able to get there. He told the RD I was up there and that he didn’t think there was any way I’d make it down, and that they were probably going to have to send help.

He said when he saw me finish, he had to take a picture, and asked if he could have my number to send it to me.

This is the picture he sent me.

I’m still processing this race. I just know right now—it was one of the craziest, most memorable experiences of my life.