Nearly 150 runners. Almost 33,200 feet of vertical climbing. A grueling 102 miles through rugged terrain and extreme altitude of the San Juan Mountains.
The starting gun is set to go off at 6 a.m. today, and this year’s competitors in the Hardrock 100 will take off from Silverton into the tall mountains.
Many will take two days to reach the finish line. Some may not finish at all.
Just two days before the race, Durango ultrarunner Kyle Curtin seemed surprisingly calm for someone preparing to run the notoriously difficult race for the first time.
“I don’t get super nervous, really, for races anymore,” he said.
He was focused on staying healthy, downloading music to his watch and packing his gear – which included a large supply of Tailwind liquids and gels, the only calories he planned to consume during the roughly 24 hours he hoped to be on course.
Curtin has run about one 100-mile race a year in the 15 years since he first stepped into the world of extreme endurance running.
His strategy for the Hardrock is simple: run his own race, don’t go out too fast. It’s not a sprint.
When the going gets tough, he said, the plan is to take in more calories. Fueling is critical.
The casual way Curtin spoke about the run, and his many feats of endurance – last year, he broke the record for the fastest completion time on the Colorado Trail – masked the difficulty of the sport he has spent years training for.
But he said what he does isn’t all that special.
Anyone could do it, Curtin said, with enough preparation.
But does everyone want to?
This year, the race runs counterclockwise, and runners will summit Handies Peak – elevation 14,038 feet – at mile 38.
Running at high altitude for such long periods takes a toll, both physically and mentally.
“Your body behaves differently at those kinds of extremely high elevations,” said Brett Sublett, Hardrock course director and a three-time finisher. “It gets really hard to ingest any kind of food, and a lot of times you have to get most of your calories from a liquid source.”
Runners have reported hallucinations and even falling asleep mid-step.
Sublett said he’s never seen things that weren’t there, but described the mental decline during the race as similar to sleepwalking.
“I did have an experience where a friend I was pacing thought he saw people sitting around a campfire,” Sublett said. “We were out on the trail, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night – there was no campfire, and there were no people.”
He said he kept his response vague.
“I didn’t want to be like, ‘You’re losing it, buddy.’ I just wanted to give him confidence that everything was fine,” he said.
The average finish time of the Hardrock 100 is 40 hours. And for any race of a similar mileage, it takes intense time and dedication to be properly prepared.
What is it that draws ultramarathoners back to the punishing races like the Hardrock year after year?
Sublett’s theory: Optimism. And the love of a challenge.
“In the last miles of a race you’re miserable and uncomfortable, and you’re like, I’m never doing this again,” he said. “And then you finish the race, and literally three hours later, you’re like, ‘OK, well, next year I’m going to do this differently.’ It’s kind of funny that people are like, never again, and then you talk to that same person the next day and they’re like, I’m signing up next year.”
The benchmark in ultrarunning is often not about placement, but self-improvement. Runners push themselves to beat their own previous efforts.
“Racing isn’t really all that big a part of it. It’s more about challenging myself,” Sublett said.
Curtin echoed the sentiment. He’s been running ultramarathons since 2010 and said his motivation goes far beyond competition.
“It’s something I enjoy doing, and I enjoy getting better at – trying to better myself physically,” he said. “I like the competition side of things too, but if the races didn’t exist, I think I would still run.”
Living in Durango, Curtin is fueled by his love for the surrounding landscape.
“There’s just such cool terrain around where we live, and by foot is the best way to get to mountaintops and into the wilderness,” he said.
There’s also the camaraderie.
“Being able to share those experiences, I think, is something that brings joy to me while running,” Curtin said. “I really enjoy that feeling of just moving in unison together – and the shared understanding of what we’re doing.”
Curtin ran his first 100-mile race in 2010 after reading “Born to Run.” Inspired by his competitors, he went back two more times to run that same course.
His athletic peers have continued to motivate him. Watching Killian Jornet, a world-renowned endurance runner, finish the Hardrock alongside Durango local Jason Schlarb in 2016 added more fuel to his fire, Curtin said.
“That 2016 race was the first one that I kind of watched and I think that was pretty inspiring,” he said. “… He’s (Jornet) won every race, has the record up Mount Everest. He’s done everything. So it’s pretty cool to see somebody like that come to a local race.”
Since the inaugural race in 1982, interest in the Hardrock 100 has only grown.
This year, 3,022 people from all 50 states and 75 countries entered the lottery for one of the 146 available bibs, said Dale Garland, race director and one of the event’s five co-founders.
For many, the wait spans years. It took Curtin a decade of trying to finally have his name pulled.
Ultrarunning has gained more popularity over the past two decades. When the race first started, it offered a really unique challenge, Garland said.
Now, in Garland’s words, “You can’t throw a stick and not hit a 100-mile run someplace in the United States or in the world.”
But what makes the Hardrock 100 special was never just about the length.
“People come to Hardrock because they want to be part of a community that celebrates not only athletic accomplishment but family and commitment. Being a part of the Hardrock community is something pretty special, and people seem to gravitate to that,” Garland said. “Whether you’re a runner or pacer or a volunteer or whatever you do – you’re a part of our family. We have a big tent.”
It takes hundreds of volunteers to put on the event each year, and each of the 146 runners has a crew that supports them, trying to make sure the runner crosses the finish line and kisses the rock.
“No one runner is doing all this on their own. They’ve got a whole team of people behind them that are sacrificing as well,” Sublett said. “So that feels really good when you cross the finish line – that you know it was a team effort.”
Curtin’s race crew is staffed by many of the same friends who supported him and accompanied him on his record-breaking run on the Colorado Trail last year.
Over the years, as the endurance sport has picked up steam and transformed into a multimillion-dollar industry, Hardrock has remained a nonprofit entity, Sublett said. It is what has drawn him to continue participating in various capacities, year after year.
“It’s not necessarily about running fast or raising money,” Sublett said. “It’s just about being in the mountains and giving everybody a good experience and getting to share this beautiful place that we’re lucky enough to live in.”
Those interested in following the race can access live footage on Mountain Outpost livestream on YouTube and track the runners’ live locations on the Hardrock GPS tracking site.
jbowman@durangoherald.com
Brett Sublett’s name was misspelled in a previous version of the article. The Durango Herald was provided with incorrect information.
