Reprinted from Endurance News, September 2005, monthly publication of the American Endurance Ride Conference, www.aerc.org, 866-271-2372
Vermont 100 – Done By Dawn
a tale of determination, urination
and hallucination
After being pulled from Top of the Rock at 80 miles, I was left with some time to contemplate.
It was a tremendous relief to find that I could ride 80 miles and still be upright, conscious, mostly lucid and looking forward to riding the last 20 miles. I was impressed with my incredible horse, Ned, who I’m sure would have completed easily if it weren’t for an untimely case of scratches. My crew was running like a well-oiled machine, and willing, amazingly, to give it another go.
Of course, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed by not completing. It wasn’t just a personal challenge to ride 100 miles; I felt a bit as though I’d let down the at least 10 or 12 Endurance News readers who were following my exploits.
I gave Ned three weeks of rest in pasture, and he felt buoyant and ready and forward when I took him for a few rides to bring him back from his vacation. We set our sights on the Vermont 100, with the caveat that we would back down to the 50 if the weather was too hot. Mary Coleman and her mighty Morgan, Hawks Neopolitan, were hoping to join us, with a similar concern about the heat.
We hemmed, we hawed, we watched the long-range forecast. Then Mary did the darnedest thing. She packed her trailer a week in advance. For those who know the joy of packing up a living quarters trailer for a 10-hour haul, you know—you’ve made a very real commitment to making the trip.
My husband and I left home with Ned and his horse, Sarge, leaving various cats, dogs and horses in the care of our neighbors who you might see about town with little halos above their heads.
Arrived in camp on Thursday at noon, and Bill Rice helped us pick a parking spot. Bill, you may recall, wrote an article for EN last year after riding the VT 100 after years of running it. I asked him to tell me a bit about the trail (expecting the Reader’s Digest version) and I got details of every turn, hill, view, water tub, and runner’s aid station, including which ones served homemade chocolate chip cookies, and the station serving margaritas and cheeseburgers.
The Vermont 100 has been held for the last 17 years, and it is the only 100 mile run and ride run concurrently over the same trail in the USA. The run benefits the Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sport, and the runners so enjoy having the horses on course that the run helps subsidize the ride.
I’d ridden the Moonlight 50 two years ago with my chum Carla Pleszewski, and found not only the night riding magical, but also the camaraderie with the runners. It was my original choice as my first 100, and I’m thrilled it ended up being the first I completed.
We settled in to camp, asked everyone, and checked all three radio stations we could tune in about the weather. You see, my cut off for riding the ride was a max temp of 80°. But Mary, my 100 mile mentor, had packed her trailer, and she was coming. Damn it.
The best we did on weather forecasts was high of 81°, low of 61°, but we weren’t that lucky. It was much warmer on ride day.
There were about 30 riders entered in the 100, 40-some in the 50. Which included Hub (Richard) and Sarge who, having a wonderful base of about five middle-of-the-pack 50s, were suddenly unburdened of the stick-in-the-mud-worrywart wife.
The runners started at 4:00 a.m on Saturday, and had until 10:00 a.m. the following morning to officially complete. (Thinking about it will make your feet break out in blisters and you’ll want a nap.)
The riders started at 5:00 a.m. I was charmed when Mary kept reminding me that there was a lot of pressure for me to finish this 100 because of the articles in Endurance News, blah blah blah.
They have cutoff times at this ride, where they mathematically determine (without regard to time of day and heat and the difficulty of the course at various points) the latest you can arrive at each checkpoint. I was a little concerned by this concept, as I knew heat would be an issue for Ned, and now I had to worry about additional time constraints other than the 24 hours maximum to complete.
Starting out slowly
The ride is a single 100-mile loop, which means crews do nearly as much driving as riders do riding. Not an easy ride to crew.
We headed out at the back of the pack, and handily made the first hold, a 10-minute stop-and-go (no vetting, no pulsing down, just your crew and a snack and a lot of sponging) by the cutoff time.
I had my first public peeing episode at this stop-and-go. With Ned’s head firmly in his slushie bucket, I headed to parts (I thought) private to do my business.
Unfortunately, there was a driveway just down the way and a crew driver left the stop-and-go as I was midstream. There was nothing to do but wave cheerfully with my riding tights around my ankles, so I did, with a big smile on my face.
I’m not sure the total number of people involved with the run and ride, but I’m confident a fair share of them witnessed me going to the bathroom by the time we completed.
As it stood, I think I peed about 18 times during the ride (not like me to be dehydrated, as it’s embarrassing to fall off your horse unconscious and all) and I peed in a porta-potty exactly twice. You do the math.
With the first 12 miles completed and my bladder emptied, we headed off to the first vet check at 18 miles.
Mary noticed that the trail was very up and down. No flat. Unforgiving. She also noted that it was rather hot and humid. Something I had hardly noticed as the sweat poured down my back. At some point or another, I pointed out to Mary that she was whining, at which point she mentioned that it was a good thing we didn’t much like one another as we were unlikely to be friends by the finish of the ride.
When we arrived at the hold, my tireless crew, Anita and Gary, were there with muck tubs and slushie and Desitin and all. There was lots of yelling and ice water flying, and Ned was slinging slushie about wildly, and as a person who enjoys peace and quiet, Anita proclaimed that she was planning to stay “in her happy place” throughout the ride. Ah, the joys of crewing.
Ned pulsed down beautifully, Hawk hung, then spiked again at the pulse in, and had to be re-checked. Ned was all As as he was vetted by Heather Hoyns and we chatted about his scratches. Already his pasterns were pink.
Since it was scratches that caused us to pull at Top of the Rock, I was really worried about them for this ride. Heather simply advised that every time I saw my crew, we were to dry Ned’s legs thoroughly and Desitin “the heck out of them.”
Hawk vetted through fine, and I managed to pee without getting caught here but had a tough time pulling up my tights with the humid weather.
After this hold (19 miles), we had a 22.8-mile stretch to the next vet check with two crew spots in between. Both Mary’s and my crew met us faithfully out on trail, cooling the horses and re-applying Desitin and electrolyting. I do recall peeing once in very tall grass (surprisingly private despite the close distance to other humans—a little gem of information that I hope can be of benefit to some other desperate rider some day).
Don’t let me forget the runners. At this point, they were completing, mileage-wise, what amounted to a marathon. These were the back-of-the-packers we were passing. All body shapes and types and all sorts of gaits, from power walks to jogs to actual runs and lots of kind of mini-jog shuffling. There was one woman I was sure must be just out for a stroll as she looked a bit like someone’s slightly chubby grandma, but sure enough, she was part of the 100.
At 41.2 miles there was a runners’ aid station—tables with fruit and potato chips and salted, boiled red potatoes in zipper bags and cups of water and unsweetened electrolyte drinks. Runners’ families/friends/fans cheered them on at some stations.
When I saw the mileage posted, knowing our vet check was supposed to be at 41 miles, I asked one of the workers how far to the vet check. She pointed up the road and said, “A couple of miles.”
Quite honestly, that was the low point of my entire ride. It was ridiculously hot and humid (even though it was only midmorning), I was worried about Ned’s scratches, and I didn’t know how many more times I could pull up my tights after a public peeing without actually wetting them.
It was only about a mile to the next hold, but boy, was I glad to get there. As they managed to do all day, Anita and Gary got a prime spot, and they iced Ned down like pros. He was down to 56 in about five minutes, and since Hawk was still up, they vetted him through. Nick Kohut was the vet, and we chatted about the scratches and he said to keep doing what we were doing. Ned came back to the tent and chowed down. (Yes, we had a tent for shade—Anita got it for me for my birthday. Yes, she has a halo too.)
Hawk would not come down. His pulse hung at 80. His eye didn’t look good either. If you can’t pulse down to parameter (64) in 30 minutes, you’re disqualified and that’s just what happened to Hawk. In over 3500 endurance miles, this was just his third pull. I was pretty sad to witness it.
[Note of good news here. While we were all concerned about Hawk, he was just fine after the ride. Worries renewed Sunday morning when he was three-legged lame on his left rear. We were all relieved when the big guy abscessed a few days—no doubt the reason for the hanging pulse—after arriving home, and as I type this, Hawk is sound once again!]
Here I peed between the two crew trucks with the doors opened, providing a mini-blockade, which was effective, of course, unless you were squatting.
Finding a trail companion
Minus one mentor, I headed out of the hold just after 11:00. Ned was cheerful about the whole thing. I saw that Kathy Downs (last year’s national BC champion) headed out just a few moments before me, so I yelled to her, “Hey, Kathy, do you and your horse want some company?”
“Sure, yeah!” she yelled back. Turned out she was on a 7-year-old in his first 100 and so she was glad for company for him going down the trail.
Her guy could jiggy-jog along downhill (something Ned just plain doesn’t do—we walk the downhills), but Ned trotted ahead of him and power-walked away from him on the climbs. It was a good Odd Couple match, and we were mostly silent as we rode along companionably, catching up to one another, riding alongside, then separating a bit again.
This was a 20-mile section with only one pit crew stop, which we were told was 10 miles into the trail. I told Anita I wouldn’t be there for a couple of hours. I heard somebody mention something about Agony Hill being just after the pit crew stop.
I was shocked when Kathy and I pulled up to the pit crew stop after, oh, say, 3.5 miles. “Uh-oh!” I said, purposely loudly. “My crew’s not here. Can someone tell them they missed me and that they should go on to the hold?”
(I was nearly in tears as I knew Agony Hill was ahead and my boy was seriously hot.)
“Come here, come here!” insisted Connie Walker’s crew (yes, they have halos too), and they started just pouring water on Ned. One crew member jammed a cold water bottle in my hand and ordered me to drink. I protested that they were using up their rider’s water, but one crew member proudly patted a 110-gallon tank in the truck and said, grinning, “And it’s cold too!”
That was the first time I cried—in gratitude. They promised to let Anita and Gary know they missed me, and I headed on my way.
Turned out Agony Hill was not any worse than most of the hills we do at Allegany, and Ned power-walked up it, occasionally stopping to munch grass so we could maintain a safe distance behind a runner and Kathy’s young horse.
At one point, Kathy freaked me out by telling me she thought we might have been off the course and missed the hold somehow. (I confess to having had a vision of Cosmopolitans with the friends back at camp who were coming to see us finish the ride. Bummer. Disqualifed. Off course. Better luck next time. Pass me the lime.) But it was not to be. Two riders cantered up, and confirmed we were okay. Apparently, Kathy’s recollection of the course was a little off (she’s only done it 15 times, after all.)
There were lots of residents along the road who put water tubs out. One resident on this section of trail had a tub and a hose with a spray nozzle. I asked if I could spray down my horse, and when he gladly obliged I sprayed Ned down generously, and thought I’d just spritz my face. Um, wrong. I soaked my whole front. This had major chafe implications but I didn’t realize that until about 5:00 a.m. or so.
Arrived at the hold at mile 61, where the ice water sloshing began again. Mary and her husband Charles were there, and reported that Hawk was fine, eating like a pig, cheerful, but pulse still fairly high. Mary’s now-idle crew, Cindy Simcox, was staying with him until she headed out to crew for my husband, Richard. [More halos, as Cindy helped crew Hub and his wonderful horse, Sarge, to a third place finish.]
Here I let Anita/Gary/Mary take Ned down to the vet without me (a first) because I was feeling decidedly not-so-great. I soaked my head from one of the tubs, re-applied deodorant, changed to a tank top. Drank Boost, ate cheese curds and drank water with Emergen-C (twice) and ate a lot of almonds. I was having no problem drinking, but eating was really difficult. However, I knew better than to skip eating at a hold. I had a long way to go.
I peed twice in full view of the trail and didn’t get caught. Things were looking up.
Hitting the trail alone
Just 10 miles to the next hold, but I’d lost my trail companions during my hose soaking. No matter, it was well worth it. They were about 10 minutes ahead of me out of this hold and I never saw them again.
I was a little concerned about being all alone but needn’t have been. Ned was wonderful company, and marched along, offering to trot when he felt good, slowing down when he needed to and picking up speed whenever: (a) he saw runners ahead, or (b) he went past a runners’ aid station where everybody, inevitably, applauded. I’m sure he thought he was about to get his Olympic medal.
Along this stretch of trail was the runners’ aid station called Margaritaville. You guessed it, Jimmy Buffett music, fresh-grilled cheeseburgers, beer and yes, margaritas. As I walked up I called out, “Hey, I hear you have great margaritas!” and was immediately offered a cocktail. I passed, imagining technicolor margarita reflux, but got a giggle out of it. (Some of the runners really do consume alcohol during the run.)
Some of the runners were rather chatty as we passed on the trail. (The margaritas, mayhaps?) Some had questions about the horses. Others just raised a hand as I passed and said, “On your right here. Howyadoin’?” A couple said nothing, did nothing. Can’t say as I blamed them. Inevitably, if they greeted me first it was with, “Good job!” (This is obviously ultrarunner speak for I’m-chafed-and-blistered-and-delirious-but-still-moving-how-about-you.)
Saw Anita and Gary at a pit crew stop just before heading up Heartbreak Hill (gulp). Steve Rojek and his riding companion, Hernan Barbosa, caught me there, and headed up to the hill first. Steve had been having trouble pulsing his horse down, but he’s usually a front runner. (This left me, er, last.) Once again, I was relieved the climb wasn’t as steep or long as I’d anticipated.
Walking with the runners
By this time in the day, I had enough of a cushion with the cutoff times that I knew I could pretty much walk Ned in. And since he was tiring, and it was getting dark, I anticipated that was just what I’d do.
Ode here to horses with good walks. Ned, when motivated, can easily walk 4 to 4.5 miles an hour over just about any terrain. That’s just what he was doing, as though it was perfectly normal to be riding with a bunch of runners and cheering folks along the road, and having his rider dismount and pee in various public places.
We arrived at Tuacknback Farm (70 miles), which is a gorgeous farm with yellow and fieldstone home and barns and outbuildings. I just can’t believe they let us have a vet check in their front yard.
Ned pulsed and vetted uneventfully and things were starting to wind down at the hold. I checked on Rich’s out time and he was setting a good pace in the 50. Ned settled into his slushie and I used an actual porta-potty and baby powdered my whole body in there. Must have looked like a cocaine factory blew up in the john when I was done, but I was baby-powder fresh.
Anita, Gary and I pored over the directions to the next crew stop, leaving Ned entirely to his own devices, and he wandered off through the yard, sampling from piles of hay, got caught by Rojeks’ crew and returned to us with a laugh.
It was just starting to get dark. I had my a flashlight on my wrist and one attached to the saddle (as a backup), and two glowsticks on Ned’s breastcollar, reflective stickers on saddle and shoes. I think 9:04 was my out-time. This was when we really started to enjoy and count on the runners. At 70 miles, they may join up with a pace runner. Ned made a friend on this stretch of trail.
One of the pace runners started chatting with us, asked Ned’s name, and we began talking about distance running/riding, and it turns out there are a whole lot of similarities with training, conditioning, resting, and riding from vet check (or aid station) to vet check without considering the entire distance to be ridden/run.
The neat thing about the runners is that they’d pass us on the downhills, we’d pass them on the climbs, and we’d lose each other whenever one would stop at an aid station/vet check, then meet up again later. I must have met up with John and his runner about six times over the course of the evening/night.
Every time he greeted us with, “Hey, there’s my friend Ned.” I swear that Ned was looking for him. John was extremely considerate about the flashlight (most riders were) as he understood it interfered with the horses’ night vision and often caused them to stumble, trip or get off trail.
By this time, too, it seemed the aid stations had gotten wind that we were the last horse/rider team so they applauded thunderously as we came by. Ned was really impressed with himself.
Eventually we got separated from the runners—there must have been a fairly big gap between them, and so I was relying purely on glow sticks to keep us on course, some hard-packed road, some trail.
Ned was mostly walking, which was fine. I’d occasionally ask him to trot, stretch him left and right for a few strides, make sure he still felt sound (inevitably he did) and when he asked to walk, I let him.
I carried a crop and I’m sure I could have made better time had I been willing to apply it, but quite honestly, aware that Ned was carrying my ample personage for 70 miles cheerfully and with miles to go, and knowing we could make time, I was hard-pressed to spank him forward.
Let the hallucinations begin
Part of the trail here separated the riders (this one flying solo) from the runners for a bit. Ned was pretty sad to see the runners go one way and had to be persuaded (I might have had to use the crop there) to go the other.
Passed one glow stick. Traveled about 1/3 mile up the road. Nada. Started to worry there was a turn arrow direction plate by that glow stick that I’d missed. Damn. Kept going. Saw a blue light ahead, and I swear I thought to myself, oh-darn-that’s-the-light-from-a-TV-in-the-second-floor-window-of-that-house and turned back 1/3 mile to that previous glowstick to make sure I hadn’t missed a turn. When I hadn’t, and I walked back again (as if I needed to do more mileage) I realized there was no TV, no second-story window, no house, just a glow stick. Sigh.
Since I’d been warned I might hallucinate, I just sort of giggled, patted Ned, apologized to him, and we carried on.
Whoever said that the difference between riding a 50 and a 100 is almost exclusively mental was absolutely right on. It was. And I thought I might be going mental.
There was a long downhill so I dismounted and peed (of course) and spent another half-mile or so walking along to find a place to mount 16+ hand Ned, who seemed decidedly taller at this late hour. I have no idea what the structure was that I climbed onto but I somehow pulled myself up onto it with the aid of a tree trunk and persuaded Ned to sidle up parallel so I could climb aboard. I cried again because it was clear that my horse was determined to take excellent care of me.
I was thrilled to see the crew truck and called out “Anita? Gary?” But there was, um, no one there. After that one, I slurped down some Gu and a whole bottle of water.
I finally joined up with the real Anita/Gary and they figured it was about three miles to the next hold. That would be 88 miles and then just 12 miles back to camp.
Unfortunately it was more like five miles to the hold, but we’d met up with some runners at that point, and I knew where I was from having scoped out the last few holds with a friend the previous day, and Ned sadly left the runners to head off on his own to vet through.
There were about five volunteers there, including the vet, waiting just on us, so I thanked them for working so late, and they watched as we crewed Ned. He pulsed down, trotted beautifully in the indoor arena, and was all As. He ate his slushie, then dragged Gary around eating grass.
I found out Rich left the hold at 8:35, and was one of the front runners. Yippee, hubby and Sarge! I was sure he would finished and sound asleep by this time.
This was a 30 minute hold, and I was feeling positively awful again. I tried but couldn’t eat a sandwich, and finally downed some Cytomax, packed up two more packs of Gu and fresh water bottles and managed to choke down half a PowerBar. I’m sure Ned looked way better than me at that point. Pulsed down at 12:38, out time 1:08.
Oh, and a highlight, I got to pee in a porta potty there too. And no line!
Walked, strolled, jogged once or twice and got to the next pit crew spot. Just saw a snake in a tree on this stretch of trail. It was a big one.
I was amazed at Ned’s voracious appetite at this point. From this point to the finish, he wanted grass, and would gladly have stood for minutes, maybe hours, grazing along the roads. We’d stop for a few minutes so he could munch, then I’d nudge him along, and off we’d go.
I heard Anita yell for me from the joint rider/runner pit crew stop, and when I got to the truck I asked Anita if she really yelled. Yep, she had. What a relief.
Now Anita was starting to worry about me making time. We had an in-depth discussion while I peed in the woods. I reassured her that I had been calculating in my head and that I had plenty of time. Then I confessed I had been hallucinating and couldn’t be sure my math was very accurate. She confessed she’d seen a two-story horse statue across the road while waiting for me. I didn’t ask her to confirm my math.
We both agreed I should hustle along and I did just that. Gary worried that the directions to the next crew spot were a little iffy; maybe they should just meet me at camp. “No, please,” I said, “can you just see if you can find it, and if not, just head in?” They asked what I needed there. I said I just needed them to check that I was okay.
I yelled out my no-doubt-confusing clarification to Gary about where the pit crew stop was as Ned and I walked away to the cheers of the runners’ station.
Heading to the finish
I met a runner along the trail as we waited for traffic to cross Route 106. “Howyadoin’?” I asked.
“Hanging in there.”
“I desperately need a shower.”
“I need to brush my teeth.”
Two delirious fools in the night, finding common ground.
So I hustled. We trotted, then walked, then trotted, then walked. I checked and re-checked my watch. I passed runners. I choked down the last Gu and drank more water. I patted Ned a lot and told him we were almost home and he’d get to see Sarge soon, and eat and roll and rest.
We came to the pit crew stop at the bridge and Anita and Gary were there, bless them. Can you believe I peed again? Gary grabbed my mounting block bucket and steadied me as I climbed back on. Anita’s teeth were chattering.
Gary looked at me steadily. “You’re just fine. You’re 2.1 or 2.4 miles from camp. You just enjoy the rest of your ride.”
I cried at his kindness as I turned Ned back on to the last leg of the trail.
The last couple miles were among the most technical, tricky trail and Ned marched along, scrambling over rocks and what I’m imagining were tree roots and little ruts in the ground. Up, down, around, and then the glowsticks turned to glowsticks in jugs, a sort of blue gauntlet to the finish. We started down the hill. I could just see the lights of the finish line.
And I did enjoy the rest of the ride.
Then I got a sharp stick to the eye. Literally. I remember pulling it out, though I now wonder if that part was a hallucination. I cried out of that eye a lot, and both eyes when I started to hear some whooping as I approached the finish line.
I smiled. I patted Ned.
More whoops.
I whooped back. Laughter and whooping and applause, and my dear, sweet, courageous friend Ned did the most amazing thing. He started trotting. And he trotted through that finish line and into his throng of fans.
My husband, Mary, my friend Carla (with whom I rode at TOTR, and who finished), and a bunch of friends—dressage queens all—who came just to see me finish (and to raid the ingredients for Cosmos from my horse trailer fridge, no doubt). They all surrounded us, clapping and cheering. Hugs all around.
I cried as we untacked and sponged and when my husband grabbed me and hugged me and told me he was proud of me, I just plain blubbered.
We, er, woke up Doug Shearer to do Ned’s final vetting, and while his back was sore and a B (30 miles of me on his back at a walk, no shock there), his trot-out was perky and willing and I think he was mostly As. I finally asked the no-doubt exhausted and not-too-chatty Doug, “Did we complete?”
“Yes.”
More tears.
I led Ned back up to camp amongst friends while my amazing crew and Hub packed up all the stuff —they weren’t quite done for the day.
Much laughter and joking and relief in a short period of time and I sent my friends and crew off to their hotel and took a blessed, wonderful hot shower and laid awake in bed reliving every moment.
Yep, I’m on Cloud Nine. Still.
Will I do it again, this ultimate challenge? Average me participating in the ultimate challenge for horse and rider? More than once?
You betcha. Care to join me?
Here is the pdf version, click here.