A sunset and morning in the Valley of Fire...

[The story of the trip to the Valley of Fire for a marathon, with my friend Chris.]

We arrived at the Valley of Fire Friday afternoon, we chose to drive through the park to try to understand how bad the "hill from hell" would be. The "hill from hell" was a hill from mile 13 to mile 20. It climbs 1000' over that distance, but the real HILL FROM HELL was the hill from mile 17.5 to mile 20. As we drove into the park we saw a lonely purple port-o-let on the side of the road about a quarter mile before the road dove down into the Valley of Fire. I thought that was a strange spot to put a port-o-let. The next day I would find out why. As we drove into the valley we stared seeing American flags and mile marker signs for the VOF Marathon. We realized we were actually driving on the next day's race course. When we realized that we were thinking the hill from hell wasn't *that* bad. Not impossible by any means. We drove further into the valley and stopped at Atlatl Rock to take some photos of the rock and the valley. The rock had petroglyphs that were very cool. We knew the race course looped around that rock on the way to the HILL FROM HELL. So we drove the loop, many of the photos here are from the loop and the rock. All of the photos are from the 2nd half of the course. The first half of the course is in the photos here. After completing the loop we continued down past the visitor center and on to Overton for our night's stay before the race. We were re-assured, the hill from hell didn't appear all that bad, the valley was truly incredibly beautiful. Our spirits were mellow. We weren't really terribly concerned because we didn't have pressure to turn in a particular time. Just finish.

The next morning we left the hotel a 6:10 for a race that started at 7. That was nice :) We got to the visitor's center (the start) and picked up our chips, dropped our sweats at the "bag check". (The bag check was wherever people wanted to put their bags.) And prepared to start. The weather was cool, not at all cold. I quickly took off the long sleeve shirt I was planning to start in. I wouldn't need it. No lines at the port-o-lets.A big cow was being inflated to help us find the finish line. We lined up at the start with what seemed to be about 50 other people. A gentlemen sang the national anthem and we were off.

The First Half

The course left the visitor center and immediately turned right and UP straight UP. We climbed a over 400 feet in the first mile, then down, then up, then down, then up, then down, then up, then down, then up.. you get my drift. The first half of the course was ALL HILLS. Actually approximately 2000' of climb and descent in the first half of the race according to my Garmin. NOT what we had expected. Yes, the website did show hills in the first half, but they made such a big deal about the HILL FROM HELL, we just didn't internalize the hills of the first half and their likely impact. Our plan was to do a run / walk interval of 6/2. However, we quickly decided to do our walks on the UPs and runs on the DOWNs. Its good we decided on this plan.. Chris' Garmin, which was tracking our intervals, flipped out after about 9 miles and stopped working. Speaking of Chris, did I mention she's a hiker? Chris can walk up a hill faster than most people run them. It was very good for me to try to hang with her, my walking was much faster than it would have been otherwise. I have finally locked in a great downhill running technique and Chris would try to hang with me on the downhills. We figure between the two of us, we have one great runner :). Anyway, that's what the first half was like, Up and Down, and Up and Down. One would think this is hell, but it was not. The scenery was amazing, just amazing. The photos at the links above don't really do it justice. But it was awesome. Whenever I was feeling bad, I would look around me and get distracted by the incredible vistas we ran through.

We also met some interesting people on the first half... the race was more like a trail run or an ultra than your standard marathon. Those of us not worried about winning were quite interested in starting up conversations with people we passed and who passed us.

First we met GoArt. We called him GoArt because he has a shirt that says "Yell 'Go Art!'". When talking with this gentlemen, we found he was a dentist from the east coast. He was running his 256th marathon and he was planning on running another marathon on Sunday in Kansas. He'd done 3 "circuits" of the 50 states and he had run a marathon on 4 of the 7 continents. He wants to be the first dentist to run a marathon on the 7 continents. He said he wanted to finish under 6, we wanted to finish under 7. He said we would have no problem. He pulled ahead, later we passed him as he was asking a bunch of kids who were running the 10k to guess how many marathons he had run.. it was funny. "How many marathons have I run?", "10", "Higher", "100", "Higher", 200, "higher", etc. We passed him there and didn't see him again until mile 21.

Next we met Pepe from Corsica. Pepe hadn't run too many marathons. He actually lived on the East Coast. But he kept saying how he should have brought the right charger for his camera because no-one would believe him when he described the terrain. He said he had a bad burrito the day before and ended up spending the day in the bathroom. That was affecting his race. We had fun talking with him for several miles. Discussing barefoot running and vegan diets. Then he pulled ahead of us for a while.

The first half was all hills and chatting with the other runners. I'd never been to a marathon where so many people that were willing or interested to talk. It was more like a trail run than a typical marathon. The hills added to that aspect. As we came back down the steep hill to the start/finish/halfway point my groin pull injury from 4 years ago flared up hard. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to go on, but I just kept running.... the pain eventually subsided. Chris and I debated and we decided to go ahead and do the full. We had completed the half in 2:30 which, while not great, was definitely enough time for us to walk the last 13 miles if we had to.

The Second Half

On to the second half, we passed GoArt shortly before the half way point. We caught up with Pepe again and ran with him for a couple miles until he pulled away shortly before Atlatl Rock and the loop around that point. The stretch from the mid point to Atlatl Rock looked flat, it wasn't. It was up hill. This was the beginning of the 1000' climb to the 20ish mile turn around point. For the first bit we ran a bit and walked a bit, and repeated. We put together a run at the beginning of the Atlatl loop but it soon stared climbing again.

I believe it was somewhere before we go to Atlatl that I asked Chris if she would ever run this course again. She said "no". I agreed. This was my 11th marathon and definitely the hardest I'd ever run. It was more like a trail run than a paved marathon in difficulty. The scenery was amazing, but having seen it on foot once, neither of us felt a burning desire to see it on foot again.

We ran whenever there was a down hill, but I started dragging even more. My legs just didn't want to run. We finished the loop and started up the road we drove in the day before. The miles passed amazingly fast considering we were doing 13 - 16 minute miles on the up hills, and all of 13 - 20 was up hill. Finally Chris went on ahead of me, I just couldn't keep up with her power hike walking. She would glance back once in a while and I would wave.

I came around a turn and I saw the road we were on going up a long, steep, hill to the valley edge. I actually said aloud "Oh, Hell No." as I realized there were dots of runners running UP that f*ing hill. THIS was the HILL FROM HELL. It was then that I remembered that lonely port-o-let a quarter mile away from the valley edge. I knew then that was where I was going. Chris was disappearing up the hill, I was trudging after.. another fellow was between us for most of this distance. Chris stopped at the top to take a photo of the valley from the top. I caught up with her and we ran together to the final turn around.

We stopped at the turn around, gelled, bathroomed, watered, and generally delayed. Finally it was time to do the return trip. I told Chris to go on ahead. I could do the rest of this on my own. She seemed to have picked up on my downhill running technique. She quickly pulled away. One the way back down the HILL FROM HELL I saw GoArt. He said he ended up running an extra mile in the campground. I don't know how he did that, the campgrounds were near the Atlatl loop and clearly marked with "RUNNERS DON'T GO HERE". I figure maybe 26.2 wasn't far enough for GoArt.

All that remained was 6 miles down. My downhill running technique relied on legs that could keep up with gravity. I did the best I could, better than I expected. But it was hard. I stopped at every water stop, gasping and coughing, but I was OK. I walked on any excuse of an uphill I could find. Finally I got past 23 miles and I could see the visitor center with the large cow in the distance. I ran, slowly, but I ran. As I did I thought of all of the challenges this year, both for myself and my family and I didn't care a bit about my time. I was finishing this marathon! I almost cried, but didn't. Didn't quite have the breath for it.

Got to the final "slight uphill" towards the finish. Couldn't run anymore. I walked as fast as I could, turned the corner and ran as fast as I could. I crossed the finish line in 5:34. I couldn't breathe very well at the finish. I got my medal, they took my chip, handed me some cold, wet, rags. I just coughed and coughed. Chris was there. Pepe from Corsica congratulated me. It was great. It took some time to catch my breath. We headed over to the blow up cow for chocolate milk. We quickly downed the milk and made sure to keep moving around.

The End

We were both stunned. The course was significantly more difficult than we had expected. It was the hardest marathon course I've ever run, (out of 11), but we both did very good. Chris finished about 7 minutes before me I think she could have finished another 10 - 15 minutes quicker if she hadn't stuck with me.. but then again, she could have worn herself out early. We were just thrilled with our result. The course was amazing, the weather perfect and the people were awesome. Pepe did well and talking with him we agreed yet again to not run this course again.

At this point we were introduced to Cowboy Jeff, Cowboy because of his trademark hat that he wears on his marathons. He's a Marathon Maniac... its a group that makes the people who run all 50 states look mundane and perhaps a bit lazy. He was on his nth circuit of the 50 states... on his way to somewhere back east for another marathon next weekend. He, too, agreed this was the hardest marathon he'd run. Chris and I agreed that this course made Big Sur (famous for difficult hills) look flat. Cowboy Jeff had never run Big Sur but we told him he really needs to :-)

We felt recovered enough to hobble back towards the car.. both of us sore, but not injured. As we made our way back to the car we saw GoArt headed up towards the finish. He looked totally spent. Cowboy Jeff offered him water.. GoArt just grunted and kept walking. Well, that's what happens when 26.2 isn't enough. I am hoping GoArt had an easier marathon on Sunday.

We went back to the dusty parking lot and a couple was trying to get out of the sand pit they parked in. They were using their floor mats to try to get out of the pit. That wasn't working well. We all walked up and volunteered to LEAN on the truck and help them get out... it worked. We said goodbye to the stuck couple. Goodbye to Cowboy Jeff. Got in the car and drove back to the hotel for a shower. On the way out we saw GoArt. He was looking much better. Hopefully he had a great race today.

The last note.. on our flight back to San Jose we sat next to a guy from China.. he was quite talkative. Chris told him about our marathon, etc. When we landed Chris and I got our bags and we hobbled up the jetway.. the Chinese guy was right behind us. When we got out of the jetway he said, I'm not kidding.

"You call yourselves marathoners? You walk like ducks. I walk faster than you!"

We laughed and explained that most marathoners walk like this after a marathon and he would be walking like that too if he had run the Valley of Fire Marathon :)

If you would like to see the stats of the race... this is the link off my Garmin. Go to the splits tab for splits, ignore the last split, I hit "lap" instead of "stop". The player tab shows the elevation and pace and you can even see the terrain and satellite view of the course. They haven't posted the official results yet. When they do I'll link to them. For me the event was 3,239 feet of climbing, 3,187 feet of descent, 5 hours 34 minutes of running. More like a trail run than a marathon. But very very rewarding.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the result and extremely happy I did it. I will never run that course again. But it was worth the trip... and I DID IT!

Post script:
More pictures, and results. I finished 71 out of 80. I'm still happy about it!