With everything going on with the recent UTMB by Whistler story sending quakes across the Trail running community, I find my recount of my experience of the Kodiak 100k by UTMB interesting. This is not a recount to bash the local Race Directors that put on the Kodiak events. This is to provide context to a larger discussion through my own personal account and that of my crew at a “BY UTMB” event. What we experienced at the Kodiak by UTMB event was traumatic and something that needs to be examined by our community if this is something we really want to support by participating in or not.
So what happened? Like any goal race, things started out normal. I signed-up, received the race emails, and notifications periodically and did my best to prepare for running at near and above 8,000 feet above sea level. For my work, I own my own sales agency/business primarily with golf brands so my prebook season has been in full-swing. With most days starting at 5 am and making it home by 9pm, sleep and recovery along with solid training have been tough to come by. That is ok but obviously not sustainable in the long term. For the race week, I worked a regional show in Maine, drove through tons of traffic back home, then we drove to catch our red-eye flight from Boston-Logan that night and just made our flight. Things were stressful and on our flight, it was difficult to catch any “quality sleep”. When our flight took an extra hour and a half to taxi, we eventually did not make it to sleep until 1 am Cali time meaning 4 am. Three hours later, my phone goes off for work calls. Mind you this is Friday the day before the race.
Things felt off from the get-go. With having to leave my trekking poles back in Boston (not allowed to go on carry-ons), missing-out on sleep and just additional stress, I was just thankful we made it to California in one piece. Then after Kelsey picked up her rental car, it was off to Big Bear Lake. Big Bear Lake is a resort community up at 6,700 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains about an hour and a half away from Los Angeles. Our drive out there took about 3 hours but we finally made it for packet pick-up, had some quick dinner at an Italian restaurant right near the finish line expo. We headed to our cottage and prepared to catch some sleep before I would have to be driven to catch a bus to the 100k start at 2:30am. We awoke and I definitely felt tired. I did not let that get me down. What I have learned in ultras is that you can always turn things around if you let them. After a little course-correction, we arrived at the correct bus location. I hopped out of our rental car and onto the bus. Everything was dark and cold. You could feel that nervous race energy. I was still too tired to feel anything but being a little drowsy. I arrived at the start line and there is a white tent, a warm fire where many runners were standing and some porta potties in the distance. I proceeded to eat my banana, fill up my bottles with Untapped Lemon Tea and Naak drink mix, my potent combo and talk with some of the runners. I talked about how I only had time to run the 100k and wanted to finish to get the stones for UTMB as a possible race to run in 2024.
Let’s fast forward….We line-up at the starting line and I see some familiar faces and like most races, they say go and off we run into the night, or early morning. It was dark and dusty out there. Immediately, the higher elevation was killing me. I ran maybe 1 minute with the lead group at a comfortable pace most days but I then had to incorporate some walking and running. I thought, over time, I hopefully my body would adjust to the higher elevation and possibly get stronger throughout the day. So I settled into a slower pace that was manageable. A ton of runners blew right past me. I then was running with Corrine Malcom and another runner. I really struggled navigating this tight windy path through trees and bushes. On one little section, I slipped and fell down. I proceeded to follow some more runners until the sun would come up. I was on top of a ridgeline just as the sun opened up and then it was another few miles to the aid station. It was here that I caught a few more runners and was feeling a little better. Altitude is hard for us sea level folk and everything just felt “blah”. I finally made it to the aid station where I would see Ashlee and then hit the biggest climb of the day up Sugarloaf Mountain at 10,000+ feet. It was at this aid station that everything changed. I looked down at my leg and my timing chip bracelet had fallen-off.
Ashlee asked a race official what to do and they advised I let a volunteer know at each aid station my bib number and that my chip had fallen off.
So with that information, I continued on. The climb up Sugarloaf was tough. This course I thought was going to be smooth California singletrack and it was very rocky with lots of loose rock. I struggled up the climb, hitting the top and then working my way back down. I was still close enough to the leaders on this out and back and that gave me some confidence that I was doing better than I thought. Maybe I could turn this around. I struggled through some more and heading back into the same aid station where Ashlee was I hit some 7:30 minute miles. Into the aid station I went and out I went after telling Ashlee, I was hurting from the altitude. For me, my heart-rate was spiking too high and I would have to relax my pace to get it under control. Here is where things get complicated. I was able to spend some time with Amanda Basham as she ultimately won and crushed it for the ladies out there! But at the next main crewed aid station, Ashlee and Kelsey were there and had told me that they had not registered me at any of the last 3 aid stations and I was listed as a “DNF” at mile 6 into the race. Now a 50k in, I refueled at the next ski hill and worked my way up the ski hill to the next aid station. If you take the altitude out of this, man I would have loved to rip on those trail as things had become a little smoother. But it had still been a death march.
As each aid station would come and go, I would notify the volunteer and they would write down my bib number and I would tell them my race tracker had fallen off. I hung around the top 10-15 most of the day. Once we hit the 40-50 mile sections, I was hurting. I went back and forth with one runner up in this cool high alpine rock garden section as the mid-day sun helped add a new challenge to the course. By the time I hit the 3rd to last aid station, I was gassed. A sat at the aid for about 20 minutes to recharge and refuel. Soon more runners came by and passed me. I linked up with one runner who was having a hard time who I called “Anchorage”, for the town he lived in. We worked together throughout this difficult stretch. We also caught a few other runners that stuck with us as we meandered through the woods of the San Bernardino Mountains. As we hit the last aid station, all we had left was a 10k to the finish. I was expecting to see my crew here but they were not there, thinking because of timing, would be at the finish line instead. As the sun was beginning to wane, I struggled through with Anchorage and another runner as we worked through the ups and downs of the trail before it meandered onto a dirt jeep road. I soon hung behind them until Anchorage pushed at a quicker clip and the other runner we were with dropped back for a bathroom stop. I pushed all I had until we hit a 3 mile descent down into town.
I thought about how thankful I was going to be with being done with this run. Totally drained, it was time to just get this thing finished. My legs seemed to bounce back as I pushed with 2 miles to go. I soon passed a race official or what it seemed like it and asked if my name was Cole Crosby. I said “Yes”, stopped in my tracks and he said “I need to pull you off the course”. Perplexed I told him that I was just about to finish this dang thing and had no idea why I would need to be pulled off the course. I was not going to DNF this thing. As I was stopped, I could hear the official talking on the phone saying that my wife wanted to talk to me as they were worried sick and had not seen or known my whereabouts for almost 7 hours. It was hard to process all this literally learning of the news just 10 minutes away from finishing the race. I talked with my wife, Ashlee and she was truly worried. I hung up the phone and then proceeded down the mountain into town and then into the finish. As dusk started to take shape, I turned the corner and then sprinted into the finish line into Ashlee’s arms. I was pale in complexion and absolutely exhausted.
So what happened? Well ultimately, my ankle tracker fell-off 6 miles into the race. From there, the athlete tracking system marked me as a DNF 54 minutes in. As I checked-in at each aid station, the volunteers and race command did not relay my bib number info and registering that I would need to be manually entered. I was checked in at the 50k mark which was a main crew aid station and after that, I was a ghost. It was lucky I have had a ton of experience out in rural and extreme outdoor environments because say if I was hurt or injured, the UTMB Kodiak team would have had a major runner safety issue on their hands. The whole experience rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, I did not have nowhere near a decent race for me, but that was besides the point. That I was a unaccounted for runner for over 7 hours was just not a good look. That my team had no idea where I was nor where to locate me other than going on the course in reverse until they found me is something they should not do. We pay these organizations large sums of money to ensure our safety and when something that could have easily been solved, wasn’t and it was at the risk of a participants safety and potential life, I was like “no”. At the conclusion of this trip, I felt that UTMB just did not provide me and my team value, and the race came at a cost of my own personal safety. That bit of confidence was lost and it is unfortunate, but that is how it goes sometimes. If myself in my job creates doubt in my sales approach to a customer, I could easily see it as a reason they would choose not to work with me. And so in the logic of how I work in my daily professional space, until any UTMB race shows me that I can participate and know that my safety and the safety of other runners’ is a major priority instead of financial gain, then I would consider running one of their events again. But until that point, I will spend my money elsewhere.
Cresting the Summit 