Hardthoughts 7 - Chris's 18th Loop

Debriefing Chris Twiggs' "Tale of Two Days" see my mind. Speaker 2 Hey everybody, my name is Dan Ryan. I am the Media Director for the Hard Rock 100 Endurance Run and I am joined today by my Co host. Speaker 3 Chris Twiggs, 18 time hard rocker, Hard Rock board member and guy who I Dan, I'm just excited that I get to talk with you. We've we've texted a couple of times since we both left Silverton, but this is the first time we've recorded since then. I'm just I always love visiting with you. Speaker 2 And we're going to do kind of three episodes and I'll explain this in the other episodes cause who knows what order they actually end up going out in. It's. Speaker 3 Gonna be one of three or two of three or three of three. Speaker 2 It'll probably be two of three, but we're gonna do a series. We're gonna debrief with Dale in a normal episode format. We're gonna and then we're gonna do a hard thoughts episode with just Chris and a hard thoughts episode with just just me. Just I, just me. How would I say that? And just me, just me cool and. Speaker 3 Just Dan. Speaker 2 Just Dan and we're going to, you know, debrief our individual runs. Just a little bit of background. Chris and I probably spent 15 minutes of the run together. And so we really haven't heard anything about about about each other's runs. So, so you know, we're going to go for this. So how did the run We're going to start with Chris? How'd the run go for you? Speaker 3 You know, it was like so many ultras, certainly like so many hard rocks. For me, it is a tale of two of of two different days. And it's typical for me if if you, you know, if you talk to you talk to Dave, you talk to anybody who's been out there with me on previous hard rocks and certainly just look at my past results. I do, I have two different days. I have a very slow, Oh my gosh, is he even going to finish day one? And then I have a who is this guy and wow, he's actually moving and oh, OK, he's going to be fine second day. And that's what happened again this year. And and that's it's hard when I'm in day one, it's hard for me to remember. It's OK, there's a day 2. I'm going to get through it. I'm going to be, I'm going to do OK on day 2. And it's hard for me to remember that. And you know, Dan, someday I may not have a day 2 that that goes that way. I may have a day two that is as bad as day one because I'm not getting any younger. But so far that's, that's kind of the pattern that I have. So, yeah. So that's what it was. I I struggled really a lot my first day. Speaker 2 I think that stands up to to what I told Kieran when we were running together. He goes, when's Chris gonna pass you? And I said if he does, it'll be tomorrow. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, it was true. Energy Kicks, Catching Dan, Self-Paced Running It was true. Speaker 2 So So what were your like highest high points? Not literally don't say Handy's. What were your like highs and what were your lows? Speaker 3 Sure. So I'd say the first, the first high came, the first high came right after Uray. So it was late, it was dark, my younger son Brendan was pacing me and we had we had planned, I carried A5 hour, 5 hour energy and I had I don't remember who gave me this tip and it's certainly nothing brand new, but something that that was talked about out there this summer was was cutting back on caffeine. And so I had drastically cut back on caffeine in the month prior to Hard Rock. And so then on Friday night, middle of the night when I was being paced by Brendan, we started, we got through the pointless ups and downs. And as soon as we finished the pointless ups and downs, we started head up Bear Creek. He said, all right, I want you to take that 5 hour energy. And so before we got up on to Bear Creek, Uray, I pulled out my 5 hour energy, which had been with me the whole time. I had it from the beginning so that I wouldn't possibly forget it. And I took that. And I swear within 5 minutes I felt it working And that I mean, maybe, maybe for it to kick in that soon as placebo, but I got, I was, I was waking up. I was more aware, I don't know that I was necessarily moving faster, but I was more sure on my feet once that once that kicked in. So that was certainly my first real high point because there were not very many high points prior to that, to be honest with you. I'd I'd fallen a lot. I hurt. I got pretty badly hurt, honestly, between virgin, sorry, between yeah, between Virginia's and governor, I got pretty badly hurt and and then, you know, I but but but that was my first high point. My second high point was to be honest, the second high point was seeing you, and I don't mean it in a oh, good. I caught Dan way when I got into Grouse, my daughter who was an amazing, amazing crew chief. Not my mother has always been an amazing crew chief, but but my daughter learned from the best and she did a fantastic job this year. And when I when I was getting ready to leave or at some point while I was at Grouse, she said, she said, Dan, Dan isn't that far ahead of you. And she and she wasn't saying this in a go catch him way. She said he needs you. And I felt like, all right, I'm going to I'm going to go and I'm going to find Dan and I'm going to going to see see if I can, what I can do right. Well, there's only so much any of us can do out there, but at least you know, see how you're doing. And so when I caught you and, and you were still moving, you were still climbing. And I knew from where I was time wise that you were, you were going to be OK time wise. At least it felt like it at that point. So that was a, that was definitely a high point. And then the third and final and it, it, it got better. I mean, everything got better as we got closer to, to Silverton. But, but I'd say a Third Point that was really good for me was I got into the Burroughs aid station. I was able to eat at Burroughs, which a lot of times the second day, even though I'm moving faster or, or relatively faster the second day, I'm not necessarily eating well, but I was able to eat at Burroughs, which was great. They had a good food there. And then I had promised myself that I was going to run, use, run, walk, run on the road between Burroughs and Sherman. And I haven't always done that every year, but I brought a little Galloway timer with me and I told Wesley, who is pacing, my older son was pacing me at that point. I said, when we get there, we're going to do this. And so as soon as we left Burroughs, he said, this is where you said we were going to start running. I said, all right. And so I had my timer and I hit it in the first time it beeped and it was time to run. We were going uphill, which anybody who's done Hard Rock will tell you that road is uphill both directions, but I was, was going uphill and but damn it, I walked. I'm sorry, I ran. I ran when it beeped to run, I ran. And every time for those 4 miles, every time it beeped, I ran just like I said I would do. And I was that. I felt really good about that. And you know, I think, I think I passed 1 runner during that section, but it wasn't about passing anybody. It was just about being, being able to move down that road on my own terms. I'm not just struggling, not just feeling sorry for myself, but like, you know, hear the beep, I'm going to run. And so I was really, that was a really high point as well. Crepes, Oranges, and Aid Station Food Choices And from then on, I knew it was just, you know, it was just ticking off the miles. Speaker 2 So you said you weren't eating a ton on that second day. You were just oh. Speaker 3 No, I I was. I usually don't. I usually don't eat. I hardly eat at all. And this year my nutrition was on point. I was very happy with my nutrition. And when I got into the food I remember the most was the food at Burroughs. I had they had they had crepes and so I had a lemon sugar crepe and I had had smoothies. I had a watermelon smoothie. It was great. And then from then on, my favorite food at the aid stations from there on was oranges. They had oranges at most of the aid stations after their after that, including Pole Creek, right, which is out in the middle of nowhere. And they had oranges and they were great. So I actually had a lot of oranges, orange slices that second day, which is not something I normally look for necessarily, but it went, it went really well. But yeah, my nutrition was good. The only time I ever lost my stomach was right after uray. And it's my own fault. I didn't spend, I don't spend a lot of time in aid stations. And I ate half of a veggie burger, which sounded good, actually tasted good. But I didn't sit there and let it settle. I just, you know, I, I ate it and then I headed out and it didn't stay down, but, but everything else throughout Hard Rock did. So I'm, I'm really pleased with that. Speaker 2 What was your favorite food on course? Speaker 3 My favorite food on the course. Well I will say that the the crepe at Burroughs was really yummy. My daughter had ramen for me at Grouse and that was actually really good as well. Actually she had some of some of it at Telluride and some more of it at Grouse and that was really good. And what else did I have? I do, you know, I normally under normal years, I really look forward to the proges and the tequila at Virginia's up at Kroger's canteen. And this year I didn't even stop at Kroger's. I got up there and called my number in, called my number out. I walked right through the aid station and head straight down the hill. And I'm that may be the only time I've done that. Technical Descents and Racing with a Wrist Brace Did you take? Did you go off to the left? Speaker 3 I did. I went to the left and apparently, apparently there was a rope to the right. I never saw it. Nobody. Yeah, I never saw it. Nobody pointed it out to me. So I, I I went to the left and then I crossed over about halfway down. I crossed over to the middle where it seemed pretty good And and crutchy. Speaker 2 So I saw the rope and I was like, how many people are using the rope? And they said we've only had one. Watch it though because rocks will come at your face when you're using the rope and I was confused by that, but rocks at my face didn't sound like a really fun situation so I in. Speaker 3 General bad idea, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, so I went. I went to the left like everybody else did. How was your time? Speaker 3 Going off to me. Speaker 2 How was your time going off Grant Swamp Pass? Speaker 3 I think it was pretty good. PO PO Dog Vogler was up there and PO Dog pointed out like I started to head down. Deema Feinhaus got there. He and I got there about the same time and Dima started down to the right and I kind of started to head down behind Dima. And then PO Dog suggested starting to the left and then crossing over about halfway down. And so I took PO Dog's advice and did find, I mean, that's not, that's not an easy descent, right? It's, it's a nasty descent. I didn't get hurt. Didn't you know? I slipped quite a bit, but I didn't get hurt. And so I'll call that a win. Speaker 2 Did you have your gardening gloves with you or your work gloves? Speaker 3 So I had to you. Yeah. So I hurt my wrist a few days before Hard Rock. I hurt my wrist a few days before Hard Rock. And there was a chance that I had a broken wrist. And I'd had I'd gone to the emergency room in Montrose and I'd had it X-rayed. But there's a small bone kind of behind the thumb that if it breaks, it doesn't show up on an X-ray for it could be a couple of weeks after the injury. So I, I stayed, so I, so I, what I did is I, I stayed in a brace for the few days after that injury until Hard Rock started. And then Ken Gordon, Ken and, and Margaret Gordon's son is a physician assistant that works with a hand specialist. And he was there crew and his mom and and they he checked out my wrist and kind of gave me some gave it, gave it an exam and I showed him some smaller wrist guards that I wanted to wear instead of the bigger brace that I got from the emergency room. And he checked it out and he said, yeah, I think, I think that'll be good. I think that'll work. So I wore these wrist brace and I actually wore them on both wrists for the first, I'd say until Chapman, I wore them on both wrists and then it was starting to get in the way of the poles. And so I took the one off my left wrist, which is didn't have an injury, but I left the one on my right wrist. The rest are Hard Rock just in case, because if I fell again, which I did, I fell a lot, but I, I damaged, I damaged my right shoulder, I damaged my left hand, I damaged my left knee. I really messed up right, my right knee, but but my right, my right wrist was fine. So I kept on but but as a result, I couldn't wear gloves for all of Hard Rock this year. So thankfully there wasn't snow that my fingers were going to get cold in or anything like that. Speaker 2 Dude, I took a pair of leather work gloves with me and I I. Speaker 3 Don't blame you. Yeah. Speaker 2 I'll tell you more about that later. That that saved me. Yeah, I. Speaker 3 I normally do, yeah. I normally I, I recommend everybody carry gloves during Hard Rock. I recommend everybody put them on every single downhill. I used to put them on, but because of those risk guards I really couldn't do that this time. Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes sense. Air Quality, Dropping Out, Telluride Emotions What was your experience like with we had smoke this year, right? We had pretty significant smoke in places. Did that affect you your breathing at all? Speaker 3 You know, I mean, it probably did, did it? It surprised me, right? Because we started under beautiful skies and the air quality was nice at the start. Notwithstanding the air quality was nice. The bear at the start was a big surprise, right? That was cool. I mean, that's that's the thing. I'm surprised I haven't seen tons of pictures online after Hard Rock of that bear. But we started off and there was a freaking bear within the 1st 200 yards of the run. Speaker 2 It was sitting in that tree like I'm staying up here. One, these people look crazy and two, like I'm comfortable up here. Speaker 3 It wanted nothing to do with us, right? That bear wanted nothing to do with us. But I, people were pointing it out and I honestly thought this has got to be a, a stuffed animal. I thought there's no way this is an actual bear. And so I, but then I looked and the thing moved. So I realized, oh, that's actually a real bear. But but everything seemed good until pole Creek, right? OK, in the pole Creek in the I didn't really notice smoke. I don't recall anyway, I don't recall noticing smoke until pole Creek, but that's where I started and notice it. And I was, I mean, I could taste it, right? It was, I could taste it in my mouth. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure I noticed it in terms of my breathing, but I tasted it and it was it wasn't comfortable and I started thinking, well, it and maybe it was sooner than that, but it feels to me like that was where no, I'm saying pole, pole Creek. It was definitely there. Engineer is I guess where I first noticed it. And then yeah, engineer, engineer is where I first noticed it and coming down toward grouse, I actually wondered, is this are they going to call it right? I got I got past the halfway point. I was happy with that. I did. I don't know. I still don't know what the policy is going to be if or when Hard Rock has to get stopped part way through. I don't know what whether what it's going to mean for deferrals. I don't know what it's going to mean. You know, whether people will roll over, whether people will be called ADNF, whether people will be called a finisher if they've gotten to a certain point. The board never made a decision on that prior to prior to the run. Speaker 2 You know, so, so we're doing Chris and Dan's thoughts and I was, I was kind of thinking through this the entire run because I had some very bad smoke related issues. I've got bad lungs. I have sensitive lungs. I, there's probably no reason I should be doing 100 mile run at an average altitude of 11,000 feet. No one. Speaker 3 Should be. No one should be, but there we are. Speaker 2 Yeah, and when I was headed down into Grouse, I was thinking the same thing. But the consequences of dropping on your own volition as a never are massive. You lose all your. Speaker 3 Yes, devastating. Devastating. Like, put you back 10 years, Yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah. And that kind of bothered me a bit that the only reason I was continuing forward was because I won't get another shot for six to seven years of work, right, basically. And that and a couple of things kept me moving forward. But I think that's something that the board and you guys are gonna have to genuinely tackle as an issue because the vet, you know, no offense to veteran finishers, no offense to people who have finished multiple times, the consequence wasn't there if you dropped. Speaker 3 No, right. The consequence is much higher. Yeah, if you when you line up as a never. You are, you have, you have put all of your eggs in one basket and you are either going to end this experience moved to the finishers list or back at at the back of the line. And, and so you have to feel at the at the beginning of the run as a never. You have to feel confident that you're going to be able to finish, which is, which is an impossible situation to be in as a never because you haven't done it before. So how can you, how can you possibly be confident you're going to finish? And I, I told you a lot of stuff and other people told you a lot of stuff and we believed that you were going to get through it. But but you don't until you've done it, you don't know you, you can't, you don't have that that I have, which is, hey, I've done this before. I know it can do it. And so when I, and when I'm dragging on day one, which believe me, I was, I was, I was dragging so much on day one that when we got to Telluride, my, my parents were there, my mother-in-law was there. Like all my kids are there and my daughter-in-law is there. And my mother-in-law wanted to recreate a photo. One of my favorite photos is a picture of my daughter. I'm sitting in a chair at Telluride. My daughter's leaning over me, giving me a hug. It's a beautiful picture. I love this picture. And at one point, my mother-in-law asked Faith to get behind me and give me a hug. And I knew I knew exactly what she was doing. I knew she wanted to recreate that photo. And I couldn't. I was too emotional. I was going to cry. Really. I was absolutely. Oh, I was absolutely going to cry, Dan. I was so down on myself at Telluride. I was so disappointed in how slow I was going at Telluride. So you got. Speaker 2 To Telluride in 10 hours 43 minutes. Speaker 3 Yeah, that seems. Wow, that seems slow. That seems so I. Speaker 2 Got there in 9 hours 13 minutes. Speaker 3 So an hour and. Speaker 2 1/2 after you, yes, yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, a good lesson for people who are listening to this is I was very concerned going into the run about how long it took me to get to Telluride in a training run because anybody who went, who went to got to Telluride after 11 hours did not finish. Yeah. And it took me 11 O2, right. To get to in training. Yeah. In training, Yeah. In the run it took me 913. And people had told me that was going to happen. But you know, I think it shows that the first half of the run doesn't matter to a certain degree it. Speaker 3 Doesn't matter. I know, right? And that's, and so I know that I've, I live that Dan, I have lived that experience 18 times. I have lived that experience of my first day. I am I am a sloth and then passing people and and I can I can distinctly remember experiences on the first day when people would would pass me. You know, Kirk Apt I can remember passing me one time going counterclockwise. He passed me going up handies and I'm I'm like, I'm really dragging. And he said, well, I'll see you tomorrow. He did right. He did they do that my second day gets better, but I I'm not saying it doesn't necessarily going to happen to everybody right. I'm not saying stick with me on day one and you'll do fine. You may not. It just works out that way. So yeah, I was very disappointed in myself. I was very down on myself. I was very because I think the reason I was down on myself is I trained for this. I mean, like I truly, I trained hard for Hard Rock this year. I took it very seriously. I trained hard. I lost 20 lbs in four months, which I'm that I needed to do for myself anyway, but it sure as heck helped me with Hard Rock. And I just, I felt like I, I had earned a better experience because of all the hard work I had done. Overcoming Injuries with Dedicated Family Pacer Support And then there I was and I don't, I still haven't figured out exactly why now I fell. I fell a lot. I fell a lot. And the conditions were not great. I think a lot of people fell a lot. And I still haven't a wound on my knee. That's that's healing. You didn't. Speaker 2 Fall. Not once. Wow. Wow. Speaker 3 Good for you. Yeah, I had I had yeah, you didn't go through what I had to go through after Hard Rock getting my knee cleaned out and and then antibiotics and all that junk. So yeah, it was yeah, but but I, so I was, I was really down on myself. But, but when I this, this so when the smoke came, when I felt the smoke around engineer and then coming down into grouse, I, I was feeling better now, right. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on day. Well, I'm not on day 2 yet. I'm coming into day 2. But I've had that 5 hour energy. I I had a decent climb up through engineer. I was pleased with that. I caught up with Jameel at engineer aid station and and Jameel left engineer couple minutes after I did. And then I thought he caught up with me, of course, on the trail and I thought he was going to I I offered for him to go by and he's like, no, this is good. So he tucked in behind me and Wesley was pacing me and the three of us climbed up to O point together and and I and of course we know Jamil's, you know, Jamil is, he's got a he's got a routine, right? He's got a routine. And so I can't I knew I couldn't go as fast as he does on the second day, but but it but it at least I know, OK, I'm I'm here with another person who's going to finish. So I was feeling good about that. But once that smoke really got in my mouth, I was wondering what's going to happen? Am I going to get down to to grouse and have them say, hey, sorry guys, it's you're done. Hop in the car. And I wasn't hoping for that by any means. I was not hoping for that, but I really thought that was a possibility. I didn't know what to expect and I had no way of looking. I didn't have my phone with me. I had no way of looking up what the AQI was or anything like that. So it probably was high, but I don't know. And and then the next time that it hit me was over in the in the pole Creek area pole and Maggie, it was really smoky at that point. I'm like, well, they better not stop me. I'm this, you know, I'm less than 20 miles to go in the run and moving Well, so and again, I don't know if it was better or worse at that point than it had been at, at Grouse, but but I wouldn't say it's I wouldn't say the smoke slowed me down, but I would say I didn't like it. It it tasted nasty. And but in that, between that and the dirt that the, the dust that was coming up off of the Jeep roads and the, the Jeep roads and the trails, I was, you know, blowing my nose and all sorts of dirt and stuff were coming out. Speaker 2 And it looks like you only finished a few people after Koblenz did. The last time I saw him was. Speaker 3 Really. Speaker 2 Yes. Speaker 3 Wow. Speaker 2 I saw him at Telluride, I almost saw him at Grouse, but Telluride was the last time I saw him. Speaker 3 Yeah, I never saw him. I never saw him for all of all of Hard Rock. Speaker 2 What? How'd your pacer? Were your Pacers great? Did they have a fun time? Did they want to push you off Handies? Did they? Speaker 3 I think they had a good time. Yeah, I had a lot of, I had a lot of debating over the over the last few days prior to Hard Rock about what exactly I was going to do for Pacers. And I'd asked a couple of different people if they were available and ended up ended up doing having Brendan do both nights. He he took me from Uray to Grouse and then Wesley took me Grouse to Cunningham. And then Brendan came back in and did Cunningham to the finish. And Brendan was Brendan was nervous about doing that. But then when I pointed out to him that Wesley had done the double, had done the two nights a few years before, he thought, well, OK, then if Wesley did it, I can do it. And, and Wesley, Wesley had done that long Section 2 years ago from, from Grouse to what was Animus then from Animus to Cunningham. He did that two years ago. And he wasn't really prepared for it two years ago. I think he was prepared for the distance. He wasn't afraid of the distance. And he's certainly prepared for the trails. He's been climbing and going up and down those trails like literally for as long as he could walk. He's been out there all all my kids have been out there every summer. So, so he wasn't it was it's how much time you're out there. I don't think he was prepared for you're, you're out there from before sunrise on Saturday until after sunset on Saturday. You're basically out if you're, if you're pacing that section for for a runner, my speed, you're out there for like 15 hours. And he wasn't prepared for that two years ago, but he was this year. He knew what he was getting into. He was ready for it. He had trained himself. He, he didn't do too much in the days ahead. And even though he does a lot of running, he wasn't, you know, he didn't jeopardize my race by getting out there and doing too many miles on his own. So I think they had a good time. I think they enjoyed it. And I know, I know Brendan liked finishing with me. It was fun for him to do that. And so, yeah, they did. They did a good job. I asked Wesley. It was funny. I asked Wesley what it was like taking orders from his little sister as the crew chief and he said it was no different than growing up in our house. Speaker 2 So, oh, that sounds like he had a good time. I mean, a lot of people did not have a very good time, like at the front of the run. I think we'll debrief that a little bit more with with Dale, But it was an interesting year. I mean, talking to Koblenz about it, he said that it was hot. He said that it was dry. He said that it was smoky. Like it wasn't a typical a Hard Rock. But this could be the new normal, right? A Top Finish Thanks to Unwavering Family Support If there was something you could go back right now. Oh my God, why does this keep happening? If you could go back in time right now and change one thing that you did during the run or change something about your training or just you got to you got one do over to go back in time and do something, what would you do? Speaker 3 That's tough. That's really tough because bottom line is I finished and so I wouldn't want to change anything that jeopardizes that. I, I suppose if I could go back and do one thing different in training, it'd be to avoid that fall. If I could avoid that fall that put me in the arm brace because it was a little bit of a pain having that wrist guard on my wrist the whole time. Honestly, though, the injury that's plaguing me now that still I'm still dealing with is this, this injury in my knee. I, I fell between Virginia's and Governor. I fell and it was already dark and I hit the ground and hard on my right knee. And when I came up and, and look down with my headlamp, there was a rock embedded in my right knee. And so I took it out because it didn't belong there. And so Needless to say, I had a lot of blood running down my leg. It was a dirty and, you know, dirty wound. I got to the aid station at governor and they, the medical person at governor, asked me if he could do anything for it. I said, I don't know. It didn't hurt. It didn't really hurt all that much, but he he did, he cleaned it up as much as he could, but he didn't really have the right supplies to clean the wound properly or to address it properly really. He just basically wiped up the blood around it and put a big Band-Aid on it and A and a wrap around my leg. And then I got down to Uray and Scott Brockmire was the medical person down at the Uray aid station and he kind of did the same thing. He cleaned up some of the blood and put a new patch on it. And then the next day at Pole Creek, the medical person there cleaned it up again and put a new dressing on it. But none of it was really cleaning it out. It was just, you know, there's still dirt and grime in there and there's still blood going down my leg. And it didn't get properly cleaned out until Sunday night, to be honest with you. So 48 hours after the injury, Yeah. So thanks to thanks to Trevor Peterson and Jackie Fritch and, and one of my runners, Jason Huffman. They, they stood there at my folks, the place my folks rent in Uray. And Jackie had some saline and they, they cleaned it out the best they could and they had my wife on FaceTime giving her pictures and video and they did what they could for it. And then it got properly cleaned up when I got back to Florida and, and Steri strips on it and that sort of thing. But that's, you know, so that was a mess. So it would be great to avoid that. But honestly, that didn't slow me down except at the aid stations. It took an extra 5 minutes probably at three different aid stations. So I'd have been 15 minutes faster maybe if that injury hadn't happened, but that's about it. Speaker 2 Doesn't even matter. Speaker 3 Doesn't even matter so. Speaker 2 Actually, that would have mattered pretty badly for me. Speaker 3 Yeah, you would have, Yeah, it would be a different story for you. But but also like you could have found it, right? You could have found it. And we'll talk about that when we when we talk about your race. But but I think, yeah, if if you're one thing I do it probably be go back and somehow avoid that fall, fall on outstretched hand. I learned Foosh. I did not know Foosh before, but now I know. F0 0SH fall on outstretched hand, Foosh. And that's yeah, when you fall and you catch yourself with your hands outstretched in front of you. And apparently that's a typical thing. When you go into the emergency room and you tell them what happened to you, they know it's Foosh and they know very likely to be a wrist fracture or could be a wrist fracture. That's the the risk there. So you already had one of those though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but that's, that's probably the one thing if, if there were one thing that I would try to, to do differently, if I, if I could even do it. It wasn't even a bad fall at the time, but obviously it it was scary and it did hurt like hell a few hours later. Speaker 2 So you've ran 18 Hard Rock on a scale of 1 to 10. Where does this fall in your Hard Rock experience? Meaning, I mean meaning like the 10 race, you know, 2000 and 12 was my ten year or whatever What? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Speaker 3 I do, I do, I mean, I suppose I need to put my fastest finish up there at the top right 'cause that was just incredible to finish in 35 something, you know, that was, that was amazing to do that finishing with, with Scotty Mills. And that was really cool 'cause the finisher poster that we got this year was a picture of Scotty climbing Grant Swamp Pass that year. So I was, I had climbed that with Scotty. I was standing next to Howie Stern when he took the picture. And so to have that finishing poster and it reminds me that was my 15th finish. That was Scotty's 10th. That was that was really amazing. There's so many amazing things that happened during that last 20 miles of that course, which was great. But this, I'll be honest with you, time aside, this is one of the top ones because I had my daughter as my crew chief. I had my sons pacing me. I had my parents there supporting and my mother-in-law and my daughter-in-law there supporting. It's, it's really neat to have that family around me and helping me. And, and in a way, even though I was so emotional at Telluride and, and to the point that I could, couldn't even pose for a photograph with my daughter. It's because I recognized all of these people are here for me. All these people travelled, you know, my mother-in-law would have been out there. It's it's her house out there. She goes out there every summer as well. But everybody else was out there. All all the rest of my family was there specifically to support me. And everything they were doing that weekend was what what I asked them to do or what they sensed that I needed. And that's, that's humbling to, you know, we spend so much time, Dan, you and I both, we spend so much time doing things for other people, right? Not to blow our own horns, but we do. And volunteering for Hard Rock, all that stuff. It's all for the good of the organization or the good of the other runners and the good of of all this stuff. And once 321 go from the rock on at 6:00 AM on Friday, from then until we kiss the rock, we are the most selfish people in the mountains, right? It's all about us. And I wouldn't, may not have acted selfish, but we are right. The everybody is having to do things for us. You get into an aid station and it's what can we do for you? And you tell them, you tell them what you need, you tell them what you want, you tell them what sounds good. And, and so it's really humbling to think that all these people are there for me. And, and therefore that emotion that hit me at Telluride was I don't want to disappoint them. I don't want to let them down. So, but I, I really do put this one up there in my top, you know, top two or three because of that experience of having my family there with me. It was super cool. And I know that Dave has had this experience and and Blake has had this experience. People that got into Hard Rock either before they had kids or when their kids were young, to then have the kids grow up and still be there, supporting them, still be there, helping them, pacing them, crewing them is pretty cool. It's really neat. We talk about Hard Rock being a family, and when your family is part of Hard Rock, it's even more special. Speaker 2 That's awesome. Well, it sounds like you had a pretty good time out at out at Hard Rock and, you know, debriefing it, it sounds like you had a pretty good time. It made me think of some things that I'll bring up so. Congrats on #18 and where are we going to see you next summer? Speaker 3 Well, 100% guaranteed I will be in Silverton, Co because whether I've got a number on my chest or not, I'm a hard rocker and you're a hard rocker. And we have so many people listening to this podcast that are Hard Rockers, and Hard Rockers belong in Silverton, Co in the summer. And we will see you in Silverton. Speaker 1 Stop now.