Holy shit he did it! We all did it.

One week before our buddy Ian passed away in the mountains, Ian called Travis and asked if he wanted to run a 50 mile race with him in Page, Arizona. Travis’s response was, “Why not go for the 100!” and Ian was STOKED.

Ian immediately signed up for the 100 mile race and opted to take a charity bib, which means that in lieu of paying the race fee, he needed to raise a minimum of $1,000 to enter the race. Ian was excited to raise money for the elementary school in Page that we both planned to work at.

When Ian died this summer on a remote run in the Colorado mountains, no one knew quite what to do. It wasn’t until a few months passed that Travis decided to continue on with the plan to run 100 miles for Ian and take over Ian’s charity bib.

Travis rallied the Prescott Pal troops. Joey and Steph signed up to train for the 50 mile race. None of them had ever run 50 or 100 miles. This weekend was about pushing the limits of what’s possible, inspired by Ian’s tenacious and resilient spirit.

The race started long before any of us made it to the starting line. For months, the boys have been training all across the country, squeezing in runs whenever they can.

Travis trained in the snowy alpine mountains of Mammoth, California. It turns out that skiing does count as training for running. Joey ran in Ian’s home territory this winter- training in the muddy Mancos Valley with Mount Hesperus watching over him. Steph trained where the Rockies crumble into the desert, running in northern Colorado. Running inevitably helped them feel connected to Ian and process grief in ways that words cannot.

The inspiration continued to spread. Joey’s two Mancos friends, Zach and Lauren, were inspired by watching Joey train, so they signed up for the half marathon and came out to Page to support as well.

Ultra running is a team sport, so when the boys signed up to run, a whole crew signed up to be their support crew and pacers. Ethan prepared to be a pacer by running up and down the bluffs of the Pacific Ocean, while I ran through sandy slot canyons in Utah. Running helped clear my brain of thoughts in a way that walking couldn’t.

Race Stats

• Travis ran 102.29 miles in 28 hours and 49 minutes
• Steph ran 50 miles in 12 hours and 48 minutes
• Joey ran 50 miles in 12 hours and 35 minutes
• 81 people signed up for the 100 mile ultra, and only 36 finished
• 440 people signed up to run the 50 mile race
• Each race had “grim reaper” times- meaning that the runners had to keep their pace up throughout the race to hit certain pacing times, or they would be disqualified
• Travis was the top fundraiser for the event- raising $6,000 for the school! THANK YOU to everyone who donated.
• Seven pacers ran with the boys: Ethan (28 miles), Haley (6.5 miles), Harry (20 miles), Lena (2.5 miles), Beth, Gabby and Finn (10 miles)
• This was the longest distance that Travis, Steph, Joey, Ethan, Haley and Harry have ever run!

MILE 0//4:20 A.M.

Alarms woke us up before the sun came up on race day. Coffee and smoothies came first, then quiche and conversation. Water bottles filled, Altra’s laced up, rubber chickens strapped to packs, runner bibs fastened to shorts, and hugs all around. We made it to the starting line by 5:30 to watch Joey and Steph take off first. Running into the dark morning, we cheered their names but couldn’t see them in the sea of headlights and legs. Travis took off fifteen minutes later with a much smaller crew of people who were tackling the 100 mile race.

No one expected the three boys to run together, as Travis would likely move at a slower pace and started 15 minutes later. Ian may have had other ideas about that…the boys ran into each other at the mouth of Antelope Canyon- a sacred slickrock slot canyon with magnificent red walls and only a ribbon of sky above them. Dine/Navajo guides were present in the canyon as the runner’s ran through what is typically off limits land on the Navajo Reservation.

We cheered from fifteen miles away when we got a picture from Travis with Joey and Steph running together.

MILE 20//10:44 AM

The first time we saw the boys was on mile 20, after they exited Antelope Canyon and crossed sandy valleys and red mesas. We woke up Harry, who was the first pacer of the event, and loaded up in Lena’s truck. The support crew arrived in costume, carrying with us a rubber chicken staff, watercolor supplies, and posters with the boys heads on it. Lena was a flamingo, I was dressed as an octopus, and we were all wearing our team shirts- which we tye-dyed in the back yard the day before.

To get to mile 20, we waited in line for a shuttle van, which drove us down sandy roads near Horseshoe Bend on the Navajo Reservation. Tracking the boy’s location was difficult because for most of the race, they didn’t have reliable cell phone service. Harry complained when we got in the van that we were more than an hour and a half early, and he could’ve been sleeping.

When the shuttle van dropped us off at the Mile 20 aid station, we joined the line of fans and support crews who were waiting for their runners to pass by. Within a few minutes, we spotted the boys cresting a hill running toward the aid station. We barely made it in time.

A high five tunnel of screaming and cheering brought the boys into the aid station, where they stopped for 10-15 minutes to get hugs, refill their water bottles, change out of wet socks, switch out their snacks, and get rid of any trash they were carrying.

“What do you need?” every crew member asked.

“I need my tye dye t-shirt! I’m hot,” Joey said, which was the only request. The boys prepared drop bags the day before that the course organizers dispersed along different mile markers. Each drop bag had snacks, electrolytes, fresh socks, sunscreen, etc. for the boys to resupply themselves throughout the course. On top of that, the aid stations had every snack, meal, and beverage that could possibly be desired.

Joey, Steph, and Travis had huge smiles on their faces and were going strong.

“Seeing you guys just made my day!” Travis said, before heading off on the next ten mile loop, which would take them to the slick rock above the Colorado River and back to this aid station. We sent them off with more than a few tasteful butt smacks.

MILE 32.2//1:58 PM

When they returned to the aid station, the boys were still smiling, but reported, “We all hit a wall at the same time. We just went silent for a while.”

The sun was beating down on them now, and they needed a morale boost.

Enter the first pacer: Harry! Harry joined the boys through a sandy slog in the hot sun, bringing refreshing energy and excitement to the running team.

The rest of the support crew entourage hopped back on the shuttle to return to town, desperate for a water re-fill and a meal.

MILE 38.3// 3:46 PM

The rest of the run would take place on the Page Rim Trail, which surrounds town in a 10.2 mile loop. There were two aid stations on the Rim Trail that were easily accessible from my house, so we were able to see the boys running from more points with less miles in between.

The support crew changed costumes and brought out the binoculars so we could spot the boys running from miles away. They were crossing a long sandy pit that runners were calling “THE GRINDER” once they finished it.

Travis came running in first, with Harry, Steph and Joey a few minutes behind him.

“Oh my gosh, look at him go,” someone said. “He’s desert blazin.”

It was mile 38 when we were reminded that nipple chafing is real. Gabby sprung into action, applying tape and band-aids to Travis’s nipples while we cheered for Joey, Steph, and Harry to finish THE GRINDER.

Harry came running into the aid station with his arms above his head cheering. “I got four letters for you baby, G-O-L-D,” he said, biting into a quesadilla.

Joey and Steph had less than 12 miles to the finish line, but Travis wasn’t even half way yet.

Enter Gabby! The next pacer who would run the next lap with Travis. Before the race, Gabby was nervous because she does not typically subject herself to running 10 miles but she CRUSHED IT as a much needed morale boost for Travis as he entered the depths of the race and would soon separate from Joey and Steph.

MILE 43.5// 5:12 PM

Joey arrived first, jogging with a smile on his face. Shortly after came Gabby and Travis, followed by Steph. It was surprising to watch how closely paced the three boys were.

“I can’t feel my legs, I can’t feel my toes. The only thing I can feel…oh man…is my heart pumping!” Steph said in a rap as he entered the aid station walk/jogging.

“I don’t know if I can run another 50 miles,” Travis said, off the record. Gabby massaged his feet while Lena massaged his thighs as he double fisted with one cup of coffee and a can of coke.

The boys were finally showing some signs of being tired.

“You’re going to be entering a realm that only few humans enter,” Coach Cluck (Ethan) said, prepared with a Braveheart speech at any time. “You’re going to be an astronaut,” he said to Travis.

Joey drank coffee and a shot of whisky, ready to cross the finish line. “I’m doing this for friendship!!!” Joey yelled.

A whole entourage of pacers departed this aid station with the boys. Haley paced Joey for the last 6.5 miles while Ethan paced Steph to the finish line. They jogged away in their matching tye-dye t-shirts holding hands while we cheered for them from above.

Seeing Joey and Steph part ways toward the finish line had to be disheartening, but Gabby stuck with Travis to complete the lap.

MILE 50// 7:45 PM

Tears welled up in my eyes as we waited at the finish line. The immensity of what the boys were doing blew me away. The communal aspect of the race touched my heart in a similar way that the search for Ian did. We all needed each other, and when we came together we could accomplish so much more than we could alone. Neither Joey or Steph had ever run fifty miles before. It was inspiring to watch them break this barrier for themselves.

I could hear Ian’s laughter in my head. I felt his presence as I stood in the orange sand, looking out at the red bluffs waiting. His excitement was palpable, and I couldn’t help but let a few tears slide down my cheek. The entire time that Ian and I were dating we were dreaming of moving to the red rock desert. We finally did, and Ian couldn’t wait to host all of our friends and family. Seeing all the Prescott Pals running in the last place that Ian called home fulfilled a wish of his that he didn’t get to see through.

“They’re all here, Ian,” I said to a raven that was watching me. “We love you.”

This was a huge accomplishment for our entire community. A real turning point in our grief. The excruciating months of Ian being classified as a missing person were behind us. The heart wrenching, cold winter months of grieving his death were also behind us.

All day signs of spring mirrored our own reawakening. We let the hot sun soak in our skin and noticed the flowers blooming, and we were all bursting with excitement as accomplished more than we ever thought we could.

When I saw Joey turn the corner for the last stretch to the finish line, I erupted with screaming and cheering.

“Look at this entourage!” the race director said in the microphone as we crossed the finish line with Joey in costume. A group hug followed, but Joey wasn’t done running. He fast walk-waddled to the closest porta-potty, adding in an extra .1 miles.

Steph crossed the finish line a few minutes later with his rubber chicken in hand and an even bigger entourage in costume with his dog, Snickers!

The sun was down and so were fifty miles.

The support crew spread out in different directions- some taking a nap, others taking care of Joey and Steph, eating dinner, and others going to the next aid station to cheer on Travis.

MILE 69// 1:00 AM

I tried to sleep before meeting Travis to run a ten mile loop, but it was useless. I laid in bed, perhaps falling asleep for thirty minutes or so, before getting out from under the covers and eating more espresso beans. I couldn’t find my keys, so I took someone else’s car to the aid station.

Harry was pacing Travis and I waited in the dark for them to arrive. Gabby, the superstar supporter, was still awake and tracking their progress. Harry came running into the aid station pulling Travis by the arm laughing, but Travis was looking haggard. He’d been running for seventeen hours at this point.

“He’s thinking about sleeping,” Harry told me. Quickly I Googled: do ultra runners sleep during a 100 mile race? and the resounding answer was no, it was a waste of time. To keep your runner awake and moving. Travis was drinking coffee while Gabby was running the massage gun down his legs.

“No sleep,” I said, sitting down next to him. Gabby handed me a bottle of Ibuprofen and an extra headlamp to carry.

“Yeah, sleep,” Travis said, only hearing the word sleep.

“No, you gotta stay awake and keep going,” I said.

“Oh,” Travis said. His words were coming slower than normal, but overall he was quite coherent and positive. “Okay, I think I’ll walk this lap.”

Walking is better than sleeping, so we took off into the dark night. Coyotes howled in the distance as we fast walked down the trail. The moon was new so the milky way was fabulous, but the trail was hard to see. The dirt path we were following intersected and criss-crossed dozens of little foot paths. We followed trail markers that were reflective sticks poking out of the ground, but it was still easy to get off trail.

After a few minutes of walking, Travis said, “I want to try running again,” so we ran four miles to the next aid station. It was the first and only aid station that no one in our crew was at, and only two race volunteers were awake. We made it a quick stop and kept going. Coffee, hot cocoa, water. The night was cold, but not freezing.

“I never think to go for a run a 1am, but you always can,” I said to Travis while running in front of him.

“Yeah, the conditions are nice, no one’s awake,” Travis agreed.

“Town is quiet, it’s lovely out here,” I said, and we both laughed as we crossed an empty four lane road to get back on the trail.

The last fifty miles were laps on the Rim Trail, and each lap runners reversed direction. Every time we passed another runner going in the opposite direction, we all cheered each other on. Good jobs, final lap celebrations, keep it up, and have fun was still the 2 a.m. vibe. I expected runners to be hitting an angry, sleep deprived wall at this point, but most runners were with their pacers just having enjoyable conversations as we passed.

“This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Travis told me. I laughed because that seemed obvious to me, but he continued, “I could just stop at any point. But other times, you know you get caught in a storm and you have to run 13 miles back to your car, it’s hard but you do it. Because you have to get to your car. But this…I could just stop.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, jogging in front of him, keeping my eyes on the trail markers. “That makes sense. The external factors of the wilderness pushing you is actually easier to overcome because you don’t have a choice, you can’t just give up and sit on the mountain in a storm. But here you could just give up and go to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Travis laughed, but we didn’t talk about giving up. He kept saying things like, “After this lap, I’ll be at 80 miles, then it’s just another lap and I’ll be at 90 miles. And then it’s just one more after that.”

I was impressed by his mental fortitude through the late hours of the night. He was approaching the 24 hours of being awake mark. He seemed foggy but with it still. Motivated, but sore. We fast walked the last couple of miles with intermittent jogging. But his fast-walk was faster than jogging at this point, so we hammered down and kept moving, never once stopping to take a break.

My legs were tight and tired and I wondered, damn why am I so tired? It’s only mile 8. Later, I checked my watch and to my surprise, it read 19 miles. It turned out that I had already clocked nearly 10 miles just running around and supporting the runners all day. I laughed, wondering what the collective mileage of our entire team was.

“I’m really proud of you, Travis,” I told him as we neared the aid station. “Ian is with you the whole time. What you’re doing is really beautiful and badass.”

“Yeah, I’m so inspired by our whole team, what everyone is doing…this is amazing,” Travis nodded. Our headlamps were dim, so I texted Gabby to bring more batteries.

MILE 79// 4:00 AM

We reached the aid station and Coach Cluck was waiting, rested after a few hours of sleep. Ethan would take Travis through the night on the next two laps, clocking more than 20 miles together. Lena was awake again and Travis collapsed into a chair where Gabby immediately put his puffy on him and pulled off his shoes. I grabbed four pancakes and a cup of hot coffee and by the time I put it in his hands, Lena was already massaging his thighs with the massage gun and Gabby was rubbing his feet. Coach Cluck was bouncing with excitement. I passed off the headlamps and Ibuprofen and they were off, wobbling back on to the trail.

MILE 99//10AM

It turns out the race course is longer than 100 miles, and Travis reached the aid station with Coach Cluck at mile 99 with three miles left until the finish line.

Travis’s energy was BACK! Ethan and Travis were laughing, rapping, and RUNNING.

Travis was PASSING RUNNERS and they were yelling, “How are you still running!!!!” at him as he passed.

The whole crew was awake and costumed up, cheering and waiting at the aid station. Steph and Joey were waddling, stiff from running 50 miles.

“Who’s taking him to the finish?” Coach Cluck asked.

Without hesitating, Lena said, “I am!”

She ripped off her jacket and took off running with Travis in jeans, like the badass bitch that she is.

MILE 102.2//

The finish line.

Travis crossed the finish line holding hands with Gabby, led by me and Lena holding the rubber chicken staff high in the air. Haley ran next to Travis and he ran into the rest of his friends waiting at the finish. Group hug, cheers, group hug, gong.

That’s right- Travis got to hit a gong with a rubber chicken to denote his finish.

The race organizer congratulated Travis on his team, noting that most runners did not have as big of a support crew nor nearly as many pacers. She thanked him for being the top donor of the event. 93 people donated, making our team even bigger than what was visible at the finish line.

And when we all circled up with Travis laying face first on the ground, there wasn’t much to be said, but there was a million things floating between us. Excitement and gratitude. Pride and joy. Sorrow and soreness. Awe and wonder. Grief and love.

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Read the backstory here…

Travis is Running 100 Miles for Ian