Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 360 – Copper Kings 100: The Race That Changed Me

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Ep. 360 – Copper Kings 100: The Race That Changed Me · The On Purpose Podcast

• The On Purpose Podcast: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Jared Hardy here. If the On Purpose Podcast has sparked something in you, maybe a shift, a question, or a deeper dive, my excellence and leadership course is built to help you act upon it. This isn't just about leading others. It's about leading yourself with intention, resilience, and clarity. Whether you're an individual chasing growth or a team ready to level up. I offer custom coaching and speaking engagements to meet you where you are. Visit teamhardy.net and let's grow with purpose. What's up, everybody? Welcome to this week's show of the on-purpose podcast, where you know it's our job. Get you moving, get you grooving, get you thinking, holding you accountable a little bit. And this week I'm super excited to share a show that people have asked me about. ⁓ over the honestly since the beginning of the year, and that is my first hundred mile run. My first hundred mile ultra marathon, the Copper Kings 100 in Butte, Montana, is now history. We did it, and let me show you, I don't want to spoil it too much, but look at that fancy belt buckle. That means we finished it. We completed the hundred-mile run in under 40 hours. And I wanted to just share with you all what that experience was like. Not so that everybody goes out and signs up for a hundred miles or but that we continue to challenge ourselves and we continue to push the envelopes of what our comfort zone says we should be doing, maybe what society says we should be doing. And we do things that challenge us and make us feel alive. And that that definitely was the case of this race. So before We get into race and I'm not gonna bore you with race specific stuff like splits and times, cause none of that matters. Like we actually had a a saying that we put in all the cards we gave to all the people that showed up to support us, and that was that the time on the clock isn't as important as our time together. And when I wrote those cards and Andrew and I were giving ⁓ out to everybody, I I'd had no idea how important that was and and how much of a true statement that would become. So Before we get into actual race, a lot of people are like, why'd you pick to go all the way to Butte, Montana from Arizona for this race? There's so many races in between. And a couple things are one, my mom lives there, and Tom lives there. And my my nieces and nephews live there. So it a chance for us to to come back home and to a place that needs some positivity. Butte's a great town, a great mining town, but There's lot of times people feel like they're stuck there and they don't really see all the opportunities outside. And we wanted to make sure that we were part of something that was positive for the community. And Wes Plate and his team did an amazing job putting this race together. So we happened to be in town for my mom's birthday last year on the inaugural Copper Kings One Hundreds. We went out and watched finishers and it just struck me that was something I should try. I should I should do it. And people are like, Well, how much run running did you done before? Were you running marathons of stuff? And the truth is no. I I ran one half marathon. ⁓ then last summer train I did our thirty miler in South Dakota that was rough and hard. And then we jumped all the way to a hundred miler. So it doesn't have to make sense to everybody, right? Like people say, ⁓ that's crazy. Why didn't you do these other distances in between? I didn't want to, to be honest with you. I Wanted to do something my family could be part of, that was in a community I cared about, and had implications far beyond just the race. And that's what this does. And and and what it did, and I had I had no idea the depth of it when I first signed up. So We we signed up for this in January, so I had what six months to train. I did most of training in Arizona and then New Mexico and Colorado on the way up. And it was awesome. I had a great training plan that I had some friends that are professional trail runners look over and they agreed it was solid and and I stuck to it and I completed it. And I felt mentally prepared, physically prepared. But as I reflect back now, I had no idea and I don't know that you ever could know the emotional, spiritual impact this kind of a an event will have on you. Right? I never felt it in training. ⁓ and it's really the the thing I'm left most with is how spiritual and emotional it was. So One of the things I'm most proud about is when I when I chose to do this race, we chose to launch the dream chasers and and pursue things that matter in your life was the impact it started having on others. Like people wanted to be part of a team. People started pushing themselves differently because of what we were doing. And it just reminds me that like there's so many times we feel like we're alone, so many times we feel like we're doing something It's just for us, but people are watching. And when you invite them in and you share the story, we're able to create a community through challenge. And not everybody's gonna do this exact challenge, but maybe it inspires them to do a challenge, to move towards a goal they've had or dream or an idea that they've had in their lives that's been on hold. And that's what the training was, right? Like the training, I was accomplishing longer runs than I've ever done in my life, more running than I've ever done. But was also seeing my sister push herself and train in ways she had never trained. I was watching Trey training in California and seeing what he was doing. We were, you know, my cousin Julie up in Montana was representing the Dream Chasers in in her first fitness competition. It was just a whole thing. And that's the the joy of when you When you reject when you reject complacency, when you decide you want more, and then you share it, a lot you don't know what fires you're gonna light under other people. And that was that's what the training was for me. Like I knew it prepared me to run. I felt great running, but I got more satisfaction in the community that had gathered around us. So when we get to Butte before the race It was just an amazing moment of Trey and Addie showing up and Taya showing up and my sister and Jason and then Trey's friend Travis. Realizing they were all there because of something we had committed to doing. They wanted to be part of it and they were vital parts of it. And then one of my my most famous famous or famous I can't even talk right now. One of my favorite moments was the spaghetti dinner we had the night before the race. In which my nieces and nephews came over and we were able to share a meal and kind of tell them why we were doing what we're doing and invite them to be part of it and encourage them, 'cause they're younger, to make sure they're chasing their dreams and make sure they're pursuing things that maybe not everybody understands. And to have Tom cook, I think it was like 16 pounds of his famous spaghetti and contribute that way was so humbling and and we were so grateful for it. And the conversations and my mom had this awesome banner made up that we were able to put in the backyard that can live beyond the moment. So that every time the grandkids come around, they remember like grandma's part of this, right? Like she bought into it. She wants to be a dream chaser. She's she's a grandma, but she's not giving up. She's still pursuing things. And it was just very humbling and it was very It was a very rewarding and enriching time. Not just because we were together, but because we were together because one of us was going to do something hard, or two of us were going to do something hard. And all of us had done something difficult to prepare for this thing that was gonna be hard. Right. In one of the episodes with the Pease brothers, we were talking about the bond through shared suffering. And that's kind of what this was, right? Like Trey and I had the onus of moving ourselves a hundred miles. That's probably the hardest physical part, but everybody bought into their part. You know, whether it was pacing a ten mile with a hill climb like my sister. So she was doing all kinds of treadmill hill climbs and outdoor running climbs that normally she hadn't done. Tay and Andrea coming with me on runs that they wouldn't normally do, just so I had some company. It was just an amazing thing that we we bonded through the shared suffering. So as as we had the dinner and we another image I'll never forget is all our drop bags laid out in the basement of my mom's house labeled with, you know, our name and our bib number and what aid station we're going to and knowing that we had the stuff in there that we'd need or that we were forecasting we'd need, 'cause we'd never done this. Nobody on our crew would ever run a hundred. So it was all guesswork on where we were gonna be at what times. But again, it was just like It was fun, right? It was fun to be so organized and so singularly focused on for me, like literally the next morning for as the next up to forty hours, my only job was to keep moving in the right direction. Just don't get lost. And I think there's something enriching and rewarding about having a singular focus where all the noise of the regular world, like you know, what are we cooking tonight? What what distractions, what emails do I have, what bills I what all that stuff is gone. Like for a hundred miles, my job is simply to keep moving. And it allows me to focus on other things. And one of which was before the race started, we had to have an ominous conversation with our team. And there was two things that I had learned or read about or studied from all the other ultra runners that I've been paying attention to. And that was that Trey and I both had trained extremely hard for this race. We'd both done it differently, but ⁓ very importantly for ourselves. And that I didn't want both of us to drop if one of us had to drop. Right? If I got hurt, I didn't want him giving up on his dream just to stay with me. So we agreed to that. We agreed to that before the emotion of the race, before the fatigue of the race. And then the message for our crew was that if either of us or both of us want to quit, we cannot quit at the aid station we're talking to them at. We must make it to the next one and then we can quit there. Right. And I I forget which ultra runner I'd heard that from, but it made sense, right? They push okay, you can quit, but you gotta make it to the next aid station. And the reality is if you push and get to the next aid station, you're probably over wanting to quit anyhow because you just made it again. You just now have success. So so that was the plan, right? If one of us had to drop, the other had to keep running, and our crew could not let us quit at whatever aid station we're at. We always had to make it to the next one. So we went to bed that night was ⁓ you know, four o'clock in the morning, start and run for a hundred miles. So we we were up at two thirty and it was awesome. Like you you didn't even feel like you didn't feel tired. You didn't feel fatigued. You felt like, man, I'm ⁓ I'm on the verge of something I've never done, something that's gonna be epic. I don't know how many of these I'll get, right? I don't know how many times I'll run that. I don't know how many times this group of people will be there. And there's that Native American saying that I love, and that is that the same man never steps in the same river twice. Right? You think about that, the same man never steps in the same river twice because the river's always moving and the man's always changing. So I want it to be just really in the z in in the moment and just enjoy it. So we we got to the race and we enjoyed the energy of all the other racers. I think it was a hundred and like forty four or something. And their families and their crews and then the race started and it was ⁓ the start of the race is an uptown butte up in the mining area. And then you run down, kind of down a big hill and out to the flats, out past like the new commercial area with Walmart and all the fancy new restaurants and then You run basically a half marathon, like twelve miles, just to get to the trails. And we intentionally ran conservative because we didn't want to get tired early. We had re you know, learned and seen so many different pieces of advice about new hundred milers going so fast so early they're dead before they're halfway through. And that a real race, real hundred mile race doesn't even begin to like mile fifty to seventy five. So we were We were cautious and we just ran and had fun. We talked to a bunch of people, ⁓ just learning like why they were doing it, where they were from, how many they had done, and we were keeping an eye on Trey, 'cause he had hurt his knee somewhere along the the training plan. And, you know, out of fairness to him, he's working a full time job as a rafting guide in California, which is physically demanding. And he's trying to do all the training on top of it. And he wasn't a hundred percent when he came in, but he didn't want to not try. He didn't want to not pursue it. So we we just did it, right? And we're like, let's throw the dice where they are and we'll see how far you can get. And so we make it through that first 12 miles and Everything's good, man. We see our family. You're 12 miles in, so you're like warmed up. You're like, okay, I only gotta do that like 10 more times. This is super awesome. We're getting there. And then something crazy happened to me that had never happened in any of my trail or any of my training runs. And that was as I left the aid station, I vomited up all the food I'd taken and all the the nutrition. And I didn't know why and what that was from. Like I said, I'd done long runs way farther than twelve mile training runs and been able to eat right after and eat in between. And I didn't know where that was from. So we we kept on and I was like, okay, we'll we'll see how long we have to deal with this. ⁓ the second station, now we were on the trails and Trey and I were sticking to the plan. We were hiking the uphills and running the flats and the downhills and amazing scenery. Of the highland mountains out in Montana, still covered in snow and the wildflowers and the prairie. And things were good. So we make it, we that's another 12 miles. We make it to another eight stations. And now we're a half a marathon in. We're a quarter of the race. And Trey's knee's getting worse. So we take off for the third section. And ⁓ it's got a lot of switchbacks and some good climbing and descent and Trey's no longer able to run the downhills, it's just killing his knees. And we basically grind from a pretty good pace of what we were intending to run through the first ones to the third section. Highland of Pipestone was just a grinding hike. And it was tough and it was hard to watch because I knew how much work Trey put into it and not Not just to work, but like these races are expensive to sign up for, they're expensive to get all your gear for, they're expensive for your nutrition and your travel. So I knew he had invested a ton of it and our relationship as father and son were truly tested there and I always get emotional talking about this part 'cause this was by far the hardest part of the race was watching him struggle and watching it slow us down. And we went from not that we were racing to win, 'cause there's those elite runners are so fast. But we were doing good and we were proud of ourselves and our time and we were in a good position in in the race to to accomplish things 'cause our goal was thirty hours and that third section, he just couldn't do it. He was we went from having a lot of fun and lighthearted conversations and an enjoying the environment to literally I was watching him have pain with every step of every hill we had to climb and then every descent we had to go down and he went from using his walker or his sticks as a s his poles as assistance almost like a crutch. So he didn't have to put much weight on his right leg and It was hard. It was hard to watch and balance a dad's belief in their kid. Right? Do I encourage them, say, bud, let's stick it out. We can do this. We'll go as slow as we can, but you you got it. Or do you say, hey, we're doing this for fun. You got a full time job that's physically demanding. You you got to get back to in a couple of days. It's not worth the risk of damaging that knee more seriously to pursue a goal. We can do this another time together. And I and I debated that back and forth and We had some honest conversations and what I didn't want was I didn't want him to think I didn't believe in him. 'Cause I know how important it is to believe in people. But I also wanted him to know that I believed in him so much that the result of a race wouldn't change any of the way I felt about him. That wouldn't change the amount of love I have for ⁓ the appreciation I have for him. Or the admiration I have for ⁓ to even s tow that starting line. Quite honestly, probably should have never even tried running that far with the way his knee was, but I knew I couldn't talk him out of starting it at least. So we had honest conversations and went back and forth about his plan and at this point we're not even running. We're just in a hike and a slow hike at that. So now we got the pressure of are we even gonna make it to How many more checkpoints, how many more aid stations we get to before we're behind the cutoff, right? 'Cause there's a certain time you have to get there or you're out of the race. So we're we're we're talking but I also didn't want Trey to feel like he's holding me back. Right. And and like there's a bit of selfishness for you like, man, I've trained so hard for this. I know what I'm capable of. What is the right decision? And I don't know how many of you've studied mixed martial arts or boxing and stuff, but there's a it's a very very grim statistic. And it's in primarily in boxing, 'cause mixed martial arts doesn't have many deaths in the cage. But over the history of and boxing's a much older sport, but over in the history of boxing there's a there's an alarming statistic, and I don't know the number offhand, but of boxers that die in the ring, one common theme is a lot of times their father is their trainer or coach. What the study has talked about is that when the father and son that bond, the son doesn't want to quit because he doesn't want to let the father down. And the father doesn't want to throw in a towel, even though his son's losing, because he doesn't want his son to believe he doesn't believe in him. He doesn't want his son to lose faith that dad believes in me. And what they found is that an overwhelming number of boxers that die as a result of their fights, that's the common theme, is their dad was their coach. So knowing that is we're in this section and the race feels like it's falling apart and we're not sure what we're gonna do, I just wanted him to know I loved him. And that there was no there's a there's a lot of races in the country now. We can do this many, many times. But I need you to make the best decision for yourself. And watching how much pain he was in and how l how every step was just a grimace and I didn't see a lot of fun coming from him anymore and we weren't joking a ton. We were literally just head down trying to get through it. I thought the right decision would be for him to save himself and must live to fight another day. And then then I think the universe wanted to take that decision out of his hand because as we're sort of hiking, he's like, Dad, it's raining. And I go, I I don't think it's raining. I don't feel wet. He's Man, my back's soaked. And I I look and his his hydration packet bursts. So now not only is he hobbling. and in pain with every step, but now he's completely out of all his water and hydration because it his bladder had burst and it's all over his back. So we're like, man, maybe that's the universe saying it's a wrap because the next aid station we were getting to, Pipestone, there was no family or friends. It was only the staff. Which meant I think it was in like another thirteen miles or something from there to the the one where we would see Andrea and the crew. So that would mean he'd have a whole nother section with no not enough water because his bladder was broke. So now we'd be splitting my water between the two of us and going slow and potentially getting caught by the sweepers. So it it became kinda obvious for us that his let's make it to the next aid station, let's get get you looked at and then maybe just call it, right? And Save yourself for work w in just a few days, less damage on that knee. Let's get you back to the house, get it get it taken care of, and then I would continue on. And ⁓ so we agreed to do so in a crazy moment we arrive at Pipestone and one of my old friends from Butte that I that I'd actually worked with in the police department there was volunteering at the aid station. He's He looked at and goes, Man, what happened out there? And I told him Trey's knees hurting and we had to go real slow. And he's Yeah, I've been watching your tracker and I figured something went wrong because you guys are definitely dropping way to the back. Which in a way kinda I was like, All right, other people are seeing this. Like this is abnormal. Like we're we're super fit. We've trained hard. We should be much faster than this. So are we're hurt. Like Trey is definitely hurt. There's nothing there's no more courage he needs to show. Like he he just said his personal best because I think that eight stage was like thirty six, thirty seven miles, which is further than he's ever ran. He did it on one leg. So he's got nothing to prove to nobody. And that was what I wanted him to to understand was that we were all proud of him and we loved him. And the fact you took on the challenge, you trained for it you put in all these hours was still worth it, even though you're not gonna get the results you wanted because we're gonna grow along the way. And we don't know what all the lessons are and we don't know where we're gonna grow, but we're gonna grow. And we just have to believe that that's the process. And that's something I share with all of you is trust that process sometimes, right? Like we all wanna know what the outcome's gonna be and then we'll commit to it. But your true faith is when you commit to the process not knowing the outcome. And while that wasn't the outcome Trey wanted or I wanted, it seemed like it was the best for him at the time. So one of the hardest things I've done it's crazy 'cause I think I've done some hard shit my life. But one of the hardest things I've done was leave him at that aid station and continue on on my race. And I had so many doubts and and was I doing the right thing? Should I just drop with him so he doesn't have to feel like he let anybody down and we'll just we'll call it a day together? Or do I owe it to myself for all the hard work I put in? Do I owe it to Andrea for all the time I spent away? Do I owe it to Jill for all the time she trained? Do I owe it to my mom for the excitement she had for us to be there to at least continue and try? And I didn't know. I didn't know the answer. So I just said, Okay, gave Trey a big hug, made sure he called to ⁓ get a ride because I didn't want I didn't want me to leave and him sneak back in the race, which it kinda in some of our conversations later sounds like he might have tried to do just to stay on the trail longer. So I made him call, I heard him drop out. I knew it was official. And then I headed off. So now what had started as a dream for the two of us to spend all this time together on the trails, challenging ourselves, pushing ourselves, pushing each other, lifting each other up, which is now me. and we had fallen so far behind in the race that I don't feel like I saw anybody for that whole next session. And it was it was probably thirteen miles again. And it was such beautiful country and I just didn't have the r I I don't know, I I was out there and I was like, Man, I'm all alone, I have nobody to talk to. Like all these training runs I did by myself, but what got me through a lot of is like, man, I'm gonna have Trey with me when I actually run the race. So all this time by myself, I'm actually gonna share with another human. Now I was like, gosh, here I am by myself. There's no other runners around me. I think I I was I left the aid station ahead of a couple and never caught up to anybody else. So that thirteen miles I was just alone with my thoughts. And one of the ones that that came to me as I saw an Indian paintbrush which is one of Andrea's favorite mountain plants. And it was a big bush and it was it was in bloom. And I looked at it and and I thought to myself, why am I being so selfish? Why am I out here running along this trail? Here's Andrea's favorite plant and she'll never see it because she doesn't want to run a hundred miles. And Trey's going home and the whole family's gonna be there. Why don't I just drop at the next aid station? We could say we pursued our dream. That'll be 40, I don't know, 45 miles, I guess, something like that. I'll have set my PR so I can have some satisfaction. I went further than I ever thought I could. But then nobody has to stay up. Nobody has to worry about me. And We can all play games and and just call it good. And that was my plan. So I pushed myself to the home stake aid station and ⁓ it's very interesting 'cause I we hadn't seen our family since the second aid station. And when I left I think there's video of us high fiving each other and and heading out full of energy and excitement. So that's what they were thinking they were getting. When I emerged from the trees and crossed the overpass, I was broke. I didn't want to be there no more. Wasn't sure Trey had made the right decision or I had helped him make the right decision. I wasn't sure if I should have dropped when he dropped just to keep from putting a burden on him. So I come in, they're excited to see me and I'm in tears. I'm sad. Just got my head down. And I fully expect to be done. So we we get in and they I sit down for a minute and they have ⁓ a trail medic come over and check my feet. I don't know, they I don't know why they wanted my feet checked, but they did, which was cool. They cut some blisters or something. But I just remember telling Andrea, I was like, I'm done, Andrea. I I shouldn't be out here no more. I'm all by myself. The whole family's at the house. I should just be at the house with the family. I told her about the her favorite plant I saw and how I just wanted to take her hiking and play pickleball with her. A lot of the things she really loves to do that kind of went on the back burner for six months as I trained for for a hundred miler. And She looked at me and true to what we had planned, she told You can't quit here. You gotta make it to the next aid station. And I thought if the people saw me broken and sad, there's no way they'd hold us to it. And honestly, I didn't even remember telling them that. But she was right. I had to make it to the next aid station. But with that The next aid station was from where we were to the Lady of the Rockies, which is the top of the Continental Divide, and there's no crew there and you can't drop there because it's so remote, you have to continue. Which means if you leave home stake where I was, sad, broken, get to the Lady of the Rockies twelve miles later with a hell of a climb. You're now committed to also doing seventeen more miles to the next aid station before you can drop out of the race. So it's a commitment, right? You leave that one, you're doing thirty more miles. To make things worse, whatever I forget what I ate there, some noodles and bone broth. Before I even could g get started, I end up vomiting all that. So now I'm literally halfway through the race, continuing on, and the only thing I can c keep food wise is applesauce and these little like honey stinger strudel waffles or whatever they're called. There's nothing else I could keep in. So calorie wise I'm so far behind what I planned to be. I'm deficient in my nutrition. I'm super hydrated 'cause I had great supplements for for hydration and sodium and stuff, but I had no nutrition, no no food in my stomach. So as I sit there and I'm broken and they're telling me I have to continue in my head, I'm like, man, now I'm going I'm so far behind schedule that it's starting to get dark and I thought I'd already be at the next station before It started getting dark and cold, so I had all my w cold weather gear up there, which meant I had twelve miles to hike to get to it and run, but it's mostly hiking 'cause it's super uphill. And that's when we saw the value of community and who you surround yourself with. So I don't know if you guys listened to Jamie Martin. I did an episode with her back in June. She was the the winner of the first Copper Kings one hundred in the women's division. Super awesome lady, but she couldn't run this year's. So her and her husband Wes and their daughter were volunteering, just happened to be volunteering at the home stake aid station. And this I'm just telling you what I heard. I don't really remember all this, but Jamie apparently came over to see how we were doing 'cause they were watching for us and saw how low I was and what a ⁓ mentally bad state I was in. And she looked to her husband Wes and was like, I think he needs somebody to run with him. So Andrea got with them and and kind of set it up and this is ⁓ again, like one of those things that you train so hard for the physical aspect of this, but I had no idea the mental and emotional that would go into it. But Wes comes over and goes, Hey, I I'll I'll pace you. I'll get you through the night. Because I knew like we were so far behind. We were gonna be up on the East Ridge for the whole rest of the night to get those thirty miles. And I look I never met him. I didn't know Wes. Never had a conversation with him, didn't know him, but the fact he was willing to do that. I'm like We had told our fam, like our crew knew I couldn't quit here. I had to make it to the next one. And then I knew, okay, based on logistics, I can't quit there either. I gotta make it to the next one. So when he offered to to get me through the night and to stay with me I knew what I had to do, right? I had to accept it. I had to go. And it's crazy after the race That was my daughter's Teas, our youngest daughter. That was one of the moments that stood with her the most was not the finish, not the r the run, but the fact that somebody offered help and I accepted. And that was crazy for me to hear from her because I always thought that I had taught them it's okay to ask for help. And I must have said it, but I must never have demonstrated it. Because in her words, she was like, Dad, you're always my hero and you're the strongest person I know. And to see you accept help, let me know it's okay for me to take get help. And and I I just hearing that I was like, gosh, I should've known better on that. But Where in the training manual for an ultra marathon does it come does it say you're gonna learn something like that from your own kids? And that they're gonna learn something like that from watching you. And it doesn't, 'cause it wasn't part of the race plan, it wasn't something that I prepare for, it was just something that you don't know what's gonna happen unless you push yourself to the brink and you push yourself to where you wanna quit and and beyond places you thought you could go. So Wes turned out to be an angel and we set off and we didn't quit. We continued and we spent the whole night together running some, hiking a lot, sharing stories, hallucinating through sleep deprivation to get to the morning where I'd see the family again. And I as I There was times still times I wanted to quit. I'm not gonna lie. About halfway through that first twelve, we got to about mile six, and I said, Wes, we gotta make a decision. Cause I wasn't even sure I could still stay ahead of the time anymore because we had just gotten so far off track. And I I was like, Wes, if we go six more miles and I'm at twelve, I have to do another seventeen down, or do I just call it here, turn back, hike back the other five, and be finished? And I'll never feel he looked at me and goes, Well What do you want the story to be on Monday? He goes, either way, your body's gonna be in pain, and it could be your body's in pain and you finished it, or your body's in pain and you quit. I was like, he's right, let's go. So we turned and and from that point on we just kind of marched off mile after mile. And I also kept referring back in my head to some advice I got from two 70-year-old friends that we had that were on this race with us, two 70-year-old ladies that run hundred mile races together. One runs it and the other's the crew, and then the next race they'll flip-flop. And they told me two things that just stayed in my mind. And that was one, never quit on the uphill climb. No matter how hard it feels, get through the uphill, and then you'll probably not want to quit 'cause you'll see the downhill. And the second was don't quit at night. You'll be amazed at how much your body and your spirit comes back to life as soon as the sun rises. So as Wes and I knocked off the slow miles of climbing. That was one of the things that just kept coming up in my mind is don't quit on the uphill and make it to the morning. And I I can't even tell you the impact it had on my family, being back at my mom's house, waking up every couple hours to see my dot. But in my head, you know, the dot on the tracker, you could see how far we were moving. In my head, I was like, all right, let's move our dot as far as we can so they are proud of me again. So that they see I overcame it and we're staying in a race. We're gonna finish this thing. And that's what we did for for the whole night. We climbed this mountain. It was it was awesome. It was so dark I couldn't see much. But what I did remember seeing was all these logs that had been trimmed to clear the trail kept looking like other runners that were taking breaks to me. And I kept asking myself, why are these runners taking breaks? We're not taking breaks. And I get up there and it was just another log. And then the other one, I guess, is because we trained so much in Arizona, so I was always looking for snakes this spring and summer. Every ⁓ rock that had moss on it, the moss looked like a snake. So yeah, the night was a whole thing, and I can't tell you how much love and respect I have for for Wes and Jamie for sacrificing a whole night of their family time to get somebody they don't really even know. through it and one of my highlights of the morning was or of the whole race, quite honestly, was making it to the morning, getting to see the whole crew again at Nez Pierce, seeing that Trey was okay, that he was happy, that he was excited to be getting my nutrition, you know, getting food for me. And when I came out of the woods and they could finally see me for the first time since like almost twelve hours earlier, apparently I had a smile on my face and I raised one of my poles and they were like, Okay, he's still in it, like we're still gonna be good. And from then on, it was never about quitting, it was never about the pain. It was literally about, okay, let's make one more aid station, one more aid station, which is ironic, right? 'Cause by that point you're seventy seven miles into a race or seventy-six. And everybody's like, You only got three more aid stations. Or another way of saying that is you got one more whole marathon to run. Which seems absurd now, but it worked, right? You just did aid station. And before you know it, and like each of these aid stations, we had Travis run with me and then my sister, and then Jason. So I always had company and Yeah, it was a great way to finish the race. It was a great way to not give up, to be honest with you, to create moments that'll last far beyond the physical discomfort of a race. It was spiritual, it was emotional, and and I'm not gonna lie, I you I still get emotional talking about it, but at least for the first week after the race, anytime I talked about it to anybody, I could not keep from crying. Whether it was remembering Trey and hoping I made the right decision, whether it was reliving the gratitude I have for Wes that he volunteered. Cause I don't know that I could have done it by myself all night long with no company. Thankfully I don't have to answer that question this time. to see my family again when they they saw that but he stayed out there all night and kept moving, so he's in the race. He's not gonna get swept off the course. He's gonna finish in time. When I think about the race and all the lessons I learned from it, one of the things that people ask me is like, How'd your body feel? How sore were you? And I gotta tell you, to be honest, physical discomfort doesn't even come into the list until after number five for sure. And it's one of the things I've forgotten the most about. Right? What I remember is Wes and Homestake and Trey. And seeing the family again in the morning and the finish line and the conversation with the seventy year old ladies and I'm like, Wow, you're still doing this. You're this is ⁓ amazing. And the fact our family all shed tears and we we sat in a circle in my mom's house and we we expressed what our favorite moment was and what we were taking away from it. Nobody nobody said their favorite moment was something they did. Everybody's favorite moment was seeing something somebody else did, the selflessness. And the fact that our family didn't want it to be over. There were tears. Of joy and happiness and sadness when it was time to go our own way and go back to real life. Which doesn't always happen when family gets together. So it was so much more than a race. It was a it was an experience. And one that I'm still quite honestly, I'm recording this now almost two weeks after a race, ten days maybe. When I'm still processing and I'm still working through because it was beyond it was beyond running for sure. And beyond anything I th thought I was getting myself into. So I want to thank all my family and friends for their support. It was unbelievable to buy into this silly dream and to pursue your own dreams within it and to see us all come together. The volunteers at the Copper Kings 100 were amazing. To West Plate for having the vision of what this event could do for the community of Butte, trail running, and the courage to follow through on it. I especially want to throw out a big thanks to Jamie and Wes Martin for being at our lowest and offering help to a complete stranger. So with that, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I want to remind you that our dream chaser gear, logo, and slogan aren't just words, they're encouragement, action, and a community of people that are actively pursuing dreams no matter what they look like. We would love to be part of your chase. Our Dream Chasers t-shirts, dry wick workout shirts, long sleeve sun shirts, our orange running shorts, which everybody commented on at the race, are available at our website, shop.teamhardy.net. Use discount code podcast10 to save ten percent. And then please tag us in your gear. Use the hashtag Dream Chaser so we can support you on your chase. And you never know, maybe we'll just show up at the finish line of whatever it is you're doing. And next week I'm super pumped to tell you all we're gonna have a special guest. We're gonna bring Wes Martin on the show because I can't thank him enough for what he did for me. And I need to learn more about this guy and what would make him do something so selfless. So have a great week, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for listening to this longer solo than normal. And I hope you you get something out of it and keep chasing dreams. And remember, team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. See you all again next week.