2025: Knee injury, Utah 115
I have been following the Grand to Grand Ultra stage race for a few years. Last fall, I saw they have announced a new event, the Utah 115 that runs on the Grand to Grand course, with 50 hours cut off. I love the town of Kanab and this sounds super intriguing. A few miles of the course even go through the Pink Coral Sand Dunes, aka MDS style. I signed up despite the fact it's a spring race and I'll have minimal time to train and prepare due to ski season.
After hiking the 33 miles Hermit loop with Amelia in November, I started running a decent amount but without serious training. Both Alex and Amelia had signed up for the seasonal BEAVO snowboarding program which meant we would be going to Beaver Creek every weekend in January, February and the first weekend in March. On January 12th, the second ski weekend, I crashed badly at Royal Elk Glades and immediately felt a good amount of pain in my left knee. My friend Luke who was an Army medic for over 20 years assessed my knee and after resting for 10 minutes, I was able to cautiously ski down the mountain mainly using the right leg for control. After a visit to the ER and PT, they diagnosed me with partial torn MCL and started physical therapy one week post injury and started a slow walking/running program. I was able to return to the slopes with my family two weeks post injury limiting myself to easier runs initially. For the next two months, I did PT daily for both legs and felt both legs getting stronger. I was also able to start running daily by the end of January during the week days.
Since Utah 115 was not a high elevation race and did not have a massive amount of climbing, I decided to train mainly on local trails such as Ute Valley for the rocks and Falcon Trail for the sand that I was sure to encounter during the race. I had figured there were about 4 miles of Sand Dunes, maybe 10 miles of sandy tracks, 5 miles of "cross country" aka bushwhacking in the 115 miles course. Due to a surprise family visit and a wedding in March, I was not really able to train much in March, therefore dedicated April to serious training.
I end up running about 230 miles in April and increased my long to to a 3x of Falcon loop at 39 miles and focused on walking more than running. I felt my cardio was good and ready, but wasn't sure if my legs and feet would be up to the 50 hours of pounding with only five weeks of true training. I also wasn't confident that my stomach was properly trained either.
I reserved a room at a historical house right next to the race start. Two weeks before the race, Jade and kids surprised me by making plan to come with me to Utah to support me, and Amelia wanted to pace me on a segment. Then I got a cold 10 days out and and truly tapered by sitting on the couch for a week taking meds and blowing out stuff from the sinuses and lungs.
We left Wednesday and arrived in Kanab on Thursday while driving through some amazing scenery along Utah Byway 12.
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| Looking down toward Calf Creek canyon along Highway 12 |
The course is setup as an out and back with the outgoing section doing an extra side loop through Coral Pink Sand Dunes and Elephant Cove area.
With Jade crewing, I decided to have her meet me at Yellowjacket Road at mile 26, Clay Flats at mile 52 with plan for a nap, Clay Flats again at mile 76, and Yellowjacket Roads at mile 91. This way, Amelia can pace me from mile 76 to mile 91.
I had setup our Suburban with a solar panel on the roof and an alternator charger charging the EcoFlow battery, which then powers the 12V cooler, microwave and Starlink. This way Jade can track me via my Garmin InReach in areas without cell phone coverage, and can heat up food for me at aid stations. She had fried rice, chicken nuggets, Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage, ramen noodles, salami and watermelons all ready to go in the cooler.
The race started Friday morning at 7 AM about 100 yards from our rental house. Jade and kids came and watched the 40 or so runners took off down the road. The course ran on streets for just under a mile before hitting the trailhead. Since I still wasn't 100% recovered from the cold, I decided to take this super easy and jogged at a relaxed 12 min pace near the back of the pack while chatted with two Korean runners, Sean and Jae from California.
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| Cruising through Kanab toward the trailhead |
I got my poles out when we hit the trailhead. The trail meandered through the bottom of a canyon toward the cliffs. It was very runnable. Then we hit the Cliff Trail at mile 2 and it became a scramble as the trail gained 500 ft in half a mile.
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| Cliff Trail |
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| Looking back toward Kanab from Cliff Trail. |
At mile 3, the course gained the Mesa top and hit a sandy double track. I expected this part to be sandy so wasn't surprised and felt a bit of novelty running on the sand.
Soon we had our first gorgeous view of the sandstones.
And more sandy tracks followed.
The first aid station was an unmanned water station near mile 6. I topped one bottle and followed 3 other runners into a sandy ditch. Hmm...... There were no trails. I didn't expect to start cross country until mile 35 or so. We took turns leading as each leader would lose the path indicated by pink flags and another runner would find them. The cross country continued for over a mile until it climbed up a hill side dotted with boulders to another sandy track.
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Pink flag indicated the path through this "cross country" section
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Sandy track continued for another 5 miles until it descended to a crossing of Kanab Creek slot canyon section next to the first manned aid station at Best Friends. This was certainly more sand than expected.
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| Kanab Creek flowing through the slot canyon by Best Friend aid station at mile 12 |
The next two miles were pleasant uphill firm dirt road climbing past
Angel's Rest Animal Sanctuary before turning back to sandy tracks and descended to Highway 89 where a race marshal helped with the crossing. After the crossing, the course once again bushwhacked through half mile of weeds on sands until it entered
Cave Lake Canyon Resort where I blissfully ran on a paved road for over a mile before the course turned sandy once again.
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| Cave Lake Canyon |
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| Nice shelter in Cave Lake Canyon |
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| The path rises toward the canyon rim |
Once the course climbed out of the Cave Lake Canyon, it descended a sandy track for a mile and arrived at Hancock Aid Station at mile 19. The 50 miles race (they started at 9 AM, two hours after us) leader caught up to me at this aid station. Tessa would go on to win the 50 miles race outright, beating the fastest man by over an hour.
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| Tessa passing me shortly after Hancock aid station, in another short cross country |
After Tessa passed me, it was a monotonous 7.5 miles of sandy track stretching as far as I can see to the next aid station. I really struggled through here. It was hot, not a soul out there, and chasing Tessa for a few hundred yard was not a good way to start this section.
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| Tessa is somewhere in this picture, far away |
About 3 miles out from the next aid station, the two leading 50 miles men caught up to me and inquired about the Tessa's lead and condition. I told them she looked happy and and wished them best of the luck catching her. One of them mumbled something like "she's like a Dauwalter".
A mile later, I looked up at the next hill and saw Amelia standing on the top. She had backtracked on the course for almost two miles in her sweat pants, crocs, and a can of 7-UP to find me. Fortunately she had listened to the pre race briefing and knew to follow the pink flags. There were other colored flags out there, probably BLM markings.
We mostly hiked the 2 miles together to Yellowjacket aid station at mile 26 where Jade and Alex had setup my own aid station with a shaded chair and hot food.
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| Amelia and I coming into the aid station, 8 hours into the race, at 3 PM |
I ate watermelon and Jade also heated up a Jimmy Dean's sandwich, which was delicious! I also dumped the sand out of my shoes and socks for the first time and was surprised how much sand got in despite the gaiters. What I did not do, was to also take the insoles out to dump the sand.
I loaded up the Kogalla waist light and my headlamp and refilled the Tailwind packets. It would 25 miles before I see Jade again. As I was heading out, Amelia chased me down and gave me a zip lock of salami!
The course followed the road for about a mile before turning into Pink Coral Sand Dunes. I followed the sandy track into the park and looked up at the nearest steep wall in and saw some foot prints, and wondered who in their right mind would want to climb such steep sand dunes. Then I got closer and saw a pink flag on the top of the steep dune.
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| First steep dune |
As I got near the top, I discovered I was not making any progress to the top with normal hiking steps. It was time to improvise. The technique that end up working was like this:
- Plant both poles as deeply as possible about 18 inches in front of the feet.
- Sprint 5 quick steps until the feet are at between the poles, drive the last step in as deep as possible to stabilize.
- Move the poles 18 inches further and repeat.
This was exhausting but at least it worked. I would eventually catch another runner before the end of 3.5 miles of dunes. This section was gorgeous but I absolutely trashed my hips here.
By the time I existed the dunes and hit the mile long sandy track toward the next aid station, I was demoralized and in pain, and could feel sand rolling under my feet inside the shoes. When I arrived at Pink Coral Sand Dune aid station at mile 31, there were five runners there, all busy dumping sand out of their shoes. I finally realized I needed to also remove the insoles and found tons of sand trapped under the insoles.
Took one Tylenol here and it didn't do much. Later discovered the Tylenol bottle had expired in 2021.
The volunteers warned me to pay attention to the next cross country section. Sure enough, I missed the turn off from the sandy tracks and had to back track a bit to find the next 2 miles of cross country.
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| There are pink flags here |
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| Finest cross country course! |
I discovered with my mild color blindness and not exactly 20/20 vision, it was sometimes difficult to see the next set of flags and I would lose the course and had to back track to the previous flag to study the terrain. Eventually a runner named Jacob caught up to me. He also missed the turn but went out a mile before back tracking to the course. We chatted and arrived at Elephant Cove aid station together at mile 39 near the sunset.
After it got dark, the course turned east and up so it was all walking a mostly sandy track to the next aid station at Parunuweap Canyon, mile 46. I felt so so by then, and saw a runner cuddled in a sleeping bag not able to eat anything. I didn't want to stay long and left after some oatmeal and watermelon. It was mostly downhill for the next 7.5 miles to Clay Flats and Jade. I was told that not all 7.5 miles were sand. Turned out it was about 5 miles of sand, and maybe 2 miles of harder dirt and rocks. Somewhere along here I started to lose the range of motion in my hips and couldn't really open up the strides for the downhills so it took longer than expected to arrive at Clay Flats at just before 1 AM.
Jade had setup a sleeping station in the Suburban. I took off my shoes and socks and cleaned the feet as much as possible, drained a blister on my left large toe, ate some food then curled into the sleeping bag for an one hour nap. I was initially cold but warmed up shortly and it seemed I just closed my eyes when Jade woke me up, it was already an hour. I ate some fried rice, taped the toe blister, put on pants and jacket since it was 41 degrees outside. The original plan was for Jade to meet me again at Clay Flats on my way back. But we improvised on the spot for her to meet at at Old Highway 89 aid station, the turn around point of the race, to take my night gear from me.
The sleep, food and a second ibuprofen dose had worked wonder. I actually jogged up a gentle uphill sandy track and passed quite a few runners, including Sean and Jae who were a originally couple hours behind me but didn't sleep at Clay Flats so passed me there. It was a good run on 100% sandy tracks to the next aid station at Belly of the Dragon at 5 AM where I ate some PBJ and watermelon and then had to cross a spooky tunnel to go under highway 89.
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| Tunnel under highway 89 |
The course followed Belly of the Dragon path around the drainage then up the side hill steeply to a sandy track on the top. The 2 miles here climbed about 1,000 ft, not a fun thing to do on sand. The course then crossed through three beautiful canyons. Each descent was steep, and ascent steeper. Finally at around sunrise, I make a right turn and saw Jade and the Old Highway 89 aid station.
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| Final trek through sand into Old Highway 89 aid station |
Jade did not tell me that she had her own adventure getting to this aid station at 4 in the morning. She ended up doing some off roading before finding the correct way. Lesson learned: never follow Google Maps in the back country.
The Koreans caught up to me at the aid station and we all had a wonderful breakfast. I had pierogi, eggs and coffee. They had in-and-out burgers and spicy korean ramen from their drop bags. Our microwave came in handy for the Koreans since the hot water at the aid station wasn't hot enough to cook the ramen.
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| Old Highway 89 Aid Station, mile 65 |
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| Nothing like In-and-Out burgers that's been in a drop bag for two days |
The 8 miles back down to Belly of the Dragon on paper looked good and fast. In reality, it was cursing through deep sand, heel blister popping, pooping in the bushes, and scared for my life sliding down the hill side toward the tunnel. It was brutal and I was beat by the time I arrived at Belly of the Dragon. I had lost my two pocket of Tailwind somewhere and had to use LMNT pockets from the aid station. That didn't work at all for me and after two sips that made me gag, I gave up on them.
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| Descending toward Belly of the Dragon |
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| The view was as grand as sand is soft |
The climb back to Clay Flats was slow and demoralizing. Especially since I didn't have Tailwind for calories and got two Honey Stinger waffles from the aid station as calories replacement. I arrived at Clay Flats, mile 79, at just past 1 PM where the kids greeted me about a quarter mile out. I took a long stop, ate a Jimmy Deans and watermelon, and once again drained the shoes. I had one more pair of clean socks but decided to save them for the last 25 miles.
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| Clay Flats family portrait |
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Amelia and I leaving Clay Flats
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It was all uphill from Clay Flats to Parunuweap Canyon. While climbing the endless sandy track, I sorted lost it mentally and couldn't imagine continue for another 40 miles. Fortunately Amelia was full of positive energy and the aid station volunteers at Parunuweap Canyon were even more positive and remembered me from the previous visit at night. Amelia was a bit shy about eating the food at aid station and I end up handing my half eaten food to her for her to get some calories in.
The first 4 miles of the connector trail from Parunuweap Canyon to Yellowjacket was actually less sandy and on gentle rolling terrain and Amelia and I had a good time. The forecast was for rain that night, and I mentally prepared myself for the rain gear that I would need for the final 25 miles. We finally can see Pink Coral Sand Dunes in the distance and found a spot where the trail drops down steeply for a picture of the Amelia and dunes.
As soon as we stepped off the lip into the steep downhill, I felt stabbing pain in my hips with each step. I felt faint from the pain at the bottom and had to take a break. From there it was about a 400ft descent to the road and my pace slowed dramatically while the hip pain increased. I took another 400mg of ibuprofen hoping it would shut down the inflammation. The two miles from the onset of pain to Yellowjacket aid station were downhill and flat, but took us over an hour.
By the time I limped into Yellowjacket aid station at 7 PM, I suspected that I was done. My stride length had shorted to a shoe length. Anything more would make the hip pain intolerable. Downhills and shifting sand make it even worse. Jade and kids helped into the car where I rested for a while hoping for a miracle but the hips didn't improve. Previously when I had hip pain, resting always helped. I had done 92 miles in 36 hours, and had 25 miles and 14 hours left. 20 of those remaining miles were soft sandy tracks and there were about 3,500 of descent as well. After 50 minutes, the Koreans came into the aid station and I told them of my decision to drop. Sean and Jae continued out of Yellowjacket at 8 PM. Sean end up dropping at the next aid station at Hancock after losing his mind in the sand cussing the entire way there. Jae went on alone and finished in 49 hours and change.
The next morning after sleeping for a few hours, I went back to the start/finish to cheer on the last few remaining runners, include Derek, Jae, and Jeremy.
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| Derek finishing |
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| Jae finishing |
Sean and Jae stayed at race provided tent. These guys sure know how to pamper themselves. They cooked us a yummy breakfast of pork soup, BBQ pork, kimchee and green scallions right there in the tent.
Since we have an unexpected free day, we decided to see a couple local attractions.
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| Sand Cave |
The soft sand in the cave gave me PTSD!
Post race thoughts.
Something went well and others didn't go well at Utah 115.
Things that went well:
- G/I and nutrition. For 36 hours I never had any nausea, and was able to eat regularly. There were two segments that I didn't refill Tailwind. One was from Belly of the Dragon to Old Hwy 89 where the Tailwind bag was in the wrong pocket and I couldn't find it. Another segment was from Belly of the Dragon to Clay Flats where Tailwind was once again in the wrong jacket pocket and when I stuffed the jacket, I probably pushed it out without realizing it. Having Jade as crew made a huge difference in food. Mostly what I ate from the aid stations were watermelon (they never ran out), PBJ wedges and some were toasted and therefore yummy, two cup of Ramen, one was super salty, two cups of oatmeal, and handful of potato chips. At Clay Flats at night, I asked for quesadilla and after waiting almost 10 minutes, finally received a small quarter wedge of it. After the race, Jade told me that Clay Flats aid station was running out of cheese and was rationing them. Old Hwy 89 had good food for breakfast. Though I wished for hot grits mixed with bacon and scrambled eggs. They did have pierogi and eggs and coffee. Jade prepared watermelon, chicken nuggets and Jimmy Dean cheese and sausage croissants. The Jimmy Dean's was a big hit with my stomach, so yummy and savory. If I have Jade crew me again in the future, I think I'll add cheeseburgers, and maybe instant grits with scrambled eggs and pre cooked bacon bits. I do wish the race providef more savory food at aid stations. Most of the time, the only savory food was ramen. Did #2 at Clay Flats, Hwy 89, and shortly after Hwy 89. All went well and easy.
- Gear prep and timing. My timing sheet was pretty much spot on until my hips blew out at the end. The gear prep worked well, never had any issues. Kogalla battery still showed 3 out of 4 lights after a whole night (minus 2 hours of stopping at Clay Flats), so about 8 hours of usage. I thought I had it at level 15 but will double check. At this level, it could lasted two nights easy. Somehow lost the blinker light on the waist belt. Need to put that somewhere else.
- Foot care: this will be in both categories of things went well and didn't. I had blisters on both heels that formed after 60 miles. Also a blister on the outside of the left big toe, not sure what caused it, probably need to check the socks for debris before hand. None of these really prevented me from moving forward though the heel blisters did cause some discomfort. I did tape the toe blister at mile 52 at Clay Flats. When I dropped at mile 92 and took off the tape, the toe was caked in dirt with glue. It would have been a lot of work to retape the toe had I not dropped from the race.
- Sun protection. The big rimmed hat worked well and the generously applied sunblock meant no sunburns at all. Very important in a long event like this.
- Managing efforts. This could also be in both categories. Cardio wise, the effort was great and I kept my lingering cough in check. I probably over used the hips early on.
- Walking training. Focused more walking when walking wasn't necessary during long training runs really helped. The heavier pack during the training also helped. My race pack was fairly heavy when picking up by hands, but never felt burdensome when wearing it.
- Amelia was a great pacer. However need to get her to eat more at aid stations.
Things that did not go well:
- Lack of training volume. With only 5 weeks of serious training, there simply wasn't enough time on feet to properly preparing the soft tissues in the lower body for the abuse. I was prepared cardio wise but the soft tissues take much longer to get ready.
- Lack of sand training. This was more of an intelligence failure. Not having done enough to research the course, incorrectly thinking there won't be much of the sand outside of the dunes. The legs and hips weren't ready for the extra pushes and stabilizing required in sands.
- Lack of sand gear. Without sand gaiters, I should have dumped the shoes and socks more often. Also should have brought more socks in drop bags at more aid stations. For example, Best Friends, Pink Coral and Hwy 89 all offered drop bags. Possibly could have used a 10.5 size shoes in the later part of the race as well.
- Only used the pole quivers for about a mile at the beginning of Cave Lake Canyon. End up using poles everywhere. The idea of putting the poles in the quiver for aid stations wasn't necessary for such as small race where there were usually less than 2 to 3 runners at the any aid stations at a time. Every aid stations had a chair for me.
- The only time I felt hard in effort other than the Sand Dunes was the 6 miles of straight sandy tracks after Tessa passed me. It was hottest part of the day, in the high 70's or low 80's, and not a cloud or breeze.
- The Tylenol and ibuprofen didn't work as well. Turned out the Tylenol bottle expired in 2021, and the ibuprofen bottle expired in 2017!!!
