By HPRS Guest Columnist Kimberly Robertson

I have been to a dozen races, but none compared to Sawmill. I should have known this race would be different when I was immediately greeted off the plane to the dead cold of Colorado and the smell of marijuana. I had never been to Colorado. I had never been in high altitude. And I now know, I had never been on a real trail.

I got into running in 2015. I wasn’t fast and still am not. I ran for me, for the way it made me feel. I have always struggled on and off with depression and anxiety. Running helped. I did my first 5k, then wanted to do a 10k, half, marathon, and in training for my first marathon, got hurt and started swimming. Then I wanted to do triathlons. I did my first sprint, then half Ironman, and of course, then I wanted to do a full. I finished my second full Ironman in April of this year. Ironman became my life. I didn’t think I could ever find something more exciting until Sawmill.

I have a cousin who lives in Colorado Springs. I hadn’t seen him since my family lived with his during Hurricane Katrina. We lived on the Gulf Coast and our house was destroyed. They lived in Bastrop, Louisiana, so we stayed with them until we were able to go back to the Coast. I noticed he had started running and hiking and I reached out to him. He told me about Sawmill and as soon as I read about the race, I knew I wanted to do it. I’ll save you the details of my life currently, but I have been searching for something for a while now. The idea of finding something bigger than myself during a race caught my full attention. I needed something. I wanted to find something on that mountain. I wanted to find myself. Since 2015 I have accepted physical challenges, I have searched for them. To me, Sawmill would be a challenge, but I had no idea until now how challenging it would actually be.

I have a friend named Rhonda who became my running, biking, and swimming partner about a year ago. She is always willing to do anything, no matter how crazy. She didn’t even hesitate when I asked her to run 17 miles in the mountains of Colorado. We had about two months to prepare for Sawmill in the flatlands of Mississippi. We ran our one trail when we could and read about traction. We were not ready, but we would make the best of it.

The night before the race we prepared like anyone would in Colorado. We read last minute emails from the race director and laughed about how I couldn’t understand the porta potty situation. For some reason, I was convinced there would be shit (literally) everywhere and I didn’t know why the race put out dirty porta potties before the race started. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. We decided to put on temporary mantra tattoos, “keep going”, and “adventure daringly” instead of our usual race numbers and checked our gear for the next day. Rhonda apparently lays out her clothes in the shape of a person the night before a race. She calls this, “Flat Rhonda”. When I tried to lay my things out, I quickly found out I’m more, “Big Kim”. And in that moment, “Flat Rhonda” and “Big Kim” were born.

The next morning, we all woke up at 4am on the dot. I felt good. We woke up laughing and ready to take on our day. We started driving to the shuttles when suddenly, it started snowing!! I had never seen snow quite like that. It was beautiful and cold. We parked in what seemed to be an empty parking lot and noticed an SUV and car parked in a no parking zone. “Was that the shuttles?” We had no idea, but after more people started showing up, we figured it out. When the car dropped us off at the trailhead, the cold hit me and I realized we still had an hour to wait! I have never wanted to start running faster in my life. Time seems to move so slowly when you’re cold. We got our bibs and I was number 5, my lucky number! I believe in signs, any kind of signs, and not only was the bib 5, the saying at the bottom was, “And MILES TO GO before I sleep”. I have been wanting “miles to go” as a tattoo. “Was that my sign?” I was convinced it was. I decided on the mountain I would finally get that as a tattoo. Post mountain, I have my usual hesitations with permanency.

We opened our hand warmers and put them in our shoes and gloves. I literally couldn’t feel my feet. “How could I start a race with frozen feet?!” I put my hand warmers in my shoes, and they started thawing. To my amazement, there were some guys in shorts. Shorts! It’s fucking below zero and these people are in shorts. It still blows my mind. My cousin then asked me if my camelback was frozen. “What do you even mean?” “Camelbaks freeze?” Yes. Why yes, they do and so does nutrition. I ate a frozen granola bar and patiently waited in the tiniest ball for the start.

The prerace thoughts from the race director almost made me cry. What a beautiful way to start a race! Standing in a huge circle with strangers, I felt equal. I didn’t feel competition; I felt united. I would take on a mountain with these people and I would finish a better person than when I started. I just knew it. We put on our traction (I personally feel like Hannibal with them on) and waited for the signal to go. As soon as the race director was done, people just started running off. That was the start. No loud guns or sounds, just running. My cousin decided he needed to use the bathroom one more time. Good timing, Charlie. We waited for him at the start and got to tell the RD that we are from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. When we told anyone that, their next question was usually, “Why are you doing this?” That seemed promising. I personally wanted everyone to know where we came from in case we didn’t finish or died.

When we started out, I quickly realized we had not been training on trails. We don’t even have trails in MS! The thought also occurred to me that we were climbing a mountain!! “What the fuck had I signed us up for?” The “f” word doesn’t make an appearance too often in my vocabulary unless it is the only word to describe my current state of pain. Needless to say, it became my favorite word at Sawmill. Based on our first couple miles, I realized we would not be finishing in 3 hours like we had hoped, probably not even 5. We would be out, in the cold, on a mountain, for a long ass time. I wanted to cry. I didn’t know if I could finish. I have never felt so discouraged so early on in a race. I wanted a good run time; I wanted to run and keep up with everyone.

We ran when we could given the snow and cliffs, oh and the tricky terrain, but people just slowly started leaving us. When I looked around though, the beauty was more than I had ever imagined. I took my gloves off and started taking pictures. We decided to make the most of this adventure. At one point I even decided it was my given right to fall into the largest pile of snow I have ever seen and make a snow angel. Rhonda saved me from falling right on a cactus. I hadn’t considered what that huge pile of snow was covering or that the snow would most likely get into my pants and make me even colder. I kept my gloves off until my hands became swollen, red, and numb.

I don’t remember at what point it was, but I stopped caring about my run time. I adjusted my expectations and knew that finishing would be the accomplishment. We climbed for what felt like forever. The higher we got the harder it was to breathe, but all we did was laugh and kept moving forward. I don’t know if it was the pain or the high altitude, but I confidently decided we would start a blog called, “The Adventures of Big Kim and Flat Rhonda.”

It sounded good on the mountain and I still think it has a nice ring to it. I told my cousin to leave us so he could do what he needed to for his experience. Rhonda and I stuck together the whole race. We encouraged each other, we thanked each other, we commented on our surroundings, and we talked about life. I felt so small looking around at the mountains, but it was the best kind of small. Little things that mattered hours before had disappeared. It was us and the mountains. I remember at around 9 miles thinking we couldn’t quit if we wanted to because we would need to come down. What a realization!!   There were no “sag wagons”, we had to keep going and we did.

The aid station was amazing. Everyone there was cheering and calling us runners as we turned the corner. I didn’t feel like a runner at all, but I hollered with them in excitement. The aid station was set up like a buffet. I remember seeing watermelon and couldn’t help but eat it even though it makes my stomach hurt. I love watermelon and at that point, I didn’t care about a potential tummy ache. We were offered hot chocolate, quesadillas, rice crispies, you name it, they had it. Our camelbaks were filled by the volunteers and they gave us the best encouragement to send us on our way. However, my watch said almost 12 miles and when I looked down at the table it said 10.6. “How did we do that?!” “Did we get lost?” I still don’t even know. I asked one of the guys at the table and sure enough, we were at 10.6. They told us we only had a little more climbing than a 2000ft descent. I still don’t know when that descent happened. I have to say, I may have said bad things about that guy over the next several miles. It was like hearing, “You’re almost done,” during a race and you have lots of miles left. I did apologize out loud to this nameless man who had no idea I had cursed him.

A lady joined us soon after the aid station. I don’t remember her name, but I remember her adventures. She talked to us about ultras she has done and ones she has planned. She also talked to us about how she gets lost a lot in the woods. Great. We had no idea if we were on the right path and having her with us didn’t necessarily seem promising. But we carried on, hoping to see pink ribbons after our turns. I remember her saying the end was rocky. I didn’t know what that meant. After having experienced it, I would like to describe it as steep, slippery boulders with loose gravel on cliffs that could cause anyone to slip and fall, especially clumsy me. She stayed behind at some point and we kept going. I do not remember running the end of the trail in the beginning even though it was the same trail. It looked different to me.

We didn’t know how many miles we had left, but eventually we saw the gate. The gate!! We were done, the finish was beyond that gate. We picked it up and finished running through the arms of strangers. My cousin was there cheering us on and gave us both the biggest hug when we finished! He looked so happy and I was happy for his big accomplishment. First things first, we got bacon, took off our spikes, then bought Human Potential hats. We didn’t stay very long since we had another cousin we were meeting for an early dinner in downtown Denver. But we didn’t need to stay long. I saw the lady finish, and everyone was so kind to each other. It was truly about the journey and the finish, not the time. There were no timing chips, only an award for last place. Rhonda and I were a tad bit disappointed we didn’t get DFL *dead fucking last* considering the award was a badass trophy and bottle of wine. Oh well, maybe next time.

There is no doubt in my mind that I want to go back. I want to go back to the mountains. I found a part of myself out there I didn’t even know I had. I found something I had been missing. I still can’t describe it in words. It is just this feeling I had and that I still have. When I came back to MS, I felt different. I felt like no one understood what happened out there, but it’s not their job to understand. I know what I felt, and I couldn’t be more thankful. I am thankful for the human potential, for my cousin, for Rhonda, for the snow, the trail, the rocks, the people. I am thankful for my partner who supports my adventures and cares for our four-legged child while I am gone. I am thankful I can do what I did and to have the ability to do what I love. And the fact still remains, I have done a dozen races, but none compared to Sawmill.