So why run Millwood, as Jared stated
on the newly created Millwood Official page, you receive no award, no
belt buckle or t-shirt, no listing on Ultra Signup and
accept for a handful of local runners no real recognition from
anybody. I had a few reasons to attempt this route.
First is the route itself, it covers
all the geographic area that I have been running for the last 10+
years. I do occasionally run in other parts of the Wasatch but 95
percent of the time in the spring, summer and fall I am running on
one of the trails in the three canyons this route covers and I love
them all, and this route covers most of the better ones. Think of the
multiple spectacular locations this route covers, plus I can't think
of a 100 mile race that has a better finish then the last 10 miles
of Millwood. I mean seriously you can't deny that the trail from the
top of Porter Fork over to Thayne's Canyon isn't some of the best
single track in the Wasatch Range.
Second reason is how hard the route is.
I gave up running 100 milers back in 2013 when I had my first drop in
a race at the Wasatch 100. I dropped because I felt awful in the very
hot conditions that year but I had felt that way before in races, the
missing component in this race was I wasn't having any fun, wasn't
looking forward to the experience of running 100 miles and didn't
really care if I finished. It was as if a light switch had been
turned off, I was done with 100 mile races. But.... and there is
always a but, I had never run the hardest 100 mile mountain race in
the country, the Hard Rock 100. Now I have never really been drawn to
H.R. 100 like some people, even as impressive as
those mountains are and the amazing community that surrounds Hardrock
I never really had a burning desire to run the race. I have paced
about 130 miles of Hardrock so I know how spectacular, hard and
special that race is but I was not willing to run a qualifier to get
in and deep down knew I really didn't want to. But I felt like my 100
mile resume if that is what you want to call it was incomplete and I
hadn't proved to myself that I could complete such a hard mountain
course. Now I really don't know which is harder HR100 or Millwood but
I figure Millwood is close enough, if I could complete this route
then I could mentally check off 100 mile races and move onto what
ever new adventure presents itself.
The third reason and hopefully I can
explain this in a way that makes sense, Millwood is a celebration a
tribute if you may. A very very long time ago when people still had
blogs I wrote some post about how Wasatch 100 race was just a race
and the I important part was the journey to get ready for running
Wasatch. My friend Peter commented something to the effect that sure
the journey is important but the Wasatch 100 was the celebration of
the journey and chance to get everybody together to do so. For some
reason this has always stuck with me and I believe it is completely
correct. Millwood to me is a celebration and a tribute to these
amazing mountains, and the people that run in them. Jared wanted to
make a very hard challenging 100 mile route but he also wanted to showcase the
best of the Central Wasatch Mountains and its trails and he nailed it
perfectly. By completing the Millwood I have hopefully shown how much
I love these mountains and how lucky I am to share them with truly
amazing people. Now sure ego is always in play in these events/routes
but I don't think you run something as hard as Millwood without a
strong connection to the place and the people, otherwise what's the
point.
Thanks to everybody that made this
possible and thanks to Jared for creating such a amazing challenging
route.
In this last week Ryan Tockstein became the 6th person to complete Millwood. Congratulations to him, Ryan ran a very fast time and did it in style, it was a pleasure to spend a little time with him at the finish.
July 8,9 2017
My time 41:01, 5th person to
complete the route
Pacers: Peter Lindgren, Astrid
Lindgren, George Odell, Jay Aldous, Erik Storheim, Ben Lewis and
Christian Johnson, guest appearance Dan Barnett ( Cardiff to Kessler
to B.C.C road)
Crew: Betsy Johnson and Christian
Johnson
