Sunday July 26 2020
Having seen that there was a half marathon taking place in Billings, MT, (The 406 Race Company Queen Bee, ‘Drone’ 13.1), we quickly planned a trip out west around it. Originally, I had docketed Montana for Easter next year – although with one of our main focus points for the trip always being Glacier National Park, I think we did well to reschedule over the summer, even as a last minute decision. The park connects into Canada, and the weather there can be serious.
The alarm went off at 0400 and we left Charlotte on Thursday, on a 6am flight. Flying via Fort Worth, we touched down in Spokane WA, picked up the rental and were on the road by 1045 local time. My running buddy Rex is from this beautiful part of the world, and he had advised us upon a good driving route to take, so first we headed a couple of hours south, through the rolling pastures, to pick up scenic highway 12 to run east – from Washington, through Syringa, Idaho and into Montana, snaking alongside the beautiful Lochsa River, that Lewis and Clark had followed back in 1804. Per Rex’s instruction, we had downloaded ‘A River Runs Through It’ to watch on the plane, so we were ready for the picturesque river scenes awaiting us.
It was a long drive – six hours or so to Missoula MT, where we refuelled and picked up some snacks for the road. We had a brief driving tour of Missoula and headed north towards Glacier.
We stopped two hours north of Missoula, to eat dinner at Traditions at Big Fork Inn, in the quaint town of Big Fork, on the northern tip of Flathead Lake. We had an amazing French steak dinner, rounded off with some delicious chocolate truffles, and headed an hour further North, through the National Park, to our hotel – the Lake McDonald Lodge. Once we were checked in, we were back in the SUV, driving 45 minutes up the winding and climbing ‘Going To The Sun’ Road to the top of the Glacier – parking at Logan’s Pass. This is part of the North American Continental Divide, and as an international dark Sky Park location, a wonderful place to stargaze. It was incredibly cold and windy up there, but we got to see the Milky Way, so after staying a while, headed back down the windy road to our hotel, where a good sleep awaited.
The next day, we explored Glacier National Park further – hiking to The Hidden Lake from Logan’s Pass, exploring some amazing waterfalls from St Mary’s, then spending some time around Lake McDonald.
Saturday we set off to Billings, but travelled via Lincoln, to have lunch, and explore the stomping grounds of Ted Kaczynski – The UNAbomber.
We then skirted through the outskirts of Montana state capital Helena, and after about 8 hours of total travel, we arrived in Billings around 1800, just in time for race packet pick up then dinner in the Last Chance Pub & Cider Mill. We checked out Billings then checked in, to our Air BnB just after 2000 to relax and sleep.
The Air BnB was a mile from the race start/finish line in West Billings Yellowstone park (not the National Park…) so Saturday morning, I made an early start, drive the mile, wrapped my ankles, (which were still not recovered from my exploits in Utah), and the race started at 0700 in 30-second socially distanced waves of runners.
It was an out and back course, with 700ft of elevation gain in the first half. It was a slog, and it was hot – a real energy-sapper. The course was also long – by almost three quarters of a mile, so that was nice.
I clocked 13.71 miles at a pace of 1.38.21 (7.14 per mile), and I placed 2nd overall, 1st in age group. I stuck with the very tall guy who won it, until about mile 5, when he stretched away up the steepest part of the hill. He was a local ultra runner, very good and seemed a good dude. He’d done a 50 mile trail the weekend before so this must have seemed like a warm up for him!
I ran in my orange Zoom Fly 1 Off Whites, which were fine, but not quite snug enough for the roaring camber of those steep downhills, so the soles of my feet took some pain with the angles.
Anyway, as second overall, I won a local massage voucher – which we left for the Air BnB host on our way out. We visited Pictograph Caves State Parks then made our way to Billings airport to fly to Fort Worth, then home to Charlotte.
It was a fantastic weekend. Sadly, the Oregon race has been cancelled for next weekend, but I’ll keep looking for what else I can jump on.
Racing Americana 