Ultimate Wildman Challenge – Part One – Superior DNF Report

Race Date: Friday, September 11, 2026 – 8am

Superior Fall Trail Race – 100 Mile. I’ve been conditioned by the “yaboiscottjurek” instagram page to not write DNF blog posts, but up to this point I’d been lucky enough to not have to consider it. Well, wrapping it into a regular blog post is a grey area so here ya go. This is my story about the 2026 Wildman Challenge, which all started with Superior.

I was very confident going into my third 100 miler. Training after Voyageur in late July was spot on. I had a very enjoyable and successful training camp north of Temperance River in August, and ran lots that week on the section that I felt like crushed me in 2025. I was confident on my nutrition strategy and it was beautifully simple. Maybe risky. Was I actually going to be able to take down nearly 100 grams of carbs – 700mL of sugar water – per hour? The weather forecast was a major wildcard, with unseasonable warmth and humidity during the day, then pretty much guaranteed thunderstorms, some predicted to be pretty severe, starting in the early night hours. It looked to be about the worst conditions I could possibly imagine, but hey, we all run in the same stuff! I was excited for the heat because it’s really what I trained in all summer.

The race started with lots of fun starting next to my training partner Justus who I shared lots of miles with over the summer. I lost him after just a quarter mile or so, but then got into a conga line with Shannon and we had just a lovely morning chatting away. After Split Rock, Shannon ran ahead, my group got shaken up and I joined a new one.

The pleasant sunshine turned to kind of scary grey clouds along the ridge tops near Split Rock Lighthouse. My stomach was a little upset and I left the conga line at my old adopted campsite, Fault Line Creek, to use the latrine. I took out my rain poncho a mile or two later once the light misty rain actually started creating moisture on my shirt. It stopped raining just minutes later.

I was pretty brief at the first aid station at Beaver Bay, and figured I was top 20 or 30… not even close to the front. I passed so many people coming into Silver Bay at mile 25, and made another pretty quick stop.

At the Silver Bay – the Mile 25 aid station – my friend Gretchen, who I helped pace a few years back, offered me a cookie and I staunchly declined. My stomach was not feeling food. But, the sugar water mix was going down just fine and I was on my 13:20 pace almost right on, so I wasn’t too concerned. I kept passing people after Silver Bay, and really felt the heat come out climbing up to Bean and Bear Lake.

The rain was gone, the sun was out, and the humidity was present. I started feeling a little gassed. No problem. I kept chipping away and passed lots of people. I hadn’t been passed since perhaps the toilet stop hours before. Then at Mount Trudee I hit a block wall. It’s a big climb, and I was ready for it, but it just totally sapped me of all energy. After trudging to the top of the big climb, I noticed I couldn’t really run down the back side. People started passing me back. Oof. I just couldn’t run. Nothing in the legs. It felt like running skyrocketed my heart rate and effort to what I’d expect to feel at a half marathon. I was walking a lot, just getting passed and feeling demoralized. My friend Eric came out of the woods behind me and I told him I wasn’t really doing well. He said he felt like he’d lived a whole lifetime in this race already – he had a rough patch early but recovered. I tried to hang with him but he dropped me with absolute ease. I didn’t think that my issues presented a problem that could be resolved… my mindset had been a little shaky for hours already. I asked myself “what if today is just not my day?” and curiously fantasized about dropping out. I questioned if my training was adequate. Was the plan garbage? How can this be happening to me? Why did my legs blow up back there?? But I didn’t actually try to diagnose or figure out what I could do about it. I just complained about it in my head and spiraled into a stinky mood. It wasn’t fun.

Eric somehow ended up behind me due to an emergency stop in the woods. Perhaps noticing my despair, he promised me we’d run into Tettegouche together. He’d run with me, we’d stop and take as much time as we need in Tettegouche, we’d get back on track. I was so thankful but didn’t really want to be chipper and uplifting and friendly with Eric. I just wanted to wallow in my frustrations and complain to myself. We got into Tettegouche and I slumped into a chair. I drank a few flasks worth of water. It seemed like a lot. Yet, I still didn’t put stock into the very real fact that I was dehydrated and my fueling was off. I had fallen quite a bit out of my pace goal after many 15+ minute miles in a row.

Eric and I left Tettegouche together – I got a fresh carb mix blended up and it tasted way better with colder water. I ate a bag of potato chips and they were tasty. That helped me a little bit. We ran over the new Baptism River bridge, but I was struggling a bit after that once the climbing resumed. Oof. It just felt like I was gassed. Bonking. In retrospect, it was textbook bonking, but I didn’t put it together than I had to address my failing nutrition and hydration plan if I wanted to feel better, or that I could even feel better. I felt like I had nothing to give. Like my engine broke. I left Eric to take a pee. I realized I hadn’t really peed at all yet during the race. It came out very dark yellowish orange. It sure looked like I was dehydrated. But I STILL didn’t recognize the data and the facts, right in front of my eyes. I essentially walked the entire section between County Road 1 and County Road 6. It was a long, slow, painful and disappointing section. Along with many other racers, Justus passed me and yelled “nooo!”, knowing well what my goals were and that if he was passing me there and then, those goals were crumbling catastrophically. He asked if I was drinking enough and I yelled up that my pee was black! I thought it was a funny joke. Like, obviously my pee wasn’t black.

Along the infamous County Road 6 section ridgeline, through the Lime Squeezer, lots of power hiking and I was going back and forth with another gal for hours but neither of us really seemed interested in the small talk. I mentioned that it was harder than last time, and asked if she’d done this before. She finished Superior a handful of years back. She said it wasn’t necessarily actually harder, she just didn’t remember right. I thought that was funny but neither of us laughed. By the end of the stupid County Road 6 section, I was pretty convinced I’d have to drop out of the race. I didn’t even know what would happen at the aid station, but I was several hours off my estimated arrival and my poor crew – my mom and dad – had probably been waiting and watching patiently for a long, long time. At the scenic Sawmill Dome overlook, there was a massive dark scary thundercloud on the horizon. It was coming! Not what I needed or wanted, but what I expected. I ran hard into the County Road 6 aid station, just ready to be done with the day. I came back upon Eric. He said he was maybe going to drop out. He famously said at that point: “I just don’t know how many times I can come back from the dead.” He was suffering. We both were. It seemed like we made an unspoken pact together. We gonna bail here or what?

Eric starting swearing once we got halfway down the paved road leading into the aid station. He had spotted his daughter jumping up and down, said his wife made it up after all, and told me he just couldn’t drop out with them watching. We got into the aid station, I threw my hat down, slumped in the char and immediately starting being way too dramatic. I put my head in my hands, pouted, complained, threatened to drop out. I told my mom I needed fizzy water, she was very concerned after hearing my pee was black. I had to explain it was an unfunny joke and I could visibly see some of her tension release immediately. My crew pointed and said they had a can of fizzy water right next to me ready to drink. I cracked it and said I’d need more. She said she couldn’t run to the car, it’s too far away, not enough time. I replied that she could drive back to Duluth and get fizzy water and meet me back here in this exact spot and that would be fine. My pacer Josh had met up with my parents and he sprinted to my minivan to get a couple more Lacroix Lemon carbonated waters. I drank two cans back to back then cracked the third. I was so dehydrated and felt very thirsty – an unquenchable thirst. Huge lightning lit up the sky, thunder rumbled nearby. Aid station volunteer Mark held out some food in my face. No way. I did a double-take and saw pizza rolls. Actually….. let me see those. I shoved them in my mouth. MORE. Oh the hot food was good. I ate pizza, peanut butter and jelly, and several rounds pizza rolls. MORE PLEASE. I still didn’t fully connect the dots, though. It started raining. Shannon strolled into the aid station and I didn’t even acknowledge her or Kevin or other Shannon (who was their crewperson). I was not in a good mood. Don’t look at me! The rain came down harder. I noticed Eric suited up in rain gear running out of the aid station and was shocked. Wow. Despite saying I was not leaving the aid station, I got my shit together, put my rain poncho on, and headed back out myself. Right away, in heavy rain and lightning and thunder, dark and scary clouds seemingly closing in on me from all angles, I regretted my decision not to drop out. Dumb! I thought about turning back, but I was too far down the road.

I climbed up to Section 13 cliffs in a pure thunderstorm. It was horrible. I saw another racer up there and commented on the unpleasant weather. She was very concerned about her metal poles in the lightning. I wondered if getting struck by lightning would even suck. Put me out of my misery! Naw naw naw, I didn’t want to be struck by lightning. I passed the other racer and we both made it down unscathed. But, as I splashed through the flooded trail, I knew I was going to drop out at Finland. I convinced myself that that was the best path forward. As I made my way down the back of Section 13, I felt pretty tense, scared, uncomfortable, but I was running. Then, it struck me. Holy crap, I am running. Let’s see… I recently downed three fizzy waters, a small plate of hot food, I sat for a while and then now I was running again. My legs felt like they got life back in them. Just like that. It hit me that I was simply fully out of whack from dehydration and falling behind on calories and the previous aid station was a small step in the right direction. I was hours behind my time goal – with a simple total carbs consumed divided by hours calculation, it was obvious was far behind my carb intake goals as well.

I didn’t see any other racers for a long time as I kept running across Sawmill Bog while nightfall draped the landscape like a falling curtain. I tried to see how long I could push it before feeling like I had to whip out my headlamp, and at a road crossing midway through the section I put it on. That itself almost kept me in the race. Knowing that the focused beam of light is my entire life, and the rest of the world outside of this narrow viewpoint was just going on without me is such a fun feeling and I love it. But, I told myself that if thunderstorms were still in the forecast, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fight all night like this. I wouldn’t fight all night like this. The rain subsided and I felt like I was bonking again, out of nowhere. It was a familiar feeling to Mount Trudee. All the sudden BOOM. Nothing. Legs done. I sipped a bit of mix. Yuck. I tried a few times to whip something up but I found myself mainly walking until I sensed a bit of light behind me. In no time, Shannon and Kevin came up from behind me. Kevin had picked up his pacing duties early as Shannon was struggling as well, and he was hootin’ and hollerin’ out there as they passed me. RALLY TRAIN! I tried to come aboard but they dropped me with ease. That was when I was fully convinced I’d drop out at Finland. I had been scheming and planning the whole section, but I really started visualizing the actual steps that I’d take. Take my bib off, walk it up to the HAM radio volunteers, hand them my bib, walk with my head down back to my crew. Let them all off the hook and we all go home and never talk about what happened ever again.

On the little out-and-back section leading into the Finland aid station, I saw local legend Kim Holak with her pacer Nate running out, and Justus right behind. Somehow I had caught back up to Shannon and Kevin. All my friends were clumped together! Gah, I thought about just how fun it’d be to run through the night with my friends but … aw shucks can’t do it since I’m dropping out. A DNF was that salient in my mind. When the moment came to fruition, I did not take my bib off and I could not go up to the HAM radio people. I went to my people. My crew had my chair all set up aside from the bustle of the aid station. It was a different vibe. I think they were all very curious what my mindset would be like, and I told them I was dropping out. They brought me all this food and I was eating soup and all types of stuff, drinking lots of water. I took my bib off. Nobody was really saying anything. I waved my mom away when she tried to fill my bottles with mix. It was kind of just like a pause. Nothing going on. I was essentially just mumbling “I can’t, I’m not going on, I’m not gonna proceed here” and stuff like that. I told my crew it was all over, I just didn’t want to walk it in for 30 hours. I couldn’t do it the rest of the night – eat a bunch of food, run for 30 minutes, bonk and death march for 90 minutes, repeat. My brother showed me the radar on his phone – a big red blob. Nope. That was the nail in the coffin. So, I walked up to the HAM radio people and gave them my bib and walked away. It was over. Even at that point, walking back to my crew with no limp, no lean, no real problems, I didn’t have a solid reasoning for what I was doing. I thought about a question that might be asked: “why did you drop out, what happened?” I had no good answers. It’s too hard? I just wanted to get out of there and go home. My poor brother Andrew had driven from Minneapolis to Duluth, then Duluth to Finland to watch me sit in a chair and whine like a baby for 12 minutes, then drove back to Minneapolis. I figured me and my parents would go to Lutsen to the hotel, which was the longest and worst drive ever. It was raining and there was lots of lightning high up into the atmosphere. I was glued to my phone looking at the future radar, searching for a good reason for why I dropped. A little rain, a little thunder is a weak excuse when all my friends ran right back out there.

When I woke up in the morning, disappointed, I wanted to go back onto the course to cheer on my friends. My legs felt so fine, and a nice hearty breakfast and lots of water and coffee made for a pleasant start to the day. We went to Sawbill and saw Shannon come through looking so good. Justus came in like a bull, said he was “locked in” and didn’t even want to sit down. He ran out of the aid station, which was abnormal from what other 100 milers were doing, and his wife Caroline and Justus’ parents looked fairly shocked. Yes! We rallied to Oberg as a unit, good moods abound in the warming September morning sunshine. Shannon and Kevin came and went, continuing on their way to the finish line looking focused and determined. Other 100 mile racers came and went as well, but no Justus. His crew, me and my crew started looking at each other, wondering what the deal was but not really verbalizing our concerns quite yet, until he just popped right out of the woods like everyone else. Oh yeah! Oh, nooo. We all  saw the bad limp immediately. He stayed at the aid station for a long time trying to rapidly rehab a painful quadricep. He and Caroline ended up leaving the aid station together, but they wouldn’t make it to the finish. Crushing. Justus gave it all he had, and more, and it made me almost jealous. I was jealous that he had an injury. I had no reason or issue that put me out of the race besides my stinky attitude and basic mental mistakes. I wished I had an issue. A real issue, anyways.

I saw Shannon get another Superior finish, this one probably her grittiest yet. I was so impressed with how her very stout race goal dissolved so early in the race, yet she persevered for 26 more hours to get it done. I couldn’t understand right at that moment how she did it. I almost saw Eric finish but missed him by a minute or less. I caught him right afterwards, though, sitting on the ground with one shoe off. He looked so tired, like a war-torn soldier. He muttered to me that he went really far in the tank on that one, and that his wife Kendra wouldn’t let him take the other shoe off. Per her orders, only the medics would have to take the other one off. He started unlacing it anyways, with his daughter perched above, just 10 inches away with pure concentration and curiosity on what she’d see as Eric peeled the dirty, nasty sock back. Then we all saw the situation – his big toe was inflamed and looked pretty swollen and squishy. I could see the red, irritated tissue all around his partially covered big toenail. He had a tiny band-aid over that toenail. I thought that was kind of goofy… like what was that tiny band-aid ever gonna do?? Seeing Eric at the finish line, another orange star in hand, I was in complete awe. It was perhaps the most badass shit I’d ever seen in real life, mainly because of how I ran with him so early in the race. If he was even close to feeling the despair that I was feeling at County Road 6, and it seemed like he was, yet was able to push that out of his mind and run through the whole night – thunderstorms and all – and many hours the next day to get to that finish line… it was unfathomable to me. I didn’t see Shannon’s turmoil firsthand like that… but to witness both her and Eric at the finish line, their tasks for the weekend complete, created an emotional mess for me. I was happy, excited and awestruck. I was jealous, envious, insecure that they did and I didn’t. I felt weak, brittle, and frustrated with my own mind and body and spirit. Why wouldn’t I just have… tried a little harder? My dad had even pointed out at Finland, when I was promising everyone I was about to drop out any minute, that the pain and suffering was what I was specifically looking for. “Right?” he asked. I discounted or ignored that very easily at the time, but it was sure sticking with me the next day at the finish line. If I’m not willing to go into pain and agony for many multiple hours in a row, why would I EVER sign up for a 100 mile foot race in the first place? What did I think was gonna happen??

I left Lutsen with my parents feeling mainly frustrated and disappointed. I was very happy that I went from County Road 6 to Finland, though, because I learned firsthand that the bonk was mainly a fueling equation to solve. The copious fluid and food intake at County Road 6 resulting in a recovery, albeit a brief and fleeting recovery, was important data. I was glad I went back out onto the race course to cheer on my friends. I had major regrets, and would have done anything to go back in time 20 hours. I would have done anything to fix my mindset and get to the finish line, even if it was a 35 hour finish. I wish I had a 35 hour finish. But I had nothing. Just a “No Sleep ‘Till Lutsen” shirt which made me feel like a little baby weakling to even own – I slept just fine at Lutsen when all my friends were out there running through the night.

When I woke up on Sunday, my body felt back to normal, like I didn’t even run 10 miles let alone 50. I wanted to punish my legs a little bit perhaps… I don’t know… but I felt very compelled to go run. I went to my local training grounds at Chester Park. When I got to the ski hill I decided to sprint up it. Then again. And again. The reps were fun. I wanted the pain. I wanted to feel the strain in my lungs and my heart and to smash my legs up a little bit. And my body responded at will. I had some of my fastest miles in Chester all year that day. I got back home and immediately registered for the Wild Duluth 100k and 10k – the Ultimate Wildman Challenge – scheduled for just about 5 weeks away. I needed redemption.

GPS Data

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