*“Even with all of that knowledge and awareness of my prior experiences, this was one of the hardest, and quite likely, the hardest physical endeavor of my life!”*

Dusty Diller is no stranger to endurance challenges but ultra running events can often throw you curve balls when you least expect it, especially when it’s not part of an official event or race. In 2021, Dusty attempted his first ultra distance event and failed to complete the length of the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. He made one fatal mistake and that was to run every climb over the first 51 miles and when he reached Sandstone Peak, he had nothing left to finish. This winter, he gave himself more time to train and he was ready to tackle it one more time. Unfortunately for Dusty, mother nature has wreaked havoc on the entire trail making most of the train unrunnable due to mud, erosion, swollen creeks and mudslides. Here is his story:

Backbone Trail March 11, 2023

By Dusty Diller

This was my second attempt at running the whole length of the Backbone Trail. The first attempt was in January of 2021. I had made it 51 miles before calling it at the Mishe Mokwa trailhead at Sandstone Peak with 16 miles remaining. It had bothered me for the following months and eventually years that I had not just ‘roughed out’ the last stretch. But I was also reflecting on not finishing when I had not just been running 51 miles, was comfortable, well rested, and not outside at night in the Southern California wilderness. I still knew though, that it continue to haunt me if I did not go back to complete what I started. So with the goal of a redemption BBT finish in mind, Coach Gerardo got me on track (and trails) the months leading up to the March 11, 2023 redemption date.

RACE DAY

I started running around 5:45 am at Will Rogers State Park trailhead. It was lightly drizzling as the day began. Fortunately, there never ended up being any heavy rain at any point, but there was a mist or drizzle on and off throughout the day. The trail had clearly had plenty of recent heavy rain though. There was ample mud throughout the entire route, everything was wet or slick, and there were several water and puddle crossings. This all added an additional challenge to an already difficult endeavor.

Antonya took on the role of SAG and I am greatly appreciative of that. A very long day crewing for someone is an endurance activity in itself. We had 5 aid stations planned. All including; Maurten Gels, Maurten Solids, Skratch Super High-Carb, Clif Bars, Skratch Gummies and other snack / endurance foods. I feel like the Maurten Gels were consistently the easiest thing to get down painlessly during the latter miles when nothing sounded particularly good but knew I had to eat. Skratch Super High-Carb was also perfect for taking in calories when eating seemed like a chore.

At about 25 miles into the run I was grateful to meet up with Erik, Enrique, Mike, and Spencer who paced me from Piuma / Las Virgenes to Kanan Dume. So nice to have them as moral support and to push me as well. I had done several training runs with Enrique, Erik, and Gerardo leading up to the event and I appreciated and enjoyed all of those runs but also gave me the insight I needed on how to approach running each segment of the 68 mile trek. Great friends, strong athletes, and training buddies.
There were of course beautiful views throughout the whole day and even under the strenuous circumstances, I was able to appreciate them up until the end. The mist texturing the surrounding wilderness gave off a very surreal and eerie vibe. But I really liked that even in the solitude of my journey.

Mike kindly let me take his trekking poles which I was EXTREMELY glad to have for the last 16 mile stretch from Sandstone Peak to the finish. They were incredibly helpful to climb muddy hills and just helpful to have the additional points of ground contact. And by the end when I was basically shuffling along, they were borderline crutches. It was something I greatly regretted not bringing along from the start.

I made a massive error in being overconfident with navigation for the section of the trail I had done the least, which was from Sandstone Peak to the finish. It was dark by the time I was doing this section, so I could not see without a headlamp, and the prevalent mist was being reflected off my light which made visibility even worse. Once I reached Danielson Ranch, I started heading down what I thought was the fire / access road that would link up to the next stretch of BBT single track. I was in fact going the opposite direction. It was very disorienting, especially being so dark and for how tired I was. I was second guessing whether I should continue down that route and thinking it could possibly still be correct. I ended up (painfully) backtracking to Danielson Ranch to reassess. Fortunately I ended up finding a map at the ranch to confirm where I should go, which was, in fact, not the way I had initially gone. I had almost gone down an additional fire road thinking that it would take me to the trail, but looking on a map later, it would have only made the situation worse.

The whole run took 17 hours. I had been aiming to do sub 14. Coach and I even set out to run the trail using Stryd power to help me pace and gauge my effort. From the beginning I knew it was going to be futile to attempt to run much of the course with so much damage to the trails. On top of this I’m sure without the detour and time spent re-calibrating myself at Danielson Ranch and under dry conditions I could at least get closer to that mark... but instead of speculating I suppose there's only one way to find out. The total mileage ended up being 72.5. It should have been 68 but getting lost tacked on the additional miles.

Strava File

I had thru-hiking experience going into this including the full Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail (with still a few Montana miles to finish), and the full Colorado Trail. The time spent on top of cold, rainy or snowy mountains with no option but to move forward no matter how much light there was or what the weather was doing was helpful during this adventure. Of course the prior attempt, a full Ironman and 4 Ironman 70.3 events were valuable experiences to bring as well. Even with all of that knowledge and awareness of my prior experiences, this was one of the hardest, and quite likely, the hardest physical endeavor of my life! Even under such difficult conditions, it was an awesome adventure and I am very glad to have done it. There is still a part of me that wants to try again under dry circumstances and without the navigation blunder.

Now I’ll start getting ready for Ironman Victoria 70.3 and the Ironman Mont-Tremblant full later this summer. I will certainly be able to take lessons from this feat into both events. Even if it’s just the mindset of ‘well, at least it’s not muddy’. A definite part of the joy in endurance activities is seeing what you are capable of through experimentation with distance, conditions, and disciplines. And they all offer a slightly different flavor of feeling and headspace you venture into.

I was happy overall with how the nutrition went. As mentioned, the Maurten Gels were the easiest thing to regularly get down. I would take those about every 20 - 30 minutes with the occasional caffeinated gel. I was sipping on Skratch Super High-Carb the whole time and would add Skratch Gummies or a Maurten Solid here and there. I was roughly trying to take in 300 calories per hour and never did hit a ‘bonking’ point. The slowness (aside from the mud) especially in the later miles was due to general muscle and joint soreness and fatigue. I had two Red Bulls throughout the whole run and also had peanut butter and jelly tortilla ‘quesadillas’ which were pretty nice. For the next event like this, I’ll 100% add cold watermelon to the aid station menu. I maintained a full back reservoir and was sipping water regularly.

Thank you to Coach Gerardo for the excellent guidance and getting me to the point to be able to finish this thing. Thank you Antonya for crewing the whole thing. Thank you to Erik and Enrique for joining me on all the training runs and for the pacing. Thank you Mike and Spencer for pacing and showing up on the day. And thank you for all the support from everyone.

Notes for the next similar adventure: