In May, I ran Coyote Two Moon—my first 100-mile ultramarathon. This is my race report, with more detail than anyone asked for.
By Peter Deneen
15-minute read
Listen to Pete’s Race Report
As I lay on a blue cot on the shoulder of Highway 33 north of Ojai, my legs extended up against the back of a black Hyundai and a spirited crew of friends tending to me, tears were welling in my eyes and beginning to spill down my temples. I felt grateful to the rain for providing me with a valid reason to hide my face beneath a blanket. I had run 71 miles and completed 19,000 feet of climbing, but I was crumbling at the idea of going back up the mountain for another 32 miles. Painful chafing had me mourning my decision not to lube proactively, wishing I hadn’t signed up for the 100-mile distance, and regretting telling so many people I was doing it—I wanted to stop running.
Not only was 100 miles twice as far as I’d ever run, the 27,000-feet of vertical gain on Coyote Two Moon’s course was also double the elevation I’d ever done. For a race this grueling coaches recommend a six-to-eight month training block. But with less than three months to go until race day I had yet to begin. Not only was I logging zero-mile weeks, I had run fewer than 90 miles over the entire two previous months. If you were to devise a plan for how to spectacularly fail in the training for—or running of—an ultramarathon, I was executing a masterclass.
My procrastination wasn’t entirely out of laze, or the lurking disbelief in myself that I would actually do the thing I signed up for. I had been busy coaching high school girls soccer and had yet to resolve underlying issues with my left foot arch and my right hip. Editor’s note: if you think you need surgery on something, try stretching first! Mike Scarber, the race co-director for Coyote Two Moon, happens to be a savant of a physical therapist. He resolved my foot and hip in two visits and kept his horse (me) in the race. This was great for both of us because as the only Ojai local running the 100-miler, Scarber had plastered posters around town advertising the ultra with my Instagram handle “@DANCIN.PETE IS DOING IT.”
Once out of the box stall I quickly ramped up to 60+ miles per week, logging thousands of feet of elevation. In the course of training I got to run several routes I’d long had my eye on, including the seldom-traversed Santa Paula Canyon to Last Chance Trail to Hines Peak down Red Reef—a 25-mile horseshoe with 7,000 feet of climbing along a trail that has all but disappeared. The longest training run I was able to get in, however, was hardly 32 miles. The day that I had planned to run a 50-mile loop in the Sespe Wilderness I opted instead to compete in a relay race from Santa Barbara to Solvang with some friends. I ripped a few 4:27-minute downhill miles in a sleeveless Hawaiian shirt, killed a couple toenails, crashed Eleanor’s van, and nearly lost my dear friend Ross Monroe to heat exhaustion on a road beside the Santa Ynez Chumash reservation. Needless to say, I never got a good long training run in, but I had a good time doing it. Anyone following my Strava on the buildup to Coyote Two Moon would not have been foolish to think I’d downgrade my registration to a shorter distance, or back out of the race altogether.
For weeks ahead of race day questions from friends were, “How are you feeling? Are you ready for it?” The truth was that I felt both under-prepared and ready as I would ever be all at once. “I don’t necessarily feel ready, I guess this is something that is just happening,” I’d reply. The day-by-day nearing of inevitable suffering is a strange thing, sort of like walking off a plank of a pirate ship one slow step at a time, voluntarily.
A week from race day the National Weather Service was warning of a freak spring storm with wind, low visibility, and every type of precipitation in the cloud catalog, including freezing levels low enough to cover much of the course with several inches of snow. At one point, micro spikes for traction were a gear consideration, but the day before the start of the race that storm system shifted its track, missing us entirely. The weather for Coyote Two Moon would be virtually perfect.
Poor sleep for several nights prior to the race had me feeling like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he is stabbed under his armor by the emperor just before stepping into the arena for the final fight. I entered Coyote Two Moon with a low-grade upper left foot sprain from an attempt at a Fastest Known Time the week before—a questionable decision akin to stabbing myself under my own armor—but that is a story for another time. I also had a crush of deadlines that came to a head the night before the race that would have given even the Dalai Lama himself anxiety. Despite entering the Coyote Two Moon 100 under-trained and sleep-deprived, I was eager to start so I could focus on nothing other than running and eating for two nights and a day.
An eleventh hour shift in her work schedule meant my girlfriend—and now crew chief, Julia—was able to book a last minute flight from Baja and make it in time for bib pickup. We had about 24-hours to get my gear and food situated, meet with the rest of the crew, and come up with a half-baked plan of when I would be where and what I might need when I get there. Planning for my own demise was admittedly pretty fun. Of course, you can imagine the different ways you might succumb and try to prepare for it, but something you can’t foresee will go wrong and that’s part of the fun of trail running.
Chumash elder Alan Salazar blessed the 25 runners and at 5:00pm on May 2, the 100-mile and 100-kilometer distance competitors stepped off the plank and into Sisar Canyon. I dropped a sour gummy worm into my mouth to cue my brain and digestive system: this is an eating contest. The average male human needs somewhere around 2,500 calories per day. I estimated I would need to consume around 15,000 calories, roughly six times what I’d normally eat in a day, and substantially more than the other runners in the field, who were all smaller than me in height and body mass. At 200 pounds, plus pack weight, my calorie burn rate meant I would need to eat (while running) something like 400-500 calories an hour to offset my energy expenditure (if you like to eat, you might consider ultrarunning).
At the second creek crossing a handful of friends from the run club surprised me. Two buddies who would be my pacers later in the race; Dahn Pratt and Ross, read me a poem as we ran up the canyon. Then a voice echoed down from a boulder on the slope above: “Peter of the Mountain!” a well-tanned, naked man with outstretched arms hollered down to us with bravado. It was my friend, renowned Earth ambassador Robin Greenfield, who had stayed with me for several nights on his California speaking tour. Backlit by a golden sun he sang out cheerfully, “Enjoy your time in nature!”
My spirit was riding high, but I had a headache and my legs felt heavy and fatigued. Despite hoping and believing otherwise, they would never really feel much better over the course of the 100 miles. I chatted with fellow runners for most of the 5,000-foot climb up Topatopa, including one competitor who is a local Forest Service ranger. At the 6,300-foot Topatopa summit, less than nine miles into the race, an unforeseen piece of mission critical gear failed. One of my brand new hot pink carbon fiber trekking poles snapped in the middle. Taking advantage of a brief moment of cell phone service I shot a message to my crew: “Just broke a pole. Can you guys get a fresh set to Julia?” before I dropped off the north side of Topatopa for the descent into Lion Canyon. My crew received my message in time and Julia retrieved Dahn’s poles, which despite being too small for me, ended up being crucial to have. I ditched my broken poles at the Topatopa aid station and ran toward Rose Valley hands-free.
One of the features of the Coyote Two Moon design is that any solitude doesn’t last long. Each trail connecting to the main stem of Nordhoff Ridge is an out-and-back, meaning you pass everyone going back the other direction. As the sun was setting on Friday night I encountered a nice Salomon soft flask with a high-end filter cap on the trail. I drank its contents and packed it, figuring one of the guys ahead of me must have dropped it. The bottle belonged to neither of the 100-mile or 100K runners, so I turned it in at the Rose Valley aid station. Editor’s note: a couple days after the race ended the race directors emailed our group asking who found and turned in the bottle for bonus minutes off their final time. The bottle had been placed there as a test (Reason #284 why Coyote Two Moon is awesome).
As the only Ojai-based runner of the 13 entrants in the 100-mile distance, each aid station was a riot of friends and volunteers, many of whom I knew or are part of Sisar Canyon Run Club, which Ross and I began in January 2024. I prioritized doling out hugs and love at aid stations over expeditiousness. I was running in second place for most of the first 50 miles, but the minutes from my extended aid station party stops were accumulating.
Volunteers set up a Starlink internet system at Rose Valley, so I got to chat on the phone with Julia when I had cell service on my descent back down Red Reef before letting her get some sleep in the back of my Prius. I ran alone for most of the night. I came upon several common poorwills, a bird in the nightjar family, with eyes that shine red in the light, and that likes to crouch in the trail like a rock and wait until close quarters to take flight. I climbed several miles up the Sisar fire road before diving down Horn Canyon to the Thacher aid station where run club mate Tyler Manson met me at 2:00am with a bag of sourdough peanut butter and jelly, brownies, and a surprise note in a bag from Julia. Another run club friend, Raymond, poured me round after round of Coca Cola and fed me quesadillas. In my mental map of the race, this marked the first third complete, with 35 miles and more than 9,000 feet of climbing done.
At each peak you must find and wear a silicone bracelet to prove you made it. At the top of Chief, at 4:30 in the morning, I missed the spot where the bracelets were stashed in a rock cavity and went for an unintentional scramble across the peak’s fin-shaped summit. Eventually, I found the geodetic survey marker denoting the summit and texted a photo to Scarber. In the light of day Chief Peak can be tricky, at nighttime it’s downright precarious. My misadventure ultimately cost me a half an hour, but allowed my friend and fellow 100-miler Sean Riley, who ended up with a strong fourth overall finish, to catch me and we descended into Rose Valley at sunrise together.
Julia awaited us at the national forest boundary with hot coffee in hand and a warm embrace. At that moment I made the decision to continue enjoying aid station time with her and my friends rather than trying to close the gap with the front runner. I wanted to enjoy the second half of the race to the maximum extent possible. I ate a stack of pancakes with bacon and coffee. I had a good poop. I didn’t sleep, but I laid down in the back of my Prius and closed my eyes for about 20 minutes. Julia cleaned my feet and put on fresh socks. I pooped again. I switched from night gear to my sun kit for the daylight hours; a sun hoodie and sunglasses. I pooped for a third time, and after more than an hour, departed Rose Valley feeling fresh.
It was a Saturday morning at the Gridley trailhead when I arrived. My parents and a handful of friends were there to greet me. I picked up Dahn and bounded up Gridley to the summit of Nordhoff Peak, where I climbed the fire tower, retrieved my third bracelet, and took my first look at the chafing emerging on my groin. The chafing worsened as Dahn I began our descent down Pratt to Cozy Dell. Somehow, I had to poop again. My sphincter was holding on for dear life with with every step downhill. Dahn ran ahead, found a good spot off the trail and dug a small cat hole in a thicket of big pod ceanothus shrubs, where I could hang from a stout trunk and make an accurate deposit (I carried wet wipes for this exact moment). Even though Dahn offered to carry my spent wipes as part of his pacing duties, I carried my own shit out. By the time we reached Cozy Dell there was a high-vibe gathering of friends there to greet us. Julia and Ross’ girlfriend, Alejandra, were dancing on the side of the highway and Ross was prancing around the trailhead with a Sisar flag affixed to his pack, eager to rip. But I was arriving in distress.
I didn’t know how I could continue without mitigating my chafing situation. Layla Ramirez, one of our run club mainstays, was volunteering at the aid station. She brought a cot over and let me raise my legs up against her car. The marine layer was so heavy it was coming down as drizzle. Julia put a blanket over our heads and steadied my psyche. She fed me hot noodles, quesadillas, bone broth, and bacon from a cup. Using scissors from my first aid kit she trimmed my leg hair all around the chafed zone and applied a Tegaderm waterproof dressing to each inner thigh. I wrapped one around my you know what and I coated my you-know-who’s with a viscous glob of Lanolin and filled a small to-go container. After an hour at Cozy Dell, my friends had put me back together.
With my psyche reassembled and my energy lifted, I switched from my day-time sun protective gear back to my night kit, with fresh batteries for lights, and supplies for the 32-mile push up another 7,600 vertical feet. FOMO got the better of Dahn—he ditched his plan and joined Ross and I for the ascent back up the ridge. The Tegaderm strips rubbed off within the first mile. I passed the Pratt Trail junction—where our run club hosts Tiny Moon Concerts—with a tinge of regret. It represented the final bailout point before committing to the ridge and finishing the race. As Ross and Dahn riffed and joked ahead of me, I pressed play on video of my four-year old niece cheering me on, and some voice notes friends and family had left me to listen to at specific mileage points. As I hiked up Pratt Trail toward the ridge, I scanned through a couple of chats with friends who had been following along, including one with a group of high school friends. One of them said he had fallen asleep watching my tracker the night before.
About half way up the mountain I found something inside me—I think it was that thing that ultrarunners describe when they ascend to that previously inaccessible place of reserve energy and resolve. I found that and the bounce in my step returned. At the next aid station I ate some of everything, changed out my wet socks, and enjoyed a bonfire in the mist. Rejuvenated, Ross and I prepared for the long dark push across the mountains of Ojai. Thick clouds brimmed ridge on both sides, like we were running along a narrow peninsula with oceans to both our north and south.
I fell into a steady pace, clicking off nine-minute miles in the night with Ross. I was peeing at the base of Chief Peak around Mile 92 when Upper Ojai Search and Rescue captain, Brook Belgum, overtook us in his ATV and offered me some fresh ahi tuna, which although sounded intriguing at the moment, I declined. At the Topatopa aid station I downed a jar of pickle juice and inhaled a bag of Cheetos before summiting the bluffs once more, and descending Red Reef and Sisar Canyon to the finish.
I ran 103 miles, climbed and descended 54,000 cumulative feet, in 32 hours and 40 minutes. Good for fifth place. I finished without a single blister, not even a hot spot. I had no muscle cramps. No nausea. No gastrointestinal issues. No hallucinations. I didn’t fall once. My sprained ankle was only slightly more sprained than it was going into it. Chafing aside, I hardly had a cut or scrape on my body. *Editor’s note: the chafing had nothing to do with my FreePete assless crotchless chaps I ran in). My fastest mile was my 100th and while I was ready to be done running, I could have kept going.
Afterward my legs were almost totally fine. I slept for four hours and went back to the finish line to cheer on the 30K runners and other 100-mile finishers. My legs felt good enough that the next night Julia and I went to a dance workshop in town.
It’s hard to run 100 miles and feel unimpressed with yourself at the end of it, but welcome to my brain. Blame it on shifted baseline syndrome, which was permanently set stupidly high by being introduced to ultrarunning at the Cocodona 250-mile race by the top female in the sport.
FOOD REPORT: I ate like a dumpster-diving raccoon. Here’s what I can remember: Honey Stinger mini waffles, Spring energy gels, bananas, Pixie tangerines, pickles, many quesadillas, pancakes, a lot of bacon (although low in calories, the salt and fat of bacon was one of the only things that sounded appealing when palate fatigue set in late in the race), sourdough peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peanut butter Clif Bars, Sour Patch Kids, Cinnamon Toast Crunch dry cereal, gummy worms, mashed potatoes, Cup Noodles, fungi chocolate, mom’s kitchen sink cookies, Ghirardelli chocolate almond butter and walnut brownies, a cold slice of Pinyon pizza, Cheetos, Funyons, a couple of baked potatoes with butter and salt. I drank water, electrolytes (ELMNT and Tailwind), Coca Cola, Pepsi, Ginger Ale, Red Bull, pickle juice, coffee, bone broth, and hot tea at the finish. I don’t think I reached my calorie target, and probably could have eaten more. But given the ridiculously fine state of my body and digestive system at the end of it I feel like I was pretty successful on the nutrition front.
Biggest thank you to Julia, who flew in the day before from México and led my support crew. To Ross and Dahn, who each put in 30 miles of pacing, with some overlapping miles together. To all the bandit pacers who hopped in and ran or rode along with me for a bit: Magee, Petree, Collings, Devlin, Hopper, Alejandra, Cristina, Ryan, and Julia. To Mauricio Puerto, who with Scarber resurrected this insane race, and also to Scarber for correctly diagnosing and treating my foot and hip issues with just enough time to train and not die. To my parents, for supporting me in this semi-ludicrous goal. I was overwhelmed with gratitude nearly to tears at many points in my final 15 miles thinking of all the people involved that enabled me to be doing what I was doing.
To all the aid station volunteers: y’all are heroes! Thank you to the folks who helped maintain these trails, to Upper Ojai Search and Rescue, to the people who loaned me their specialized gear—Ryan for the quiver and batteries and Dahn for the emergency resupply of trekking poles after I broke mine, to those of you called me or left me voice notes or cheered from afar or opened up the tracker to see where I was, to those who’ve told me they’ve felt inspired by me and went for a run or decided to run this next year. Finally, thank you to the SISAR CANYON RUN CLUB whose members were represented at every aid station and in every race at C2M. As a lifelong team sport athlete there was always something about identifying as a ‘runner’ that felt allergic to me, I resisted it. Despite my efforts, running has undeniably become part of who I am and part of accepting that was the realization of what a team sport this is—more than a team in fact, it transcends the trail. It is indisputably community.
#