Wild and Tough: Crewing Tara at Hardrock

Photo by Jacob Banta

This weekend I got to help crew my friend Tara Dower, one of the toughest ultramarathoners out there, at the Hardrock 100, one of the toughest ultramarathons out there. Hardrock’s slogan is “Wild and Tough” and wow, did she and the race live up to those words.

Beginning and ending in Silverton, Colorado, the course is 101.8 miles long, has 33,441 feet of gain and descent for a total elevation change of 66,882 feet, and takes place at an average elevation of about 11,000 feet. The high point at Handies Peak is 14,048 feet. The course was designed to feature old mining roads connecting the historic mining towns of Silverton, Telluride, Ouray, and the ghost town of Sherman.

Tara and I met back in 2020, when she joined me for two days on my northbound FKT on the Appalachian Trail. Since then, we’ve connected for all sorts of wild adventures throughout the US that usually involve suffering while going extreme distances on foot, including her incredible overall record on the AT in 2024.

Me and Tara during her overall AT record!

This was Tara’s second time running Hardrock, and this year she had the unique opportunity to run the incredibly competitive and fast Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run AND Hardrock, just 13 days apart. She placed 6th for women at WSER in a historically competitive field. Her finish time of 16:13 would have gotten her on the podium any other year. To race Hardrock with such a short turnaround was a really tall order (literally, ha!).

This was my first time being part of a crew for a professional runner in an organized race. My main objective was to be helpful to Tara and the rest of the crew while also not being in the way.

The night before the race, we had a crew meeting at our home base in Silverton. Tara displayed a meticulously organized spreadsheet on the TV screen in the living room. There was a row for each aid station, a column for each crew member, and a cell displaying what each member’s task was at each aid station. For the most part, I’d be on lube, sunscreen, and headlamp duty!

The crew would be divided up into two cars, driven by two local drivers, Scooter and Inga, who were comfortable and familiar with navigating all of the rugged mountain roads and gnarly passes.

The Start - Mile 0

Just a quick note that I’m recounting this as best as I can, but there might be little things I’m not remembering perfectly. So if I get any tiny details wrong, that’s on me and my post-travel run brain!

The morning of the race I woke up around 3:30am, and I was joined at the kitchen table by Tara shortly after. We quietly went about our morning routines as more and more crew members began to mill about.

The race start was just down the road. We made sure we had what we needed for the day, piled into some cars, and took the dirt road into town.

Shortly before the start, Tara made her way to the finish line, receiving lots of well wishes from friends and spectators. She and her teammate Careth Arnold, who was also racing, found each and clutched each other in a really long hug. When they let go, I saw there were tears streaming down Tara’s face. That made me start crying! The enormity of what they were about to do was overwhelming.

We (the crew) each gave Tara a hug then made our way down the course a hundred meters or so to see her off. We were a bit far away to hear everything, but I thought maybe I heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing just a few minutes before the start. But no, it was something orchestral, but definitely not the national anthem. Robyn, another crew member and one of Tara’s pacers, Shazamed it for us. It was from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, The Firebird!

I don’t know why they selected that, or if it is a tradition to play it (kind of like how they play Ravel’s Boléro before the Berlin Marathon). But in reading about the ballet, I found that its subject was inspired by a poem written in 1844 by Yakov Polonsky that includes the lines:

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.

If that’s not befitting a great quest into the mountains, I don’t know what is.

Watching Tara and all the runners take off gave me chills… and more tears. The runners’ epic quest had begun and it was time for the crew to head to our first meeting point: Chapman Aid Station.

I was in the crew car with Inga driving. She told us how she’d been driving these mountain roads long before she had even moved here (about twenty years ago, I think). Though we had just met, I fully trusted she knew what she was doing. I kind of had to!

Getting to drive up and over the rocky mountain pass was one of those cool life experiences right up there with hopping on that four-wheeler in the remote Scottish Highlands just a couple weeks ago! The higher we climbed, the more the trees and vegetation faded away, until we were surrounded by nothing but rocks. It was as if we were on our own personal rover on another planet.

Chapman Aid Station - Mile 18.1

We arrived at Chapman Aid Station with hours to spare. There was no cell phone service and I didn’t really bring anything to do, so it was time to just chill out and find my zen (something I’m decidedly not good at). I walked a little bit of the course with Anna Brannon, who was there to film and take photos. The path went pretty much straight up and I gasped for breath just walking. We wondered if the path would even out at all and it seemed like it wouldn’t, so we walked back down the hill.

I sat on my sleeping pad. I pet someone’s dog. I thought about how I could probably use this time to go for a run, but the air was just so thin and I thought it might be best to conserve my energy.

I’ve never worn glitter for a race but I did for Tara! Closeup photo by Jacob Banta

Finally the runners began to trickle in. I got to see Ludovic “Ludo” Pommeret, the eventual winner, for the first and only time during the race. He was in and out so incredibly quickly. Jimmy, who had arranged all of the drivers for the elite runners, waved a huge French flag in his honor. It was very exciting.

Another exciting moment was seeing Courtney Dauwalter come through. I’d never seen her race in person. Her demeanor was cool as a cucumber, giving a smile and a wave to everyone as she entered and departed, and otherwise very dialed in and just in the zone as she got what she needed from her crew person, which didn’t seem to be much!

Feeling antsy and wanting to do the best job for Tara, I began to get the supplies that I was in charge of ready, with the help of her partner Scott. For the lube, I would take a latex glove (pink for Tara, of course), wear it on one hand, then scoop up about a quarter-size of Squirrel Nut Butter from a jar into my palm. Then, I would carefully peel the glove off inside-out, so that the lube would be on the inside, but leaving the fingers right side-in, creating perfect little finger holes. That way, when Tara arrived, the glove would be easy for her to slip onto her hand and apply to any areas that are chafing as needed, OR, we could stuff it into the side pocket of her hydration vest without getting lube everywhere, and she could use it while out on the course.

Okay, lube glove, check! My other job was to be on sunscreen duty. She had mentioned preferring sun cream to spray, since once she had accidentally gotten sprayed in the face with sunscreen at a previous race.

So, I held the inside-out lube glove in one hand, and squirted out some suncream into my other hand, ready to spring into action as soon she arrived.

We heard some cheers as someone spotted Tara descending the hill toward the aid station, and sure enough, there she was with her easily-identifiable pink vest.

She arrived wide-eyed and a little bloody on her legs. She sputtered something about running down a pass and another runner (unintentionally) kicking rocks down behind her, which then hit her legs. The crew and I swarmed around her like flies to honey. Simultaneously, we got to work wiping down her legs, applying sunscreen, feeding her, swapping out hydration bottles, talking with and listening to her, taking any unnecessary gear.

Tara took the lube glove when I offered, and I flitted around the other crew members surrounding her, making sure to get sunscreen on her arms, neck, and face. I felt so bad just unceremoniously touching her face. She stated, “There are a lot of people touching me.” And it was true! I can only imagine how overstimulating it all must have been. It was my duty to get that sunscreen on, and I tried to do it in the most gentle and least violating way possible. I think I got everything except for her nose. I’d get her nose next time! We had her in and out of the aid station in two minutes.

Next we walked a mile or two down the road to the very tiny town of Ophir, where Inga was waiting with her car. We piled in and headed to Telluride, where we’d see Tara next.

Telluride Aid Station - Mile 27.8

Whereas Chapman AS was sort of nestled into a forested valley, Telluride AS was staged at a community park right in the mountain town. There were lots of families picnicking, playing games, and milling around the local pool.

Once again we got to see Courtney come through, looking super chill and very smooth. Careth was in second place for women, and she floated in looking chipper and okay. I prepared the lube glove, of which I was now a total expert, and readied some sunscreen once more.

When Tara arrived she looked distraught. She said at the last pass, Oscar’s, she got really scared and didn’t know where she was. She looked absolutely frightened. She looked deep into Reese’s eyes (I believe) and kept repeating, “I’m scared, I’m scared.” We asked her some questions, like did she know where she was now? Who’s the current president? Reese and Brooke checked how much salt she had stashed in her vest to evaluate how much she’d taken since we last saw her.

We made sure she ate the entire portion of rice the aid station volunteers had prepared for her and reminded her to take salt every 30 minutes (versus every hour). Our interpretation of the situation was, the altitude was seriously affecting her and she really needed to keep eating and taking electrolytes. She also seemed extremely shaken up, and I wished badly that we could have sent a pacer with her, just so she could have someone to talk to. Pacers weren’t yet allowed with runners on the course.

It was unnerving to just send Tara back out into the mountains. She was so shaken up. Regardless of that, she was in and out of the aid station in four minutes. How she could be so shaken up and scared, and continue on anyway, kind of blew my mind.

In that interaction, we wondered if being so exposed to and surrounded by cameras from the press and livestream were a bit overwhelming for Tara. When she was sharing how she was feeling with us, she was barely speaking above a whisper, like she didn’t want anyone else to hear. We decided we would need to come up with a strategy for the next aid station in Ouray that could offer Tara a bit more privacy, if it seemed like she needed it.

That reminded me of an image that stuck with me from last year’s livestream of UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc). Courtney Dauwalter was charging up a hill on the course, just absolutely surrounded by people following her with cameras. When I think of some of my own races or FKT efforts, I honestly can’t imagine the stress of being surrounded with cameras like that. Zero privacy while being in a vulnerable state of exhaustion. I suppose that’s just something that comes with being one of the best runners in the world, no different than an Olympian zipping around a track in a packed stadium or an elite marathoner racing down the streets of Boston on a live broadcast. But it is another element that has to be factored in when you’re an ultramarathoner of this level. How do you tune out the swarm of cameras (and even drones), stay relaxed, and keep doing your thing?

The crew packed up and we collectively placed an order for sandwiches from a local shop–gotta take care of ourselves too!–and as we were on our way out a woman walked up to me and asked if we were crewing for Candy Mama (Tara’s trail name). I said yes, and she handed me a $50 bill (which I gave to Scott) and told us that our next coffee is on her. She said she’s a thru-hiker and a fan of Tara’s and appreciated what we were doing. How extremely kind and generous is that?

Ouray - Mile 43.9

As Inga drove us to Ouray, I hit a bit of a lull and treated myself to a coke at the gas station on the way. Coke was like my magic special drink on the PCT that would bring me back to life. I hoped it would do the same out here.

As we continued on, there was a large plume of smoke from a local wildfire rising to our right. No one on the course was in danger, but it was unnerving to see all the same.

The aid station set up at Ouray was super lively. There were tons of tents set up by Tara’s sponsor, lots of families around spectating, and kids playing games out on the large field close by.

Where the tents were set up, media was not allowed past a certain point. And to extra-ensure some privacy for Tara, we asked for and received permission from the aid station crew to temporarily put up some tent flaps on one of the tents to offer Tara some privacy from the cameras if she needed it.

As we waited in the tent area, some kids came up to the tent and called out, “Rachel, Rachel!” to Rachel Entrekin (the overall Cocodona 250 champ in 2025!) who was part of the crew and would pace Tara later on. They asked if she would like a Hardrock 100 bracelet they had made, and offered some to the rest of the crew too, and one to save for Tara. It was so sweet, and such a special memento from the day.

Seeing Tara come through the last aid station at Telluride was pretty harrowing, so I think we were mentally and emotionally preparing for more of the same. Very thankfully, Tara seemed to be in better spirits relatively at this stop, and best of all, she would get to depart with Jacob Banta, her teammate and first pacer of the day.

It would likely be our last time seeing her before it got dark out, so in addition to the lube glove and sunscreen, it was my job to make sure she had her headlamp and batteries with her. Reese ended up taking care of anything related to what was going in her pack, but at the very least I triple-checked that she definitely had packed those items. Very important! I remembered to get a dab of sunscreen on Tara’s nose, and this time we packed two lube gloves just to be extra-sure she had what she needed.

It made me really happy to see Tara and Jacob head out together, and especially happy that she seemed in better spirits, all things considered. There was nothing easy about what she was doing, but there was something inside her that kept pushing her forward anyway.

The Night Shift

Little did I know, that would be my last time seeing Tara before the Cunningham Aid Station at mile 92.5. There wasn’t enough room for every crew person to come, and one crew member Ethan hadn’t been able to join yet. So Ethan took my place, and my headlamp/lube night duties, and I got to sleep back in Silverton. This felt kind of wrong and made me feel incredibly guilty, but Scott assured me that it’s better for the crew if we’re not all completely sleep-deprived toward the later miles, and it would be better for at least some of us to be fresh in the morning. So I slept!

While I slept, Rachel took over for Jacob as Tara’s pacer, then Robyn took over for Rachel. The night report was that things were… not great. It sounded like keeping food down was an issue, something that has plagued Tara in past races. Despite that, it seemed like she was moving well. To be feeling that way and moving at all, let alone maintaining a place on the women’s podium, was honestly incredible.

The rest of the crew returned home in Silverton for a little bit of rest in the wee hours of the morning before heading out. I had already woken up, but learned I had about an extra hour to spare. So as wrong as it felt to be doing something for leisure while Tara was out there doing a very hard thing, I took the opportunity to go for a five mile run.

Cunningham - Mile 92.5

It was light out when we drove to the Cunningham Aid Station. I was there with Scott, Reese, Ethan, Jacob, and Emily (she was filming Tara all throughout the day and night along with Anna, who I’d been with at the first AS).

I forgot to bring my phone and we didn’t have reception anyway. We were sandwiched right between two mountain passes near a gravel road and camping area. The runners were especially spread out at this point. It was very cold and I kept willing the sunlight to reach us from over the mountain.

We could see each incoming runner waaaay up the mountainside as they descended into the valley. Whenever we could spot one, we’d whoop, cheer, and ring some cowbells.

Courtney Dauwalter, bless her soul, had finished the race already in record time by 8 minutes. We were waiting on Careth to come in to the aid station, and hoped Tara wouldn’t be too far behind her. All of the tracking info we had was hearsay, since we didn’t have reception. From what we gathered, there was a large gap between Careth and Tara, but Tara seemed to be steadily narrowing that gap. Would there be enough miles left in the race to close it?

Seeing Careth come scampering down the mountain with her pacer Lottie was very exciting. As she reached the bottom of the valley and entered the aid station though, things did not seem okay. Careth’s eyes were wide, as if in shock. Her hair was disheveled (as one would expect 90+ miles into a race). She looked like she’d seen a ghost. She looked like a ghost! Every time I’d seen Careth during the race, she looked so chipper and light on her feet. This time, it looked like she had seen some things, and she did not look okay. My heart panged for her. I felt so bad. Her crew was right there for her. A new pacer took over for her last leg to Silverton. She wasn’t at the aid station long and it seemed evident that every single step from there to the end would be very difficult. I think she was crying when she departed the aid station. We all clapped and cheered for her as she began the ascent from the aid station, up Little Giant Peak, the last pass of the course. It was an emotional moment.

A little bit of time passed before we saw Tara running down the mountain accompanied by Robyn, two little specks of pink and white way up in the distance. I was ready for my final task of wet-wiping Tara’s legs and applying a topical NSAID to her legs.

When she came in, physically she looked like she was moving well, but her face was twisted up in a scowl and she seemed to be in a world of pain. She let us know her legs really hurt. I got to work wiping down her legs and applying ointment while everyone else dove in to take care of their respective jobs, NASCAR pit crew-style.

Photos by Jacob Banta

Tara was wondering how far back the next woman was. We shared that she was still way on the other side of the mountain that Tara had just come across, and that as long as she kept moving, she had nothing to worry about. That didn’t seem to convince her though. She seemed almost mad at us as we tried to assure her she was okay, perhaps because she couldn’t allow herself to believe it was true.

It reminded me of how I’ve felt when coming so close to a big goal, that I wouldn’t let myself believe that I had it, even when it was so clear in hindsight that I did. I felt that way as I neared the end of the AT, and I felt the same way toward the end of the Long Trail. It’s like you can’t let yourself relax or believe that things will work out. Like something could just snatch it away from you at the last moment, because in life there are never any guarantees. It’s a torturous way to think, but perhaps not as torturous as having something not work out the way you hoped after allowing yourself to believe it’s possible.

I don’t know exactly what was going through Tara’s mind in that moment, but I felt like I could understand. The only thing left for her to do was to keep going, leg pain, psychological agony, and all. We did everything we could for her.

Scott with Ethan, watching Tara and Robyn head up the final mountain Little Giant, photo by Jacob Banta

Scott wanted to stay to watch Tara go all the way up the mountain as far as we could see her go, and I’m glad we did. We had watched many runners zig-zag up the same switchbacks and agreed no runner that we’d seen yet had moved up the mountain as well as she did. It was beautiful and inspiring to watch, especially knowing how badly she was feeling. I felt so much love for my friend.

The Finish - 101.8 miles

Back in Silverton I hardly knew what to do with myself. I sat at a western-style saloon and ordered a cheeseburger and lemonade. I walked to the finish line and paced around. I walked a quarter mile down the course then turned around and walked back. I felt very antsy and helpless.

When her time to finish got closer I could feel the anticipation building. Spectators began to gather around the finish chute. The medics confirmed with our crew that they were on standby and ready to help Tara. I kept holding back tears thinking about how she must be feeling and how much she fought for this finish. To run over a hundred miles and pretty much not feel good the entire way. Most people would quit. I would probably quit!

Seeing Tara round the final corner is something I’ll never forget. Robyn and Scott had been running with her, and they let Tara go for the final stretch, and gave each other a huge hug as Tara ran with everything she had toward the finish line.

Photo by Jacob Banta

The crew lined ourselves up along the finish chute and cheered and cried as Tara ran with her arms outstretched toward the huge painted rock signifying the beginning and end of the race. Per tradition, she completed her race by planting a kiss on the rock. She finished 3rd for women, and 14th overall. She stepped backward, and the moment she looked a tad unsteady, medics jumped to her side and immediately escorted her to the nearby gym so she could get medical attention.

A little while later, Tara felt well enough to be released and she slowly walked back to the rock with Scott and Reese’s help after all the hoopla was over, and we all got to enjoy a quiet moment sitting by the rock together.

Photo by Jacob Banta

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Thanks for reading!

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Huge thanks to my sponsor Mountain Hardwear for making my outdoor adventures possible and providing the best gear. A couple days after Hardrock, I ran a large portion of the course over several days (aka “Softrock”) with the Lickety Split Pack 20L, Dynama Dress (same as the PCT!), Crater Lake Hoody, and Cloud Cipher Rain Jacket. Check out more photos from the trip here!

Photo by Emily Cameron

Thanks also to my affiliate partners for their support:

Mount to Coast footwear (I wore the T1 on my Softrock adventure). Use my code PINKFEATHERS for 10% off your next pair of shoes.

Strava - Use my code PINKFEATHERS for 20% off your subscription.

Til next week! ~Liz