Race Report - Finding Your Tough IRONBULL Ultra Trail 50K
By Rachel Monaco
Though the 2021 fog, the author feels a great deal of reverence for all that came before her and for all that still endures enroute to a runner-up finish in 7:54. Monaco cut 36 minutes off her time in 2022 as her husband’s spirit carried her to the finish line as the women’s champion. Photo credit: Coates Photography
WAUSAU (Ultra Running Magazine) - The Midwest can claim one of the toughest caliber 50k’s in ultrarunning, IRONBULL Ultra Trail, and one of the most beautiful fall adventures. I’ll admit my bias: I grew up half a mile from Rib Mountain, where the race course leads runners on climbs up Granite Peak ski slopes, and winds around the summit on technical single track and a few merciful gravel paths. This is where I shot my first deer, climbed as a child, went to sunrise Easter services at, and hiked up the observation tower on New Year’s Eve one year.
Katy-Jane Shanak snags a selfie atop Rib Mountain. Photo credit: Coates Photography
Boulders, Trekking poles, Gaiters. But wait, you say, this is Wisconsin, not Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc? Yes. This race has roughly 7,000 feet of elevation change, and there are sections with 2 to 5 foot boulders where keeping yourself vertical isn't possible. While much of the course is delightfully runnable, the ascents and descents on the ski slopes make trekking poles well worth carrying them to save energy and spare quadriceps and hamstrings for the two full loops the race demands. Even in the best of conditions like 2022 where it was dry and there wasn’t dew or fog on the mountain, this would be true. In wet conditions without them? Prepare to slip ‘n slide down the mountain six times! I ran the race without gaiters in 2021 and needed to stop often to de-pebble my shoes since those little blister-makers are everywhere. In 2022, lesson learned and I didn’t have to stop at all. Training-wise, hiking with a weighted vest up very steep hills paid off for me as opposed to loading on more miles in the weeks before the race.
Racers depart from a local race track at dawn using private trails to reach the climbs at Rib Mountain State Park. Photo credit: Coates Photography
Worth the climbing. The Menominee peoples inhabited the park’s lands, and in the early hours of the race when fog filters through the tall pines like smoke and I pick my way carefully over a trail with a fifteen-foot tall stone giant on either side of me, I feel a great deal of reverence for all that came before me and for all that still endures. The spirit of community is one of those. IRONBULL’s leadership team and volunteers are tremendous and they magically know runner’s preferences for aid station help by that second loop. But the main star of the show is the mountain herself and the vistas she reveals. This year, she was just lighting up with gold, flame orange, and the crimson reds of the sugar maples against a backdrop of a hundred hues of green. At some point in the race probably every runner thinks “This might hurt less if I try climbing this part backward?” It doesn’t, but the cityscape of Lake Wausau is worth the momentary pause. That, and the sense of summitting where you can take stock, breathe, and see the bigger picture.
Find Your Tough. IRONBULL challenges its runners to “Find Your Tough”, the event’s motto. I returned to run the IRONBULL Ultra Trail to mark the profound distance I have traveled between one year and the last in terms of human experience after the death of my husband of eighteen years, Corey. This year’s race took place the week of Corey’s memorial service and helped me process our life together and his abrupt 122 day journey through pancreatic cancer. As I ran the IRONBULL Ultra Trail, I ran to celebrate the breath I still have in my lungs and my legs beneath me as I rise to meet life’s challenges and reflected about what I’ve learned.
During his last months when Corey lost all his hair and was in almost unbearable pain, he wore one baseball hat almost every day, and to every chemo treatment. It was given to him by Jeff Mallach, the race director for the Ice Age Trail 50K, a race Corey was planning to run before his cancer. Photo Credit: Trish Larson
1) Corey and I ran many races together; however, running was so much harder for Corey, who was built for football. It’s one thing to win when you are given all you need to make it mostly easy. It’s nowhere near the win that counts when every single step is hard. But Corey built skill and stamina over ten years and was determined to improve and finished his own 50K in November of 2021 (T-Bunk Endurance Challenge in LaGrange, Wisconsin.)
2) What Corey had within him to overcome his battle against pain and complete his ultra was a glimpse of what I saw him bring to our final, shared race with time against terminal cancer. We “Found our Tough”. Again and again, because with cancer you don’t have much choice. As excruciating as those four months were, I am grateful for every single moment.
3) For most of us, running ultras can bring serious pain. But what I understand now is the difference between pain that you know will end, and having a reasonable belief of recovery on the other side. People facing serious illness, and others among us, do not have that luxury and yet they find a way to keep loving, keep living. It seems so simple, but it is not. Corey should have had another 40 years. As I raced the Ultra Trail, I felt his spirit imploring, “Are you here to play it safe? What would happen if you had the courage to test yourself?” The only failure in this life is to stop showing up for it on any given day. Everything else is just part of the climb. There’s so much to see along the way. Find Your Tough.
Kids bolt off the start line enthusiastically lapping up to three miles around the State Park Speedway race track in the accompanying 20 minute Kocourek Kids Run. Photo credit: Coates Photography
Course Overview
The 50k course consists of two loops (25k consists of a single loop with 3,500 feet of elevation gain), each starting and ending on a local motor race track. Racers have exclusive access to several miles of private property trails to connect to Rib Mountain State Park during peak fall colors. The park trails include a mix of runnable double track, technical singletrack, and even bouldering sections on the ski slopes, which boast the highest vertical drop ski runs in the Midwest. A 15k course is a single loop excluding the climbs up and down the ski slopes, resulting in 1,400 feet of elevation gain and loss. The kids run is free to all children, where kids have 20 minutes to tally as many laps as they can.
Pictures and results are available at: https://www.ironbull.org/ultra-results-2022
Banner photo: Joel Coon and Nathan Qualls use trekking poles on the ascents. Photo credit: Coates Photography
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