The Speed Project: Feral Angel Edition
The best worst time of your life #ITWASBETTERNEXTYEAR
This year, The Speed Project saw Greek tragedy levels of adversity, from packs of rabid dogs to torrential rain and snow to washed-out roads leading to accidents and aggressive traffic, the stakes and danger were higher than ever. This is the story of how the Feral Angels ran 340 miles in 48 hours and 22 minutes to be the first-place all-female OG team to make it to Las Vegas. Luckily, this year we had a photographer, Tanner James, who joined our team to cover the journey. Not only did his images turn out brilliantly, he was also indispensable to our team’s success by helping pace and protect our runners on many of the highly difficult and dangerous segments of the course, including the longest, most daunting unsupported segment. Thanks to his fantastic photographs accompanying this piece, you will be spared from my trying to write as colorfully as I did last time, but if you wish to relive that magic be my guest. I also brought along a film camera so a few of those shots are included as well.
“Spirits up, splits down”
It’s easy to go fast on the first day. You have the adrenaline and you’re fully fueled and you’re hopefully well rested. Then there’s the energy of the other teams at the start line. Teams’ lead runners take off at 4am sharp, buoyed by the communal call-and-response cheer of “RUN, MOTHERFUCKER, RUN!” led by Jarick, a veteran Speed Project MC. It is electric. Despite the field growing to 77 teams, the gathering is still contained within a tight radius, easily parting to make way for traffic, never blocking the road. The race still feels like an underground secret. It is pitch dark except for the neon Santa Monica Pier sign and the glow of countless open phone screens recording the sea of runners. The crowd scatters instantly after the runners depart. There are no spectators.
As the sun rose, morale was exceptionally high—our team’s collective splits were significantly faster than anticipated. Nikki even set a PR on her first 5k leg.
Part of the strategy in getting out of the city is for the RV to go before the runners to a designated checkpoint and wait as a separate support car shuttles the runners between relay hand-off points. This pattern of advancing the RV with a following satellite car also helps later in the race when implementing the second stage of our strategy: breaking the six runners into two teams of three for shifts of 30 or so miles to allow for the group not running to have a longer recovery period. In practice that looks like going from a 1-2-3-4-5-6 runner formation to 1-2-3-1-2-3 / 4-5-6-4-5-6 with one group rotating in the support car while the other three eat and sleep in the RV.
Probably the biggest shift I advocated for this year after running it in 2022 was to drop down to mile-repeats using the pod formation sooner to break up the climbs through Soledad Canyon in the heat of the day rather than holding to 5ks the first 24 hours. As a result, we ended up only doing one full rotation of all six runners from the start line doing full 5ks before leaving Hollywood. This allowed us to keep up at a higher gear of speed for longer even as we started to feel the incline through Soledad Canyon. Each team of 3 runners went for 30-mile stretches (10 miles each) giving the other 3 runners a solid 4-hour break to recover.
We steadily chipped away at the distance mile by mile. Things were going smoothly; we had made it through the first 115 miles and some change. Each runner had logged about 18 miles and fatigue was only just beginning to creep in as a factor.
The more immediately concerning factor was the dust. As we drove toward the Adelanto beach party the road went from potholed and cracked pavement to sand and silt. The visibility was low due to the dust in the air. After spending a short break out under the Joshua trees and disco ball, Darlene and I coughed up yellow mucus and sounded like chain smokers. Fears of the desert lung fungus and pneumonia from last time flashed through my mind. As we waited for the other three runners to arrive and hand off to us, we dampened bandanas and tied them to cover our noses and mouths. It was also getting colder—the wind was picking up.
The sun was setting as we left down the dirt road toward Barstow. It was beautiful. One of my regrets of the trip is leaving my film camera on the RV while we were in the support car for this first stretch out of Adelanto—the phone shots just don’t do it justice. We also passed the Lululemon team during this segment, which was a particularly sweet triumph.
There was a miscommunication about the distance the last pod had run before the beach party. To make up for it, our group of three had an extra 5 miles added to our next segment so they could have equal rest. We decided to change it up and do a distance pyramid: 1 mile, 1.2 miles, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and back down so mentally we would end up having a similar number of times we were handing off as before. The low-angled sun painted everything gold and we blared Taylor Swift from the support car.
This plan and the mile repeats generally worked spectacularly until it didn’t. While we had gone over the route execution plan on several calls and the pre-race briefing, we didn’t nail down how exactly we were going to tackle the night.
The real game is the unsupported overnight sections.
To be sure, we were ready for the dark, we had lights and vests and reflective gear. Our crew was comprised of our friend Becca and four of the runners’ significant others, Evan, Bojan, Rodrigo, and Alec. Several of the guys had already been jumping in to pace during portions where the shoulder of the road was suspect and they were set to go with us in pairs through the night. The problem was the segments range from 4 miles to 9 miles and “unsupported” means they go through terrain the RV and car can’t handle. So, the runners have to go alone in the dark, over trails with high risk of injury, through the areas with the most rabid dog activity, for long lengths of time. And we hadn’t figured out who would be responsible for which of the segments with the way we had broken down the pod rotation.
Part of that was by design. It’s good to have flexibility during the night since people respond to sleep deprivation differently and it can be a little hairy. You don’t know what you don’t know, and everyone has different strengths. We also worked it out to have runners trade off on a bike for a few of the longer unsupported segments. But this did not fully resolve the situation and tasks ahead of us. When we ran it in 2022, two of the unsupported segments led to runners getting lost costing hours towards the finish time and causing undue extra fatigue. I did not do a good job of keeping at bay the fear that we would repeat the mistakes that led to those issues.
When we reconnected with the RV around mile 145, we discovered another miscommunication: the grey water had not been dumped at the designated point on the route. This had, ahem, downstream consequences. If you’ve ever spent time in an RV you probably don’t need to be reminded of how quickly it can start to smell. If you are unfamiliar with this particular aspect of motorhomes and the glories of an American-made tank plumbing system, it probably does not take much imagination – rotten eggs, warm garbage, rancid decay—all made worse by a screen of chemicals often deployed in an attempt to hide the stench. 12+ hours deep with a rotation of six people shedding sweaty clothes and damp sneakers had already turned returning to the RV cabin into an olfactory assault, never mind the state of the bathroom.
By this point, it was also freezing. A storm front was moving in and none of us were fully prepared for how much colder it got. I had a sinking feeling going over the maps and realizing that the bulk of the unsupported segments would come after the next shift and we would need to figure out quickly who was running what. During this time Sasha had the misfortune of being the one to discover the grey water was regurgitating back up through the plumbing into the shower. Naturally, this was nausea-inducing, and she was already shivering from the cold.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more guilt in my life than this moment—here was someone I had begged to join our team with promises of romantic views of star-filled skies and the austere majesty of the desert, now wading through literal shit. Darlene was also still coughing, worse now with congestion and sounding like death itself. This was undoubtedly one of the lower moments of the race. It was 2 am when the morning feels ages away. 200 miles still to go. “We’re just pushing for sunrise. We just need to make it to sunrise.” Sasha’s husband Evan, our crew captain, said to us again and again like a mantra.
Despite this unpleasant interlude, the unsupported segments were not as formidable as anticipated. I had brought a colored LED light wand thinking it would be cool to try and take some bisexual lighting portrait photos with it. Alas, that didn’t happen, but the light did end up serving a more functional purpose. We zip-tied it to the front of the bike for the segments where runners switched off, and it not only looked sick but was a huge help safety-wise.
The longest unsupported segment was just before sunrise. By some stroke of luck, if there is such a thing as ultra-magic, akin to trail-magic or trail angels, Lucy Scholz showed up at our RV right as we were in the midst of our bathroom fiasco and were trying to sort out divvying up the unsupported segments. Lucy broke the record for both the male and female solo run in 2023. She also happened to play lacrosse at UVA (go Hoos!) with Sasha so the two had been in contact. The odds that her relay team was within distance of ours during our moment of greatest need while on a 300+ mile course felt like a miracle.
Looking at the maps we asked her about the 9-mile trail segment that lay ahead of us. In the guide, part of the route is marked as uncertain terrain with conflicting instructions on how to follow the trail– don’t follow google maps, bear left but go straight, etc. It’s not hard to see how someone could get lost in the dark. Because of the route Lucy took for her Speed Project efforts, she did not have to cross this section and didn’t have first-hand insight but was still able to assuage our (ok, probably just my) fears.
Darlene had taken on what I considered to be the hardest segment I ran last time—the 4.5 miles of sand on the other side of the barbed wire fence. Rodrigo had gone with her for safety. I was on deck for the 9-miler. I volunteered for it mostly because I was terrified of the thought of anyone else getting lost or injured on the uneven terrain. This was probably foolish of me, and strategically, we would have been better off if I had not been an idiot martyr and instead let Lindsay run it since she is stronger at longer distances and could have gone significantly faster than my tired ass. But it worked out well because she was able to take the last unsupported 6-mile leg and absolutely smoked it. Teamwork is actually so beautiful!!!
Really, I owe a huge debt to Tanner for getting me through that segment. We walked the hills which was embarrassing but necessary, Know Thyself, etc. You can see in the map above the dark blue parts are where we walked and stopped to take pictures of the sunrise which happened right as we crested a major climb before the sharp downward pitch toward Death Valley. It was now 6:30 am. This is the one other moment in the race I regretted not having a real camera.
You can also see from the heat map where the trail turned from solid ground to sand. I do not do well on sand. This was not like sand at the beach packed down by water and firm, it was loose and slippery, impossible to gain purchase on. Despite all the grip and nimble design of my trail shoes, I was hopelessly struggling. Sand absorbs energy. It feels nice on your joints because there’s no return shock from the impact, but unfortunately, that return shock is also part of what helps propel you forward when you run. (This has been Sad Physics with Hannah. Thank you for subscribing!)
Evan was right though that the sunrise was a boost. I was vaguely worried about having anything in the tank for Death Valley but was in too much pain trying to put one foot in front of the other through the sand to spend too much energy on anxiety. Finishing this segment would bring my total personal mileage up to 45 miles or 72km. As you can see by the lovely heat map I might as well have been crawling by the end of it. Then to add even more injury to injury, it turned out that the end of the segment was a full mile from where the car and RV were able to park so we had to walk over more sand after handing off mid-trail. But now we were fully walking so the sweat on our skin was drying while our clothes remained damp and cold. I was frozen by the time we got back to the RV, so cold my hands had gone completely white from Raynaud’s Syndrome.
I collapsed in the RV, shivering, a cold, sweaty pulp of a person. Tanner was telling the others of our victory, that we had dug deep working through the pain cave. He had heroically emerged, but I had still not come out of it. It felt like the sand still had me by the ankles.
The epic high of the sunrise did not last long as bleak cloud cover rolled in casting a gray pallor over everything. With great effort, I peeled off my wet sports bra and climbed into dry clothes. I zipped into the Normatec boots to see if they might restore some muscle responsiveness before we went back down to mile repeats through Death Valley.
If the overnight stretches are the Game, then Death Valley and the Spanish Highway are the Show.
“Only way out is through.”
What I mean by “the show” is that you can fuck around the first 24 hours, but you will find out in the next 24 hours. And find out we did. Death Valley is, personally, what I came back for. It’s gorgeous. The valley unspools ahead of you, the road a dark ribbon bleached by the sun. The scene is framed by the mountain ridge in the distance. The beauty is its own reward.
I would like to say I was eager to get back out there after the overnight segments. But I am not sure which was less willing, the body or the spirit. But I took recovery seriously, I chugged a Coca-Cola and had Cup-o-Noodles—a god-tier combo of nutrition. The sugar and sodium worked like a promise or a curse. My head cleared with the caffeine and gradually, my legs came back online after repeatedly hammering away at them with a Theragun. We were now under 100 miles away from Vegas. Rain was falling hard on the valley ahead. We were running straight into the storm.
At the rest stop, before heading into Death Valley, we rotated the two groups having Nikki swap with Sasha. I was a little jealous Sasha was going to run with Lindsay and Isa. I hadn’t really gotten to connect with either of them, and felt that as a loss. Reflecting on it, one thing we could have done differently would be to rejigger the pod formation back to the full six-person rotation overnight so we all could have more face time with each other in the RV together as a team. It could have helped morale and eliminated some of the comms issues. But hindsight is 20/20, we executed as best we could have in the moment.
I was not prepared for how emotional it was getting to run again with Nikki and Darlene. Two years after the three of us had originally faced it together through blood, tears, and injuries, I was overcome with gratitude to be reunited with them. It is impossible not to feel inspired running with Nikki—her energy never wavers. She seems to summon everyone’s better angels, feral though they may be. Darlene was a force of nature. Her cough clearly developing into a deep lung infection, she pushed on relentlessly. I wanted to run harder for them than I ever have for myself.
We ran through the rain. Traffic blasted by us at kill-speed, one hydroplane away from catastrophe. We alternated running on opposite sides of the road trying to gauge which was safer. Parts of the road were flooded, and the shoulder was stretches of loose wet gravel frequently falling off into mud. Nevertheless, it is mostly downhill and fast. After getting through the first night, being able to pick up free speed you feel invincible for a little while.
We had toyed around with the idea of trying to go the Powerline route when we first assembled the team and quickly decided against it. Ultimately, we all agreed we wanted the full experience. Powerline shaves off 30+ miles but comes with a lot of risk and is generally not advised unless you really know what you’re doing. It also turned out that this was NOT the year to try it if you weren’t insanely fast and well past the shortcut point before the rain rolled in. While we were hitting our stride through Death Valley, messages from crews along Powerline road, now stuck in the mud needing assistance started to roll into the Whatsapp chat accompanied by videos of snow falling.
Then, at mile 283, the feeling of invincibility abruptly ended. I don’t know what it is about having 60 miles left that feels insurmountable, but it is where I started to really struggle mentally last time too. It’s only 10 miles each. And yet. There’s a good chance this was just the caffeine wearing off. The climb over Blue Diamond loomed ahead.
The sun was going down again as we started up Rt 160. As we rounded the mountain, we were treated to a spectacular sunset. Sky aflame, there was a rainbow over the snow tipped mountains at the horizon. Soaking wet and trying to dry off in the RV we plotted out how to break up the remaining miles.
Pain rippled through me sweet and familiar, without origin or end.
As we made the final ascent, I realized that the gradation, the incline, was similar to the training route Nikki and I had done for one long and arduous training run back in DC months ago. I clung to a small swell of confidence that came from appreciating that I had, in fact, trained for this moment even if I was moving slower than I wanted. I could do this; we were going to finish this.
There are elements of this story I have omitted—the body horror of losing toenails midrace, the man in a white sheet stalking runners through the night, and what exactly makes running through Baker in the dark so unnerving—some lore you have to be there for. And, also, because my grandmother is going to read this and I’m pushing my luck with the f-bombs already without her fretting over more danger specifics.
As we hit the city limits, all the runners and crew changed into matching shirts, and anticipation grew. Nikki, Darlene, and I had the last segment. We ran the last four miles trading off, linking up for the final mile, and were joined by the rest of the team for the last half mile. The Vegas Sphere was in the distance projecting an image of the moon. We had made it. Everyone evenly tackled between 50-60 miles each and most of the crew members joined for double-digit miles as well.
We were sprayed with champagne, sharing tears and joy under the marquee lights at 4 am Sunday morning. It would take a day or two for the results to be finalized before we knew for certain we were the first all-female OG-style team to make it to Vegas. The Feral Angels arrived at the finish line 48 hours and 22 minutes after setting off from Los Angeles.
A word of thanks
Running a race with no rules or organized support is all fun and games until you get down to the actual logistics. Our team owes all its accomplishments and successes to our captain, Nikki, who juggled an insane number of timelines, bookings, contracts, rentals, and reservations. She could walk through gardens forever with all the flowers she deserves. Close runner-up is our crew captain Evan who kept us all sane through a number of dark-night-of-the-soul moments. He and Bojan both ran alongside me for different segments of the race as well, and I couldn’t have done it without them. Becca and Alec drove through the nights and got the RV and support car to Vegas, both in one piece, which can’t be said for a lot of teams. Isa traveled all the way from Guatemala and made our team infinitely faster and happier with a megawatt smile. Every runner and crew member on the team fully embodied the ethos of total participation that sets the Speed Project apart. It was an honor to race with them.
And thank YOU for reading! I have a bonus recap post for subscribers that details what happened after the race so keep an eye out for that!
Hannah what happened after the race?
Awesome, thanks for sharing this amazing experience! 🏃🏼♀️