I almost don't know how to explain Yellow. I started my second loop late Friday afternoon, stiff and limping, having discovered a new complaint in the same knee I'd torn an MCL in two years earlier. I'd already spent two hours climbing and descending Red that morning. And yet, somewhere on that yellow mountain, I became ridiculously happy — not "proud of myself" happy, not "I'm accomplishing my goal" happy. Something else entirely.
The sun was getting low, the valley stretched out beneath me, my body hurt, my tribe was somewhere down there waiting, and I was alone on the trail — running, hiking, laughing, just fucking delighted to be alive. There are experiences where the line between spirituality and ordinary life seems to disappear. This was one of them. No temple, no meditation cushion, no psychedelic, no teacher. Just dirt, sky, mountain, breath, pain, and this absurd human body carrying me across all of it. If you want my metaphysics: God was having one hell of an experience being Jason Smith that afternoon.
When I came down the final hill, my team could see it all over me — limping and laughing at the same time, like someone had handed a hurting man a bottle of happy drugs. Yellow became my favorite loop of the entire race, and it changed something in me. Before the race: just finish Red. After Red: maybe I can do Yellow. After Yellow: there wasn't a question left. I'm finishing this thing. If someone had told me to go run Green immediately, I think I would have tried.
Fortunately, I had about eight hours before my final loop — time to sleep, eat, recover. Then the weather report came in. A major storm was moving toward Soldier Hollow: rain, wind, hail, lightning, bad enough that Ragnar warned they might have to shut the whole race down on Saturday. So they gave every team an option — double your runners, put two teammates on the trail at once, and race the storm to the finish. We looked at each other. There wasn't much discussion. Fuck it. We're doubling.
Which meant my eight hours of recovery evaporated. My final run would now start in about four — in the middle of the night. And while we were still figuring out the logistics, the first rain started falling.
With Elijah Henager, Aubree Snyder, Amethyst, Jennie, Riley Smith, Caleb Lake, Porter.