What's it like to run 200 miles? Helgi Olafson on the Triple Crown of 200s.

Helgi Olafson is hilarious, hardcore, and inspiring. We met him originally at one of our Portland events, and we're stoked to share a bit of his work here.

Helgi Olafson is a hilarious dude.

He also happens to be a beast of an athlete, competing in 2018's Triple Crown of 200s series, which involves running three 200 mile mountain races in the span of roughly two and a half months - the Bigfoot 200, the Tahoe 200, and the Moab 200 (which, just for funsies, actually covers 240 miles).

And he's doing it all despite having ankylosing spondylitis (AS), which in his words is "a degenerative autoimmune arthritis involving fusion of joints resulting from inflammation of the attachment points of ligaments and tendons to bone. In layman's terms...if I don't MOVE IT...I will lose it.”

We were lucky enough to get to know him a bit at the 2018 Bigfoot 200, midway through the race when his feet looked like hamburger and he hadn't slept in days. He finished the race, and I was stoked to find out afterwards that he'd put together a piece of my favorite style of internet literature - idiosyncratic reports on the nitty gritty details of unusual adventure experiences. The type of thing that really allows you to dig into the emotional experience of what it takes, and what it feels like, to do something really hard and weird - like running the 2018 Bigfoot 200. 

He calls it a race report, but what Helgi actually put together is a page turning mini-novella that has enough humor, background, and personal insight that it'll be interesting for someone with no experience of these things at all, but also enough detail that it'll be useful to someone in the planning stages of running this race, or another 200, themselves.

Helgi manages to reference the Truffle Shuffle, Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap, and his apple bong, but my particular favorite anecdote from the report was his description of an interaction around mile 160:

I remember whooping around a lake and then coming up on a father son combo. They were just on a short hike. I made eye contact with the dad as I trekked by. I was deep in thought, but I managed to say to this man, “Monday?” 

He said, “Yes.” 

I kept running.

This thing's full of these sorts of gems, so do yourself a favor and take the time when you have it to read the whole thing. It's classic literature: Helgi Olafson's Bigfoot 200 Race Report.

Click the photo, open the full report.

Helgi's report on the Tahoe 200

Just a couple of weeks after finishing Bigfoot, Helgi ran, and finished the Tahoe 200 - an adventure that he had essentially completed solo earlier in the year when he completed the Tahoe Rim Trail in the snow in not much more than race cutoffs would allow. He offers some humorous background on that experience, as well as another great write-up of his experience at the second of the Triple Crown races.

You can, and should, read that Tahoe 200 Race Report here.

...and finally, Helgi's Moab 240 report

In my opinion, this is Helgi's magnum opus. It's 50 densely packed pages of pictures, stories, and reflections from his experience of the entire Triple Crown of 200s, and a leg by leg recounting of the Moab experience. It's characterized by his usual offbeat humor and inspiring personality, and concludes with an announcement about a major upcoming adventure project in 2020 that will include all three of the 200 mile races. 

Helgi's Report on the Moab 240.

Helgi has done a ton of advocacy in the AS community, and you can follow his adventures on his athlete page on Facebook.

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