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Daniel Hill

Racing Sunset

By 29029 Everesting

February 9^th, 2024

I work at a wealth advisory firm in the Bay Area. It’s very much a traditional long-hour finance role, but thankfully, our CEO is very invested in health and wellness.

He is the reason I learned about 29029 in the first place and was kind enough to invite a group of us to join him on the challenge.

Let’s do something hard!

But first, a little background on me.

I have a lengthy background as a competitive runner.

It started in High School, and at the collegiate level, I continued to find my stride - I was getting faster and faster.

When I graduated, I realized that I couldn’t just transition from exercising intensively every single day to sitting behind a desk for 14 hours at a time.

Even though I was devoted to my career, I made a pact to continue running. Prioritizing my fitness alongside my career was my way of trying to stay sane and balanced under the stresses of work.

Although I wasn’t running professionally, I still had high aspirations for myself.

One of the highest goals you can set as a non-professional runner is achieving an Olympic Trials qualifying marathon time.

For me, that meant running around a 2:18 marathon.

That was my goal for 2023.

In January, I kicked things off with the Houston Marathon. I had high hopes for a fast race, but I ended up overdoing it and passed out during my attempt.

Fortunately, I was able to quickly race again in February – and won – the San Francisco Half Marathon. It was a great bounce-back, but it still wasn’t the time that I was going for.

In June, I tore my hamstring.

My Olympic trials qualifying had to be put on hold, and it didn’t exactly put me in the best spot for 29029 Whistler either…

I had doubts about it - I didn’t want to do anything that would slow my recovery.

To my surprise, I talked with my physiotherapist, who said 29029 would be a great fitness challenge while my running was on hold.

It was all uphill, no downhill, not high-speed, and could be the perfect way to strengthen and repair my injury.

Even though I had a long history of running competitively and competing hard, 29029 was daunting.

I could run fast for shorter times - I could even run fast for a marathon - but I’d never done an event that would take as long as 29029 to complete.

Plus, I was used to running on flat surfaces, not climbing mountains!

I felt a mix of nerves and excitement as I traveled to Whistler. It was time to climb!

That first ascent in Whistler was magical!

There was so much energy in the sea of headlamps at the start line as things began.

Going through the forest in the dark was tranquil. Immediately, I felt immersed in the landscape of this beautiful place.

All I could see was the 5-foot beam from my headlamp as I darted up the trail.

I summited just as the sun was starting to break over the horizon, creating an amazing alpenglow.

That first lap set my benchmark. I was no stranger to pacing efforts, and I had an intimate knowledge of my heart rate zones and what they all meant, so I figured if I went out steady, I could aim to match every ascent that followed to that time.

We started climbing at 6 am, and I summited at 7:18.

78 minutes was my benchmark.

I felt so good after the first lap that I opened it up a little more for the second. That one took 65 minutes.

That was a mistake.

I pushed too hard, torching myself a bit in the process. I was caught up in the excitement and lost track of my pacing.

If I wanted to finish, I knew I had to back off the pace, but just a little bit.

I didn’t want to back off too much. I still wanted it to be hard.

I felt like that was what 29029 was all about.

I wanted the full experience.

I didn’t just want to finish, I wanted to test myself.

During my 3rd ascent, I started to feel some doubts about whether I’d finish. I was still recovering from going a bit too fast the ascent prior. The sheer number of vertical feet ahead felt daunting.

I leaned on my experience from running to change my mindset.

I was no stranger to interval training - and when you do a set of intervals, the first 1 or 2 are, of course, hard.

But the real challenge comes from how daunting it feels to look at how many intervals lay ahead.

It often feels borderline impossible. But then you get on the line, and you do it again.

And again. And again.

There’s always more to give than you think.

I knew the same applied to 29029. The trail to the top was long, and thinking of 4 more to go was daunting. But I knew, every time I got off that gondola, as long as I started climbing again, I could make it to the top.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Daniel, your math is wrong. You said you finished 3, but that there was only 4 to go... Isn't Whistler 8 ascents?"

That leads into another strategy, stolen from my running experience: the last rep is free.

If I had a block of 12 intervals to do, I’d tell myself there were only 11, because I knew, as long as I made it to the beginning of the last rep, I could finish the workout, no matter how grueling.

The last one is always free

Same thing on the mountain.

I spent the whole time telling myself Whistler was 7 ascents, because I knew that as long as I got to 7, I’d be able to reach 8.

I kept climbing.

Some people might think with my long history of competitive running that 29029 would be relatively easy.

I can confidently say that it wasn’t.

Sure, running fast is hard - you push yourself, you’re breathing heavy, your body wants to slow down, yet you push through. But it’s not until after the race that the effects really set in. Legs lock up, body aches, and it feels challenging just to move.

But that’s after the race.

At 29029, the body starting to lock up and wanting to shut down comes during the event.

It’s a different kind of challenge, and it requires a lot of grit to muscle through.

When I 'finished', there was still one ascent to go. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was treating the entire event like it was only 7 ascents.

The last ascent was free.

It was late in the day, and the sun was nearing the horizon. In that moment, I realized I had an extra incentive to finish off my climb fast: I was going to chase sunset!

If I was quick enough, I could just catch the last glimpse of light at the summit.

With no more pacing strategy needed, I went as fast as I could up the now all-too-familiar trail.

Racing daylight, my mind finally made that transition from “Am I going to finish?” to “How strong can I finish?"

Something I loved about 29029 is its focus on the challenge itself rather than placement. I’ve noticed that my friends and colleagues who aren’t close to athletics tend to be most interested in rankings. When I tell people I ran a race, they always want to know if I finished 1st.

The reality is that there is always going to be somebody faster than you. To make the only measuring stick whether you won or not leaves out so much room for nuance.

After I won the San Francisco Half Marathon, many of my friends had huge congratulations. They were so excited for me!

But I was disappointed. I hadn’t hit my goals. I hadn’t run to my potential. My finishing time was the only metric that mattered to me.

If I had finished 30th in Houston, that would have been a better outcome than winning San Francisco, but many people on the outside looking in wouldn't understand that. They only compare results to other results, not the effort or degree to which you hit your potential.

29029 is such a good antidote to that kind of thinking. There are no standings on the mountain, just benchmarks. There’s no first place, and no last place. There’s just the ascent board, an indicator of every accomplishment you make on the slopes.