Surviving the Wilderman (The world's only off-road Ironman distance triathlon) - Pembina Gorge, North Dakota
The Wilderman is an Ironman distance off-road triathlon held in and around the Pembina Gorge near Walhalla, North Dakota. The Wilderman website describes the course as, “2.4 miles of swimming, 113.4 miles of gravel grinding, mountain biking and stream crossing, and 26.7 miles of the gnarliest trail running in the state.” Their description definitely understates how challenging the course is since much of the running trails are at the bottom of the gorge directly in the creek. The race took me 25 hours to complete. Great overviews of the race are at their YouTube channel, here and here.
Race weekend started with me flying into Grand Forks, North Dakota. The first thing that strikes you looking out the airplane window is how flat the state is and that it has a very distinctive grid pattern of roads. The drive from the airport to Walhalla, North Dakota is a little over an hour and a half. I was not prepared for how desolate the drive is since you just see farms and grain silos for most of it.
There are many race reports about the course, so I won’t go into detail here. One that very much reflects my experience is written by Jess Anderson Keene. I caught up to Jess in the first part of the run and we decided to complete the race together. Much of our time spent together was following the course through a creek and confirming and re-confirming we were following the flow of the water. The challenging part is that there are many large “dead falls”, big mounds of brush, trees, and mud that clog the creek. Navigating around these in the dark is challenging because of the deep mud and pools of water that obscure where the trail is going.
One of the most memorable parts of the race is the volunteers who maintain the aid stations. In the full-distance race there were only 7 of us racing that day, so the volunteers spent many hours waiting for us to pass through. These volunteers manned mobile aid stations in their vans and tended to us on the course, including in the middle of dual electrical storms that were closing in on the area. There was one point where I arrived at a camper van just as the storm hit and holed up in their van eating soup while the lighting and rain blew past. I was especially thankful to them in that moment. Volunteers like them are the lifeblood of these races, we’re very grateful for them being out there to help us.
The Pembina Gorge Station Recreation area has tons of options for running, mountain biking, and water sports. I highly recommend it as a destination for your own ultrarunning destination! If you want more than just a run, then the Wilderman is one of the most unique, and challenging, ultra-adventures in the world.
