In his most recent escapade, Chad Trammell was a beast by day but a bit of a wimp by night.
The Anchorage dentist on Sunday won the TransRockies Run in Colorado, proving he was up to the challenge of racing at altitude for six straight days even though he lives and trains at sea level.
Trammell, 33, claimed the men's open title by dominating the six-stage event with a combined 120 miles of running and more than 20,000 feet of elevation gain. He won four of the six stages, finished second in one and third in another.
He only cried uncle once.
"They had a beer mile in camp on the third day that I didn't participate in but a lot of people did," Trammell said Sunday before the awards ceremony in Beaver Creek. "Maybe the most impressive thing I saw all week was people running a stage all day and then doing a beer mile and then bouncing back the next day.
"Even having half a beer at this altitude, I could feel the effects of it."
Other than that, he said, the altitude didn't bother him much. The stages started at 8,000 to 10,000 feet, depending on the day, and went up from there.
"This week I felt good at altitude the whole time," he said. "Usually I get some headaches or feel weak or sick, but I barely noticed it most of the time."
A regular in Alaska mountain runs and Lower 48 endurance obstacle races, Trammell won the 2015 World's Toughest Mudder race and has consistently demonstrated his toughness in extreme ultra-races.
[Trammell leads Alaskans at Boston Marathon]
He showed that grit again in the mountains of Colorado, where each day he was among the pace setters.
He finished with a total time of 12 hours, 22 minutes, 40.4 seconds. He was more than 16 minutes ahead of runnerup Yoann Stuck of France. Third place went to New York's Drew Miller in 13:13:33.6.
Also posting a strong finish in the race was T.J. Garlatz, an assistant track and cross country coach at UAA. Garlatz placed second in the men's open team competition with Kevin Weil of California. The pair compiled a total time of 14:31:17.2 and were 65 minutes off the winning team's time.
No prize money was awarded, but an assortment of prizes was up for grabs in each stage, Trammell said.
Trammell said organizers set up a camp each night. Tents housing 400 runners were pitched in spaces smaller than a football field, he said.
"Sleep was a bit of an issue. It was pretty loud and it was tough sleeping at times," he said.
On three nights in a row, he woke up with ice on his tent.
Trammell said runners followed well-marked trails. They ran mostly on either dirt and gravel roads or single- and double-track non-motorized trails.
"It was lots of running and some hiking," he said. "There were definitely stages with a lot of switchbacks where the couple of Alaskans in the group (joked) that at home there would be no switchbacks – it would be absolutely straight up the mountain and about a quarter of the distance."
TransRockies Run
Stage 1 – Buena Vista to Railroad Bridge (20.8 miles, 2,500 feet)
Stage 2 – Vicksburg to Twin Lakes (13.3 miles, 3,200 feet)
Stage 3 – Leadville to Camp Hale (24.5 miles, 2,700 feet)
Stage 4 – Camp Hale to Red Cliff (14.5 miles, 2,800 feet)
Stage 5 – Red Cliff to Vail (24.1 miles, 4,100 feet)
Stage 6 – Vail to Beaver Creek (22.4 miles, 5,250 feet)