What a difference a year makes! Last year I headed into the Western States 100 Mile Endurance run as a scared pacer, not sure what the last 40 miles of a hundred would look like. Worried to death that I wouldn’t be able to hang with my runner! I pictured me asking him to slow down somewhere around mile 85 eventually telling him to go ahead and finding me drummed out of the ultra community for life.
But perhaps even worse yet, I didn’t have a clue of what I was supposed to do. Then the fires came and the 2008 race was cancelled and my runner, Jeffery Johnston, talked me into running a hundred with him, the Rio Del Lago 100 Mile Endurance Run (RDL). The rest is history (and chronicled in a mere 20,000 words on this very website here), Jeffery hurt his Achilles and I spent the summer training. I wasn’t about to lose my $200 entry fee! I ran, Jeffery crewed and I had a couple of the best pacers one could ask for, Derek Semanski (who ran this year's Western States as well, you can read his write up here) and Theo Wirth.
Fast forward to the 2009 race. Thanks to Derek and Theo I felt like I had a little better idea of what to do. I needed to remind my runner to eat and drink, try to distract him when he was feeling down and hope he never looked back and saw me walking when he thought he was running late in the race. I also had a great experience in my first 100 after hearing nothing but horror stories going in and I was convinced that even though Western States was a lot harder than Rio Del Lago thanks to the Canyons, elevation, the sheer history behind the race, Jeffery was prepared and I knew he could have a great experience, too.
Pre-race
To say Jeffery is organized is like saying a cat has a rough tongue. That’s just the way it is, no changing him, it’s in his DNA. I liked to joke that he started laying out his stuff for this year’s States just a few days after last year’s was cancelled. His entire crew met at his house the Tuesday before the race for lunch and swimming and to go over his crew plan. Newbie 100 mile runners might do well to look Jeffery up and ask for a copy of his crew plan. Neatly organized in colored binders, it had everything from crew and pacer instructions, equipment and food lists, what to give him and when as well as various articles about hydration, Western States history, you name it. Plus, he had tucked in a free 30 min massage coupon to Monsters of Massage for ultra-crew chief Sandra and fellow pacer Monica and myself, sweet!
Nothing was left to chance. There’s nothing quite like understanding the magnitude of running 100 miles like seeing all the stuff needed for the race lined up on a dining room table, from the clothing changes, gels, bottles, tablets, headlamps and flashlights, batteries, foot care kits, all for the sake of helping one runner accomplish what many believe to be a rather crazy goal, running 100 miles. A friend of mine over the weekend commented that he had once rode his moped 100 miles and that seemed like a chore. To be honest I think I could beat a moped in a 100 mile race, especially one of those with the pedals.
Race Day
I woke up shortly after 5 AM after a restful nights sleep knowing that Jeffery was already on his first climb, knowing that he probably didn’t get a restful night’s sleep. I remember the night before my hundred, I slept maybe a total of 3 or 4 hours, not a great thing to do when you’re pretty much guaranteed to be running through the next night (unless your one of the elites). Two nights of little (or no) sleep is bad enough, add to that constant forward motion for 24 plus hours and you become one whupped hombre!
I immediately started looking for Jeffery on the Western States website. The site was being overwhelmed with traffic and response time was as slow as an ultra runner on pavement (inside joke, that’s really slow, most ultra runners complain when they run on pavement). It took a few hours to finally get a sense of where Jeffery was and he was right on target, nice and slow. I had given him the advice to start slow, and if you thought you were going slow enough, slow down. On my own 100 I was surprised at how long my legs felt good, some 70 miles into the race, and I know a large part of that was because I heeded the advice of Jeffery, actually, who told me to do the same. Hey, I can use my favorite line! “The student became the teacher!”
The plan was that I would receive a call from Jeffery’s wife Jeanne as soon as Jeffery reached Robinson’s Flat, roughly 30 miles into the race. He was hoping to get there sometime between noon and 1 PM. He arrived at 12:31 PM, a minute off, but not that bad (I’m kidding, that was great!). My job was to pick up a large pizza from Pizza Guys and head to the Placer High Stadium where Jeanne, and Jeffery’s dad Harry, would pick me up and we’d head up to pacer check in at Foresthill and then go on to Michigan Bluff where we’d wait for Jeffery. I got the pizza and I was on my way (for those new to the sport, the pizza was for Jeffery, not the crew, people eat some crazy stuff when running 100 miles). My wife can attest that I was pretty much good for nothing that morning I was so excited. I went on a short run with my 5-year-old and then got in my running clothes around 9 AM and just kept looking for updates on the website. Meanwhile she painted my son’s bedroom!
I met Harry and Jeanne and they gave me an update on how Jeffery looked at Robinson’s Flat. He was doing great! Apparently the first couple of climbs were horrible. He had essentially been able to train on all sections of the course prior to the race except for those first couple of climbs thanks to the snow so they were brand new and they were brutal. But he was in good shape. I checked in at Foresthill and we were able to see eventual men’s winner Hal Koerner come through in first place followed immediately by, well, nobody! I saw Hal come through the mile 78 aid station back in the 2007 race, he was the first ultra runner I had ever seen in a race and he looked at that time like he had just run 5K, not 78 miles. Two years later, same story, he makes this 100 mile stuff look easy and he would go on to win in an extremely competitive field with a time of 16 hours and 24 minutes, yes, that’s finishing before it got dark Saturday night, some 13 hours and 36 minutes before the cutoff!
We met Monica and Sandra at the top of the road leading to Michigan Bluff and we all made our way down the steep 2-3 miles to the parking area to be shuttled to the bottom. Quick note for future pacers reading this. I had to remind myself all day that I would be running some 20 plus miles that night and that I better make sure I took care of myself throughout the day, i.e. eat, drink, all that good stuff. I bought a Subway sandwich on my way to meet Harry and Jeanne and crammed it down before we headed down to Michigan Bluff. For the rest of the day I had to remind myself to eat and drink, I was so caught up in the day! You’re still going to run and burn an additional 2,500 calories or so that night.
I had never been to Michigan Bluff and it was a pretty wild scene. You’re on a narrow, windy road and all of a sudden you’re met with A LOT of cars parked everywhere with a school bus shuttling people the half a mile to the bottom. We had to park quite a way from the shuttle pick up and we made it to the bus just in time to watch it pull away. So we hiked down to what appeared to be a street in the middle of nowhere with a few houses on it covered with hundreds of runner’s crews along with aid stations at both ends of the street (and “in” aid station and an “out” I believe). There were people in matching crew shirts everywhere and runners coming up the street at that point 56 miles into the race, all of the hardest climbing behind them.
A lot of the runners looked beat. I call them zombies. Actually I didn’t coin that term. One of my favorite online running stores is called Zombie Runner, apparently it’s a look many of us get on these longer runs. The heat, some 20 degrees cooler just the weekend previously, was in the low 100’s and it apparently took its toll on a lot of runners, many dropping at Devil’s Thumb, a painfully long and exposed climb some 9 miles before Michigan Bluff.
Just being there, seeing the runners hook up with their crews was awesome. It made me extremely jealous that I wasn’t running and while I had officially retired from 100’s after my lone 100, I was definitely throwing my name into the lottery for a spot at next year’s Western States (FYI, I retire pretty much after every race only to un-retire a couple of days later). We saw a lot of friends come through, Steve Itano, Matt Keyes, Derek Semanski, Jamie Frink just to name a few. There were a couple of ultra running “stars” to come thorough including Dean Karnazes and, well, OK, that’s the only star I can think of. We were a little bit too late to catch the front runners.
There was a house that was converted to a burger bar at the end of the street and they had internet access. They could give you an update on your runner and at first glance we were told Jeffery should be coming through Michigan Bluff around 7 PM. It was just past 4:30 PM so we had some time to kill and it went fast watching all the runners come through. I tried to take a nap at one point and was pretty successful in falling asleep in a chair, but I would wake every time a runner came through, hearing the cheering. I was curious if I knew the runner so I’d startle myself awake. I did sleep though as a neighboring crew made fun of me for sleeping with my mouth wide open.
If you’ve never watched a “crew” in action just think a NASCAR pit crew attending to a car. Derek came through and he was immediately put into a chair. His shoes and socks were off in a second, his head covered with a cool cloth. His food was replaced in his vest pockets, he was given food and his legs and back were massaged. I just sat there and watched (afraid somebody would ask me to help with his feet, now that’s love attending to an ultra runner’s feet!). We knew Jeffery should be 45 minutes to an hour behind Derek so we spent a lot of time with Derek’s crew (his sister, wife and kids) attending to Derek. Eventually he was up and we walked him to the “out” part of the aid station.
Meanwhile, Jeffery’s father Harry had gone to check on Jeffery at the “Where’s My Runner” station at the burger bar. I happened to turn around from walking with Derek and saw Harry running at full tilt waving frantically as if to say, “he’s here!” I ran over to meet him and he said, “Jeffery should be here around 6:13!”
“What time is it now?” I asked.
“6:13!” Harry shouted and I immediately turned around and ran to get my pacing companion Monica. The plan was for Monica and me to go a few hundred feet up the trail before the “in” aid station (permitted by the rules) to meet Jeffery and find out what he needed so the rest of the crew could prepare the food, foot repair kit, clothing, you name it.
Monica and I started running up the hill, Jeffery was a good 45 minutes to an hour ahead of pace, he must have been tearing it up after the last check point!
Monica and I stood there a ways up the trail welcoming runners in, some looking good, some in a SERIOUS state of zombie! One guy passed a little too close to me and I seriously had a flash back to being a kid watching George Ramero’s Night of the Living Dead (the father of all zombie movies) in black and white. I remembered the scene where the guy in the nerdy glasses and Barbara (“They’re coming to get you Bar-bar-a!” OK, I think she yelled, “Stop it Johnny!” So I’m going with his name as Johnny) were in the graveyard at the beginning and some guy wanders over a little to close and then nearly takes a chunk out of Bar-bar-a’s head. This guy could have easily devoured me and he had a look in his eye that said he just might do it! And trust me, I have a BIG head and Monica doesn’t, so if anybody was going down it was definitely me!
The minutes started passing and we were second guessing Harry’s data. As we’re already a couple of thousand words into this report and I haven’t even seen Jeffery yet, let’s just say that Harry was given the time Jeffery had probably left the last checkpoint, not when he was to arrive at MB so Monica and I stood there almost an hour, with me having to pee the entire time, but not wanting to miss Jeffery if he came down the hill.
I was also impressed with Monica and my skills in pacing spontaneity! Word was that if your runner came in after 8 PM, the pacer could pick them up there at MB. As the clock passed 7:30 PM Monica and I started to hatch “plan B.” Monica was to pace Jeffery from Foresthill to the River and then I’d pick him up shortly thereafter at the Green Gate aid station. Monica was in flip flops, her running shoes a good 3/4 miles up the hill in the car. I had running shoes on, but no light. We were like the crew of the Apollo 13, trying to make a plan using only the tools we had. I had the shoes, Jeffery had two lights in the tote, I could take one. We had an extra bottle, MB to Forest Hill (FH) was only 6 or 7 miles, one bottle would be fine. I didn’t have any Body Glide to protect from chafing, yikes! Jeffery had some, but Body Glide is a bit like chapstick, I couldn’t imagine sharing. But in a bind, if the choice was raw nipples and chafing inner thighs vs. sharing Body Glide, well, I’d share the Body Glide! I could run from MB to FH, Monica could take over her assigned FH to the river and I’d pick back up where I was supposed to be.
Jeffery eventually came down the hill well before the 8 PM mark so we scrapped plan B, but again, I was impressed that we had put it together. Monica and I were worried that he might be a zombie as the percentage of zombie to human coming down the hill was growing! But there was Jeffery, no zombies here! We would learn, however, that for a good 10 or more miles he had been throwing up. Unfortunately this would be the theme for the rest of the race.
Jeffery came into the pit and he was extremely positive. Sounds a bit odd I’m sure but I was proud of him. He was grateful to see his crew and we were working like a team…but I was again staying away from his feet (I was feeding him pizza!). Nothing sounded good and here’s a man who in all the ultras I’ve run with him, and we’re in double figures now, he can eat the solids during a race. I’m more of a liquid and gel man for my calories, but I’ve seen Jeffery put down pizza, wraps, turkey sandwiches, PB&J, quesadillas, potatoes, fruit, M&M’s, brownies, you name it! He was counting on eating all of this and more during this race and unfortunately his stomach decided to revolt thanks to the heat and effort of the Canyons. For those who like the numbers, you can estimate that a runner will burn a good 13,000 calories during the run. Add on there the 2,500 or so you need just to go about your day and you’re talking about filling a 15,000 calorie hole! Sounds great, I know, but not when food starts sounding bad, or, worse yet, you start giving it back to the earth over and over again!
We eventually got him out of the aid station and he was in good spirits. He was well ahead of the cutoffs and his legs felt good. If he could hold down food this would have been an entirely different ballgame.
Heading to Foresthill
The buses had stopped running back up the hill, so, anxious to put in an extra mile or so after getting excited about possibly pacing early, I volunteered to run up the hill to the car. I hadn’t realized how steep the hill was on the way down. I started running and my legs were immediately tired. Then I felt guilty for thinking about being tired! I had run all of a couple of hundred yards up a hill, Jeffery and spent the day running 56 miles so far in the Canyons! I ran to the top!
We parked at the top of Bath Road, Monica and I were allowed to run down Bath Road, a little over a mile and meet Jeffery at the aid station, then run back up with him. It was starting to get dark, and we were seeing people coming up to the top of Bath Rd. that we knew were close to Jeffery so we threw on our lights and started quickly down the road.
At the aid station there was a memorial set up for Dan Moores, the owner of the Auburn Running Company who had died just a couple of days before the race. Many people, including Jeffery and Monica, were close to Dan and it truly put a damper on the feel to the race. But the memorial was a great picture of him with a pen to sign all around the picture and many people had shared the message that Dan had inspired them. I added my name to the list. I met Dan a few times and bought my first pair of trail running shoes from him. At that time he “welcomed me to ultra running” and he acted like he remembered me each time I saw him.
Jeffery arrived quickly after we got there which was a great sign. We tried to get him to eat, but unfortunately his stomach was no better. On the power walk up Bath he had to stop and go through a round of the dry heaves on 2 or 3 occasions. I felt bad for him, here he was at almost the 100k mark, legs feeling better than he had hoped despite the Canyons but his stomach, something that I’ve struggled with a ton, but that he’s had a lot of success with, was now the thorn in his paw. But again, he was positive, his legs were good and he was almost to Foresthill (FH). Many runners said that getting to FH was the hard part, now the fun kicked in. A lot of downhill, the river crossing and then the home stretch.
Foresthill (62 miles)
We ran another mile from the top of Bath into the Foresthill aid station. This aid station is HUGE and there are a ton of people there. This is one of those moments when the runners truly feel like rock stars. People were lining the streets applauding Jeffery and he was feeling it, running well. His family was there en masse and you could see the excitement in their eyes. His son, wife, Mom and Dad, Mother and Father-in-law down from Carson City, sister and sister-in-law, nephew, friends from church, everybody just had this look of amazement on their faces, he was doing it!
He checked in at the scale and was fine. Sandra had set up the crew gear down the road on the left and Jeffery stopped for a moment and the pit crew went to work. I filled bottles and salt tab bags while Monica and Sandra (saints I tell you) worked on his feet! His family was snapping pictures and giving him encouragement. Monica was ready to run Jeffery down to the river and they were hoping to take advantage of Jeffery’s strong downhill skills despite his thrashed quads.
They left and all of a sudden Sandra and I had nothing but time on our hands. We ran down to Taco Tree in Auburn, grabbed some food and made it to stadium just in time to watch the 1st woman finish. Rookie 100 miler Anita Ortiz came around the track looking strong! 45 year-old with 4 kids, winning her first 100, amazing. We saw a couple of the male top 10 finishers, too (Anita was in the top 10 overall!). We then made our way to the Green Gate aid station content to set up shop and try to get some sleep. It was around 11 PM at this point.
Green Gate (79.8 Miles)
You have to park a good mile or so up from the aid station and, much like at MB, there were cars everywhere. Thankfully Sandra knows what she’s doing. I would never have known where to drive and then where to go if I even found where to park. We humped a couple of chairs, a cooler and a big bag of crew stuff the mile down to the aid station. On the way down we ran into Jeffery’s coach, and ultra marathon superstar Julie Fingar. Julie had just paced our friend Derek from FH to the River and said he was starting to come to life.
We set up shop at Green Gate and I nodded off for a bit until finally getting antsy. Sandra said I could run the 2 miles down from Green Gate to the River and watch Jeffery cross, and then come the 2 miles back up with Monica and Jeffery so I decided that’s what I’d do. The two miles down to the river were great, as people seemed rejuvenated after crossing the river (I used the same old line, “how was the water?” to which most people replied either “cold” or “great!”). I passed uber-blogger Scott Dunlap, you can read his wonderful race report here. He seemed to have similar issues to Jeffery but hung in there to the finish.
I loved watching people cross the river. I found a fairly flat rock just a few yards from the river and watched people for a good hour or so. I saw a few good friends come through which was fun and I also sat and watched a lady literally curl up into the fetal position worrying about her husband, whether or not he was going to make it, if he had dropped, it appeared that he was pretty late and she seemed worried. I really hope he made it? If this rings a bell to anyone (she was wearing khaki Capri pants and had cool, fashionable glasses with dark hair!) I’d love to know if he made it!
Jeffery and Monica made their way across the river I believe around 2:45 AM. They loved it! Monica was dying to run through the river and I didn’t know that when we first set up our pacing duties. I had asked Jeffery if I could cross the river so the plan had been to set up our crew station on the near side of the river, Monica would run him down and then we’d cross and go from there. Then it dawned on me that I didn’t want wet shoes for the last 22 miles and when I heard Monica really wanted to cross the river that changed the plan, and I was grateful for it. We were both happy, Monica for crossing and me for starting my section with dry shoes.
The hike up to Green Gate (GG) was the first time I really started feeling like a pacer! In the next half an hour Monica would essentially hand me the keys to Jeffery and it would be my job to get him to the finish. I started talking to Monica, asking him how Jeffery felt. During my 100 my wife asked me at one particular aid station what it felt like to have my crew chief, Jeffery, and my pacer, Derek, talking about me and how I was doing with me standing right there with no say in the matter. It was odd, but it felt right. Here Monica and I were doing the same thing and Jeffery caught it. He said, “Remember at your race? Pretty funny to be on this side of it.”
Unfortunately Jeffery was continuing to throw up, only most of it was coming up dry. His throat was starting to hurt as well as his abs and back from the force. His quads had left him on all the downhill from FH to the river and his legs were just plain starting to revolt! He said he didn’t have much on the really steep uphill, but on the slight uphill he was OK. He could “shuffle” the flats but that the downs were starting to hurt…a lot. Monica said she had success having him run to landmarks and then taking some breaks. She also found that Sweet Tarts were magical and she handed me the pack. I figured I’d dangle these in front of him at some point to keep him going. The good news, however, is that he was positive! No zombie here. I knew we could do it. I took over at GG and never felt more part of a team. Sandra did her magic at GG and Monica told Jeffery how proud she was of him, that she knew he could do it and we left there feeling like a million bucks. She had given him some soup with a couple of salt tabs opened up in it and some crackers. My job was to get him to drink the soup and eat the crackers. He did his best with the soup and he choked down the crackers.
First lesson as a pacer “on the job.” Praise him like you do your kids when they are little. “Good job eating that cracker Jeffery!” It sounded funny, but the reality is that this guy was having trouble keeping anything down and that cracker just represented 40 calories, almost enough for half a mile!”
I kept preaching how wonderful the second sunrise would be and hoping that it would indeed be the case. Once I hit my second daylight at RDL I had a second wind and truly came to life. Something happened immediately after we started running together, however, Jeffery was running! I didn’t have to pull the “lets run to this landmark” for probably 10 miles. He was starting to move along well. We were talking about the day and I kept saying, “You’re doing it, man, you’re doing it!” I think we had a couple of miles of “buddy high” and it got us half way to the next aid station, ALT. For the super running junkies, Jeffery was very proud of the fact that he was still pee’ing, A LOT, which is a great sign 80 miles into a race. It means the kidney’s are still your friends and that’s essential to keep running, and, well, to live!
ALT to Brown’s Bar (89.9 Miles)
I had my Garmin watch on and Jeffery later confessed that he knew my affinity toward numbers would be a good thing. He said that was part of the reason he wanted me on the last 20 miles, so I would pay attention to pace, cut offs, do the math, etc. He wasn’t wrong. I was loving watching the per mile pace. I knew when we were running below the 24 hour cut off pace, when we got below 30 hour and how much time we had “in the bank.” Only one problem that I didn’t quite do my math correctly and I had us an hour earlier than it really was, as in, “Man, Jeffery, we’re well below the cut off, I think we’ll finish well below 28 hours!” In hindsight that might have been a good thing because we had a great 10 mile stretch despite Jeffery’s tummy troubles. Every 5 mins or so I’d think we were in the zone and he’d pull off to the side and start dry heaving!
We came into ALT and he weighed in a bit light. Jeffery wasn’t going to have any of that and he just told the Dr. that he was fine and he kept moving. I told her that he was drinking fine but food was a problem. She suggested TUMS and I took a handful. Jeffery wanted Mtn. Dew at the aid station and they said they didn’t have any. One of the volunteers, however, said, “I have some!” She poured us some of her personal stash, and again I say, THANK YOU! Calories! Jeffery also grabbed a cookie. “Good cookie Jeffery!” Jeffery took the TUMS and we were out of there rather quickly.
Funny thing happened on the way to Brown’s Bar and it’s stuck with me this past week. We’re making great time, putting money in the bank. I haven’t figured out my time lapse yet and we’re having a great time. The sun is up, TUMS seem to be working and Jeffery is in good spirits. We’re doing it, man! We pass a couple of folks, a couple of folks pass us, no problem. We get passed by a guy with an accent, I won’t tell what kind of accent as to keep his identity safe. He and his pacer seem nice enough. We get a mile down the road and I see him squatting on the trail, OK, MAYBE one foot on the trail one off, definitely not indiscreet. He says something about “look” and I figure he’s found a wounded bird or something so I slow down to look and I ask, “Is everything OK?” To which I realize he’s saying, “Don’t look!” The guy is taking care of business right there a few inches off the trail! I suddenly feel stupid and apologize but the more I think about it the more I think, “No, he should feel stupid, not me!” They pass us later and it was all I could do not to share my thoughts with him. Regardless of his bad decision making skills at mile 88, I still figured this was about him finishing his 100 so I let it go. But even I know you take that stuff off the trail!
We made it into Brown’s Bar, the infamous Brown’s Bar. Music blaring, aid station folks a couple of sheets to the wind, lights strung across a bridge, crazy stuff…apparently at night. We were catching them in the morning and they were wonderful, but a bit subdued. We made it through the aid station quickly and knew we had some downhill to Quarry Road followed by an uphill section to Highway 49, then we could “smell the barn.” We’re doing it! We’re there!
To Hwy 49…A Dark Patch (Cue ominous music)
So far being a pacer was pretty easy. I reminded Jeffery when to take a salt tablet, kept asking him to drink, got him to choke down a gel or two and patted his back while he puked, all the while telling him only about the times that we were running putting “money in the bank” and trying to motivate him when we were slipping a bit. I had also figured out my time error and shared it with Jeffery casually. We should still be able to finish before 29 hours, no worries. I only had to use my “therapist powers” briefly, when we’d hit a steep uphill or something like that.
There’s a pretty nice descent from Brown’s Bar and I knew that would hurt Jeffery, definitely physically, hopefully not mentally. I’ve run this stretch with him a few times before and he flies down it. I stayed with him once, on an official WS training run and I felt completely out of control. This time it was different, picture somebody walking on hot coals, every step and “ouch, eech, ooch!” His quads were trashed! But he kept on down the hill. We reached the bottom of the hill and we started what would be a good mile or more up a slight incline (Quarry Road) to a very long uphill (to 49). We had only been up Quarry Rd. for a minute or two and he hit a spot we hadn’t seen before.
“I’m done.” He said. Just a mile before we had been celebrating the fact that he had crossed the 90 mile mark, just amazing when you think about it.
“No, you’re fine,” I said with no hesitation. But he wasn’t. I started trying all kinds of things, give me more effort, think about how much you have left, run to that tree, I’m getting nothing. He was starting to go a bit zombie on me, not high on the zombie scale, but the part where they’ve just been bitten by another zombie and something has definitely changed.
We were running around several other people at this point and he would come in and out of zombie state. He cracked a pretty funny joke with Deb Paquin about her pacing strategy (staying well ahead of her running challenging him to catch her) and we were trading aches and pains with I believe Georganna Quarles. I’m making this assumption as we’d stay off and on with her the rest of the race and she finished right in front of us. Extremely nice woman and a great help. We eventually made it off Quarry Rd. and started to head up the steep, rocky, single track trail to the Hwy 49 aid station. Jeffery was hurting and this mile alone took us just over 30 minutes. On a normal day Jeffery could climb this thing in 15 or less, but he was hurting.
I was staying positive, but when my Garmin gave me that split just before we reached the 49 crossing, I figured it was time to get “real.” Monica and I had talked to Jeffery and joked that we were both probably the least mean people he could pick to pace, but that if need be, we were allowed to get mean. My kids would probably disagree but I wasn’t really sure if I could get mean. But I quickly did the math and with 7 miles left, if we had another 30 minute mile, well, all of a sudden we would be in danger of not finishing this thing. I shared this with Jeffery and he said, “I’m worried.” I told him I wasn’t but that we couldn’t do another one of those miles.
Highway 49 Aid Station (Mile 93!)
We reached the 49 aid station and there were Monica and Sandra. They both gave me a look like “you better get mean!” and they told me I needed to step it up. They didn’t realize I had just spent two miles trying to motivate and while I knew we’d pull it together, I had to dig deep in my bag of tricks. We made it quickly through the aid station and Jeffery and I discussed the plan going up the hill to the meadow. We had to power up this hill. We had to shuffle the meadow and he HAD to give me two miles of downhill to No Hands Bridge and we’d go from there. We set a tentative goal of getting to the pavement of Robie Point at 10 AM, just 1.2 miles to the finish, an hour before the 30 hour cutoff. In the back of my mind I felt that was pretty darned aggressive, but we needed a goal.
Then something started to happen that again, I’m just flat our proud of my runner! One of the wildest things about ultra marathons to me has been how you can experience a true high and a low and get back to the high again. I’ve done it, Jeffery has done it, every ultra runner has done it. And I swear it something about going longer than the marathon distance of 26 miles. I’ve done many marathons where I fall apart and I struggle to the finish, period. I make it, but I never recover during the run. I’ve run many ultras where I’m done, I die and then I come back to life and feel good as new, over and over again in the same race! On this day, Jeffery would do just this…he came back. We powered up the hill, he was in positive spirits. We had apparently found the zombie anti-venom and his zombie-trance was gone.
We made it to the meadow and continued with our plan. We were doing it, man! We were…WHAM! Jeffery darned near doubled over in pain. His foot! It felt like a rock he said. We took off his shoe (yes, I was touching his foot!) and found no rock, but did learn that his feet were in pretty bad shape. He had just popped a pretty major blister under his toes. Now, go back to Jeffery’s Miwok 100k of LAST year, he started with blister at mile 14 and finished the 62 mile run anyway. By the end of that race he was covering his feet with duct tape just to try and make it to the finish. His feet were two big blisters. I pulled out what was one of my finest pearls of wisdom yet…”Jeffery, now we know why you went through what you did at Miwok.” If you can do 50 miles on blisters, what’s 6 or 7?” I turned tough, I told him I know it hurts but frankly I didn’t care, I needed these next two miles on the down hills.
He started to run, slowly at first. When we first started the descent he was in pain and I jus t kept saying, “Just keep going, you’ll loosen up.” I figured he wouldn’t, but maybe his legs would go numb. Now, I’m not just saying this next part for his ego, but I started looking at my watch and yelling out his pace as we were running, “12 minute miles, 11 minute miles, let’s get under 10 minute miles so I can write it in my race report!” He gave me more and we spent quite a bit of time in the 9 min mile range! He even dipped as low as 8:45 pace on this downhill stretch. Two things happened that sealed the rest of the race.
First, a runner came up behind us and we asked if he wanted by. He said no, he wasn’t running the race; he was just out for a run. We started talking and he told us that he had heard repeatedly that the number of drops on this day was extremely high. That anybody who would finish today was just amazing. I kept saying, “Yep, this guy is amazing, thrown up for the last 50 miles and we’re going to do this thing!” Time wise we were making up some serious ground, I was no longer worried we’d make it, but I wanted to make it easily. Jeffery would ask me how we’re doing, he said a couple of times that he was worried and I let him worry a bit, it sure was working!
Then Tim Tweitmeyer shows up on the trail encouraging everybody on. He’s finished 25 times under 24 hours and won it a bunch of times. He gives Jeffery a knuckle bump and Jeffery says, “I got knuckles from Tweitmeyer!” We had planned on walking the VERY steep last hundred yards down to the bridge to save his legs but Jeffery said, “I’m not stopping at the aid station.” So I grabbed his bottles and stopped while he kept going across No Hands Bridge. Sandra and Monica were there and they looked relieved. I told them we were in good shape and I think they could tell.
Home stretch
The last 3.8 miles are deceptively hard because they are essentially all uphill. Here we are less than 4 miles from the finish, he’s been throwing up, awake for a day and some change, probably a few thousand calories in the hole and we have hills to deal with, not fair and I was prepared to help Jeffery pace himself to the finish. But Jeffery was a man possessed! We must have passed at least a dozen people on this section and we were passed by no one. He was now running the slight ups, all the flats and power walking the big ups. We made it to Robie Point at 10:04, 4 minutes after our goal set back after our slowest mile during our darkest period, unbelievable.
Jeffery and I were power walking up from Robie with a purpose, he was doing it, man! It was then that reality set in and that he was thinking on a brain deprived of sleep, racked with the dry heaves and probably severely under fed. “Are we going to make it?” 1.2 miles, Jeffery, 56 minutes, I think we’re OK.
Then the euphoria set in and this is the part I don’t want to ever forget, nor do I want Jeffery to forget it. We threw our arms around each other and walked shoulder to shoulder playing a spirited round of “No, YOU’RE the man!” He was all smiles, HE DID IT! We finally hit a stretch that didn’t feel like straight up hill and we started running. We turned a corner and there was his sister, she was ecstatic. He gets to the entrance of the stadium and his family was there going nuts! Monica and Sandra, Jeffery’s Mom and Dad, his wife Jeanne and his son Jason, his in-laws, several people hit the track and ran that final lap with him. They announced his name and I peeled off to the side and watched him cross the line at 29:25, an easy 35 minutes ahead of the cutoff and looking like a million bucks.
Sandra and Monica and I were going nuts, we did it, man! Jeffery’s family was coming up to me and hugging me telling ME thanks, it was just a rush of emotions…emotions that I hope to have in the not too distant future as I now throw my hat into the Western States lottery!
Huge thanks to all those who help put on the Super Bowl of 100’s. Jeffery’s wife and family were amazing, Sandra and Monica could hire out as professional crew and a huge thanks to Jeffery for letting me be a part of this huge accomplishment, one that not many will experience, but those who do will never, ever forget!
