Subject: Angeles Crest '99 Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:13:33 -1000 From: akabill To: ultra@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU Dear akabill, I have to admit that one of the nicest things you have ever done for me was to accompany Jackie Odre the full 100.53 miles of Angeles Crest. Mahalo Nui Loa. Life is good and getting better all the time. Sign me simply Akabill PS: I really can't believe that you, of all people, had the genius to turn a promise to pace into a accompaniment one notch below a full tilt boogie and then turn that into one of the finest times on a trail you have ever had. Yeah sure, the agreement was that Jackie pace you at Western and then you pace her at Angeles Crest. Yeah sure, she was the best at Western. She picked you up at Forest Hill and then kept you trucking until Robie Point. You'll never forget the moment, just after your major hallucination near the top, when you turned to her and said: "Jackie, how much do you have left?" and she laughed and looked over her right shoulder and said to you: "akabill, how much do YOU have left?" and then the both of you took off. Just plain thirteen letter word took off and picked up speed and passed people all the way to the end where the finish photo shows the both of you off the ground pumping and humping and laughing out loud and done SILVER. Yeah that was the best until Angeles Crest. But turn a pace into an accompaniment? akabill you are not naturally that smart. It had to be Jackie. She had to be the one who decided that she would rather have you accompany her the whole hundred than just the 48 from Chilao. Admit it boy: it was Jackie's decision. O.K., so it was her decision. Now what made you think you could live up to that responsibility the whole hundred miles? Even if you are a northern European chauvinist oink oink your heritage doesn't allow you that much arrogance. Even if you have finished a small bit ahead of her in your mutual ultras the responsibility of seeing that someone stays at their best a whole hundred is a major drain on resources. What stones you had. Jackie convinced you that you could? Yeah sure. You knew that Jackie would have all she needed from the get go. You were just along for the ride? That's more like it boy. Climb down off that horse. I'll bet you knew you were in for it. Big time. So what was it like? Dear akabill: I'm glad you asked. Offering to accompany Jackie the whole hundred came out of the blues one day. Deciding that I was capable of the trip was an act of faith. Doing it was one of the nicest things I have ever done for myself. In fact, I can fully recommend it: find someone you like a lot who normally does ultras just a little bit slower than you and then just stick with them the whole way. It will be a revelation. You will find out how much you've got and how good a time you really can have traveling the yellow brick road doing an ultra! Better yet you will probably learn a bit about yourself too. ******************** Reader: if you are not interested in an overlong self indulgent story about Angeles Crest now is the time to skip to the items at the bottom or just hit the delete key. *********************** Just like in '98 Jackie and I start out from Wrightwood together. This year it is not bitter cold. We do not need, but do wear, jackets. From the start Jackie takes the lead and sets the pace uphill. Warm up time to the top then cruise the ridge. Jackie gets into a flow and starts picking off runners. Cool. I have no decisions to make. I go with her. She has a good time taking advantage of our energy saving climb. Bam, we go by a woman. Run a bit. Pick up the pace a bit. Bam, run by another woman. Pick up the pace a bit. I catch my toe on a rock, do the genuflecting experience with my right knee and become blood brother with the trail. Jackie is in her element, she just flows. Just before we cross a road a photographer aims at Jackie. Flash! J: "What was that all about?" a: "Shooting the leading women?" J: "Yeah sure." Silence. Jackie is having fun and I get to watch! At Inspiration Point our crew: Greg, Vanessa, and Kathleen have everything ready per the instructions on our spreadsheets. They are more excited than we are. What a treat, it is like being a prize fighter and going to the corner at the sound of the bell. Sit down and several people take care of your needs. The bell rings again and out you go. We drop off two bottles, pick up one bottle, drink lots at the aid table and head on out. Now we need to talk about coordinating excess body fluid elimination. Reaching agreement is easy. First person who is uncomfortable says so, the other stops and complies or waits. Easy. On the way to Vincent Gap we realize that this is not going to be a cool day like '98. It is time to start thinking about dumping our jackets and making sure that we get enough fluids. Jackie leads and we agree to dump excess garments for the balance of the day. Going into Vincent Gap I notice that today my attitude about aid stations has altered drastically. No anxiety. Normally at aid I am like a 16 valve engine running hard in neutral. Motor running ragged, chassis trembling, wheels staying still. I'm usually rushing so I'm not in the here and now paying attention to where I am and remembering what I am supposed to be doing. What I want is to get back in gear and get out of there. There is lots of wasted energy. I usually need that gas later. Today the situation is very different. I simply take care of myself and am ready when Jackie wants to go. This does not mean that Jackie is taking a lot of time at aid. Far from it. (The first time I ran with Jackie was at the '97 Haleakala Lunar Classic Marathon, a full moon run inside Haleakala Crater. One of the things I noticed about her was that at our refreshment stops Jackie was always ready to go when I was still getting my gear back together. Jackie is efficient at aid and I soon learned to behave accordingly.) What is different today is my attitude. No racing engine. No wasted gas. Again our crew is fantastic and we each grab three bottles, two gels, dump our jackets and hike on out for the first few minutes. Jackie and I both learn during this run to take it easy on the way out from aid. No more fist pumping high spirited yelling HURT! HURT! HURT! followed by a quick regurgitation a couple of minutes later. Walk out, let it settle, enjoy the rest and then get into cruise mode up Mt. Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell is early and it is getting warmer. I follow Jackie's strong walk up the hill. It is too soon for the 2500' feet in 3.75 miles up to be tough. Sliding Sands in Haleakala was good training, and that is not under a forest canopy. Rick from Arizona joins us and regales us with stories about rattlesnakes and mountain lions. Jackie is strangely silent while I think about pussy cats and the blind pencil lead thin underground snakes of Hawaii. The top of Baden-Powell happens soon enough and we meet up with mainland HURT member Stan Jensen and Clement Chow. Stan is a good friend and finishing up the Last Great Race. We are surprised that he is in front of us. One of us is at the wrong pace and he says so. We can't agree who though. Jackie speeds up so I guess that she has decided that she is going too slow. Flow, flow, flow. Our speed increases. All of a sudden it becomes all too apparent that semi-solid excess body fluid elimination is required. (In '98 Jackie and I got separated when I needed to stop first, rushed to catch up with her and passed her while she was off trail. The more I rushed the farther ahead I got and that was the end of that good time.) You got to just do it and Stan and Clement go by again as we are behind bushes just off trail. Soon we go by them again and see them next at Johnson Field. Now the fun starts again. Relieved, Jackie picks up the flow all the way down Baden-Powell into Islip Saddle. Whenever a runner appears ahead of us Jackie changes gears and whatever it takes Jackie catches, passes, and leaves the runner behind. This happens over and over again into Kratka Ridge. This woman is having fun and so am I. (The trails on my Oahu are quite dissimilar to those at AC but Jackie's Maui home ground has lots of packed sand with rocks downhills.) Jackie is in her element and it is my job to adjust. Life is good! We go from Islip Saddle to the top of Mt. Williamson and down to Eagle's Roost. Along the way we catch up with my good friend Clem and attach him to our now three person train. We are into a routine. Jackie sets the pace. I talk with whomever is the caboose. We drink everything we are carrying before the next aid station. We are careful about Karl's Kaps, regulating our intake according to conditions. We power the uphills, trot the flats, pass everybody we can see on downs. Life is good! At Eagle's Roost our crew tells us that Jeff Huff, the fourth HURT member at AC, is strong and twenty minutes ahead of us. I am concerned that he may be going out too fast. Thirty miles in and Jackie and I drink our normal three or four cups, graze the training table, grab Clem and head out. It is getting close to midday and the heat is becoming apparent even to this Hawaiian twosome. It is a four bottle day and we are only carrying three. Loading up at the aid stations is no longer a luxury, it is now necessary. After a period of initial confusion leaving Eagle's Roost we head down into Cooper Canyon. There is only one trail to follow but soon Jackie notices that there are no ribbons marking the trail. Jackie got off trail in '98 so finding and following ribbons is a major issue for her in '99. No ribbons. There is only one trail that we can see. Clem says: "Look for the foot prints." There are lots of footsteps in the sand ahead of us but no ribbons and ribbons are what Jackie wants to see. On we press, Jackie in the lead. I search for ribbons. All too frequently comes the question: "Seen any ribbons yet." With the answer being, "No ribbons, but plenty of footprints." At one end of the canyon we stop and wait and yell back at the first person who comes along: "Do you know this trail?" "Yes." "Is this the right way?" "Yes, it is the only way." We leave him behind and rush the up. Then I start worrying. It is noon, in the high 80's, seven and a half miles between aid and I am down to one bottle of liquid. If we have to turn around to find the correct trail I fear for our ability to stay hydrated. I know that could become a serious issue. My trail sense says that we are right on but the only thing that will assure Jackie is a yellow ribbon. Just as I am ready to give in and call a stop we get to the bottom of the canyon and we come upon the most massive display of ribbons showing the way across a dry stream that I have ever seen. Jackie is now happy and we three run on up and out of the canyon into open air rolling hills just after noon. In '98 this was a misty cool slightly rainy area great for running. This year it is dry, hot, and debilitating. I remind Jackie to drink and soon my third bottle is empty. Clem is a few steps behind us and not talking a lot. Jackie and I are used to running with temps in 80's and humidity in the 90's and are not bothered by the AC conditions. Clem hardly ever sees 80 in Oregon and the practically no humidity of AC is sucking the life blood out of him. Jackie and I normally hydrate to excess and eliminate the excess freely. Clem normally does not. It is very pretty country with no lookee footing. We come around a switch back and see a young man staggering along the trail. When he hears us he turns around and holds up two tiny store bought bottles and asks: "Water?" This man is in deep kukai due to dehydration. My bottles are empty. Jackie's are empty. Clem gives him the half bottle he has left and we now push for Cloudburst two miles away. Clem's magnanimity may have ended his run right there. Cloudburst Aid is wonderful for Jackie and I. All day we have come into every aid station together. We are getting used to seeing the same crews along the way, and especially Stan Jensen's exuberant sister Trudy. She looks us in the eye and says: "Is life still good?" and we laugh and say, "Life is getting better all the time." That was no lie. Over the day other crews visit with ours and are getting used to seeing Jackie lead me into aid. We are now "Team Hawaii." Jackie is cheered over and over till the very end and it is always a morale booster. Our crew. Greg, Vanessa, and Kathleen just can't do enough for us. Other crews and aid people wearing Aloha shirts want to talk. We hear often that we are looking much better than the people in front of us. Jeff is a half hour ahead and moving strong. We take our full bottles, drink several cups from the aid table, graze the food, and then remember to yell and alert the Medical Crew to the emergency two miles back down the trail. A blond woman wants to know what the guy looks like and I can't remember. I say: "Well, he's a young haole." and she just stares at me, getting even more worried. I think: "Toto, we are not in Hawaii anymore" and I realize to say: "Northern European ancestry." That doesn't help her a bit and I start thinking "I hope I get better at this later in the run." Clem is not so lucky. He has outrun his crew and has to make the best of it. Now Cloudburst has plenty of anything a lone runner can need but if you are expecting crew and don't find them the psychological damage can be great. Jackie and I cruise out of Cloudburst looking for our now customary "private excess body fluid elimination" sites. Best thing we did for ourselves: drink, graze, walk, pee, run. Efficient and effective. Soon Clem catches up to us, a bit bothered but ready to go. Now this is still in the heat of the day. Running is easy and that can become a problem. Jackie sets the pace and as long as I am not worrying about Clem, life is good! Jackie and I are getting towards the end of our normal training run range, (8+hours). I hang behind her, check with her condition and simply enjoy this unstrenuous section. Leaving Three Points I grab my bottles from the aid table and Clem says: "Hey, what happened to my bottle?" "akabill, you got my bottle?" "No, Clem, these are mine" and I follow Jackie out while Clem frantically looks for his bottle. Turns out that someone cockaroached Clem's Wasatch Finishers water bottle and now he is really short. Jackie and I head for Mt. Hillyer and a few minutes later I hear foot steps behind me. I shift my attention. I catch my toe on a rock. I do a world class, Olympic style barrel roll. I leap to my feet and see Clem outside the corner of my eye. "Aloha Clem, want to see me do that again?" and on we run. Clem is understandably upset. It is hot. His crew has missed him again. He is short on liquid. It is over 6 miles to the next aid. Clem is a very positive type guy and he is now into negativity. He has dug into his reserves and it is beginning to show. Jackie and I take an emergency stop and Clem pushes on ahead. Not a good sign. We catch up to Clem at Mt. Hillyer. He is sitting down and not looking good at all. After drinking and grazing I convince Clem to stick with us. He grabs his two remaining bottles and up the hill we push. Soon we see a bunch of mountain bikes laying across the trail. A dozen kids and a couple of adults are sprawled under a tree and stare blank eyed at us as we trot at them. One kid grabs some bikes and moves them off the trail. I yell: "No leave em. We want to steal em." They don't get the joke. One of the adults looks at Jackie and asks: "How long you been on the trail." "Since 5 AM." she says. The kids' jaws drop and the adults' eyes get wide. They are too pooped to push a pedal and after about twelve hours we are running by them going uphill. Life is good! when you are following Jackie along Angeles Crest. The run to Chilao is pretty silent. Each of us is into our own thoughts. We go by a camper who is curious about our journey. In the thirty seconds it takes from his first question to our being out of earshot we last hear him say: "Wow, I'm impressed." So are we, but not for the same reasons. We are in very pretty country and are strong enough to enjoy it to da max. Chilao bustles with activity and it seems like a small town. We are weighed again. Jackie is right on. I have gained a couple of pounds. We find out later that Clem is eight pounds down. His generosity, the cockaroached bottle, and my grabbing him out of Eagle's Roost and Mt. Hillyer all contribute to the end of his run. I meant well. I thought if I could get him to run at our pace he would have a better chance of finishing. In retrospect I should have let him sit at Mt. Hillyer until he felt good enough to go on his own. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. Sorry Clem. From Chilao on Jackie and I are alone on the trail. Well we pass and are passed by the same sets of runners along the way but basically we are alone. Let me tell you the last 48 miles of AC are a lot better with a friend than not. From Chilao to Shortcut it's more of that sandy with rocks trail, but now it is huge boulders and very unfriendly footing. Jackie does not like this section at all. The only good thing for her is that this year she is doing it during the daylight and can see how bad it is. That's good, yeah? As the sun sets and the sky dims my job is to be supportive, which means shut up and make positive guttural sounds every once in a while. I can only imagine what it must be like running in the badlands of the Dakota's. No, don't even think about it. Who would have thought that a dirt road could make a trail look good. Shortcut to Newcomb's Saddle is 8.65 miles of sandy, rutted with rocks dirt road. It's a loooong way down followed by a looong way up. All very runnable if you have not already done 100km. Jackie runs downhill taking short steps and I quick walk and we never do get all that far apart. Every once in a while I hitch it up and run a bit. Neither one of us is having all that much fun so we just shut up and move. This is not what we came here for but here it is nonetheless. Suck it up and look forward to relief at the top. I started off this tale off saying that this was one of the nicest things I have ever done for myself, and now it sounds like I am complaining. Well, I wasn't lying. What I actually said was that "Accompanying Jackie the full hundred miles of AC was one of the nicest things I have ever done for myself." That still is true. Just, some parts were better than others. Besides if I had done this alone I might not have had what it takes for our fantastic finish. Going on into the night we finally meet our crew for the last time at Chantry Flats. Greg has hooked up with Jeff at Chilao and they are over two hours twenty minutes ahead of us. I don't know whether to be happy for Jeff's possible sub twenty four or worried that he will have a terrible end game, so I don't even think about it. We hear for the Nth time today that we are looking much much better than the people in front of us. At 12:40 in the morning I don't know whether I should be reassured or not. The best thing is that I feel strong and Jackie looks like she is ready to get started. Vanessa and Kathleen have been met by Jackie's cousin Suzanne and that is a great morale booster for Jackie. We have lots to look forward to at the finish line. Jackie heads out strong for the infamous Mt. Wilson. Last year she had a tough time on the mountain, not because of lack of strength but because of lack of sleep. Jeff literally held her up and aimed her while she sleep walked up large parts of the mountain. We have no such trouble in '99. Jackie has found a "natural" caffeine and night energy source, has practiced with it during training and is now very alert. I don't know why Wilson doesn't seem so bad for either of us in '99. We keep up our program of trotting the flats and power walking the ups. It soon becomes almost all up. In the deep dark of the forest on the switchbacks we can see flashlights below with one catching up fast. Soon here comes #X. Same guy we have seen several times before. He passes us going strong and then we find him head down at the aid stations. Jackie is quiet. I can't help but think of my friend's refrain, "Just when you think, you're at the top, you're not. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. And so it goes." I repeat that mantra to myself over and over. We break out into the clear flats and look for the way down and the way is up again. It happens again and there is some guy flat on his back, arms spread wide, looking like he's trying to get a full moon tan. Up we go and when we finally get to the top it's another damn dirt road. Jackie trots now down the road to Idle Hour. I again walk fast with occasional quick steps. Miles down this rutty, stony, dusty, road we again are looking for ribbons and they are few and far far between. There is only one road but that is not reassuring to Jackie. We are moving fine, passing a few people again and being passed by them or someone else a little later. Nobody is much in the mood to talk for very long but we can't help but feel good about the full moon and occasionally look down at the billion lights in the Los Angeles basin. Everything is smooth until Jackie pops a blister and then everything stops. Amazing how such a tiny point of pain can become the whole focal point of one's entire existence. Jackie looks like Chester in Gunsmoke until the pain passes, then Jackie is back into trotting mode even though we are now going uphill. Last year Idle Hour looked like a Civil War battlefield, or I should say an Indian War battlefield because of all the Tarahumara Indians and assorted cowboys littering the aid station cots and hard packed ground. Last year Larry's good humored threats and Geri's tough love encouragement couldn't get many trail casualties back on their feet and out of Idle Hour. This year Idle Hour is empty of casualties. My guess is that they died early on in the heat of Chilao or the night of Chantry. As the results would prove, die they did. Idlehour is the one place to suck em up because of the climb ahead. The trail to Sam Merrill is middlin distance and middlin gain but psychologically the toughest part of the course. Mile 85 and you are going up again and again and again. It's not as long as and not as much gain as going Sliding Sands Trail in Haleakala, but much more discouraging because you just don't ever seem to be getting closer to the top of the cliff that you can see and know you have to go over. You can see the lights of aid for miles and they are always miles away. I remember '98 and telling Ryan Manning: "I just want it to end." Well here it is '99 and Jackie says the same thing. For the first time all day she asks me to take the lead and I do. Soon old #X goes blasting by us followed by several others. I pick up the pace for a few minutes and Jackie lets me know it is too fast. We are catching up to a group and the caboose turns around to check us out. I guess that at 5 AM he doesn't realize that his head lamp is going to shine wherever he is looking. If you look back at a runner you are going to shine your light right into his eyes. I hear myself swear: "Turn off that damn light." and realize I need a quick attitude check. This is hang on time and we do. Here I find myself thinking that doing AC twice is enough. At the moment I believe it. I tell myself that if I want to do something this hard again I want to do it somewhere else. Jackie really really wants this to be over. I find the strength to shut up and keep on moving up. What tiny bit of IQ I have left tells me that this is not the time say anything at all. So I don't. The sky is lightening a bit and our flashlights don't do much for us. Onward and upward and around a corner and we are suddenly at Sam Merrill. Jackie is so happy I just want to reach out and hug somebody. Anybody but #X who is sitting down and looking really terrible. As a present to the race I had made up a bunch of AC 100 Hawaiian style raku pendants that feature a petroglyph design. Ken had passed them out to his aid stations and suggested that they might want to have Hawaiian theme at aid. All day long Jackie and I have been greeted and thanked by people wearing aloha shirts at the aid stations. It has been very nice and a morale booster for us both. Here, now at Sam Merrill, the sun is coming up and they really want to talk but Jackie's attitude has just made a major shift. She is practically dancing in place. Then she hears someone say: "Except for one little up near the end it's all downhill from here." and she really wants to go. OK girl let us go! She just takes off out of aid and soon we are back on that single track sandy with rocks packed trail. It's no longer her favorite surface. Jackie slowly quickens the pace downhill. The footing becomes tricky at places but I notice that Jackie's fine motor skills are improving as the sky gets lighter. She moves better now. It still is trot the flats, sort of run the downs, and power the ups but with a bit more emphasis. It is a long way down and it turns out there is more than one up. On she presses and I am surprised that both of us now have the energy to power on. Then I can't believe that as fast as we are moving we aren't there yet. But we aren't. Not being there does not take away from the renewed energy of the day and the gathering light makes the Angeles valley below almost pretty. It has been a long time since we have seen anybody and I can sense that Jackie is looking for a featherless biped to latch on to. Not soon enough the trail ends and we hit a short patch of road. I am wearing Asic GT Racers and the asphalt feels really good. I hit OK race rhythm and now we are stroking hard running but only for a couple hundred yards until we are back on trail again. Jackie shows more energy as we pass the sign that says .5 miles to Millard. It does not help me that I know that the distance is a major lie. She runs on down and around the switchbacks looking for aid. Well aid is a long ways away and then finally it is there and we are dancing in place while rushing the filling of our bottles so we can go. I am alert, strong, and happy. Jackie just wants to go. So we go. We leave Millard at about 7:10 AM and thinking we have only four miles more. I say something stupid like: "Maybe we can make it by 7:40." Jackie checks her watch and says: "I couldn't make it by 7:40 if we were on a track." The blood rushes to my cheeks, face that is, and I keep up as she pushes the pace. Soon we are going up hill again but we are not power walking now. No, Jackie is running. No more walking this trip. We come to the side of a cliff where we can see across a wide canyon to the trail on the other side. I can see two people. I tell Jackie that there are people at least a half mile ahead. Jackie runs harder. Soon we are on the other side and are looking at more up. J: "Just one up! Damn liar!" First time I have ever heard Jackie say something you couldn't repeat in front of a nun. Around the corner we go and we are back on single track open to the sky. It's flat now and Jackie is looking for those two ahead of us. Soon there is a cliff on our left and a wavy trail ahead and there are glimpses of a person. The pace picks up. Then there she is, the first woman runner we have seen since before Inspiration Point. Jackie is flat out running and passes the woman so close that when the woman stops to see who is coming up on her she almost falls backwards to keep from being run over. I just slide on by, hanging on to Jackie. More ridge running and the trail gets narrow. I pick up my pace, trip on a rock, fall uphill into some bushes and bang my knee. This time it is my left leg that makes me blood brother with the trail. Jackie is startled by my fall but does not slow down. I'm soon up and at em and we are looking for somebody else to pick off. We see the woman's companion (I guess she was a pacer) and hello, good-bye, see you later. He says to me: "Boy you recover quickly." and I say: "Practice." Jackie doesn't say a thing. We cut around a corner, drop down to a stream crossing and three men are at the bottom. One appears to be a disoriented runner, one his pacer and the third maybe a hiker. Not slowing for even a smile Jackie leaps up and onto the trail leading from the stream and I marvel at her energy. Then I start to wonder about my energy. How long can I keep this up? I do keep it up as we get into a even and strong pace regardless of the terrain. Then Jackie says: "This is the hardest thing I have done in my life." She runs a few steps and says: "I'm never going to do one of these again." Really stupid me says: "You say that now, but wait a little while and you'll want to do another." Silence. The pace picks up. Soon I really am wondering how long I can keep this up. I have a very strange thought: "Is Jackie trying to bury me?" I check out my system to see what I've got. Everything works. Literally everything. It's the last couple of miles of a hundred and I am suffering absolutely no distress. I'm running hard, breathing strong, no aches, no pains, no soreness, with more energy than I am used to having at the end of one of our hard Sunday training runs. Jackie is just in front and looks like she feels the same way. Totally smooth. The trail is not even and she shows very fine small motor control skills. Still wondering whether she is trying to bury me I'm watching one of God's finest creations running very nimble and very smooth. Can I keep this up? On Jackie presses and I shift gears again to just stay with her. Life is good! We keep it up. In a groove. We turn a corner drop down a bit and the trail ends. We are off the trail and onto a sandy patch washed onto a road. Heading home now! My HURT hat is sitting funny so I reach up to straighten it and my right thumb hits my right eyeball and pops out my contact lens. It must have gone flying into the sand because for the first time in over a day I can read my watch. Strange, I don't give a rip. On the road again my flats feel great and Jackie's stride lengthens and we shift gears one more time. I am still behind her for a ways and again I think: "Is Jackie trying to bury me? What have I got left?" I check it out and I've got plenty left. I pull alongside Jackie and we just fly. This is much better than Western! The road seems to go on forever. We round a corner and I think: "Johnson Field has got to be just ahead." But it is not. Soon we see another runner, the guy who shined his light in my eyes. We fly by and I think I hear him say: "I can't believe you are running like that." Maybe he said it, maybe he didn't. Now we are on the stretch where I had my three hallucinations last year. Three times I thought I saw peculiar people standing along the trail watching us come at them and three times they turned out to be bushes. Before I realized the first one was a bush I swore he was a tall farmer in a straw hat, gingham shirt, and smoking a corn cob pipe. Pissed me off. Damn pipe. Second one was a couple of guys swinging on a fence and the third was leaning back along a hill. That was in '98. Now I am just hanging on to Jackie's right shoulder sucking up all her excess energy and she has lots. We go by a lot of people walking dogs and find that we are giving them wide berth. Faster and faster side by side looking for Johnson Field. We go by one last used to be a runner, now a walker, and there is the parking lot, there is the field, one last descent on to the ball field and across it we go to the banner shoulder to shoulder. WOW! 27:53. Major hug time. Jeff, Greg, Vanessa, Suzanne, Kathleen, friends of HURT, officials gathering round and it's major hug time. Thank you thank you Jackie you are awesome. 100.53 miles and life is good! 100.53 miles and I am a very happy man! 100.53 miles and I have just gifted myself with one of the best times in my life. Mahalo Nui Loa Jackie. The AC finish is made for decompressing. With a large grassy area tents, folding chairs, shaded tables, plenty of food, plenty of drinks, lots and lots of happy friendly people. Hot showers are a short walk away in the opposite direction of the finish line bags. Medical aid. Massage. You want it, you got it. They give you your Finishers shirt before you are ready to accept it. Very low tech when that is what you need. This run is hard. Just plain hard. There are no gimmicks. You can't blame altitude, heat, canyons, footing, rocks, logistics for crew, or long distances between aid stations or any of the myriad of other reasons given for failing on a trail. The course is a fair test for just about anybody, with no room for excuses. Experience always helps, but if you are trained, smart about hydration and sustenance, and can run without time goals and stay within yourself it is still very very hard and very doable. ************************* So what was that I said at the beginning of this treatise about it being one of the finest gifts I have ever given myself? 1. I got to run the whole way with Jackie. A good friendship got better. If you REALLY want to get to know somebody run with them for 100 miles. The strengths and weaknesses of the friendship become apparent pretty quick. It is very possible that you will find out some very nice things about each other. We did. Parenthetically, after the run I told Jackie, "Man a couple of times I thought you were trying to bury me out there?" Her response was: "I was doing it for you. I thought you wanted to break 28 hours and I was going to do it for you." Now what can you say about a friend who will push herself to her very limit so a friend can reach a goal? Only good things. It was a blast. 2. By attaching myself to a runner whose normal pace is just a tad slower than mine I was allowed full attention to the full enjoyment of the course. Instead of setting myself up for thoughts about whether I could have gone faster I can instead think about how well I did and enjoy that. In minutes or hours the difference between going full tilt boogie and just going very hard is not very much. In '98 I did the run in 26:04 and I really can't tell you much about that run. Yes it was a good run and I gave it my max and I was very happy about how I did afterwards. Still I can't relive it unless someone reminds me about portions. In '99 I had a much more challenging pre-AC year with my first sub-24 Western, a 100km tropical mountain trail run in mid-August, and two ultras earlier in September, one a week before AC. Still we finished in 27:53 and I can tell you just about anything you would want to know, actually I've probably written a lot more than most people are willing to read. This run will stay fresh with me for a long time. 3. I learned better how to run a hundred. I learned better how to handle aid stations. Don't RUSH aid with my motor revving in the red zone. Don't race out of aid burning rubber as I leave. The next time I want my best time I'll have that gas at the end when I'll need it. 4. I've been back two weeks. I took one week off from running just on the basis of general principles. Seven days after AC later I did a climb up the side of Koko Crater with friends then negotiated the rim and ran where I could and once on flat ground trotted and joked with friends until the end of the five mile 104 minute effort. Tuesday I did ten flat fast miles at about as fast as I can ever go if I don't get to the edge of my breath. Thursday I did 16 miles of road with a ten mile hill in the middle, five miles up and five miles down and loved it. Saturday I redid that run but two minutes quicker. The point being I am right back into every other day normal training. If I had done AC full tilt, either these runs wouldn't have happened or they wouldn't have been as much fun. 5. I promised myself a month of rest after three ultra events in September and actually October will be comparably restful, but restful doing what I most like to do, adventure runs. Three weeks after AC, Stan Jensen and I and other members of HURT will run the Kalalau Trail along Na Pali on Kauai. The next weekend will be an adventure run on Oahu with the HURT Sunday runners. That Friday night Guru and PJ will lead us on our home "Barkley" course with Iron woman Diane Ridgeway and friends. 36 hours later we head for Maui to run inside Haleakala Crater with John Medinger and company. This will be a much funner October than '98. I take a bit off my 100.53 and gain a month of fun. 6. I discovered that you can run a hundred and not get the blues ten days later. If you don't max out, your endocrine system might not run out. Normal stress at work can be handled normally. 7. As a person who occasionally puts on trail runs I discovered how important it is to have plenty of ribbons marking the course. Because I am confident about my ability to make my way cross country I didn't realize until this trip how psychologically important it is to have lots of ribbons. Even when I know that there is only one way to go strangers to the trail do not know that and without ribbons they are at a disadvantage to people who are familiar with the course. Angeles was sufficiently marked for anybody to find their way. It was just that there were long sections, with only one possible path, that were not marked and people who did not know that there was no other way to go were going to be troubled. In the future I will put out, and have those helping me, put out lots of ribbons. It will even the playing field. 8. Traveling the yellow brick road is just plain fun. Life is good! and keeps on getting better all the time. akabill