Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 14:20:42 +0000 From: Jan Ryerse Subject: AT100 report, reading time ~ 4 min I very much enjoyed my experience at AT100 this past weekend. Charlie and Lou Peyton and all their terrific volunteers provide a down-home and laid back atmosphere with great organization and support. Excellent aid stations. But if you go watch out for the rocks and the hills. Here's my report. Rocks, hills and humidity at the 98 Arkansas Traveller 100. It was tough out there folks! The hills keep coming, I don’t think there are more than a couple of miles of flats (and those come in short stretches), and some of the climbs and descents are quite steep. But what got to me most were the rocks: small rocks, middle sized rocks and big rocks, some embedded which jolt your whole body and others so loose you don’t know which way your foot will go when you slide off em. Some really rocky stretches of forest service trails like on Smith mountain are unrunnable especially on the return during the night. The course is a 17+ M loop followed by 41+ miles out and back. The last 8 miles of the loop are on the Ouchita (Wa-shi-ta) trail, a narrow single-track twisty hilly rocky trail (for SLUG runners here in St. Louis the Ouchita trail portion is similar to but wilder than the Grotpeter or Berryman or hilly end of the Chubb trails). That part was fun, you’re fresh and you’re on your way. I felt real good, my shin splints were wrapped with an ace bandage and were silent, the temp was in the low 60’s and it was overcast, pretty good running weather. It wasn’t for several hours before you realize your sweat isn’t evaporating and you’re soaking wet because its so humid. This would be a major problem for a lot of runners. By mid-day things were going well, I was well under a 24 hour pace and feeling good. The general down-home hospitality and support of the aid station volunteers is unbelievable at AT100. All ultra volunteers are appreciated and should always be sincerely thanked for their efforts, but these folks are a special lot! I got leied (with a Hawaian lei) at the DropOff aid station. The Halloween pumpkins at another aid station were a nice seasonal touch. The food and drinks provided at the aid stations are absolutely terrific as far as ultra food goes, tremendous variety and all very good. As Charlie Peyton said at packet pickup - don’t gorge yourself, it’s hard to run when your stomach is too full! I went through 50 miles in about 11 hours and reached the turnaround (58.6 M) at about 7:15. Dave Giger was a big help at the aid station and I ate, drank, changed socks and shirt and rested for 10 minutes or so before heading for home. Then I hit a bad patch, I had trashed my quads during the first 50 miles and the thought of feeling them for another 40 miles was putting thoughts in my head I didn’t want to think. However about 10 miles later I was feeling better again especially knowing I could walk it in and finish if no major calamities hit. Only one did. At 77 miles I put on an almost new pair of shoes I thought were sufficiently broken in but apparently they weren’t because shortly thereafter I could feel blisters forming where none had been before. They came on slowly however and I managed to keep moving at a brisk walk (no small feat up and over Smith mountain in the night). It rained lightly in the early morning hours and it was very foggy on the higher ridges and hills. Soon morning came and after the last aid station I was able to do some running with about 6 miles to go. I had silver dollar-sized blisters under the balls of both feet by this time and they were beginning to hurt so my running shortly turned to a brisk walk and I finished in 27:20 (funny how 25 or 26 hour finish dreams at 50 miles turn into 27+ hour finishes). All in all I was very pleased with that, 38th place of about 100 starters. I wore my lower back brace after about 85 miles since back problems almost killed my KM 100 finish in June but I didn’t really need it. I did see a man come in close to 30 hour cut-off listing dangerously to the right which reminded me of how I must have looked finishing KM. Joe Hildebrand won in about 17 hours and Ann Trason and Stan Ferguson (Chrissy Durea-Ferguson’s husband) tied for second in 18:02, then a big gap if I remember correctly, no records broken on this day and I would guess that more than 40% dropped. Great meeting new people, Phil Pierce from Maine and Jane Moser and Jerry Bullig fromWisconsin among others, and seeing old friends Norm Yarger from Illinois who finished his first 100, Kevin the mathineer Kepley from St. Louis who was pacing and Dave Giger from Illinois. There is almost always some special sighting of a bird or wild animal in woodland ultras that sticks in my mind. At about 35 or 40 miles, I exited some woods into a clearing and there was a runner ahead of me standing just off the trail looking down. As I approached he beckoned me over and when I looked down I saw a gorgeous tarantula with a brown fuzzy 4" long body and at least a 6" wide leg span. The sun was almost out from the clouds, the tarantula was slowly ambling towards the long grass and I was on my way to another satisfying 100 mile finish. Thanks to Charlie and Lou Peyton for a quality event. Jan Ryerse St. Louis