From owner-ultra@caligari.Dartmouth.EDU Mon Jul 21 13:31:00 1997 Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:27:48 -0700 From: stanj (Stan Jensen) To: ius-l@american.edu, ultra@caligari.dartmouth.edu Subject: JS24hr volunteer report (XP) - brief ... honest! George Beinhorn recently posted a note regarding this last weekend's event, but while we're waiting for RD/list-guy Dave Combs to post the results, I thought I'd post a few thoughts: - Attend a 6/12/24hr ultra if all you've done is trails. It's different in so many ways and even if it's not for you, you'll gain an appreciation for the diversity within the sport of ultrarunning. We had a 10 year old, Danny Slate, who ran about 18 miles on Saturday, went home, then came back on Sunday to run another 10 miles, beating a 75 year old! - The winner, Bob Pearson, stopped every two hours to test his blood sugar, because he's a diabetic, yet managed to crank out just over 125 miles. The second place finisher, June Gessner, ran over 120 miles (always managing to smile when they called her bib number). There were nine finishers who "buckled" (ran over 100 miles). - I worked a couple of two-hour shifts as a lap counter, working in tandem with a second lap-counter, like Eric Robinson or Rocky Waters. This made it easier to keep an accurate count of the laps and quickly resolve any discrepancies. It made me appreciate why you need to have your bib number clearly visible: one person put theirs on the hat (they had to "nod" as they went by) and another had their number on the front of their shorts, so we often couldn't tell if they were "13" or "18". - The race started at noon, but we left around 8pm and returned at 2am to see who was still "active". At least 2/3 of the field was still out there on the track, dressed a little warmer, and moving slower, but maintaining relentless forward motion (RFM). When we returned again at 9am, one runner had slowed to what could politely be called a "crawl" (i.e. 30 min./mile), yet within an hour he had somehow regained the energy to start running again. - Even with a great aid station ("every 1/4 mile!"), most runners set up their own tent, shelter or chair alongside the track and most had friends or family helping out in one form or another throughout the race. We also had lots of drop-in visitors who came by to watch the spectacle. Stan P.S. Mark W. was upset that I'd expressed an opinion last year that if you stopped running after a certain distance (e.g. 100 miles), it really wasn't a 24 hour run, so after sitting for 90+ minutes, he painfully laced up his shoes and started running again at 23:45, adding two more "insurance" laps! P.P.S. Congratulations to list-ers Gary Wang (3rd place in his first 24hr) and Lady G (over 100k!)! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stan Jensen, Systems Engineer for "SGI Direct" stanj@sgi.com Silicon Graphics Inc., M/S 120 Phone:(415)933-5822 P.O. Box 7311, 1401 No. Shoreline Blvd. FAX: (415)932-5822 Mt. View, CA 94039-7311 "I (heart) Tonks" "http://www.sgi.com" "http://reality.sgi.com/stanj" ------------------------------------------------------------------------