Subject: Bear 100 Report From: Ted Schuster Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 08:02:08 -0600 The Bear 100 Race Report Ted Schuster Having the words "Indian Summer" on the race t-shirt wasn't fitting enough for the weather we had during this wonderful event. The days weren't too blistering hot with a nice breeze, and the night portion was absolutely perfect, every so often running through warm up canyon currents that would sent a warming vibe of adrenalin through your body. This had be a long awaited event for me, the weeks prior to the race I found myself nervous beyond belief, the days prior to the race I found myself counting the hours and minutes hoping they would move by faster so I could step up to the plate. The date of the race was ironically perfect for me, the start lied one year to the day since I had a compound fracture of both the bones in my ankle (seen the movie Misery?), and the race finish lied on the date that I underwent orthopedic surgery to repair everything. I've thought long and hard the last year on how incredible it might feel to finish a 100-mile race, but I had no idea just how incredibly joyous even the start would be. As the race director, Leyland Barker, said "Go" we all took off running, I was overwhelmed with goose bumps, the time had finally come! Some took off seemingly at a blistering pace up the gravel road that would be by far the best footing we would see for the remainder of the race. It was easy to get lost in the moment; it's a great feeling hearing nothing in the darkness but the sound of shuffling feet during the beginning of a race. As we moved from dirt road to trail, the miles got notched into the belt and the sun came up as we ran up trough vast sagebrush meadows and ridgelines. About a mile from the first aid station I was running with two others while we "slightly" got off the trail as we made a wrong turn and briefly lost the trail heading into Maple Creek. After a one-minute stop to fill up the water and drop my headlamp and long-sleeved shirt off with my dad I was off again. Heading out on the same trail we took into the aid station we could finally see some more of the other runners in the daylight, everyone was in excellent spirits. As we ran up the washed-out streambed again a couple of us briefly lost the trail, as we realized this and made our way back we met others who had done the same thing, it didn't take long and the group of us had found the next flag and were off and running...well hiking. This section had some tough ups and downs in it, that brought me quickly to a 3-4 mph pace, a bit sooner in the race than I had planned on. After another quick aid stop the route found its way up a dirt road that took us up to Danish Pass. This was a nice, mentally easy section, which we just had to keep plugging away on the uphill. Leaving Danish pass we continued to be blessed with the incredible scenery and fall colors. I'd never seen so many bright/extreme colors in the mountains. Some of the leaves were so bright that I would describe them as hot pink! And everyone was even saying that it didn't even compare to things the previous year! The trail took us directly up the ridge and then followed it looking out over the huge canyons on both sides. On our left we could see the road and some of the crew vehicles proceeding to the next station, that was neat being able to see them way down there, wondering if they could see us or even had a clue where exactly we were. As it turns out they could see us, and my dad actually got a picture of me off in the distance. After dropping down to Beaver Creek, the miles just kept slowly plodding by, relatively uneventful until darkness fell. I remember thinking and then telling my dad that I couldn't remember a more difficult thirty-mile stretch to begin a race, and this was the beginning of the longest one!! My hope and plans were to try and log 50-60 miles throughout the day, and then simply keeping moving at night to tackle another 20 or so during the darkness. Well I was on pace, but I just hadn't expected to be hurting as much as I was. I arrived at Paris Canyon (mile 50), with very sore feet. I had been really happy with the lack of "problem blisters", but I did have some good hot spots going on. I'm really happy that the topic of taping is on again off again on the List, I used a tincture of benzoin with the tape and it worked incredible! It's simply too easy and too smart not to use before a race. But still pulling into PC Aid Station, my tank was running low. I knew I didn't want to rest, but I knew I wanted to try something else as night approached. One of the aid station workers (who were all incredibly great by the way!) mentioned that due to the darkness and the terrain he thought that I'd be running very little of the next section. I was actually thankful to hear this, as this gave me an idea to switch shoes and go for a hike. So after some great clam chowder I put on my lightweight Danner's and took off walking into the night. This section seemingly took forever! I had been leap froggin back and forth with some other runners and we all caught up to a volunteer who was hanging glow sticks. The trail in this section was up and down and quite rocky. We passed him as he slowed through the thicker areas, but then he caught up to me, sitting beside the trail removing a rock, after some ridgeline and meadow sections that he could breeze through. I caught up to him a couple miles farther, and asked him (hopingly) "it's not too much farther is it?" he replied "no, not too much further, maybe two miles". Two miles!! I thought to myself, not too much!? That seemed like the moon right then as I was thinking the next aid was roughly about ¼ mile ahead. Well, thankfully someone heard my whimpers, and made me right, it wasn't very far as I pulled ahead of him. The hiking boots were a welcome relief to my feet, as they rubbed different areas that weren't "hot spots" yet, but I wouldn't have wanted to go very much farther in them than I did. Once he arrived at the aid station, we both joked how happy we were that he had over estimated the remaining distance. By the time I arrived at Dry Basin (57 miles), I was quite hungry after the long, slow going section. I sat down and was handed the best tasting ramen noodles I've ever had. I had two cups, and then some broth! I spent almost 20 minutes here, which I believe was my longest aid break, throughout the night. After switching back to my trail shoes, I was revived by the "lightness" of my feet and my full belly. I took off into the night. Although there was an obvious leapfrog game going on throughout the day, once it had turned dark I hadn't seen too many people on the trail (right when I would've liked to cling onto someone!) After really no contact since darkness first fell, I caught up to one of my fellow leap-froggers Paul Ralyea, he said that he was thinking about taking a quick nap, and I agreed that that didn't sound like a bad idea but recommended that we could put some easy miles on if we just kept moving. We walked for quite a ways together, talking about things that sleepy minds discuss, until his headlamp died. As I stopped to shine mine on his pack he told me to go ahead and he wanted to take a break after changing his batteries. After making certain he was sure and fine I plugged on, only to find out later that his knee (that had been hurting all day) had finally got unbearable and he pulled out at mile 75. The section between Danish Flat (66) and Copenhagen Basin Rd (75) was definitely the most frustrating for me. It really seemed like the miles were literally creeping by, and as it turned out they really were. Shortly into this section I stood in the road and closed my eyes, and instantly fell asleep into a dream. Shortest dream of my life, as I woke up catching myself falling backwards! At one other point during this section I sat down to drink a few swallows out of my water bottle and found myself waking up to a loud snore I let out, another quick 4 second nap! About half way through this section my frustration kept me awake, I was really having a hard time figuring out if I was still on the right trail. There are many different turns here, and it seemed like in the course directions every other sentence was a new instruction, quite confusing to me at four in the morning. Some reports from years past mentioned inadequate course markings, I think they were for the most part much better this year, but I would recommend some "feel good" flags in some tricky areas. You know, those areas when you are hiking down the trail and you pass other trails (that aren't marked) and correctly keep going, but in your head your thinking and wondering if you missed the trail turn already. The only other thing with the flagging was the colors, they were yellow and red, which were quite difficult to see with the bright backgrounds. The yellow stood out like a sore thumb on the evergreens, so next year I would recommend having yellow and blue. I don't think I made any real wrong turns in this section, but I certainly was clueless whether or not I was going in the "right" direction for much of the distance. Definitely one of those aid stations that one is extremely glad to see the glow through the trees!! Once I finally arrived I sat down and stayed for a few minutes before worrying about my ankle stiffening up, so I got up and left. This was hard because they had a great fire there and really wanted to do anything they could for me. My dad was to skip the next aid station cause he was taking some folks back to the start. The next sections weren't too brutal. Right as the first daylight was breaking through Jim O'Neil caught up, just as we had been leap-froggin throughout the previous days' light. It was nice to finally meet him at the race, as he's a fellow MT Lister. Congrats to him as he did an excellent job of picking up where he left off last year! Well as the sun came up, as expected so did my spirits. I asked Jim if he thought we were out of contention for a 30 hr buckle and he said he sure thought so especially with the last section of trail. Well, as I said, I felt better in the day light so I slowly pulled away, simply wanting to hurry up and finish. I felt great pulling into Paris Canyon, and didn't really think I was even going to take a break, but they were so nice and considerate I had to take a few minutes to eat some of the items they thought would taste good. Well they sure did! But soon I was off again, very much looking forward to the next three miles. ALL on gravel road! It was great, if my knees had anything left I could've flown down it, as they didn't I maintained my regular "moving forward" pace. Overall, I was really pleased with how my ankle held up. Obviously this was the first big mountain test for it, and I really think it passed. Although I was overly conscious of the ankle while negotiating tough sections I did tweak it a couple times. The one thing that did take a toll was the fact that I couldn't really use my right leg for any kind of braking, on the down hills, so my left knee seemed to be quite sore due to the constant pounding I put into it. It was great to finally make it to German Dugway (93), just knowing that this was the last stop before the end was enough to keep me going as I said a "hi and thank you" to them as I continued by. There'd been some discussion about the next trail section, and how it was slow going and rough. Well, I guess here's where I simply agree with all those descriptions. It was a trail on a very steep slope that side hilled relentlessly up and down, all the while looking down onto the nice gravel road below. It was at this point that I just wanted to hurry up and get done, but there was really no way to "hurry up", you definitely had to just take this section slow and careful. I passed Robert Lisey (I think) with his pacer on this section and told them that I didn't need to worry about the fun of finishing and sitting down and popping one of my blisters cause due to the side hilling it'd just popped. I told my dad that when it popped if I'd had a sterile knife I would've cut my foot off! Man, did that burn! Well we finally side hilled up and over the saddle and then hooked up with a cattle trail leading down the other side into the Cub River Canyon. After a few more series of trail directions I made it out onto the main road leading back to The Deer Cliff Inn. The finish of my first 100. All of the times I had pictured this scene while running on some road training somewhere weren't correct at all. I thought I'd be running on air, emotionally flying into the finish. Well as it turns out, I was numb, couldn't feel a thing, I did cruise across the line thanks to this though, in 32:10. Such an indescribable feeling, I won't even attempt to put it into words. I can say that my first thoughts were to sit down and take my shoes off though! So to sum things up, my first 100 miler, the Bear 100 was a great experience! Although the "youngness" of the race is still apparent the aid stations were, in my opinion, great. They had everything I would ever want and the volunteers were the nicest most considerate I have ever come across. I wish one could afford to spend more time at the stations to show more thanks to all of them. And thanks to Leyland Barker the RD he put on a wonderful event and certainly has the making for something huge. The scenery is spectacular, the weather was spectacular, I hope it's at least half that perfect next time; I can't wait to try for that sub 30 buckle! PS. The one other thing that I failed to touch on was my headlamp. I had just gotten a new 4-bulb LED, and due to the full moon the light was very diluted when I wasn't under a thick canopy of trees. I ended up switching back and forth from my spare minimag and the LED throughout the night. So everyone might pay close attention to the moon phases if they are using an LED light. And feel free to view some race pics my dad took along the way, forgive him he's my dad and he really only took pics of me. I told him next time to shoot pics like they were free. http://www.geocities.com/mountainparadise/Bear100Pics.html Ted Schuster Missoula, MT (now going into a long winter's rest!)