Subject: Report on volunteering and pacing at Western States (long) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 23:53:18 -0700 From: "Bob and Kathy Runyan" I'm writing this to encourage anyone that might be interested in pacing as a first taste of ultra running. Along with the Memorial Day training weekend and volunteering Saturday until my runner showed up at Foresthill, this year's Western States 100 was my first experience of what an ultra is like. I had a great time volunteering and pacing, met some great people, and learned a lot. Through the [ws100] mail list I found a runner, Dale Keen from Texas, who would need a pacer for the 38 miles from Foresthill to the finish. Dale and his wife Beth drove over from their hotel in Truckee to meet me in Reno and took me out to dinner. Over dinner we worked out the logistics of how I would get to Foresthill and back home again from Auburn. We also discussed Dale's strategy, given his interrupted and perhaps inadequate training. Silver State Striders, from Reno, run the Foresthill aid station. Since I'm from Reno, I decided to see if I could help out at Foresthill until Dale showed up. I called Tom Gallagher and he said sure, they could use extra volunteers. So Saturday morning I drove down to Foresthill and joined Tom, Chris and Fred Holabird, and many others in setting up the Foresthill aid station. It took several hours to get things set up and then Tom sat me down at "Pacer Central", where I worked until 5 PM matching runners with pacers and handing out pacer numbers. This was a pretty fun and relaxing job. I became familiar with a lot of the names of people in the race and got to meet some of their pacers. Many spectators and pacers were interested in knowing how the runners were doing and came to Pacer Central to find out. The only info available though was a list of runners who had dropped at the early checkpoints and the list of the runners who had already been through Foresthill. One of the frustrating things with working Pacer Central, and one of the reasons I'm trying to encourage more people to pace, is that there was a shortage of pacers at this year's race. Pacer Central maintains a list of runners looking for pacers, and matches them up when pacers became available (usually because their runner has dropped). By the time I left Foresthill, there was still a long list of runners who wanted pacers, but for whom pacers were not available. Dale's wife Beth showed up mid-afternoon to tell me that Dale had looked fine at Robinson Flat, but that he had a fever that did not break until 3 AM the night before and he was just staying ahead of the cutoffs. I expected Dale to arrive in Foresthill at about 10 or 11 PM. About 7 PM though, Dale showed up in Foresthill, looking very tired and sore, and let me know that he'd dropped out at Devil's Thumb. After helping Dale some I headed back to Pacer Central to find myself a new runner. No problem there! As I've said, there were plenty of runners needing pacers. After apologetically refusing one crew member's request that I pace his runner just to Greengate, a runner was found for me: Tom Baker from Atlanta. His crew, Dave and Linda from Monterey, CA, briefed me on Tom's situation and let me know that he'd be showing up in Foresthill very soon. Dave and Linda were really great people, and Dave is a veteran of many 100-mile races. We'd see them several more times during the next 12 hours. Tom showed up 45 minutes later, weighed in, and we introduced ourselves. I recognized him from the training weekend, but we hadn't talked before. We'd get plenty of time to talk during the night so off we went. Tom's race had not gone particularly well so far. He'd suffered nausea from 15 miles until 55 miles and ended up walking much of what he would have run. Perhaps this helped him later on though. I think a lot of runners dropped because they did 12-minute miles during the first half of the run when they probably should have been doing 15-minute miles. Tom was forced by the nausea to go slow. We moved very well from Foresthill down to Rucky Chucky river crossing. Tom felt good during this stretch and we passed 20 or so runners, not counting the "bodies" in the cots at the aid stations. Rucky Chucky crossing was fun and refreshing for me, and I think Tom liked it too, especially since he got a complete change of clothes and shoes on the south bank. The river crossing aid stations (one on each side) were typical of what we'd encounter all night: lots of light (Christmas lights), friendly, helpful, encouraging people, and good food. I can see how it would be easy for a tired runner to get stuck at one of these. Fortunately, Tom never looked like he would get stuck in an aid station, even after he tired later on. Tom stuck to real food at the aid stations and so did I. The climb up to Greengate took its toll on Tom. We climbed it pretty fast and passed several more runners. Near the top though, I looked back at Tom and he looked wobbly. We slowed some. At the Greengate aid station Tom's wife met him and they talked about how things were going. Tom was feeling nauseated again. He had been unable to stay cool, even with the cooling nighttime temperatures and the river crossing. Whenever he got too hot, the nausea returned. He was running in a singlet, but it was too much. It didn't seem right, given all of the hot weather training he'd done in Atlanta. The next stretch all the way to Browns Bar was very tough for my runner, even though it was mostly flat and very runnable. The nausea kept returning, preventing him from running. When the nausea went away, we'd do a mile or so of running before it would hit him again. Browns Bar aid station was wonderful! We heard it before we saw it. They had a speaker system setup that was blaring Creedence in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. As we climbed up to the brightly-lit station, past a Coors sign, I couldn't help but feel good: I was getting Creedence Clearwater revived! However, I made my biggest pacing mistake here. Tom had asked me to remind him to apply some Vaseline to his chafed areas. I remembered to get some for myself but forgot to remind Tom. Still feeling guilty about that one. Past Browns Bar we began to gradually get some daylight. This really cheered me up, but didn't seem to do much for Tom. He'd been in a quiet funk for some time now. However, as we approached Highway 49, Dave appeared on the trail in front of us and told Tom how great he looked compared to the other runners and what he could expect ahead. This cheered Tom up some. Dave would be a great pacer. We arrived at Highway 49, where I got a change of socks (thanks Linda and Dave!) and Tom got some vaseline to help his now-severe chafing. Highway 49 was full of American flags and blared Souza marches. Now those volunteers had some endurance. Hours of Souza? Yech! The stretch to No-Hands Bridge was fairly uneventful. Tom was actually doing pretty well mentally here and enjoying the scenery along the American River. Once across No-Hands, Tom was all business. When we reached Robie Point, Tom was transformed. Tom said that all during the race he'd run alone (except for me). He'd never really been moving at the same pace as anyone else near him for very long. At Robie point, all of a sudden there were five or six runners within 50 yards of us, many of whom had pacers and other friends and family running (or walking) up the hill with them. When we got near the top of one of the first rises on the paved road leading to the stadium, Tom took off and we quickly put 200 yards on the whole crowd, including Dave. Tom asked me to look back and see if anyone was within striking distance. He'd dropped the whole bunch. He kept on pushing though, all the way to the stadium. Once we reached the stadium, I told Tom I'd meet him at the finish and let him do his half-lap by himself. He sprinted! Really! I think he was disappointed I didn't do the half-lap with him so he could out-sprint me to the finish line. Tom finished in 27:35. He managed to put three minutes on the next finisher in the 1.2 miles from Robie Point. I felt fine the whole way. At points I felt euphoric. Never did feel low. I'd say that anyone who can do 15 to 20 miles in reasonable comfort can handle pacing the 38 miles from Foresthill to the finish, given the slow pace. So if you're not busy next year (e.g., entered), come and pace! -- Bob Runyan Reno, NV