Leadville 100: Judgement of the Stars and Moon

A Pacer's Report:

“Alex left Winfield at 4:45.”  Finally, some communication from the mAy Team!  It is 6:00 pm, and I am standing on a quiet street in Leadville, Colorado.  It’s raining ever-so-slightly.  My friend Alex May is running the Leadville100 trail race today.  My wife Celeste is his crew chief, and his family including his wife Ean and our friends are also here helping him out and pacing, including Mindy, Cat, and Kyle.  In fact dozens of my trail running friends are up here this weekend, racing, pacing and crewing, including my friend Lindsey, who was pacing her friend Danny.  And that’s what I’m doing here as well; I’m standing in front of Mike Hinterberg HQ in Leadville, preparing to pace Mike for the final 24 miles of his attempt at the Leadville 100.  Mike has been out on course now for 14 hours and over 60 miles.  At this moment my friend Dan is pacing him from twin Lakes to Fish Hatchery and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they are keeping dry.  30 minutes ago I left Dan and Mike at the Twin Lakes aid station at mile 60 of the course, and soon I will meet the two of them and take over pacing duties from Dan at the Fish Hatchery aid station at mile 76 of the course, and hopefully bring Mike the rest of the way to the finish line.  But I have a couple of hours to wait, so right now it is time for dinner, a nap, and most importantly a good hot shower.

I needed a shower because although I was getting ready to pace Mike these last 24 miles, Dan and I had already ran a race of our own that very morning; the Pike Peak Ascent.  So we had 13 miles and 7,300 feet of climbing and a lot of accumulated dirt and sweat and drool in the books already.  Dan and I woke up in Colorado Springs that morning at 5:00 am, one hour after Mike and Alex and Danny and more than 600 other participants began their “Leadvillian” quests to run 100 miles in less than 30 hours.  When the gun sounded for our race in Manitou Springs at 7:00 am, they were all ripping through the first aid station at May Queen and making their way up the north shoulder of Sugarloaf Mountain in the cool misty morning air.  At 10:00 am I was climbing the famous “16 golden stairs” at 14,000 feet with less than a mile from the finish of my race, which incidentally featured exploding electrolyte tablets, vomiting, general wooziness, and a nip of lukewarm PBR just below the summit.  It was fun, I assure you.  More on that later.  But while I soaked up the always inspirational view from the summit of Pikes Peak at 10:07 am, Mike, Danny, Alex, et al, were making their way from Fish Hatchery to the village of Twin Lakes, running along the east flanks of two other 14ers, Mount Massive and Mount Elbert.  And while Dan and I drove from Manitou to Leadville Saturday afternoon to meet up with Mike, they were all hoisting themselves 3,000 feet up and over Hope Pass to the turnaround at Winfield, in order to turn right around and come back over that same ironically named pass to Twin Lakes, and back to Leadville.

Quite honestly Dan and I thought we had no business trying to pace an ultra-runner after racing to the top of Pikes Peak, but we wanted to be part of the excitement.  I would have been up at Leadville anyway, just to cheer on Alex and hang out with Celeste, so when Mike asked if I wanted to pace him about a month prior to the actual event, I agreed.  And then I drug Dan into the fray as well, although he didn’t really require much convincing, suffering as he does from the same sort of mental illness as I.

That’s how we found ourselves in Twin Lakes at 3:00 pm that day, waiting for Mike to come back over hope pass so Dan could start running with him.  Dan was getting much less rest than I, having to pace Mike first, but I had to run farther.  I couldn't decide which of us drew the shorter straw, but I wanted to run the later sections to get more experience with night running, in the event I ever decide to do one of these myself someday (that wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either).

It was hot at twin lakes, hot for 9,000 feet anyway, and I speculated that our runners and indeed all the runners would be having a tough time in the heat.  Some clouds were building in the west, and the shade would be welcome so long as it didn’t develop into anything more serious.  The previous night Leadville got raked by a nasty thunderstorm that lasted several hours.  No one would benefit from a repeat of that tonight, so I kept my fingers crossed and wandered around Twin Lakes in search of a cup of coffee.  I was going to be up late tonight.

Mike arrived at the twin lakes aid station, 60 miles into his race, at about 5:00 pm.  His shoes and socks were soaked from several stream crossings so he decided to sit down and change his socks, which was a wise move.  Barring any deluges from above the rest of the course would be dry, and keeping one’s feet dry is an under-appreciated and important part of long-distance running.  Blisters can ruin your day.  Mike looked really good, particularly considering he’d already ran farther than I have ever run in a single day, and Dan and he trudged up the short sharp slope leading out of Twin Lakes in fine form.

I was really hoping to see Celeste and the mAy team arrive in Twin Lakes before I left, but as it turns out they were still in Winfield at the time, having paced Alex to the turnaround at 4:45 pm.  Although dozens of friends of mine were out on the course, racing, pacing and crewing, I was not able to see them for the most part.  I considered waiting around Twin Lakes until they showed up, but I had to make sure I would be ready to run with Mike later, so I left Twin Lakes on my own and headed back to Team Hinterberg HQ in Leadville for a shower, a burrito, another burrito, and a quick stretch and nap on the floor.  We thought Mike would make it to Fish Hatchery by 9:00 pm so I left Leadville a little before 8:00 pm just to make sure I would be there on time.  Mike’s crew skipped this aid station so I would fulfill crewing duties as well as begin my pacing duties at this point.

Mike was ahead of the teeming masses at this point, probably running in about 30^th place overall, so the Fish Hatchery aid station was pretty quiet and un-crowded when I arrived.  I got to see a pretty impressive duel between two of the top female runners, both of whom came in within a minute of each other, and some of the other top male runners came through while I laid out all of the clothing and lights I thought Mike and I would need for our journey.  While I waited, dusk settled into the hatchery.  The trees began to whisper and the crews got quiet and started putting on their jackets in nervous anticipation of the arrival of their runners.  The little rainbow trout and cutthroat trout in the hatchery pens turned from silver and pink into little blurs of grey, their energy, if not their colors, undiminished.

I felt more like a trout and less like a tree, walking back and forth along the aid station in anticipation as well.  Finally I’d had enough and started jogging down the road to where Mike and Dan would be arriving from Twin Lakes.  I brought along a couple of headlamps because I knew that Dan did not have one, and Mike may have forgotten his as well.  That was a mistake on our part, since those two did have to travel about 30 minutes in the dark on the paved road leading up to the aid station.  I jogged only about one quarter of a mile before I saw them coming up the road, as silent dark shadows cast against the forest gloom.  Arrival at last, and now it was time to get to work.  Dan and I got Mike all geared up for the evening and he drank some fluids and had a couple of snacks, and we were off.

Now it was me and Mike, and the night, and 24 miles of road and trail separating us from Leadville and the successful conclusion of his 100 mile adventure.  My job was to keep him moving and motivated, distracted and entertained.  I love a stage!  Right way I started with the exciting and improbable tale of my Pike Peak Ascent race from earlier that same morning.  I now present it to you as I presented it to Mike, so please enjoy,

The Tale of the Exploding Salt Tablet, as told to Mike by Slush:

     “So I'm running well, probably in 25th place, heading into the Barr camp aid station [roughly half way up Pikes Peak], when all of a sudden I feel like I'm having an asthma attack on the trail.  I'm having trouble breathing, my heart rate shoots way up, and I'm beginning to see stars and get dizzy.  I've never had asthma or had anything like this happen to me before so I'm kind of freaking out!  I know my effort having just ran this at the Barr trail race in July, so I know I wasn't pushing it too hard, but I don't know what the problem is.  I make it to Barr camp, walk a bit, take some Gatorade and eat some grapes and slow down for a minute to see if it gets better.  I feel a little better so I start up again, and as soon as I do I start hacking and coughing, and lo and behold I heave a mighty hack, and forcibly expunge a mostly-intact salt tablet that I had ingested a little before Barr camp!  And hey, now I can breathe again!  Aaah.  I ate a salt tablet a little before Barr, but instead of swallowing it as recommended by most runners I must have lodged it in my windpipe!

     “Well, I thought, that could have been a lot worse, as in not being able to breathe at all and what not.  So I was happy to breathe again but the salt tablet had mostly exploded on the way out of my mouth, so my throat, mouth and even my sinuses and nasal cavities were now coated with salts, which really stung!  Also as you know one way to make people vomit is to force-feed them a tablespoon of salt.  So I now quite involuntarily proceeded to go to the side of the trail and puke; the first time I've ever puked while running!  Isn’t it nice to get that rite of passage over with?  All the while I'm losing time, and position, of course, and now quite frankly I'm freaked out and off my game.  But at least I can breathe again!

     “So I start back up again but the fire just wasn't there anymore, sadly.  But I made a decent show of it until about one mile to go, and then I started getting dizzy from the altitude and couldn't run without feeling like I was going to fall over, so I power-hiked to the end, and came in at 3:07.  I don't think I had 2:45 in me Saturday but I think 2:55 would have been possible without the choking, wheezing and vomiting.  But for all that I'm happy with my time and it's something to build on for next year or whenever I do it again.  Also I had a nasty headache after I summited, but I think that was due to the fact that I did not get my normal cup of coffee this morning; as soon as I got back to Manitou and got a cup the headache went away.  Yes, it could have been the altitude as well but I know the lack of caffeine didn’t help any.”

Well that took up a cozy 5 minutes.  All I had to do now is keep Mike entertained for another 5 hours and 55 minutes or so, depending on how long it took us to scale the heights of sugarloaf, wind around the north shore of Turquoise Lake, and trudge back to Leadville.

I quickly learned that at this point, 76 miles into his race, the Mike-machine was equipped with two useful gears; “slow jog” and “purposeful hike”.  I idly wondered what sort of shape I might be in after traveling 76 miles.  I knew that “stumble about” and “crawl” were also in the gearbox, but I hoped we wouldn’t have to shift into those.  We were quietly moving along the flat road towards the steeps of sugarloaf when through the forest I heard the unmistakable sounds of Enya.  “Is that Enya?” I somewhat stupidly asked Mike, completely blowing my man-cred.  “Yup,” came the reply (utterly blowing his man-cred).  Now that headphones are mostly frowned upon during races, some runners like to carry little speakers with them while they run.  But this sound was clearly too loud and all-consuming to be coming from portable speakers.  Up ahead we saw bands of soft yellow light coming from the source of the music, highlighting the tree trunks at the edge of the road.  It was as if the music was actually flowing to us on these bands of light, it was a very eerie and otherworldly scene.  And it was so loud!  Enya’s music always sounds louder than it actually is, because she overdubs her voice so many times on her songs and creates a huge wall of sound.  The juxtaposition of this ethereal music and strange light in an otherwise pin-drop quiet forest was distracting and disorienting.  This was a good thing, incidentally.  As we approached the source of light and sound, I discovered that we were passing a cabin in the woods, and the music was coming from two very large amplified monitors on stilts, situated in front of a house.  The speakers and stands reminded me of little Baba Yaga huts.  I could see Enya as a witch.  The Enya song ended as we passed by the house, and a familiar guitar melody started up.  “I know this, what is this?” I asked Mike.  He answered right away; it was David Gray, Babylon.  I was encouraged that Mike was still coherent enough to recognize the song that quickly.  More than 75 miles into his race and he was still totally in the game.

“If you want it, come and get it, crying out loud.”
-David Gray, Babylon

Soon after that we left the road and turned up towards the climb to sugarloaf.  The road was deeply rutted at the beginning, and fairly steep.  We made slow but steady progress and picked our way up the road in good spirits.  I assumed the role of “pacemaker” and route-finder for Mike, staying a few paces ahead of him on the long climb up.

Lindsey, who paced Cat on this section the previous year, had told me to be wary of false summits on Sugarloaf, so every time the trail began to flatten out I guarded against celebrating and particularly against telling Mike that we had “made it”.  But as we reached yet another flat bit I could just sense that we had arrived at the rounded summit of sugarloaf.  Even in mid-summer, on these windswept heights I already felt the chill of winter here.  I thought that winter probably never really leaves this place, and thought that it was smart that I brought gloves along for the run.

At the summit I briefly turned off my headlamp and my hand-held light, and tilted my head up to the sky.  The sky was clear, and since the moon was not yet up I was greeted by panoply of brilliant stars.  I looked north to find Polaris, to get my bearings.  Above and to the south I could even see the Milky Way, awesome in its mystery.  Just then my eyes were drawn to a shooting star, knifing through the Swan of Cygnus, which was making its slow summer nightly flight from east to west above our heads.  I realized that while I was pacing Mike, the stars had been pacing me.  It was a comfort to know that a graceful Swan had been my faithful guide up the south face of sugarloaf.  But we were heading away from Cygnus now.  Perhaps the shooting star indicated that Cygnus was handing over pacing duties to the Wolf of Polaris.  This seemed less comforting but was maybe necessary, for we had a long and potentially grim journey still ahead of us.  The moment was brief but altogether wondrous.  I considered that moments like this, moments that maybe last only five seconds, are why I seek out silly adventures such as pacing Mike 24 miles through the night.  There are few things more fulfilling than cresting a mountain pass under your own power in the middle of the night and finding yourself bathed in silence and starlight.

The world is a funny place.  At my exact moment of bliss, under the same stars, rebel fighters were pouring into Tripoli to unseat Muammar Gaddafi, ready to lay down their lives for freedom. Starving refugees were clambering into Kenya to escape Somalia, in a desperate bid to save their own lives.  And closer to me, hundreds of tired and increasingly desperate competitors were scaling the heights of sugarloaf behind us, in pairs of runner and pacer.  Danny and Lindsey were back there somewhere, and Alex and Cat, too, perhaps, or maybe Alex and Kyle yet.

It was a nice moment of contemplation, but I did have work to do, so I turned my lights back on, blabbered on about the beautiful stars to Mike for a spell, and led him down the north side of sugarloaf in wide switchbacks to the valley below.

Mike was able to jog a bit on this stretch so we made good time towards the next aid station at May Queen, on the far western corner of Turquoise Lake.  As we descended, the waning moon ascended as if we were actually pushing up the moon with each step down towards the valley floor.  I briefly marveled at its orange hue before it hid itself behind a band of clouds.  I couldn’t decide if the newly noticed clouds were a portent of good or ill.  Benign cloud cover helps keep the temperatures warmer, but they can also turn malevolent and rude, like they did the previous night.

At midnight we arrived at the May Queen aid station.  After a quick stop, where Mike and I filled up on hot noodle soup and coffee, and stashed some cookies and mini chocolate bars in my pockets, we turned our attention to the final lonely stretch of the Leadville 100.  May Queen is the final aid station on the course, and there are still 13 miles of trail separating participants from their goal at this point, with no assistance in the intervening miles.  It’s a long dark road ahead, and best not to tarry at May Queen any longer than necessary.
The bulk of the final section winds its way around the north shore of Turquoise Lake, which was relatively flat, but the tail was faint.  I had been warned that the trail was difficult to navigate through this section.  Now that the moon was up, and the clouds were beginning to build, I had lost my guide, the dog star Polaris.  And my swan star Cygnus was long gone, having descended over the mountains to the west for the night.  It was up to me to navigate Mike through the old forest on the edge of the lake.  A long trudge ensued.  We were both quieter now, and colder.  I slipped on my gloves, and pulled my hat down tight.  On we marched, in “purposeful hike” mode, and periodically I offered Mike cookies and chocolate.  Mike was impressive in his quiet resolve and determination.

We finally began to round the eastern shore of the lake, from which vantage point I could look in brief intervals over my right shoulder and spy dozens of lights behind us spread out along the shoreline.  The lights, in pairs of two, faded softly into the long dark north shore of the lake, from where we had come. And higher, and across the lake, the lights of racers and pacers descending sugarloaf cascaded down in a serpentine pattern as if someone had set a pinprick to the stars themselves, and let loose a thin stream of lights from the heavens into the lake.  It was difficult to tell where the lights ended and the stars began.  I knew that somewhere back there one of those lights, probably on the shoreline, belonged to my friend and fellow pacer Lindsey, who was running her friend Danny to the finish. And farther back, winding down the mountain, a twin pair of lights surely represented my friends Cat and Alex, one pacing the other patiently down to the lake.

As I picked my way through the slumbering campgrounds and led Mike on the faintest of trails towards the dam, I thought about Lindsey, and Cat, my fellow pacers, and Danny and Alex, their runners.  I thought about Lindsey and Cat in particular though, since the three of us were comrades in arms this night.  We were together alone, each going through the exact same experience on the same night, but with different runners to pace, and separated from each other by time and distance, but not by heart.  I hoped they were doing well, and I cast one last glance into the gloom over the now-moonlit surface of the lake and sent them all best wishes from the shore.  I hoped that their runners were doing well, that they were dressed warmly enough in the rapidly chilling air, and wondered if they were thinking of me too, as Mike and I quite unexpectedly arrived at the dam, and therefore now at the end of our seemingly endless lake excursion.  A Crowded House song came to mind, which is not unusual for me:

“Together alone, shallow and deep
holding our breath, paying death no heed
I'm still your friend, when you are in need
as is once, will always be
earth and sky, moon and sea”

-          Crowded House, Together Alone

As we approached the road over the dam, a solitary race volunteer, a vigil of the night, sitting in a folding chair by the side of the road and dressed in multiple jackets to fend off the chill, and an orange safety vest to fend off inattentive drivers, motioned Mike and I across to the continuation of the trail on the other side of the road.  I knew that we were now close to the finish.  I asked her how much farther, and she replied “5 more miles”.  Wow.  Deep in the night, and all that separates Mike from completing the Leadville 100 is “5 more miles”.  I congratulated Mike on this milestone and exhorted him to push the pace and get this race over and done with.  I may have used several swear-words in the process of giving my pep talk.

We descended a tricky bit of “trail” that mimicked the length and pitch of the dam to which it was adjacent, and found ourselves on a flat, even runnable stretch of dirt county road.  With renewed vigor and a sense that the barn door was ajar and waiting, Mike and I picked up the pace.  The finish line is wonderful, but this is probably the moment I savor most of all; when the realization sets in that your runner is really going to make it.  I have paced several friends to successful races, Lindsey, Kerry, Dan, and Nick come to mind, and now Mike, and each time my favorite moment comes before the finish.  Maybe because in that moment it is still just the two of us, sharing in the struggle for accomplishment.  The finish line always fades into soft white, almost out of time and place.  The pacer’s work is done, and the runner is wrapped in glory. Whereas the miles right before, when success is all-but-guaranteed but for now nothing else exists but the determined footfalls and the bond between runner and pacer, those moments seem to stand out for me in sharp detailed relief.

But don’t get me wrong, I was elated to watch Mike cross the finish line in Leadville, at 4:11 am, in the dead of the night just over 24 hours after he started.  His cheering fans consisted of his family, his pacers, the race organizers, and a couple of foul-mouthed and drunk spectators.  I had the distinct pleasure of spending 7 hours with Mike on the trail, and his spirit never flagged.  He provided me an example of how to comport myself with both the determination of Polaris, and the grace of Cygnus, should I ever gird up enough courage to try this race or this distance myself.  The moon and stars judged in our favor tonight.

“Show them you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die
Come on now
You've got to try” 
-Joni Mitchell, Judgment of the Moon and Stars

(Photo from Mike's blog)

We took pictures, and then Mike wandered off into the medical tent to get warm, and immediately my attention turned back to Lindsey and Danny, Cat and Alex.  They were out there somewhere and more than anything now I wanted to bring them home as well.  Tired as I was, it was all I could do not to run back down the course to meet them!  But runners are really only allowed one pacer at a time, so I would have to leave them to their own judgments, and bide my time at the finish line in the cold and dark.  I started to get really cold myself, standing in the 40 degree chill at 10,000 feet in naught but running shorts and a thin jacket, so I decided to trudge the two blocks up to Hinterberg HQ to put on some clothes.

But when I checked the voice mail on my phone from HQ, elation and satisfaction and nervous anticipation gave way to sadness. The call was my wife; the time of the call was 3:18 am.  She was calling to tell me that Alex had dropped out of the race at Fish Hatchery at 3:00 am.  Leadville, like most all ultra-races, imposes cut off times at various points along the course. Alex had made it to Fish Hatchery just under the cut off at a couple minutes before 3:00, so he was eligible to continue on to May Queen and hopefully to the finish, but Alex made a tough and courageous choice at Fish Hatchery, and decided to end his race there. My wife was his crew chief, and the emotion in her voice on the phone belied just how much she was invested in Alex and his journey.  Runners who do these races really rely on their crew and pacers to keep them going, and they are always very appreciative of the efforts other people give to help them to their goals.  But less noted is the emotional investment that crew and pacers place in the success of their runner.  They are all in, so to speak.  And since the finish rate at Leadville usually hovers around 50%, there were a lot of broken hearts out there in the dead of the night.  Even runners who achieve their goals and finish, with arms in the air and all that, will do so with a touch of sadness for their friends who invested just as much into the race as they, but were not able to finish that day.  And this emotional intensity lies at the core of what draws me to the sport.  Witnessing this first-hand I came away with an enormous respect for everyone who was courageous enough to line up at the start, and put everything on the line.

Deflated, I went back to the finish line to wait for Lindsey and Danny, who I thought were about two hours behind Mike, but the cold and dark seemed colder and darker now, and the disappointed tone of my wife’s voice kept echoing in my head as I paced up and down the final stretch.  I made the decision to head to Alex May HQ and go to sleep and be with my wife, whom I had not seen all day.  But I wished I had stuck it out at the finish line a bit longer.  I missed Danny finishing by about 20 minutes is all, ironically adding just a bit more disappointment to my evening.  Not because Danny finished of course, I was really impressed with his performance and happy for both him and Lindsey.  It’s just that I could have used another good memory in store as I crawled into bed next to my wife, fully clothed and ice cold, and slept for the first time in over 24 hours.  Almost at the exact moment my head hit the pillow, Danny crossed the finish line with his pacer and my friend Lindsey in tow.

No one at May HQ had heard Dan and me come in at 5:30 am, so they were a little surprised when they woke up and we were there.  After a huge breakfast and balloon animal festival featuring hearty pancakes and a really impressive balloon monkey with a working prehensile tail, it was time to bid adieu to Leadville and head back home, until next year.  I will be back for certain, probably to pace, maybe to run, you never know.

 (photo from Ean's blog)

Two Towers

Or three towers, or four, aach, who’s counting.  We’ll get to the towers momentarily.  First, the much-anticipated update regarding our Courage Classic Children’s Hospital fund-raising:

Oh yes, we are now north of $1,000 raised for Children’s Hospital, checking in this afternoon at $1,255.  We have until this Friday, I believe, to try to raise the remainder.  So if you’re considering donating to our ride on our behalf, please click one of the links below, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste 

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Last we left off, I was getting my shorts handed to me at the local Fort Collins Cycling Team weekly battle royale, which left me rather stunned and impressed.  As an aside, those of you who have seen my biking shorts lately will be happy to know that they have been retired and replaced.  I’ll say no more on that subject, other than to say that many of my trail running friends have been recently scarred by the sight of me bounding up hills in my far-too-old-and-baggy bike shorts.  You’re welcome, Fort Collins.  Where was I?  Oh yes, the team bike ride also took me within view of Towers, the Fort Collins Trail Runners bi-weekly group handicapped time trial excursion.  And lo and behold, the next day (last Thursday) was another Towers run, so just like two weeks ago, I found myself back on the bike and riding the same hills I rode the previous day, but in reverse direction, to get to towers after work.  My legs were plenty tired from the beating they took the previous night, but the weather looked good on a Thursday for once, and I wanted to get some more riding in but still run towers with my gang, so I did both activities once again (hence the sight of me running up towers in my bike shorts).  And I managed to stay dry, at least!

And I was rewarded with a golden sunset from the south dam on my ride home.  That's the "tooth" on the high point of the ridge there, and towers a bit to the right of that.

My legs felt fairly tired trudging up the hill but not overly so.  I have been wondering lately how much cross-over there is between running and cycling.  You know, does riding help one’s running and/or vice versa?  I’m certain that there are good cardiovascular benefits to doing both activities that translate across, but I can’t shake a suspicion that running only builds cycling strength to a point.  In fact in certain situations running may actually be counter-productive to cycling.  Situations like, I don’t know, running up towers.

But we wants towers!  I can’t live without my precious towers.  And I had signed myself up for the Barr Mountain trail run on Sunday at Pikes Peak so I needed some hill climbing practice.  I had entered this particular running race long before I committed to the courage classic.  The intent was to run Barr Mountain as preparation to running the Pikes Peak ascent in August, since it occurs on the same course.  Basically Barr Mountain is the lower half of the Pike Peak marathon course.  Barr sports about 3,600 feet of climbing – and descending -- in about 12.5 miles of running, round trip.  Our local Towers route, mind you, is about 1,650 feet and 6.8 miles.  So Barr Mountain can quite rightly be considered to be, wait for it, about Two Towers worth of running.  Barr trail even sports a tunnel with what I must assume to be a giant arachnid lurking in its darkest recesses.  Quite coincidentally, Celeste and I have been picking our way through the Two Towers DVD over the past week or so.  It’s all towers, all the time with me. 

 

But the affect of the Barr trail race, this weekend, aside from encouraging me to indulge in some of my favorite towers-related activities (luckily I had no access to mashed potatoes with which I could have made a giant replica of Devil’s tower), was to keep me off the bike all weekend.  Not good Courage Classic preparation, I know.  I got in some riding Friday, mostly my 10 mile work commute plus a few odd-additional miles around town, but no cycling at all on Saturday or Sunday.  No cycling Saturday because I knew I had the running race Sunday, and no riding Sunday because quite frankly I was altogether knackered after running Barr.

And I needed all the rest I could get, for after the twin virtual charley-horse of last Wednesday and Thursday my legs were sore!  On Friday my legs were completely shot.  On Saturday they were marginally better, but I didn’t like my chances for Sunday’s race one bit, even after I was informed by Nick that the field this year was “soft”, and that I was capable of a top-5 finish.  Jeez, no pressure.

Now earlier in this post I had speculated here that it is possible that running does not necessarily help one’s cycling, other than to a point.  But is the opposite true?  Does cycling help one’s running?  Again, noting the obvious cardio benefits, I think we may be on to something here.  For starters, cycling is far less damaging to the body than is running, even trail running.  Provided there are no accidents, obviously.  As I get older I may find that I need to cycle more just for that reason alone.  And while there’s nothing to replace experience gained by running, but I think maybe, just maybe, hill-climbing strength gained by climbing hills on a bicycle may translate better to running up hills.  In the past four weeks, since I ran my first 50 mile race in Wyoming in June, my weekly running totals have dropped noticeably, with the extra training time filled in by more cycling, of course.  In the past four weeks I’ve ran an average of about 27 miles per week.  This is lower than my average for the year so far by about 20 miles per week, so I’m running about 60% of my usual mileage this past month.  Believe me, it’s good that I’m getting a bit of a breather on the miles, actually.  I’ve been enjoying the bike riding and although clearly I’m not as accomplished on the bike as I am on foot, I still like doing it and I suspect I’ll improve if I stick with it some more.  Which I am happy to do if I find that it does not diminish my running ability, of course!

Which finally brings us to the Barr Mountain trail race.  Noting that my weekly running mileage had been dropping, I was a little concerned that I would have some difficulty on the race.  I mean, there’s always difficulty on a mountain trail race, it’s a freaking mountain after all.  I suppose I was concerned about abnormal or extraordinary difficulties on the race.

So I was a little more amped up than usual waiting around the starting line with Celeste and Brian, with whom I had carpooled from the Fort that morning.  Adding to my sense of apprehension was the fact that my gps watch had lost all of its battery charge, so I was flying blind today.  Not that it mattered all that much, because I had as usual failed to study the course or determine any time goals whatsoever.  Nick suggested I try to beat his time up the hill (64 minutes), which seemed like a good plan, but other than that I was just going to try to put in a hard effort and see what happened.

I am the little speck of green on the far far right

The Barr trail race is a funny sort of race.  Like the Pikes Peak marathon, it starts on the pavement of Manitou Springs, and then attains the actual Barr trail a mile or so into the race.  The first section of the Barr trail, called the “W’s”, is rather steep and narrow, and it is difficult to pass slower runners on this section of the trail.  My legs felt a bit heavy and sluggish on the first mile leading up to the “W’s”, but they started to come around and I felt pretty good after that.  I was able to pass a few other runners who had perhaps been a little too aggressive at the start, but I really had no idea how I was doing relative to the field as a whole.  Since the race is an out-and-back, as I approached the turnaround point I was able to count runners as they came at me in the other direction.  I was happily surprised to discover that I was in 15^th place at the turn-around point.  Not 5^th, mind you, but it had a 5 in it! 

I am a better uphill runner than downhill runner, but I tried to hold on to my position on the downhill by really extending my stride and keeping the effort honest.  I find that I tend to relax too much on downhill grades and this always costs me in races.  And today was no exception!  I thought I was pushing the downhill, but I got passed rather quickly by a gentleman who was shorter than I, but somehow appeared to have a stride that was three times the span of mine.  Then I was passed by a younger guy, who looked familiar to me, and turned out was Nick’s second favorite pacer, the remarkably talented Brendan Trimboli.  Who is Nick's favorite pacer, you might ask? Why it's Scott, of course; Scott Jamie, that is.

I was then passed by another gentleman, Brad Poppele (2:42 marathoner), who as it happened was in my age group, and by passing me beat me out of a free pair of shoes, and $50!  Big props to Brad, and note to self, run faster next time!  Also near the end I was passed by the 3^rd place female runner, Brandy Erholtz, who unknown to me at the time was the two time defending Women's champ and course record holder for this race, and two-time U.S. Mountain Runner of the Year (2008, 2009), and all around general bad-ass.  Note that one of the unwritten rules for running this race is that you must have a blog.  Anyway, Brandy passed me at the last aid station with about 1.5 miles to go, but I marked her pretty well after that until the final three blocks, which featured a very nasty and steep uphill slog to the finish line.  Finally, some uphill. 

Noting that I’m a better uphill runner than downhill runner, I found myself quickly catching up to, and then passing Brandy.  I felt rather like a jerk, passing her back, so I tried to be a gentleman about it and urged her to pick it up and finish with me.  What I think I said as I passed her was “Come on, let’s do this”, but those of you who have heard me “speaking” at the end of a race know that what came out of my mouth was more along the lines of “sghheoeor wraauuah ruuuurha”.  Likely for that reason she declined to come with me up and around the corner to the finish.  I crossed the line in 1:56:15, arms in the air and all that, happy to come in under 2 hours just because that sounds cool.  I ended up 18^th place overall, and 2^nd in my age group.  Looking back at the results I had almost reeled in Brad as well, finishing a scant 7 seconds behind him, although I don't really recall seeing him after he passed me and Brandy on the downhill pavement stretch.

Overall the legs felt pretty good, so I was pleased about that, and pleased that all the extra biking and diminished amounts of running do not seem to have taken too much off my running results.  Come to think of it, I think I was a gentlmanly 18^th at the Vail hill climb two weeks ago, and a rakishly handsome 14^th at the Bighorn race two weeks prior to that, so I think I have a rough target to shoot for at the Pikes Peak ascent in August.

But before that there is the little matter of the Courage Classic, which starts this Saturday.  I may only run once or twice this week, and I have one more special ride planned for Tuesday, but if I’m not ready now than I won’t be ready on Saturday.  I think I’m ready, it will be a lot of fun regardless.  Thanks again for following along and donating, we really appreciate it.  I will probably post one more time between now and this weekend, and I’ll try to post something during the ride itself.  Once and finally, the links to donate are here, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste 

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

If you blew it, don't reject it Just sit drawing up the plans and re-erect it

Doble-Vail

My training for the Courage Classic in 2+ weeks continues, with many detours along the way.  First of all, let’s review our progress towards our goal of raising $2,000 dollars for Childrens Hospital:

Celeste and I have raised $580 so far, thank you all so very much!  We are over one quarter of the way there!  If you are considering making a tax-deductible donation to Childrens Hospital on our behalf, I encourage you to do so by clicking one of the links below:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

And for those of you who have donated, a heart-felt thank you!  Your support means a lot to me.

So how has the training been going, you ask?  Well, you know, some good, some bad.  Last we left off last Thursday I had decided to bike to Towers and then run towers through a dangerous storm, and then bike home through the rain.

Friday was far more sedate, probably too sedate, as I only logged about 13 miles of city riding, much of that during my normal work commute.  And Saturday was even worse; housework beckoned so I spent no time on the bike at all, and did fun things like trim the trees and drain the hot tub.

But I made up for my slothfulness on Sunday.  Sunday I got up very early and drove to beautiful Vail, Colorado, for the 300^th annual La Sportiva Vail Hill Climb race.  Or 30^th annual, I don’t remember.  Point being, people have been lacing up their running shoes and climbing the cat trails up the side of Vail mountain long before I even contemplated doing something this nutty.  Yes this was not a biking event, so I’m still not really on the ball here.  Regardless, it is a good workout; the race climbs over 2,000 feet from the covered bridge in Vail Village to the top of the Lionshead gondola at Eagle’s Nest.  There were about 400 competitors lined up at the start, including me and my friends Sarah and Ellen.  Thankfully for all involved, the course did not go straight up the ski slopes, but rather chose a twisty route up the service roads, which double in the winter as the “easiest way down” trails with such names as “Cub’s Way”, and “Getalong Road”, and “Eternal Peril” Wait, I must have misread that last one, that doesn't sound right. 

No matter, I like to climb hills, and I thought I would be relatively competitive in this event, so I lined up right at the front of the pack like a big boy.  I realized quite quickly that I would not be winning this event right after the race started and the leaders blasted out to a 5-minute mile in the first, flat mile through town.  I knew what effort felt good for me and let them go, and tried to maintain a hard but sustainable pace.  Happily I was able to reel in quite a few runners who may have been a little over-eager at the start, and by about mile 4 or 5 everyone was pretty much settled in to their slots.  The road kept climbing up the side of the ski hill, and we crossed under numerous chairlifts, and across bare ski slopes, and through shady groves of trees as the views of the surrounding mountains got more and more impressive.  But the more impressive the view got, the less interested I was in enjoying it, as the climb, as climbs are want to do, got more and more difficult.  By mile 6 (out of 7.3 miles total) my legs and lungs were at the breaking point.  My only thought was not to let those people whom I passed pass me back.  A point of pride, I suppose.  There were two racers just ahead of me but I could not close the gap on them, no matter my effort.

Ellen cranking it out on the final climb

Sarah looking strong in a picture that is in no way staged whatsoever

I was trying to climb the hill in under one hour, and as I rounded the final switchback and the finish line came in to view, I saw the race clock at the side of the finishing arch, and it read ”59:59”, and quickly rolled over to “1:00:00” before I could muster the strength to cross under the banner.  Alas, I came in just over one hour at 1:00:04, finishing a gentleman’s 19^th place overall, and a, uh, gentleman’s 4^th place in my age group.

The weather was beautiful at the top of the mountain, and we enjoyed a nice cool down run on the trails and then took the gondola back down to Vail.  Then I ate lunch at the Red Lion bar in Vail Village with Sarah’s family, and then started part two of my Vail adventure.

You may be wondering why all this running, and writing about the same, when I should actually be riding in preparation for the Courage Classic.  Fair enough.  That’s why I packed my road bike with me on my trip to Vail.  I decided that after the run, if I felt up to it, I would ride my bike from Vail Village to the top of Vail Pass and back down.  What was I thinking?  And of course I had to open my big mouth and tell everyone I was doing that so now here I was, at 1 pm, clipped into my bike and trying to navigate the Vail Village parking garage in order to strike out for mountain adventure number two for the day.  Finally, some biking to write about!

Vail pass is a lovely mountain climb that is made even better by the fact that it is a car-free climb.  The route uses what I must assume is the old Vail pass road, and then a purpose-built bike trail that parallels the interstate up to the top of the pass.  It is also the centerpiece climb of the first day of the Courage Classic ride, so I figured it would be good to know if I could handle this climb on tired legs.  I changed from running to biking gear and washed my face of salt and trail grime in the public restroom of the Vail parking garage (how glamorous is my life!), applied another round of sunscreen and thought that any day that required multiple applications of sunscreen is a good day, and as mentioned, wound my way out of the parking structure and pointed my bike towards the hill.

I'll be back here in a few weeks!

And you know what, ultimately it really wasn’t that bad.  Indeed I took my time, I think it took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach the top of the pass, but other than being fairly stiff at the beginning of the ride I felt better than I thought I would feel.  Of course a large part of this may have been do to the fact that there was a spectacular tail-wind pushing me up the pass, but let us not obsess over minute atmospheric details, shall we?  Also I must mention that although Vail pass is significantly higher than Rist canyon in Fort Collins, I think Rist is more difficult.

Having successfully attained summit number two on the day I pointed the bike back down to Vail, and then drove back to the Fort for a well-earned dinner at Enzio’s with the Speights, where we were expertly-waited-upon by super-nice Nicole, runner-extraordinaire and apparent inspiration for many dashed adjectives.

For the 4^th of July the plan was to ride Rist canyon with Celeste, after we volunteered at the local Firecracker 5k.  And then take the dogs up into the mountains so they would be out of earshot from the loud and scary city fireworks display, which happens to be staged right in our neighborhood.  But nothing went to plan and everything fell apart.  But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to read about that because I have to go to work!

Again, thanks for donating, and once more here are the links:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Get Him to Jemez

ed. note: this is a bit of a departure from my recent posts.  Last weekend I had the privilege of pacing Nick Clark (read his account here) for the final 14 miles of his victorious performance at the Jemez 50 mile trail run in Los Alamos, New Mexico.  I thought the experience was worthy of a blog post, so without further adu please enjoy,

Nick Clark

and

Scott Slusher

in

Get Him to Jemez!

“Scott - Looks like I was through the ski lodge in just under 6:30 [elapsed time] last year (11:30 am). Hope to be there a little earlier this year - maybe 11:00 - but if you leave Santa Fe at 8:00 as planned then you'll have more than enough time.

See you out there - and thanks again (don't forget the gel).”

-Nick

The gel, the gel.  I’ll get to “the gel” in due time.  At this moment it is 11:15 am, and I am waiting for Nick on the wooden expanse of the Pajarito Ski Area base lodge deck.  It is a gorgeous day, a little chilly at 9,200 feet elevation, but clear and mostly calm.  I am ready.  Maybe just a quick stop to the bathroom from being utterly and completely ready, ready to pace Nick Clark for the final 14 miles of his title defense at the Jemez 50 mile trail race here in Los Alamos, New Mexico.  Nick is looking to win the race again, and also has his eye on setting the course record this time around.  And I am here to help him.   

Nick and I train together in Fort Collins, and he asked if I would run with him here in Los Alamos today when he found out I would be attending my cousin’s high school graduation in Santa Fe for the weekend.  I figured it would be a good way to get in a fast training run as I prepare for my own 50 mile trail race in June, so I agreed to the venture.  Nick is a much better runner than I, and normally I have no chance of keeping up with him in a race, which makes my pacing qualifications somewhat suspect.  In fact I can think of only two handicaps that would allow me to keep up with Nick during a race.  One, if he was significantly more fatigued than I, or two, if he was saddled with lots of extra weight, or perhaps required to lead an old truculent dog around the race course. 

The Jemez 50 mile race does not require runners to carry heavy packs, or lead animals, truculent or otherwise, so no luck there, but it does allow racers to have a pacer for only the final 14 miles of the course.  So I figured I could probably keep up with Nick as I would only have to run 14 miles to his 50, and I would be joining Nick only after he had ran 36 miles and negotiated something like 10,600 feet of climbing and 8,700 feet of descending.  The equation goes something like this:

Nick - (34 miles * 10,600 feet climbing * 8,700 feet descending)

=

Slush - (0 miles * 0 feet climbing * 0 feet descending)

And yes, you read that correctly.  The Jemez 50 mile race course boasts over 12,000 feet of climbing and descending over its 50-mile span.  Let’s see if we can put this into perspective.  Start with a marathon.  Marathons are somewhat difficult, most would agree.  Then consider the Pikes Peak Marathon, which contains about 7,000 feet of climbing and descending, and is advertised as the toughest marathon in the known universe, or something like that.  Now double that distance and double the climbing and descending.  Now you have something approximating the difficulty of the Jemez 50 mile race.  Luckily for me, I would only have to climb about 1,400 feet and descend about 3,300 feet in the final 14 miles of the course.  I was to be spared the most difficult parts of the course, it seems.  Why my 14 miles of pacing seemed downright, uh, normal compared to the first 36 miles of the course.  I admit to being a little nervous about trying to keep up with "Mr. October" while I paced him, but I would give it my best shot all the same.

Now I must confess that I did not leave Santa Fe at 8:00 am, as indicated in the email exchange.  After briefly consulting the internet after my cousin’s graduation party the prior evening, I realized that I would only need about one hour to get to Pajarito Ski Area from Santa Fe.  So I left at 9:00 am, blasted some Sepultura on the car stereo to get pumped up, and arrived in perfect time at 10:00 am.  I was there in plenty of time to await Nick’s arrival.  I checked in with the volunteers.  “Have any of the 50-milers been through yet?”  Nope, came the reply.  In fact, only a handful of the 50-Kilometer runners had passed through this checkpoint at 10:00 am.  Jemez was hosting a 50-K race at the same time, and a half marathon as well.  I sat down and watched the 50-K runners arrive one by one.  The aid station volunteers rang cowbells and cheered them all in and out of the checkpoint.  I didn’t know exactly when Nick was going to arrive, but I figured I had some time to prepare.  I ate a cliff bar and some fruit which I brought myself (pacers are not allowed to use the aid station food and water), and made sure I had all of my gear.  Wind-breaker.  Check.  Hand-held water bottle.  Full of water, even.  Check.  Little one-ounce Gu gel pack for me.  Check.  Super-giant five-ounce EFS gel flask for Nick.  Berry-flavored.  Check.  Pom-pom (for extra motivation if needed).  Check.  Sun-screen.  Applied.  Check.  Garmin GPS Watch.  Check.  Watch working.  Un-check. 

Oh great.  I must have forgotten to power down my Garmin after I went for a run in Santa Fe the day before.  I do that all the time.  My watch had no battery life left in it.  Usually it beeps at me when I turn it on, and it’s not even doing that.  You know, part of being a “pacer” is the ability to relay the “pace” to your runner during the race.  And Nick doesn’t actually run with a GPS watch, he runs with one of those Highgear altimeter watch things instead, so my ability to convey real-time pace information would actually be of some benefit here.  As is the case with most trail runs, Jemez doesn’t have clocks on course, or mile markers on the trail, or even actual trail in some spots, so having some sort of independent pace verification mechanism is particularly handy.  I’m officially the Worst Pacer Ever and I haven’t even started pacing yet.  Well a dead watch isn’t going to do me any good on my wrist so I decide to run back down to my car and put it away.  I’ve got to be speedy, though, in case Nick comes through while I’m down at the car. 

Then I notice something strange about the garmin when I take it off my wrist.  My garmin is missing the little plastic loop on the band that holds the band in place, and this garmin has its loop quite intact.  Is this, in fact, my garmin?  Suddenly I remember seeing a box at my cousin’s house for the exact same garmin product.  I must have grabbed the wrong garmin from their house last night when I was packing for the run.  A frantic search through the car produces my watch, which is, happily, fully charged and ready to go.  I am now the Best Pacer Ever, and I haven’t even started pacing yet.

Watch procured and dialed in to the satellites, I now turn my attention to my next task.  Namely, where to put Nick’s giant EFS gel flask.  Nick was very adamant that I would bring with me a flask of his EFS super-gel for him to consume on the race.  Hey, no problem, he’s the boss, I'm happy to help.  He gave the gel flask to me in Fort Collins, and I brought it all the way with me to Los Alamos.  The race has drop bags but Nick didn’t want to waste time rummaging through a bag for this stuff, so he gave it to me instead.  The EFS gel flask is huge compared to most running gel products.  It contains 400 calories in its 5 ounces of berry-flavored goodness.  400 calories?  What’s this stuff made of, anyway?  Berry-flavored Butter?  Soylent Purple?  And the size of the plastic flask is obnoxiously large.  I’m suddenly keenly aware that I have no place to put this thing.  Wait, my windbreaker has a single breast pocket that will hold the flask.  I now look like I have a single flask-shaped boob (left side), but, you know, anything for my runner.

I end up meeting another pacer, a nice lady named Tina who is waiting to pace her friend who is racing the 50-K race.  We engage in typical runner chit-chat (races, injuries, shoes, food, etc.) while I keep one eye on the ski slope above us.  Nick will be coming down that slope – like literally straight down the slope, on a trail that defies all sense and logic – so I will have plenty of time to get ready for him after I see him coming down.  It is 11:15 and I don’t see Nick coming down, so I decide to make one last quick stop to the bathroom before he does show up.  That way I’ll be completely ready to pace and won’t need to make a potty break during my run.  I ask Tina to watch my hand-held water bottle and I saunter on inside to the ski lodge bathroom.  While I’m in there I hear an enormous cheer from outside.  This is no ordinary 50-K runner cheer, this is a 50 Mile runner cheer.  This is a Nick Clark cheer and I’m stuck in the bathroom.  Worstpacerever.  I burst out of the bathroom and run out onto the deck just as Tina is running into the lodge with my water-bottle in her hand. “Your runner just came through!” she says, handing my bottle to me.  I grab my bottle, say thank you, start my watch, and take off at a dead sprint across the deck onto the trail, in hot pursuit of one of the fastest trail runners in the country.  So much for a warm-up.  Depending on how far ahead he is, and how fast he is going, there exists the grim possibility that I will not catch him for the next 14 miles.  I re-double my effort and kick it into pain-mode.  It won’t be the last time I have to do this today. 

But the agony is thankfully short-lived.  After about one tenth of a mile I can see Nick cruising through the trail ahead of me.  I’m gaining on him, I am going to catch him, it’s all good.  “Mr. Clark, I presume?” I ask as I settle in beside him on the jeep road.  We’re tacking mostly uphill, it’s a gentle grade, and on my fresh legs I can keep pace, and actually push the pace a bit.  I’m all excited and blabbing on about god-knows-what.  Nick is quieter, to his credit doesn’t give me crap about being in the can when he came through the aid station.  I’m thankful that Tina was there to tell him that at least I was in the general area and not completely AWOL.  But I’m here now, and I’m pacing.  Oh I’m pacing the hell out of Nick and this race.

We continue along in good form, and about a quarter mile from the next aid station (pipeline, for those keeping score at home) Nick hands me his empty water bottle, and instructs me to run ahead of him to the aid station and fill the bottle with flat coke and ice.  This I now do.  I take off at a solid clip in order to make sure that I can get this accomplished before Nick arrives, so that he doesn’t have to stop at all at the aid station.  I barrel on into the aid station and start bellowing out “Coke!” and “Ice!” to anyone who will listen.  A nice lady finds an open bottle of coke and starts pouring it into the bottle.  It is not all that flat, but it is all there is.  Then we go in search of ice.  All the while Nick is rapidly closing the distance.  This is taking too long.  The ice is in a cooler under a bunch of stuff.  Nick is here.  The nice volunteer plops a few ice cubes into the bottle and hands it back to me.  Nick is leaving the aid station.  Once again I have to sprint after him, this time while trying to screw the cap back onto a very fizzy bottle of coke. 

We’re heading up a rather steep uphill section, and I am able to catch up to him quickly.  I hand the bottle back to Nick which is oozing coke foam from the lid and literally squirting foam out of the top, and rather stupidly point out that “the coke isn’t all that flat, but it’s all they had”.  I think I’m back to Worst Pacer Ever.  Nick is once again very charitable and does not complain.

We find ourselves on what turns out to be the last significant climb of the day, and the only significant climb of the day for me.  I guess its called powerline, and it’s a straight-shot up a fairly loose and rocky dirt road.  I don’t really know, I didn’t study the course that much to be quite honest.  All I knew about my part of the course was what Nick told me; 14 miles, mostly downhill, not too technical.  I have no idea how many more aid stations there are, or the distance between them, or anything.  Say it with me now:  Worst. Pacer. Ever.  My usefulness seems to be confined to comic relief and exploding bottles of coke at this point.

It is clear that the prior uphill bits of this course have taken their toll on Nick.  Remember that he has already climbed over 10,000 feet today, so his legs are understandably fatigued at this point.  But Nick is willing himself to keep running, however slowly, and we pass several 50-K participants on this stretch who are walking this same hill.  So the fact that Nick is still running at all at this point is rather impressive.  I decide to offer some sage advice at this point about “running from your glutes (butt) because you won’t need them on the downhill”.  Yes, I am dispensing running advice to a guy who wins ultra races.  I don’t think I could possibly be a bigger jack-ass.  Well whatever, I stand by what I said.

And clearly Nick followed my advice because as soon as we crest the top of the powerline hill and start down the other side, Nick decides that it is time to lower the boom, and he jets off down the hill like Keith Richards, wait, strike that, like Aldus Snow chasing down a Swedish bikini model with a handler of vodka in one hand and a joint in the other.  Seriously it’s all I can do to keep up.  We’re crushing this steep downhill jeep road.  One slip and it’s all over.  There’s no way I can keep this pace up. Jeez, exactly how fast are we going? I glance at my watch; 5:40 per mile.  Ouch, that’s fast.  I shout out a pace check to Nick as he begins to gap me by a few feet.  Well, it was fun pacing him for 3.5 miles, I guess.

Blessedly the downhill section ends and we start back up another, shorter hill, and I am able to bridge the gap.  But it was a wakeup call to me.  Seriously, who drops sub-6 minute miles 39 miles into a 50 mile race?  The course then leaves the jeep road and turns onto a lovely stretch of single-track trail through the forest.  We’re going downhill again but it’s not quite as steep, and the trail is somewhat more technical, so the pace slows up a bit.  We realize that we’re about 10 miles from the finish, and Nick does some “race math” and figures that if we can average 7:15 minute/miles from here to the finish, he can break the course record.  The trail dips below the trees into the burned-out zone from the massive fire that hit Los Alamos in 2000.  It’s pretty interesting to see the new forest starting to emerge from the remains of the old, and the lack of foliage provides a couple of advantages, but one disadvantage.  First some advantages; one can see farther along the trail, which is nice because we can anticipate the terrain a little better.  Particularly when climbing uphill, it is nice to know where the hill ends so you can gage your effort accordingly.  Also it makes it easier to see runners ahead of you.  Like I said, Nick at this point is leading the 50 Mile race, but we are passing quite a few 50 Kilometer racers at this point.  I am actually able to serve a useful purpose here; although I’m running behind Nick on the single-track, I am able to call out ahead to the 50-K runners in advance or our overtaking them so that they can gracefully step off the trail and let us pass.  They are all very courteous and encouraging as we go by, and I return the favor.  It’s one of the many things I like about trail racing.  Participants are very supportive and kind to each other.  Passing each 50-K runner is like getting a little boost, a little ray of sunshine if you will.  The only disadvantage to the loss of forest is that there is an abundance of real sunshine, and it is starting to warm up a bit.  But because it is sunny and clear out, and the terrain so delightfully clear of obfuscating foliage, I can see 50 miles across the Rio Grande valley back to Santa Fe and the mountains beyond.  It’s an impressive view.  “Wow”, I blurt out, “the view is amazing up here!”  Then realizing that I’m supposed to be pacing, and not sight-seeing, and should also probably be encouraging Nick to watch his footing and not the enchanting landscape, I correct myself and add, “I’ll look for you, you watch the trail.  Trust me, it’s nice up here.”  There.  That’s how you pace!  I’ll do anything for my runner, including enjoying the beautiful terrain, just so he doesn’t have to do it.

Nick was very sure-footed on the single-track, I only remember him stumbling one time over a rock.  We were not hitting those sub-6 minute mile paces anymore (thank God) but we were motoring along at a pretty good clip.  The first mile after the “7:15” estimate was a 7:19, which was very speedy all things considered, but not completely insane.  We keep descending the mountain, and the miles peel away.  We are hitting the splits.  We don’t even bother stopping at the next aid station, we just keep plugging away.  I ask Nick if he wants that giant EFS gel flask, which is still in the breast pocket of my jacket. My jacket is now tied around my waist, and the gel flask is positioned perfectly such that it acts like a tiny fist that is pounding my groin at every step.  Seriously, why such a large freaking flask of gel!  I keep having to rotate my jacket around to protect my, uh, nether-regions from grievous harm.  Stupid EFS gel, I don’t care if you are berry-flavored, I hate you.  And of course he doesn't want it yet, Nick still has one of his own that he's halfway through.

As we keep descending and keep getting closer, the temperature keeps rising.  Heat is no one’s friend, and we’re both getting low on water.  There is one more aid station between us and the finish; the Rendija Canyon aid station at mile 48.1.  About one mile before that I see Nick taking the top off his Coke water bottle (he’s carrying two bottles).  I think he’s trying to get the last drops of coke out of the bottle, and the screw cap is giving him some trouble, likely because it is rather sticky from all the coke foam detritus from my last bottle-filling adventure.  Nick tugs it off and the cap slips out of his hand, and it hits the ground and starts rolling down the dusty trail beside him. Nick slows to pick it up.   “Keep going,” I say, “I’ll get it.”  I deftly swoop down (oh, yes, deftly.  You should have seen it) and grab the cap as Nick sucks down the last drops of coke.  I grab the now-empty bottle from Nick and move to screw the cap back on.  I’ll hang on to the bottle and re-fill it at the last aid station.  But the cap is filthy, covered in dirt both inside and out.  Crap, now what.  I can’t just refill the bottle like that, I’ve got to clean off the cap somehow.  I’ve got some water left in my hand-held bottle, not a lot, but enough.  I could stop for a minute and clean off the cap, but I’m barely hanging on to Nick’s pace as is; any delay could be the last I’d see of him.  So I have to clean off this cap on the run.  I’m carrying two water bottles, plus one detached cap, and I’m trying to figure out how to do this.  My brilliant solution?  Suck in a big ‘ol mouthful of water from my water bottle, and spit it out all over the sandy, dirty cap. And repeat until the cap is reasonably clean.  Yes that’s right, make that cap literally spit-shine clean, soldier.  Why didn’t I just squeeze the water from the water bottle onto the cap?  I can only answer that by asking you to not judge too harshly decisions made in the heat of battle.  Or the heat of Jemez.

Now in retrospect it turns out my GPS watch was measuring short.  Meaning, when my watch said we had gone, say 10 miles we had actually gone more like 10.4 miles.  Ultimately this gave us a pleasant surprise but it nearly killed me in the intervening miles.  You see, having successfully, if not entirely sanitarily, cleaned Nick’s water bottle, I was now instructed to run ahead again to the next aid station, the one at Rendija Canyon, and re-fill it once again with coke and ice.  Nick told me that the aid station was 1.9 miles from the finish, and I looked at my watch and was informed by it that we had about 1 mile to go until reaching the aid station.  I started to make my move and get ahead of Nick, which was not an easy task by the way, since we were descending a series of sandy switchbacks and he was already running them at a sub-7 minute mile pace.  I put in a huge effort and start to gap him ever so slowly when I see a sign for the aid station indicating that it is only about a quarter of a mile ahead.  I thought I had about three-quarters of a mile.  I am so screwed.  I immediately take off, once again, at a dead sprint down the switchbacks in order to gap Nick as much as possible.  My legs are screaming, my heart is pounding, I have no idea how fast I’m going but I think it’s the fastest I have ever run.  I want to look at my watch but I fear if I take my eyes off the trail for even an instant I am going to tumble down the switchbacks the fast way and land in a heap of hurt at the canyon floor.  I come barreling into the aid station hoarsely shouting “COKE!  ICE!  HE’S COMING!  WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”  Actually I don’t shout that last stuff.  I probably didn’t shout any of it.  Once again the helpful aid station volunteers find the bottle of coke and start pouring.  There’s no time for this.  As fast as I have ran Nick is right behind me.  I’m certain he picked up his pace when I did.  That’s not fair; you’re supposed to give me a chance!  Slow down!  I hate you!  Nick is through the aid station before the ice can be located.  The volunteers, god bless them, are carefully putting ice cubes one-by-one into Nick’s bottle as he starts up the other side of the canyon.  I can’t wait any longer; I grab the bottle, only half-filled with coke and ice, and take off once again at a dead-sprint up the canyon wall to catch Nick.

I manage to reach him but my legs are shot, I am totally spent with the effort.  I don’t feel anything recovering as we plod up the canyon, and we’re not really going that fast.  I hand Nick his bottle and inform him that if he gaps me, it’s ok, I might not have enough to keep up with him anymore.  And I’m ok with that.  I’ve paced Nick for 12 miles out of 14, I think I’ve done more good than harm.  I think he can handle the rest.  Let’s revise the equation:

Nick - (48.1 miles * 11,600 feet climbing * 11,800 feet descending)

>

Slush - (12.1 miles * 1,000 feet climbing * 3,100 feet descending)

Nick hands me his EFS gel flask for me to carry.  As soon as he hands it to me I see a cardboard box cum trash can, and I toss the half-empty gel flask into the box.  Wait, did he say carry or toss?  “Uh, did you want my to hang on to that thing?”  I ask.  Because I have a full one giving my crotch fusillade broadsides at every step, you know…”Yup”, he says.  I run back down the hill and grab the flask, and fall further behind.  

Nick isn’t saying much anymore, by the way.  He’s pretty spent, particularly on the up hill bits. And who can blame him; he’s less than 2 miles from completing a 50 mile race, from perhaps setting the course record to boot.  But it seems as though the victory is in hand at this point.  Earlier Nick told me when he was at mile 14 or so he was 10 minutes ahead of the guy in second place, but neither of us know what that gap is now.  As it turns out, the gap was about 90 minutes between Nick and Brendon Trimboli, the gentleman who finished second.  Of course at the time we didn’t know that the gap was so large, and more importantly Nick had is eye on a more prestigious goal.  He was racing against history now.

Back in 2007, in the second running of the Jemez 50 mile race, a young 22-year old named Kyle Scaggs showed up and ran this brutal course in 8 hours and 9 minutes.  8:09:39, to be exact.  The following year in 2008 he came back and beat his own time, running it again in 8:08:15.  Later that year Kyle went on to set the course record at the Hardrock 100 mile race (which is to the Jemez 50 as the Jemez 50 is to, say, the Pikes Peak Marathon), with a preposterous time of 23 hours and 23 minutes, a record which to my knowledge still stands.  These results, particularly the Hardrock race result, were “game changers” in the sport of ultra trail running, seen as pretty much unbreakable.  As I mentioned, in 2010 Nick came down to Jemez and won, with a time of 8:26.  Of course he could have ran 8:26 again this year and won again, but Nick felt like he could make a go at Kyle’s 8:08 this time around. 

Now with one mile to go, course records and Kyle Scaggs and all that are about the farthest things from my mind.  Somehow I was able to finally recover from my aid-station sprint and bridge the gap between Nick and me, but I was feeling pretty used and abused by this point.  We were clipping along at a low-8 minute/mile pace along a nice wide dirt trail.  Although I was pretty fatigued, I was enjoying myself.  Record or not, it was a very nice way to finish the race.  Of course never having never ran this race before, nor studied the map, I had no idea what last little bit of fun was in store for us. 

With less than on quarter of a mile to go, the trail makes an abrupt turn to the right straight up a rock wall.  Seriously?  That’s it, I’m out.  This is about the most uncalled for thing I can think of.  I am sick and tired of uphills, and rocks, and climbing, and trying to keep up with this maniac.  We start marching up the steps hewn into the rock, and although I don’t really know how much farther we have to go, I know we are close because all of a sudden there are spectators cheering us on.  But I’m done.  I give Nick one final piece of advice, “Pour it out!”, and let him gap me once and for all.

Cresting the rock wall the trail makes another turn to the right and into the finisher’s chute.  In my opinion it is bad form for pacers to accompany their runners through the finish line, so I courteously slide off to the left and jog up the road parallel to the finish.  Honestly at this point I had no idea if Nick was close to setting the course record.  Like I said, we weren’t talking much at the end of the race.  I thought he may have been mad at me for committing any or all of the following crimes:  a) spitting all over his water bottle, b) handing him an exploding bottle of coke, c) throwing away his EFS gel (later recovered, so, not too bad), or d) not even being there at the ski lodge when he passed through.

Ahh, but victory glosses over all faults, and as I jogged up the road I could see Nick crossing the finish line, and I could also see the official finish line clock, and it said “8:07:45”.  Course record, baby.  Nick beat the course record by 30 seconds.  Holy crap that's awesome!  He did it!  Victory and course record, you just don't see that every day.  And by a scant 30 seconds.  That’s not a very big gap.  It’s a difference of one-tenth of one percent.  Unbelievable, dramatic, exciting, inspiring.  I’m proud to be a part of it.  I can't tell you how inspiring it is to run with Nick and watch him put in the effort to win and set the record.  I learned a lot running with him, and I know he was totally psyched to pull it off.  And I’d like to think that I helped him pull it off as well.  Somehow I got Aldus to the Greek, baby.  Now really any pacer would have probably spurred Nick on to the record, and I think a more well-qualified and well-prepared pacer may have helped Nick to an even greater victory, but even if all I did was save him 31 seconds at the aid stations, then I did just enough to help him make it happen. 

Nick is running the Western States 100 in June, and also taking a crack at the Hardrock 100 in July.  Based on his result in Jemez he has to be seen as a favorite in both races now, if he wasn’t before (which he was, but whatever).  And I’m offering up my services as a pacer to anyone looking to break course records.  Just don’t ask me to carry your EFS gel flasks.  And don’t expect me to actually show up on time, or know the course or anything.  But don’t worry, we’ll get it done one way or another.