Can't Get Enough

At 5:30 PM on Friday I walked up to my car, which was parked in the hills above my office on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, and hopped in.  Only I wasn’t going to be making the 25-minute drive back home today to my apartment in Palms, Los Angeles.  My car was packed with running gear, a few toiletries, a pillow, and a couple of blankets.  The week was over, and I was ready for the seven-hour drive up to Auburn, California and tomorrow’s thirty-two mile run on the Western States trail.  I had been up in Auburn just a month earlier when I ran The Canyons 100K which also took place on the Western States trail.  The experience of running this race twice (but finishing it once) combined with the books I had read and the videos I had seen showcasing the Western States 100 had me hooked and I couldn’t get enough.  To me, the attraction of the Western States trail is not only it’s natural beauty and challenging terrain, but also its history.  Ultramarathon running was first conceived on this very trail when the Western States Endurance Run went from being a horse race to a foot race in the summer of 1977.  Since then, the Western States Endurance Run, commonly known as the Western States 100, or simply Western States, has become one of the most prestigious and compelling ultramarathons in the world.  Runners from all over the globe make the trip to Auburn every June to toe the start line at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort in hopes of reaching the finish line in Auburn within the thirty-hour cutoff.  Several ultramarathon greats including Ann Trason, Scott Jurek, Dean Karnazes, Rob Krar, etc. built their careers off competing in Western States and they tell mind blowing stories about the race and the Western States trail in their interviews and memoirs.

         

After fighting some Friday night L.A. traffic for a couple of hours I finally made it over the grapevine.  The freeway was now less crowded, and I could sit back and enjoy the ride.  The drive to Auburn was long but it was easy; a straight shot up the 5 freeway all the way to Sacramento where I would merge onto the 80 freeway which would take me right to my destination.  The sunset that I was treated to while driving north through the farmlands was absolutely breathtaking.  It was mostly cloudy, and the sun fired orange, yellow, and red light across the entire sky lighting up the clouds above the highway as the mountains surrounding the grapevine rested on the horizon.  After several hours I finally rolled into Auburn.  The meeting spot for the run was actually in the elementary school parking lot in Foresthill, about twenty minutes northeast of town.  The run that I was participating in the next day was one of three training runs for Western States.  They were not timed races.  Just organized running events limited to one hundred or so participants with three aid stations along the way.  Tomorrow’s run would be thirty-two miles from Robinson Flat to Foresthill, Sunday would be nineteen miles from Foresthill to Diver’s flat, and Monday would be Green Gate to the finish line of Western States, twenty miles.  After parking my car at the elementary school, changing my clothes in a porta potty, and brushing my teeth, I spread out my blankets and pillow in the backseat.  I was going dirtbag style, sleeping in my car.  It was approaching 1:00 AM and there were about a half a dozen other cars in the parking lot where other runners lay sound asleep inside.  Although it was cramped, I slept pretty decently, only being woken up once during the night by the sound of light rain falling on my car.  I woke up the next morning at 6:00 AM to people gathering in the parking lot and setting up check-in booths and tents.  Luckily the rain had quit for good.  I checked in, made my final preparations, and after a quick briefing by the run organizers we were on a school bus bound for Robinson Flat.  One of my favorite things about running ultramarathons is the people I meet and hearing their stories and backgrounds.  I often meet people from all over the country and sometimes the world.  During the bus ride I talked with Nathan, a former musician, now Jimmy Johns delivery guy from North Carolina who looked to be in his twenties, as well as Jay, a man in his sixties from the Bay area. 

Stepping off the bus at Robinson Flat was like arriving at summer camp.  The mountain air was crisp and fresh, and the campground was dissected by a series of winding gravel roads with towering pine trees all around.  There was no actual start line or even a start time.  I got off the bus, relieved myself in the outhouse near the campground, and began running down the trail, following the other runners.  The section that we were running was widely considered to be the most difficult part of the Western States 100.  About thirteen miles into the run I would encounter the notorious “canyons” section of the trail.  When people are talking about the Western States 100 and they mention the “canyons”, they’re referring to the 18.7-mile section of the race from Last Chance to Foresthill during which runners descend into and climb out of three deep canyons back to back.  The first canyon to contend with is Deadwood Canyon, where the trail drops about 2,000 feet from Last Chance and climbs 1,800 feet up to Devil’s Thumb from the Swinging Bridge at the bottom of the gorge.  The second is El Dorado Canyon which includes a 2,500-foot drop followed by an 1,800-foot climb up to Michigan Bluff, and the third is Volcano Canyon, where the trail drops 1,000 feet to a creek crossing and climbs about 800 feet up to Foresthill.

 

The first few miles were traveled along a wide trail and stretches of fire road.  Some areas were cluttered with rocks and stones.  I run with Vibram 5 fingers which are a perfect match for my running style however, our feet contain more nerve endings than any other part of our bodies, so if I’m not careful I could step on a sharp rock and be delivered a life altering jolt of pain in my foot without warning.  My heightened attention detail to avoid the rocks along with my light stepping running style made me feel like I was running hurdles at times as I hopped from one side of the trail to the other.  Once we reached Miller’s Defeat the trail banked right and narrowed considerably.  The switchbacks continued, but we were now on a single-track trail rolling along the side of the Sierra Nevada mountains through thick green brush and pine trees.  It was all very exciting to me.  I marveled in the beautiful green surroundings and talked with the other runners as we shared running stories and talked about our favorite trail races.  I soon pulled into Dusty Corners where the first aid station of the course was set up.  I paused there for a few minutes to refill my water bottle, have a couple of pieces of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and thanked the volunteers before continuing down the trail.  From Dusty Corners it was about five miles until the trail would drop into Deadwood Canyon.  Running along the rolling trail I chatted with more runners, including Julianne who was from San Diego and was running Western States in June and Sean, who was an Organizational Development consultant also from L.A.  We talked for a while about running and a variety of other things as he ran behind me.  I love meeting and talking to people along the trail, but I was starting to feel winded from all the talking I was doing and it got to the point where there was a couple of seconds of pause when I was responding to Sean.  Just before we got to Last Chance, he pushed ahead.  A couple of minutes later I came up behind a young guy, also from L.A.  He introduced himself as Gabe and he was fairly new to ultrarunning, having only taken up the sport a few months prior.  We told stories about how we got into running and once we passed through Last Chance I picked up the pace.  Gabe was taking a more reserved approach to the run, so he held back.  As I made the steep, twisting descent into Deadwood Canyon, I was relieved that I was finally alone, so I could try to regain some of the energy I had lost from all the talking I was doing.  I finally arrived at the bottom of the canyon, where I crossed over the Swinging Bridge and began the 1,800-foot climb up to Devil’s Thumb.  This climb is brutally steep, and I was forced to hike at a modest pace, which I was fine with because I could now regroup from the fast plunge into the canyon.  When we finally made it to Devil’s Thumb at the top of the climb, the small group of runners I was with jokingly referred to the milestone as “Devil’s Middle Finger” and we turned and flipped our middle fingers to the steep trail behind us with a few laughs.  After pausing for a few minutes at the Pump aid station, the trail began a 4-mile descent into El Dorado Canyon.  I was coming back to life as I flew down the narrow trail and tight switchbacks.  There were lots of roots and rocks along the trail to watch out for, so I was trying to move as fast as I could without stumbling.  I had a strong pace going until suddenly I heard a strange sound in the brush.  I couldn’t quite make it out the first time, so I listened again.  This time I knew exactly what it was.  It was a bear growl.  Not an angry “I’m going to claw your face off” type of growl, just a lumbering through the woods “matter of fact” growl.  The fact that I could only hear and couldn’t see the bear or detect its exact location was all the more disturbing to me.  Then I heard a small crash through the brush awfully close to the trail.  “Uh oh” I thought.  There were no other runners around which added to the scariness of the situation.  I did the only thing I could and picked up the pace.  I kept moving forward and after about a half a minute it was silent again.  Phew.  I had a nice rhythm going down the trail, but as I approached the bridge that crossed El Dorado Creek at the pit of the canyon, wham!  I wacked my pinky toe on a rock sticking up out of the trail in a flash of distraction.  “Shit!” I yelled out loud after nearly stumbling.  The pain was intense, but I knew that things could have been much worse.  I could have went flying and taken a dive face first into the rocks and dirt, which would have made finishing this run much more difficult.  After crossing the bridge, I was again forced to hike at a modest pace up the 3-mile climb to Michigan Bluff.  I eventually caught up with a runner named Anna from San Francisco.  We talked for a few minutes before she abruptly said “I think we should be running.  Let’s go!”.  Before I could respond, she began a moderate jog up the trail.  I followed behind her for about a mile as we passed by other runners struggling up the climb.  When I arrived at the Michigan Bluff aid station I saw a lady clad in a colorful squid costume holding a water pitcher.  It was the one and only Ann Trason.  She had helped me a lot at The Canyons 100K and I was glad to see her again.  I greeted her with a hug and wolfed down some watermelon and salty snacks.  The volunteers offered me soup, but I politely declined.  I had 6.2 miles left until the finish line and there was only one more canyon to contend with.  A mile or so down the trail after departing Michigan Bluff, another runner caught up with me.  “Man, did you have some of that soup at Michigan Bluff?” he asked.  “Nope, I’ve never tried soup during an ultra” I answered as he glided by.  “It really put some life back into me!  I feel great”.  Maybe I should have had some soup after all.  A cup of hot soup doesn’t sound too appealing after running twenty-eight miles but maybe next time I’ll give it a try.  It sure seemed to work wonders for a lot of other runners.  I was now running on a dirt road with a valley of forest covered mountains to my left, and a mountain side of full of forest and natural earth to my right.  I heard the rumble of a truck engine behind me in the distance which was getting louder and closer by the second.  When it approached, I ran to the side of the dirt road to let the truck pass.  It was an old model rusted up F-350 pick up truck with a loud diesel engine.  In the truck bed up against the rear window was a rack with three big chainsaws resting on the shelves.  I was on a dirt road in the mountain wilderness in the middle of nowhere, so it seemed to blend perfectly with the setting.  After all, I wasn’t expecting to see a brand-new BMW driving along this rugged terrain.  I soon began the twisting descent into Volcano Canyon.  The cold water on my feet felt rejuvenating as I crossed the creek at the bottom.  As I climbed up the final ascent towards Foresthill, I began to deteriorate during the final quarter mile stretch before the course left the trail for the paved road into Foresthill.  The trail was steep and littered with natural debris, making every footstep uncomfortable.  When I finally reached the road I walked along, trying to regroup.  I was exhausted and winded as I walked up a gradual inline along Bath road.  Another runner from Southern Indiana caught up with me.  We chatted and walked together for about a mile which helped mitigate some of the fatigue in my body.  When we reached the intersection with Foresthill Road, I said “only a half a mile left, let’s pick it up!”  We ran along the road and soon the tents at the elementary school came into view.  The make shift finish line was a stop sign attached to one of the tent poles.  I ran in, clapping my hands in excitement.  Thirty-two miles in six hours and fifty-three minutes.  Not bad.  I often take a reserved approach when running downhill on trails for fear of stumbling on a rock or root, but during the weeks that followed the 100K, I began practicing the technique of running downhill on trails more swiftly while still maintaining control and found myself at the track a few times doing speedwork since then.  It’s a work in progress, but I know that if I want to run Western States one day, I will need to be able to run faster.  Runners need to average an eighteen minute per mile pace over the entire distance just to beat the thirty-hour cutoff.  Going for thirty hours without sleep in of itself seems brutal, but when you layer a one hundred-mile run on top of it, it sounds like pure torture.  During the downhill sections of today’s race, I had improved on my speed since the 100K, but I still had work to do.  That’s the great thing about ultrarunning; you’re always learning and improving.  And I still had a lot to learn before I was going to attempt Western States.