Blog

Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run – Part 3

Kristin and I left Chilao and I still feel badly that she had to listen to me continue to bitch about getting lost, but I think she eventually distracted me enough that I mostly let it go.

This section of the course showed tons of damage from the 2009 Station Fire. Huge hillsides bare of big trees.

And the trees that were left were charred crazy looking things. They still resemble trees, except without leaves, and instead of being green, they’re eerie shades of black, grey and white.

During this section my stomach started shutting down. Actually, that’s not really the right term. It wasn’t upset and seemed to be digesting food and liquid OK, but I didn’t have any appetite and even the thought of food repulsed me. I choked down another bottle of Infinit, which had been the majority of my calories to this point, but knew that I was done with Infinit for the day.

Kristin was wearing her Garmin, which was helpful in letting me know how far we were from Shortcut. I probably drove her a little crazy asking where we were too often. It was awesome to have company to run with for the first time since very very early in the morning and Kristin was tons of fun.  At times we heard voices behind us – it was Mark Tanaka and Billy (a/k/a LARunr), his pacer for this section. We came around a bend and knew we were getting close. And then we heard Jimmy’s “Coyote Call”. And Colin’s laugh. The aid station was still a bit of a distance away and on top of the hill.

We couldn’t see them, but guessed that my pink hat was making it easy for them to pick us out.

We got into Shortcut Saddle (mile 59.3) at 6:10pm. I grabbed my pack, a handheld bottle of water and, since it would definitely get dark between Shortcut and Chantry, one of my little headlamps. My crew must have known that I hadn’t really been eating because Elizabeth, my mom, Drew and Tommy started in on me asking what I’d eaten and trying to get me to eat. But I couldn’t. I knew that I’d taken in a lot of calories earlier in the day and that was carrying me for now, but I also knew that if I couldn’t start eating soon, I’d be screwed later. My mom stuffed a PB&J sandwich in one packet of my pack and Elizabeth stuffed a sweet potato in another one. I said goodbye to Kristin (and hopefully thanked her profusely) because it was Colin’s turn to run with me. He was sticking with me for 15 miles, until Chantry Flats.

As we were leaving, we heard Mark and Billy coming into Shortcut behind us. This was the closest anyone had been to me in a long time. I didn’t doubt that I might get passed before the end of the race, but I didn’t want to make it easy. We took off down the long descent out of Shortcut and I think I was still running downhill decently.

In addition to pacing me, keeping me focused on eating and drinking and making sure I didn’t fall off the trail, Colin took about a thousand pictures while we were running. And the show-off in me loved it.

He also took a few videos, including this one, pretty close to the start of our section:

Colin repeatedly tried to get me to eat. I had a single small bite of the PB&J, but couldn’t possibly have another one. And after my incident at Cloudburst with the sweet potato, I didn’t even try to eat that. I had a gel and some gummy chews.

A few miles into this section Mark Tanaka and his new pacer, Lora, caught us. We yo-yo’d for a while, him mostly passing me on descents, me taking back lost ground on the climbs. We had our only real water crossing of the day around here. I ran right through it. Go Drymax socks!!

It went from bright sun to darkness very quickly. This part of the section had overhead coverage, so even when it was just becoming dusk it was dark for us. By the time we got to Newcomb’s Saddle (mile 67.95; 8:04pm) it was pitch black.

One thing I’m really proud of is that I blew through aid stations throughout the race. This was partly because no matter how I felt in between aid stations, just getting to the cheers and smiling faces gave me a big boost of energy and reminded me that there wasn’t any reason to waste time. In general, I was in-and-out within two or three minutes. I spent six minutes in Newcomb’s Saddle, which was my longest time in any aid station. I probably “wasted” a minute or two talking to Elizabeth and my crew on the two-way video feed between Newcomb’s Saddle and Chantry, but it was fun to see them. Finally, Drew reminded me that I was wasting time, by shouting over the feed that it was time to get moving! I also had some soup and a couple Tums there. I was able to suck down the soup and from that point forward, chicken noodle soup became my main source of calories.

At some point before Newcomb’s Saddle, we passed Mark Tanaka for good. But right outside the aid station, Brandon Adame passed us, running without a pacer. The course from Newcomb to Chantry starts with another long descent and finishes with a short climb to the aid station. The descent was tough on me, mostly because my headlamp was pretty crappy so it was hard to see anything and the tendon in the top of my foot and ankle was pretty much on fire. It was fine during climbs, but descents were getting painful.

At one point toward the end of this descent, I took my only fall of the day. It wasn’t a bad one and I bounced right back up, but it was a legit fall. Immediately after my fall, I started hearing more voices behind us. Two women. Uh oh. That meant it was Keira and Ashley. I knew Keira was winning the women’s race. At one point, it seemed like they were right behind us and I figured for certain they would pass us, but Colin got me going and we held them off.

On the final part of the climb into Chantry (mile 74.55), we re-passed Brandon, the runner who passed us near Newcomb’s Saddle. Then, Colin started shouting, “Josh Spector coming in!” It felt awesome. The crowds were going crazy. We came into the aid station and it was total sensory overload.

There were so many faces, including my sister who was there with Gus, Charlie and Birdie. I guess they’d had some quality time with Jimmy while I was waiting.

Gus had spent part of the evening hanging out in the duffle bag with my extra clothing.

I expected to have a minute to catch my breath and get some food from the sweet spread I knew Elizabeth and my parents would have put out for me.

But Jimmy had other ideas. He grabbed me and was all business. He told me I had 90 seconds to change my shirt, get my good headlamp, get some food and get going. I did all that as quickly as possible, but it was definitely stressful with Jimmy counting down the seconds! 🙂

Once I’d gotten it all taken care of, Jimmy had me running out of the aid station post-haste! What I didn’t know is that Jimmy and Keira’s pacer for the last 25 miles of the race, Tommy, had been talking trash all evening about which one of them was going to finish first. Jimmy knew that Keira – or, actually, Tommy – was right behind me and wasn’t about to give any advantage.

“Just” 25 miles to go. Two big climbs, two long descents. I couldn’t visualize the finish yet, but I knew it was coming.

I swear it’s almost done. Just one more post… by tomorrow, I hope!