My first 100 mile-pacing duties

Rustyboy · LA, CA Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 225

Wow. Just. wow.

Friday night, I drove down to San Diego to pace my friend Bud in the San Diego 100, a race run in the Cleveland mountains east of San Diego. You may recall that Bud and I ran the final 8 or so miles of my first 50k race last january and runs 100s all the time...at 58 years of age.

We were to meet at an aid station called "Todd's Cabin" around midnight-2am, so I procured a hotel room after watching the race's 6 AM start and helping set up an aid station tent and hunkered down for some intense naptime around 11am.

I snagged around 3 hours, watched a bunch of cable, and at 10:00pm, headed out to Todd's Cabin, about 1 hour away. According to the pacer instructions, the cabin was about 1/4 mile from the area where we were to park, so I set off into the darkness of the trail, me, my flashlight, and my water pack, beneath a black, star-filled sky. In fact, the sky was SO big and filled with stars, during my awe of it, I ran past the trail's turnoff point to get to the cabin and ran an extra 2 miles out before coming across runners heading towards it, informing me to turn around. So, I got in an extra 4-5 miles of running (but DID get to see a meteor burn out across the sky: It was white as it shot, then turned a crimson orange as it faded).

I managed to get to the cabin at 11:30, and it was soooo cozy: Old fire stove, lots of sofas and chairs...DEATH for any runner who would drag their tired ass inside after 75, grueling miles. I assisted in getting food to runners as I waited, and actually ran into a guy I'd run part of the Calico 50k with. He looked fresh and great. Another guy, Robert, didn't, and he wound up dropping, even after my shoving food, Tylenol, and fluids his direction.

The hours ticked by, and by 3am, I had the guys radio the previous aid stations to see if Bud (lucky #13) had come though. He had, but he was slow, so I grew a little concerned regarding his condition. Lo and behold, not 30 minutes later, in rolled Bud, all smiles and jokes with the aid station workers. We hugged and he introduced me to his friend Darren, who was looking, well, like @ss. He explained that he was getting over a cold, PLUS, he hadn't really trained for this race (he isn't inexperienced at all: He's run Badwater 3x, and H.U.R.T. several times), so they'd been crawling along, about 1 1/2 hours behind Bud's desired pace.

At 4:00, flashlights in hand and headlamps beaming, we struck out into the night, Darren, power walking behind our shuffling up ahead. It. Was. Beautiful. There's nothing like being alone on mountain trails at night. We talked, didn't talk, joked, relieved ourselves many-a-time (I was glad to see they were both hydrated), and then, after a small aid station stop, Bud told us to go ahead, as he was taking a "deuce break".

I was concerned for Darren and didn't want to push him too hard, but also, at mile 81, thought he should keep moving. And he did. He dug deep, and before too long, we were running at a decent pace across the rooty, rocky, dark trails, him telling me about Badwater, how awful he was feeling, his kids, and I kept him talking/running for a good 30 mns, knowing in full that Bud would catch up, but I had to keep his legs going.

As the sunrise came, Bud caught us, laughing at our increased pace. We were around mile 88 at this point, and Darren looked like death, but when we stopped, Bud sat him down and said, "Even if we don't make the cutoff, we're crossing that finish line together. All 3 of us." I nearly cried but held back, since the last thing Darren needed was a pacer weeping over such a loyal friendship.

The miles crept by, but onward we shoved, as the sun hit us in an exposed, rocky area, but only 10k to go! A loooong final climb came about 3 miles before the finish (don't they always in trail races?), and Darren needed to take rest breaks in the shade, but the barn door was ever-so-close, and as we slapped our feet across the finish in 29:50 (a good 1 + hours before the cutoff time), I was blown away by the determination of both Darren and Bud.

It's looking as though the San Diego 100 will be my first 100 next year. Maybe I'll break the new course record set by Carl Melzer this weekend of 15 hrs, 48 mns?

Probably not so much.