(the following is a long
pacer report; I will publish some key notes and things I learned/tips later
this week, along with a few photos)
PART ONE
We roll into the Hyak aid station (mile 53) just after
8:30pm.
Dave has been hitting all of our projected splits for the first 40+ miles,
and we expect him in around 9:15-9:30pm.
Of all the runners (he was around 20th-25th
place) we saw come through Tacoma Pass (mile 23) and Stampede Pass (mile 33),
Dave had one of the biggest smiles of anyone. He was eating really well,
drinking lots of water and said he felt great. His pacing was nice and
conservative and he was very happy to have his parents crewing for him and
cheering him on.
We kitted him out with lights and more food at Stampede and
running out of the aid station I let him know we’ll see him in 20 miles and he
tells me to go get some rest before joining him at Hyak to pace for the last 47
miles. Great, Hyak can’t come soon enough!
I try to nap, but end up lying with my eyes closed for 50
minutes; no chance of sleep.
We’re setting up our station for Dave when someone at the
timing table calls out, “Are Dave Swoish’s parents here?”
We all freeze for a second, then walk over.
“He’s broken his ankle.”
So many expletives rush through my head along with moderate
disbelief. Dave is not an out-of-control trail runner.
“Oh, it’s only sprained, but he’s back at Olallie Meadows
[mile 47] and he needs to be picked up.”
Nothing you can do about a physical injury that prevents you
from running. I guess the “good” news is that the ligaments aren’t completely
torn, and he’s only in an air-boot for the next two weeks.
Dave has a great 100-mile run in him, and I hope he recovers
well and quickly. He knows I’ll be there, wherever/whenever it happens.
PART TWO
9:03pm
I’m in my full kit, headlamp, hydration pack, pacer bib
pinned on my shorts, without a runner. I’m really torn about what to do. I want
to go and see Dave, find out what happened and hear how his ankle is. At the
same time, I’ve spent countless hours memorizing the second half of the Cascade
Crest course, time splits for a certain finishing time and through lots of
discussion with Dave, what we thought was a solid race plan.
The only option I can think of is asking
Martin Criminale if
I can join him. I know he and Dave had been running together a bit (and also at
the CC training runs), and Martin had been showing up at the aid stations about
5-8 minutes before Dave. He was the only person I knew (having only just been
properly introduced at the start line) and that didn’t have a pacer.
Three headlamps are bobbing under I-90 along the road down
to Hyak. I figure one must be Martin and run over. Sure enough, he’s the first
one in.
I fill him in on Dave and he graciously says I can join him
for the night. I note that he was planning to pick up his iPod here, but wife
Shelley puts it back in his supply bag. He washes his feet and goes with new
socks, shoes and a fresh shirt (pretty much same plan Dave had, except the
shoes).
Although Martin didn’t know it, I basically tried to
implement the plan Dave and I had come up with (largely follows advice of
previous finishers). Martin was basically on the exact splits I had memorized
(a 23:30 finish), so I didn’t have to do any recalculating. His stated goal was to finish, with a pie-in-the-sky DREAM of sub-24.
Leaving Hyak there is 15 miles of road to Lake Kachess.
Everyone says you can make up time here, and you can. Once we hit the climb
coming out of Hyak we had a great power hike up the steep road. We passed quite
a few people here that never passed us back. Near the top of the climb it's quite
runnable, and we moved well into the aid station, fueled, and headed out for
the 8-mile descent.
It’s a long, long road down, and we were fairly moderate on
the quads. We (or maybe just my thinking?) was trying to run it well enough to
bank a little time, but not all out. Just like the climb, we passed a couple
people we never saw again and enjoyed pretty much the full descent with
Mike D’Antonio.
We also took a walk break about halfway down. This helped Martin and Mike just
take a break from the knee pounding.
Shelley meets us at Kachess, we do the aid station gig and
head out for the Trail from Hell.
Everyone says this is horrendous, slow, and you should just
plod through it because everyone is going the same speed. Well, yes, and no. A
good portion of it is runnable; at least two miles, maybe three. There are some
logs to jump over, some rocky sections, a couple creek crossings and one or two
dicey steps over steep runoffs down to the lake. It’s the most technical part
of the second half of the course, but it’s not hell.
The split that I had for this section was about two hours,
and we did it in 1:40ish (the results' splits must include the aid station breaks).
Mineral Creek aid station: more soup and a little cup of
beer for Martin (said the savory taste was nice after eating sweet stuff all
day).
Dave and I had a plan to move real quick up this road since
the Cardiac Needles were next on the ridge. The first few miles are pretty
steep though, and we’re in power-hike mode almost the whole time.
Over the last few miles every time the road flattens out I
start shining my light ahead to show Martin it’s flatter and we can run. I
never say anything, but he usually picked up on it, or realized it himself, and
we alternate between running and hiking.
The moon finally comes out from behind the clouds and we
enjoy the last mile or so by moonlight with our headlamps off. It gets us out
of LED tunnel vision and is really a beautiful experience, running the little
downhill portion and then hiking in with our moon-cast shadows. For once the
volunteers aren’t yelling, “runner!” and we sneak up on the folks at No-Name
Ridge.
It’s 3:49am and a little breeze makes it quite chilly at 4,900ft.
More soup for Martin and we take a minute to warm our hands at the large propane
heater.
We start moving from No-Name out the ridge toward the
needles. We’re off and on hiking and running and Martin’s still moving very
well. We’re more than 40 minutes under 23:30 pace.
Every once in a while he frets that “24 hours” is gone
and he’s not sure if he can make it. He does make a few calculations, saying
things like “we have 10 hours for the last 50k” (when we were at Kachess), but
I never actually told him what pace we were going.
A few steep climbs and some good shuffling and we come to
the Thorp climb. Amazingly, Thorp is the only small bad patch Martin has.
Eating in between aid stations increasingly has gotten more difficult and he
hasn’t had any food for about an hour. We have to take two little breaks on the
hike up and I snap two pictures of him on the dark summit. A dark view of
surrounding hills is all we get. We hike most of the descent down.
Martin knows this is the low point so far. He sits a bit at
the aid station, no hot food as it’s hike-in only, just some snacks, candy and
gels.
I tell him we just need to get through the next four miles
well to French Cabin, and then its downhill and flat home to the finish. We’re
still great on time, and I don’t tell him what I think we can finish in.
Finally on the way to French Cabin the sun starts to come
up, and it’s bright enough that we can turn off our headlamps. Earlier in the
night Martin had pondered if he would get a boost from the sunrise. Whether he
knew it at the time or not, he did. Maybe it was the food from Thorp too, but
his hiking was quicker and the running was at a better pace too. It feels more
like how we were moving 20 miles earlier.
French Cabin, 88.7 miles: fake mustaches, berets, peach
mimosas, bacon croissants and a French tricolor-draped pine tree. We’d been
going back and forth with
Amy Rusiecki and
her pacer (not bad, right?) all
night since Hyak. Hiking up the climb from French Cabin we passed them for the
last time.
Down, down, down, like the descent to Kachess going to
Silver Creek feels long. But it is a beautiful trail: semi-open forest,
wildflowers, the meandering stream. It alternates between slight downhill,
which feels decent to run, and steeper downhill where we have to hike a little
as its too much on Martin’s knee and feet.
About halfway down this climb we start to seriously talk
about what time we’re at. His stomach is a little upset so we plan to have some
cola only at Silver Creek and then bring it in as quick as we can to the
finish.
This is the first time we discuss going sub-23. I hope he
got as excited as I did. All night I kept track of his pace and knew that
without a meltdown, we were going to be well under 24 hours. At one point we
even said, “we could walk the last four miles and finish just over 23 hours.” All I'd been saying was a mix of, "you're moving well," "good job," "nice section," etc.
We got passed by the second place woman here, who went
flying down about one mile before Silver Creek. She was the only person who
passed us in the last 31 miles. That’s solid, both on Martin, and on
Kelly Cronin. We finally see a white tent down below.
“Runner!”
Shelley surprised Martin at the aid station with her
mountain bike to ride it in with us. Martin drinks three cups of Mountain Dew
(which he admits after finishing is one too many), I have some coke and just as
we’re leaving we hear cowbell and “runner!” It only adds to the motivation.
We can’t all out run the whole way, but do a great
alternating pattern of running a few hundred yards, walking for maybe 50-75
yards, and then repeating. The running pace is quick and the walk is a power
walk.
Shelley joins us down on the road with about three miles
left. Eventually it comes down to having 30 minutes left for the last two-ish
miles.
“I can see the finish,” Martin says.
“You can do it man, 200 yards.”
RD Rich White is on the loudspeaker…“Welcome back to Easton,
from Seattle, Washington, Martin Criminale!”
He has a truly wonderful smile on his face, gives me a big hug, followed quickly by hugs and kisses to Shelley once she gets off her bike.
That’s one hell of a run for anyone, let alone someone who
ran their first 50-miler only six weeks prior and also is 49 years old (just
sayin’).
Thank you for changing your plans midway, Martin. That was a
risky thing to do when you hadn’t planned on having a pacer, and I’m very
grateful to have been part of your experience.
Thank you to Dave and parents Swoish. You know we have plans
to complete.
The volunteers were amazing at every aid station. As I was
trying to get stuff for Martin they were continuously asking me what I needed.
A few times I laughed because I’d only been running for a few hours, not 15!
Thanks to everyone who was out there.
I’m going to write up some notes for others who will pace
and share them later this week, along with some photos. I hope they’ll be beneficial for other runners
or pacers.
-Luke
