The Scenic Mound

I am confident that I am physically ready for AC100. What I’m not as confident about is that I am mentally ready.

Mahatma Gandhi is famously quoted as saying “I have only three enemies. My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire. My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mahatma Ghandi. With him I seem to have very little influence.”

We’d finished a training run from Islip Saddle to Chilao, the second 25 miles of the race, including what for many has been the roughest area – the hot dip down into Cooper Canyon. Last year all the front runners all fell behind pace down there.

We were sitting in the parking lot at Chilao and one of the runners, a very strong woman with a number of wins on her resume (but none of those wins at the 100 mile distance) said what had been on my mind: that she wasn’t mentally ready. Mari Lemus has finished AC100 and Badwater 135, and her husband Jorge Pacheco has won AC100 4 of his 6 finishes, and Badwater 1 of his 3 finishes. On a short run with Mari from Chilao to Shortcut, she stressed the importance of being mentally ready.

The Ghandi quote above is taken from a book by Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock Monastery in Northern California and one of the most important Western Buddhist teachers. The quote is in a chapter called “Stopping the War”, which is about being at war with the way things are. Ghandi, Kornfield writes, is talking about the inability to change ourselves for the better through willpower. “When we struggle to change ourselves, we only continue the patterns of self-judgment and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive,” Kornfield writes.

Kornfield writes of a student who rebelled against all authority, and travelled to Thailand to join a monastery. Unfortunately, he struggled just as hard at the monastery, prompting his teacher to say “You are struggling with everything. How is it that the food bothers you, the sounds bother you, the chores bother you, even your mind bothers you? What I want to know is when you hear a car come by, does it really come in and bother you, or are you going out to bother it? Who is bothering whom?“

My pattern during races is to get frustrated and want to quit. Something will not be going my way, and at some point someone at an aid station is likely to have to talk me into finishing, or at least stall my dropping long enough for me to talk my own self into continuing.

That pattern is me struggling with some reality – the reality of things not going exactly as I’d hoped and planned – and wanting to quit. Almost always, the problem is not one of the present moment but of some future: that I will not finish near my goal time is common (and usually when this thought happens, I do finish near or even under my goal time).

Sometimes things are just frustrating. This week, it feels like the world is conspiring to make my life as annoying as possible. In truth, it’s worries about AC100, sadness at the death of a friend from long ago, sadness and a strange feeling of estrangement for being a survivor of a particular scene – the Austin Tx punk scene circa 1980 – that has so many deaths, frustration with a few things at work, frustration with a friend who I am watching make a succession of bad decisions, and all of these individually perfectly deal-with-able frustrations compound one another until they form some bigger-than-the-sum-of-its-parts block of resistance.

The running has been fun, though. Sometimes when I’m running alone and I’m on a long hard climb at mile 30, I start to question this whole thing…but not as often as I used to.

Now it’s off to Bishop for Bishop High Sierra 100K.

Leona Divide 50 miler. 9,000 feet of climbing, 40 miles of singletrack, 10 miles of fireroad, all rolling hills in the Sierra Pelona Mountains.

My goal for Leona was to run skillfully. What does that mean, exactly? Well, I’ve run some pretty unskillful races before. The one that comes to mind most is Sierra Nevada Endurance Run, where I went out too fast, faded physically in the heat at around the 30 mile mark, and then broke down mentally soon after, resulting in a miserable time that was way off my goal, but was still good enough to earn me second place in my division because everyone else was suffering too in the heat.

The week before Leona Divide, my friend Maggie ran Labor of Love 100 miler, a hilly road race in the Nevada desert. Maggie was the defending women’s champ and is the women’s course record holder. Her crew reports she was running full of joy, like a little kid. That excitement earned her a 3:06 22.5 mile split, which quite probably meant a marathon PR.

The problem was that this was not a marathon but a 100 mile race, and it was hot and exposed out in the desert. By my calculations she was on pace to run a 15 hr 100 miler, late mile slowdown included, taking 5 hours off her own PR and course record, and running the one of the fastest women’s 100 milers in recent years. Her childlike glee at mile 23 was not so evident at mile 45, and at mile 53 she dropped and had to be hospitalized.

This is an extreme example of what I and so many others often do. The legendary Eric Clifton is known for this same crash-and-burn approach. It serves some runners well, and Maggie usually gets away with it, finishing first or second.

I am not a strong enough runner to make that work. That kind of race is not dissimilar to the way I lived my life in my 20s: I’d manage to hustle up barely enough money to last 2 weeks, blow it all on partying and excitement in the first week, and spend the last week with barely enough to eat. It was not a skillful and balanced life. For me, a skillful race would mean a disciplined race.

Shunryu Suzuki wrote “It is necessary for us to keep the constant way. Zen is not some sort of excitement but concentration on our usual everyday routine. If you become too busy and too excited, your mind becomes rough and ragged. This is not good. Try to always be calm and joyful and keep yourself from excitement…If we become interested in some excitement, we will become completely involved in our busy life and we will be lost. But if your mind is calm and constant, you can keep yourself away from the noisy world even though you are in the midst of it.”

I spend all these hours running up in the mountains because I am training for a race, but I also race in order to spend all these hours up in the mountains training for it. The mountains are where I go to get away from the noisy world.

The Lake Hughes Community Center was packed at 5am. A number of people had gone up Friday, enjoyed the pre race dinner, a fun-run hosted by race sponsor Montrail, and a screening of the Western States movie “Unbreakable” All the usual gang was there: George Velasco, Tiffany Guerra, Sally McRae, Jorge Pacheco, Dominic Grossman, Donn Ozaki, along with some of the people I don’t see as frequently, like Eric Clifton. Sada Crawford was making her return after a little more than a year off due to a broken foot. Kista checked in with Keira, snapped photos and talked to friends while I complained about the cold. A bunch of the old running running gang were there: Carlo, Drew, Blair & Omar, all running their first 50K, and Luis, running his second. I haven’t been running with them much this year because my training has been later in the day (for heat) and up in the mountains.

Because Leona Divide is a Montrail Cup race, with automatic entry into Western States for the first and second place male and female winners, it attracts the top ultra runners in the country. Because race director Keira Henninger knows how to put on and promote a good production, because local running store ARC has linked up with Keira, and, finally, because there is a 50K in addition to the 50 miler, there were a lot of road runners running their first ultra.

One of the (many) things that makes ultras special and that distinguishes them from big road events that have 20,000 or more participants, is that the newbies are shoulder to shoulder with the elites. I’m not sure if Omar knew who all the runners he was standing aside (and in front) were, looking in bemusement as he flexed his muscles for the camera, but 4 of them would shatter Ben Hian’s 17-year-old course record. Even if he didn’t know who he was lined up next to, Omar was clearly thrilled to be there.

I lined up at back. I figured it would be better to pass people in the beginning than to get caught up in the excitement nearer the front of the pack.

The race began with a 4 mile climb up a wide fire-road, which was perfect; it allowed the front runners to make their moves past the enthusiastic newbies unsure of trail etiquette. It was an 8 mile climb to the first aid station, and during that climb we passed what would be aid station 2, just setting up. This was an mile loop that would not be repeated on the return. The rest of the course was out-and-back. The second aid station was manned by folks from ARC, one of the local shops, very supportive of local races and the running community and getting behind their first ultra. It was good to see so many familiar faces.

The first 12 miles had been mostly uphill. Past aid station 2 came the first significant downhill – a 3 – 4 mile stretch of singletrack down to the 16 mile mark, and our drop bags. Aid station 3 (which was also aid station 9) was also the one place where runners had access to crews, friends, families, spectators, etc., as it was at the one spot on the course that crossed a road.

Kista, who was originally supposed to run the race before getting sidelined with injury, was volunteering at 3. I asked her about some of our friends: Jorge Pacheco, Sada Crawford, Tiffany Guerra… Jorge’s wife Mari Lemus was there and cheered me on. I was just about 15 minutes ahead of my schedule as I left the aid station and started the first significant climb the race, a 4 mile stretch of narrow singletrack.

I had not anticipated seeing runners on the return quite that soon and was looking down at the ground, which is my habit on uphills, so that I don’t notice the length of the climb. I heard someone yell and jumped out of the way with an apology. It was Sada, scampering down the steep hill, on her way to a very strong 50K win in her first race back after being sidelined over a year with a broken foot. She said hello as she sped past.

As I approached aid staion 4 and the 50K turnaround, I started to see a lot more runners I knew, passing me on their way back in. The trails were about to thin out considerably as half the runners were turning.

I hit aid station 4, still on schedule. The trail leveled out, and started to get particularly beautiful. We were in giant pine cone country, similar to the Angeles National Forest or the San Jacintos. On the way through this, on singletrack, I crossed paths with Jenn Shelton. Jenn is one of the stars of Chris McDougal’s “Born to Run”, an inspiring bestseller that seems to have paved the way for this new barefoot lifestyle trend. Unfortunately, McDougal does not seem to like women all that much and his depictions of the two in the book – the legendary Ann Trason and young upstart Jenn Shelton – are far from flattering. She was effusive in her thanks when I stepped off the trail, and I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look more like they were enjoying life than she did at that moment. Her happiness was infectious, and kept me happy throughout my much longer (in time, not distance) race.

Just behind her on the trail was last year’s second place female Paulette Zillmer from Arizona, who also won AC100. The week before, Paulette won Zane Grey, by all accounts one of the toughest 50 milers in the country. She might have left it on the course in Arizona. She and Jenn held their relative positions to finish 8th and 9th.

The Coyotes 80s themed aid station was somewhere deep in this forest. Coming out of there, things continued up, but an easy up, very runnable even for a slacker like me.

At mile 26 or so we emerged from forest and headed down an exposed fire-road to the turn-around. This was the ugly part of the race. The view below was basically Palmdale or Lancaster, or desert/meth-head flatness. As I started down I saw a number of folks I knew almost finishing their climb back up. Tiffany Guerra and just behind her Sally Mcrae…

I’d been running more-or-less with the same group of people for the last 10 miles. I turned it on a bit on the downhill, and then spent a litle more time than usual at the Hawaiian themed aid station at the bottom.

This was the 50 mile turn around. I looked at my notes one last time. Still slightly ahead of pace. I’d been running steady and hitting my marks.

The climb back up was long, exposed, steep in parts, and there would only be one significant climb after it, coming out of station #9 at the 42 mile point. Much to the frustration of speedster running partners, I walk hills in my training. They say “yes, you’ll walk the hills during races but if you run them in training you’ll become a stronger runner.” They might be right, but since I am going to power walk them during races, I might as well power walk during training, too. It’s a skill just as important to me as, say, knowing how to run technical downhill.

My powerwalk back up the hill took me past about 5 people. We hit the top, and 20 miles of mostly downhill began. This is where I do best, and what I’d been saving up for. I was feeling fresher than I usually do at the 30 mile mark because I’d held back in the beginning. In my own experience and observation of others, the time gained by putting miles in the bank at the start of a race is always more than eaten up by the slow-down it causes at the end. I started picking people of on the downhill. One after another after another. Most were gracious about moving off the trail to let me pass. Some were not, and after calling out a few times I’d need to wait a half mile or so until I found a wider spot where I could get around them.

Moving faster and in the afternoon sun, parts of the course that seemed uninteresting on the slow climb up became quite beautiful. There was a stretch of tight turns on hardpacked white sand, all exposed, very little vegetation, and it was beautiful. I wondered why I had no recollection of this part of the course on the way up.

It is much easier for me to detach myself from a race’s result than it is for a front-runner, because one thing I never have to attach to is the desire to win, and unlike road races, where conditions are so controlled and uniform that time can translate across races, time is more-or-less irrelevant. A 5 hour finish on one course might be less of an accomplishment than a 7 hour finish on another. That said, there were frequent moments in the race where I would spot another runner ahead of me and think “I’m gonna beat that one”. This was especially true the closer I got to the finish. I would survey the course ahead of us and consider when to make my move. The best time would be right after a climb, when they were tired and when I could quickly put some distance between us. It was kind of thrilling when I realized that no-one was going to have passed my since the turn around, and that I had might have picked off nearly 50 runners.

At mile 42 I passed someone I knew who had 5 or 6 miles on me at the turnaround. I was quick through the aid station and started the last long climb. It was steep, and exposed, and I was hot and tired. It leveled out sooner than I anticipated, and the runnable sections became longer and longer. I passed people power walking, and I passed more running. I came upon a baby rattlesnake stretched across the trail, and stepped carefully around it.

The singletrack spilled out onto fireroad for the last 5 miles. I hit the last aid station, filled up quickly, and powerwalked up the road. I could see a pair of guys up there, one of whom had about 6 miles on me at the turn around. I decided I would pass them on the final 3 mile downhill.

Kista yelled at me for coming in to her aid station with my bottles too full. In the last three miles I could feel I’d underdone it just a bit with nutrition and fluids. I kicked it up a gear with no trouble, but when I tried to take it up a second gear I started to feel cramping in my left hamstring. The solution was to try to keep my stride the same length, pick up my cadence, and weave my way around the ruts without leaping.

One of the guys on the hill decided to give me a bit of a fight. He caught up with me on a slight uphill. We ran together for a minute and then I sped up again on the downhill. This time he stayed behind.

I’d plotted out a rather arbitrary finishing time of 11 hours. I chose that number because it’s the qualifying time for Western States. I finished in 10:31, running negative splits, which placed me at the bottom of the top third. More important, though, is that this was the first race that felt good from start to finish. We all have struggles of some kind in races, but mine, in the past, have almost all been of my own doing. This time I ran a smooth, balanced race, and that allowed me to better deal with the things I could not control, like the heat.

I congratulated friends and was congratulated by friends at the finish. We compared races. Jorge Pacheco said that having 4 guys smash Ben Hian’s 17 year old record was good for the sport, but I thought I heard a bitter-sweetness in his voice.

It took an hour before my legs stopped twitching and we could head home.

For Dominic Grossman’s race report, click here.

Tuesday: Cherry Canyon, Griffth Park: 16 miles
2,400 feet climbing.
Wednesday: Cherry Canyon 6 miles
900 feet of climbing
Thursday: Treadmill in the rain, 5 miles
Saturday: Leona Divide 50 miles
9,000 feet of climbing
Sunday: El Prieto w/ Kista 13 miles
3,000 feet of climbing
Total: 89 miles, 15,600 feet of climbing

Race Director Hal Winton, Shortcut Saddle

I picked the first day of trailwork because I reckoned the temperatures would be lower, and because we would be working on a section of trail that wasn’t exposed or covered in poodle-dog bush. It was also my birthday.

My plan worked out halfway, as we were hit with a heatwave and temperatures were in the high eighties – warm for April.

Manual labor is not an area in which I excel. I work at a desk. Swinging a pick-axe for 7 hours to widen a trail is not something that comes easily to me. This was a workout, not just for me but for all of us. A least a few people wondered aloud why it was that prisoners on chain gangs weren’t doing this sort of work.

That said, one’s appreciation for these trails must go up considerably after just a single day is spent working to maintain them. If everyone who uses these trails spent some time widening them, clearing them, cleaning them, there’d be a lot less tendency to discard trash, rut them up with mountain bikes, and all the rest.

At some point in time, we saw just about everyone. Tiffany Guerra and a crew of Coyotes stopped for a moment to say hello while running up the trail. There was one guy running hill repeats up Winter Creek trail, which is impressive, since I think that stretch is tough to run just once. I even met Gil Blank, who has the distinction of being the slowest official finisher in race history, coming in at 32:59:43 – 17 seconds shy of the 33 hour cut-off. He was proud enough of his accomplishment to speak it. Imagine the pressure – knowing that after having run 99 miles you were in danger of not making the cut-off at the finish.

Sunday was a training run from Chilao to Chantry – the 3rd quarter of the race, more or less, and a stretch that will probably be run almost entirely in the dark. Andy Kumeda led a group out early, marking the trail, which was especially important on the climb from Chilao to Charlton Flats. This year, the race will be back on the Silver Moccasin trail for sections that were closed last year due to the Station Fires. It’s easy to get off course (although getting completely lost would be a little harder as there is a paved road that zig-zags to Charlton Flats as well).

Charlton Flats is where I expect my lights will come on. The trail then heads down an exposed mountain side, somewhat rutted and technical, and then there’s a short, covered climb back up to Shortcut Saddle, where Bill Ramsey will be running the aid station of all aid-stations, tempting to hang out, eat dinner and spend some time.

I’ll pick up my first pacer at Chilao, and swamp him/her out for pacer #2 at Shortcut. I won;t see my crew again until the 75 mile mark at Chantry.

From Shortcut to Newcombe’s Saddle is a long climb down and then back up on wide, rocky fireroad. Despite being rocky, this should be easily runnable at night. From Newcombe’s Saddle, however, the trail gets somewhat technical – rocky singletrack downhill – possibly a bit tough in the dark on tired legs. It bottoms out in Sturdevant Camp. There will be a few miles on a much wider, more travelled and touristed trail, ending with a short, steep uphill climb on pavement into Chantry.

The Chilao to Chantry section of the trail has 4,000 feet of climbing and 7,000 feet of downhill. Sunday’s run was fun. I kept an easy pace, and got it done faster than I thought, especially given the heat.

I ended the week with a climb up Eldred Street. When I got back from the mountains, Kista was just returning from this climb, so excited but without words to adequately explain it, so the best solution seemed to be to just do it again and show it to me. Eldred Street is just behind our house. It is also the steepest street in California, with a 33.5% grade, dead-ending at a set of stairs that finishes the climb to the top of Mt. Washington. The neighborhood up Eldred has a particular and peculiar character, sort of young mets old, hillbilly artist. It’s also where the roosters live that wake us up every morning. It’s all the eccentricity of Mt. Washington but magnified and concentrated, without the distracting pockets of wealth. We did a short run through tiny Moon Canyon Park, admired the sometimes dizzying cliff’s-edge views of the city below, and had a great time exploring the neighborhood. One of the blessings of living in LA (there are a few) is the wealth of odd, eccentric, and beautiful neighborhoods, especially in the hills just north and northeast of downtown: Echo Park, Montecito Heights, El Sereno, Mt. Washington, Highland Park… It’s easy to forget in the sprawl and show-biz crassness that this is an amazing town.

Tuesday: Cherry Canyon, Griffith Park – 15 miles,
2000 feet climbing

Wednesday: Debs Park – 7.5 miles
1,200 feet climbing

Thursday: Cherry Canyon, Griffith Park – 16 miles,
1,900 feet climbing

Saturday: trailwork, Wintercreek Trail

Sunday: Chilao to Chantry – 22 miles
4,000 feet climbing.

Totals: 61 miles, 9,000 feet of climbing.

Snowman at Mt. Lowe

April 9 – 15. Every time I run El Prieto, I run into Ian Rusk, who stops and introduces himself and tells me how many consecutive days he’s hiked. Saturday made 1009 days in a row. When it’s raining, as it did Friday, he hikes in his hallway. When he was in the hospital for minor surgery, he hiked the hallways there.

I’m not as diligent about it as Ian Rusk. This week, I really slacked off. Tuesday morning I had a wonderful 7 miles in Cherry Canyon, and came up the elderly throat singing couple I wrote about in Cherry Canyon Overtones. Tuesday evening I struggled through 8 miles of flat on the Griffith Park bridle trails. Somehow between 10am and 6pm I’d lost it all.

The weather didn’t feel right – it felt like a storm was on its way, which was indeed the case – and I felt tired and sore and like I’d rather be parked on the sofa watching TV, which is usually not what I do.

Wednesday I played hooky from running. Thursday I debated going to the gym instead and blew that off too. Friday another storm blew in, and with it came snow as low as 4,300 feet.

Saturday I’d've stayed home too except that I really really wanted to play in the snow even more than I didn’t want to run. I set out at 10am – I’m a late runner, none of that 6am-on-weekends crap for me. As usual, I ran into folks I know…and, because it was El Prieto, I ran into Ian Rusk.

Yogi Berra said “When you get to a fork in the road, take it.” This is the sort of accidental Zen koan he was famous for. I didn’t follow his advice. Instead, I turned right when I should’ve turned left, and that was a fortuitous mistake that took me up a trail that ended with a car hood upon which is painted the first verse of the St. Francis Prayer, which, in its entirety and as far as I am concerned, is about as concise and clear-cut a set of instructions on how to live life as ever was written. This prayer pretty much anticipates ever self-centered thought or action I might ever have and presents me with the exact contrary action to take.

Bouyed by seeing friends, encountering Ian Rusk, and stumbling up the St. Francis Prayer (and a bunch of weird yardart just beyond the trail head), I headed up…and up…and up…following the ac100 course in reverse for a ways but looping around to Mt. Lowe Camp rather than Echo Mountain, and then up to Mt. Lowe itself rather than down from Sam Merrill.

I started hitting patches of snow at about 4,300 feet. As I got closer to 5,000 feet, the snow got thick. I stopped and made a little snowman and then continued a few miles in the snow until I reached the trail up to Mt. Lowe summit.

There were no footprints but mine at this point. There was also a search-and-rescue helicopter flying around. I don’t know the trail to Mt. Lowe summit well enough to know what was underneath the snow, and it was slippery, so I decided to play it safe and head back down.

Here’s a bit of trivia: In 1886, Mrs. J.D. Hooker took the trail from Switzer’s Camp to the top of Mt. Disappointment, becoming the first woman to make a recorded ascent in the San Gabriels. Mrs. J.D. Hooker was good friends with John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. She spent a lot of time climbing various peaks in the San Gabriels, and her adventures are well documented on the Sierra Club website.

Tuesday: 14 miles (Cherry Canyon – 6, Griffith Park – 8.)
1,400 feet climbing (16 Heartbreak Hills)

Saturday: 26 miles, El Prieto to Mt. Lowe & back
5,650 feet of climbing (64 Heartbreak Hills)

Sunday: 13 miles, Eaton Canyon/Mt. Wilson Tollroad
3,700 feet climbing (42 Heartbreak Hills)

Total: 54 miles, 10,750 feet climbing (122 Heartbreak Hills)

125 runners. 60 volunteers. Ultrarunners are always highly appreciative of the aid stations and volunteers; on a long, hard race, for me at least, the tough parts are run aid station to aid station. I never realized the extent of the production involved to support me and all the others on our 50+ mile races through the mountains. Here, Kista Cook writes about her day volunteering for Old Goats, a tough, tough 50 miler through the Santa Ana Mountains.

Alarm goes off at 3 a.m. I pile all my gear in the driveway – large fitness bag packed with running gear, cold weather gear and rain gear, a soft cooler with water bottles and food, a folding chair, sleeping bag, and blanket. Donn O. rolls up at about 4:30 a.m., we load, and head to Blue Jay Campground located in Cleveland National Forest. Within a hour and a half the city lights are long gone and we’re deep in the woods on a windy road. Just like the city, we can’t find a place to park. The road is jammed packed with runners. Runners that have come out to run 50 miles on a course “even the downhill is up” – Old Goats 50. We’re here to volunteer.

I love the sound of slow rolling tires over gravel, car interior dings, doors and trunks shutting, and feet hustling to the starting line. We’re using our quiet forest pre dawn voices. Donn O. and I get to park close right by the white glowing tent with black boxes, towers and blinking things – HAM central.

Volunteers buzzed from table to vehicles to tents. Runners checked in, dropped drop bags, and fumbled with their race bibs. I said my hellos to some ultra family folks. L.T., Timing Commander, strung the sensors like holiday lights. Race Director Steve Harvey made announcements, and the goats were out of the pen.

Volunteer coordinator “Munz” dashed about orchestrating below-the-line and above-the-line crews. I got the low-down from Lorraine about the supplies accompanying us to our station. Organization makes me giddy! The 4×4 guys pulled in and one aid station at a time loaded up. Food and hydration containers, tables, pop-ups, drop bags, dogs, and bodies squished into vehicles. I stuffed my face with muffins and coffee: volunteer fuel.

My ride had goats glued to the hood. We off-loaded our gear at West Horse Thief, mile 44.5 of the 50 mile course. I had one volunteer mate to start – a German fellow and his dog, Lucky. We set up camp and I honestly thought I’d sit down, doodle and nap. Well, the first two happened but not for long. To our surprise, HAM operator Todd arrived and we felt like grown-ups. I ‘ve got the need-to-know thing and guess what? So do most runners. Thanks to HAM Todd, we knew every time a runner went through an aid station and could often estimate when they’d be coming through ours.

We spent most of the day on our feet prepping supplies and tending to runners. Not much food intake at mile 44.5, so we fed them encouragement. As the sun fell, we got word that the last runner was not going to make the cut-off and needed to be yanked off course at our station. This was bitter sweet because I knew the guy. I also wanted to be the one to do it because I wanted to protect him somehow. He was pissed – pissed at himself for not making the cut off. After he stomped about while we made room for him in one of the HAM vehicles he looked up and saw that it was me and smiled. I kept talking to him to keep his mind off of riding out instead of running out.

About 9 p.m., we were back at command central to see the last runner cross the finish line and fall into the arms of a small crowd of cheers and tears. Runners bellied up to the burger bar. Volunteers still hustling about. Donn O. and I headed back to the big city. Next morning, I awoke in pain and could barely get out of bed. Turns out I pulled a hip muscle while volunteering! I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, maybe I’d let the boys do the heavy lifting.

125 runners.
Approximately 60 volunteers.
Great outdoors = bathroom
Saw smallest drop bag ever. A small Ziploc bag with a gel and energy drink.
Saw largest item in drop bag. A gallon jug of water. Jug punctured and things got wet.

Ultrarunner and artist Kista Cook is a hundred mile finisher whose blog can be found here. Daughter of a hot-rod detailer, she makes custom race medal racks, which can be seen and ordered at gurlrun.com. For an Old Goats race report from a runner’s perspective, read Dominic Grossman’s account on Over the Peak & Through the Pines.

The Cherry Canyon trails and fireroads have become a favorite weekday morning run. There’s a network of fireroads over rolling hills, and on the northern half of the park there is also a network of short singletrack trails intersecting the fireroads – Cerro Negro trail, Liz’ Loop, Owl Trail, Ultimate Destination, and Conservancy Trail.

The southern end of the park seems to have only a single fire-road – the Ridge Trail, which runs about 2 miles of rolling hills before dead ending.

Many mornings as I run along the Ridge Trail, I come upon an elderly Asian couple. Sometimes they have a dog with them, but usually not. The old man is always carrying a piece of folded paper that he refers to as he scans the valley below from the trail. He’s looking for something. I’m not sure what.

They are most interested in the corners. They seem to examine each sharp turn in the trail, referring back to the sheet of paper, and if the corner satisfies whatever criteria the piece of paper contains, one or sometimes both of the eldery Asian couple will stand in the bend, facing out over the canyon, and sing.

It’s not the sort of singing you and I are used to hearing. I don’t hear anything I recognize as being words. The sounds themselves are often unfamiliar – odd and often haunting sounds that are not generated from the same place as the sounds of language. There are strange shifts in pitch, and harmonics.

It sounds to me like Throat Singing, or Overtone Singing, a type of singing thought to originate in Mongolia, which involves manipulating resonances and creating overtones, resulting in the creation of more than one pitch at the same time.

I’ve wondered if the point of seeking out these particular corners was to create echoes or otherwise let the sounds soar over the valleys. As it turns out, there might be some truth to this.

It’s a beautiful, eerie sound, and I always feel like I am interrupting something sacred when I pass by.

Here are a few more links to some incredible Mongolian Throat Singing pieces: Plains of the Elite and Tuvan Throat Singing.

There’s not much of a tradition of overtone singing in North America, although some early bluesman like Blind Willie Johnson often produced wordless blues moans that suggested the tonal timbres of overtone singing.

One ofBlind Willie Johnson’s most incredible pieces is “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”, recorded in 1927, with a bottleneck guitar melody that is the basis of Ry Cooder’s stunning Paris, Texas soundtrack. The wordless hums and moans are thought to represent the crucifixion of Christ, and the song was included on the 1977 Voyager to represent the sound of human loneliness.

Silver Moccasin Trail Between Shortcut & Charlton Flats

This week was a step-back week – what should have been a relaxed 76 miles that somehow still managed to have some serious elevation gain – 15,600 feet of climbing. For all you road runners, the much-talked-about and dreaded Heartbreak Hill at the end of the Boston Marathon rises 88 feet. Sunday, I ran the equivalent of 64 Heartbreak Hills. This week, with 15,600 feet of climbing over 76 miles, I ran the equivalent of 177 Heartbreak Hills. That would be an average of 2.3 Heartbreak Hills in every mile. Put another way, there was seldom a moment when I was not running up or down a Heartbreak Hill.

On Saturday, I started at Shortcut Saddle with the intention of running the AC course backwards past Chilao towards Mt. Hillyer, and then back, for a nice 20 miles.

The first stretch of Silver Moccasin Trail, from Shortcut to Charlton Flats, was a bit unnerving because it was unfamiliar and clearly seldom traveled, and I did not know I’d be hitting civilization (that means the Charlston Flat campgrounds) as quickly as I did. I reckoned that if anything went wrong, it could be weeks before anyone found me. In actuality, it would have been about an hour, because coming down the trail in the other direction were Jack Cheng, Wilson Liu, Anibal Corsi, Ernesto Cruz, and a handful of others.

Whenever I am in the mountains, I can always count on running into someone I know. In the city, not so much…

Jack wondered why I was running in the wrong direction and urged me to stop eating wheat, fried food and icecream. He rubbed my little belly and solemnly said AC100 will be much easier without it.

I missed the turn-off from the fireroad back onto Silver Moccasin Trail and never made it to Chilao. I headed back up to Shortcut, stopped for a bit to talk to a couple of the runners I’d passed early, and then headed down the fireroad towards Newcomb’s Saddle to make it an even 20 miles.

Sunday’s Easter run began at Eaton Canyon and went up the Mt. Wilson Tollroad through Henninger Flats, past the turn-off to Idlehour, and up 7.5 miles to the Wintercreek Trail, which I took down a few miles in the direction of Chantry.

Wintercreek is a lot of fun to run down. Unfortunately, at AC100, we will be coming up, not down, and doing it on legs that already have 75 miles of mountain running on them. This will not be fun. It’s a bitch to climb on fresh legs.
Once I hit the 10 mile mark, I turned around and headed back, up Wintercreek, & back down the Mt. Wilson Tollroad, for a total of 64 Heartbreak Hills.

Tuesday: 15 miles Cherry Canyon (7 miles), Griffith Park (8 miles)
2,700 feet climbing (31 Heartbreak Hills)

Wednesday: 9 miles, Arroyo Seco
200 feet (2.3 Heartbreak Hills)

Thursday: 14 miles. Cherry Canyon (8) Griffith Park (6)
2,700 feet climbing (31 Heartbreak Hills)

Friday: Rest.

Saturday: 20 miles: Shortcut almost to Chilao, and back.
4,400 feet climbing (50 Heartbreak Hills)

Sunday: 20 miles, Eaton Canyon, Mt. Wilson Tollroad, Winter Creek Trail
5,600 feet climbing (64 Heartbreak Hills).

Total: 76 miles, 15,600 feet climbing, 177 Heartbreak Hills

The original plan was to fully document this race. That turned out to be a bad idea.

I set out to run with a camera attached to my head and another in my pocket – too much gear, especially when it started malfunctioning (which is the way I explain not being able to figure out how it works because I never read the instruction manual). At the midway point I ditched the equipment and decided to race instead. The course is at its most interesting in the second half, and I had much more fun running it than I did trying to film it.

I’m not a multi-tasker.

My gear was waiting for me at the finish line, in time to catch Kista coming across the finish.

You can read about the 2012 race here and 2011 here.

A fun time was had by all.

Mt. Lowe Railroad

My longest mileage week yet. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday saw split runs – 6 or 7 miles in the morning, and then the same again in the evening after work; the evenings usually in Griffith Park and the mornings Cherry Canyon, Debs Park, & the Arroyo – the latter two runs straight out the door, keeping it all nearby.

Saturday’s run was 32 miles in Griffith Park – not a first choice for a run that long, but a choice that would keep me at lower elevations and never more than a few miles from the car in case I got hit by another downpour. I’d grown tired of running in the rain. Fortunately, Saturday just brought drizzle.

Constructing a 32 mile run in Griffith Park means a lot of doubling back and repeating short loops. The map of this run looks like a crayon drawing by a 3-year-old after they got into the liquor cabinet.

Sunday’s April Fool’s run was a beautiful run from the AC100 finish line up to Echo Mountain and then back down. There was a cold wind blowing at our house in Mt. Washington when I left, but opposite of usual the wind died down completely once I got up into the foothills, and it was a regular sunny day climbing up into the mountains.

The run was marred a little by a handful of aggressive mountain bike riders. Most of those guys are wonderful and chill but it only takes a couple of macho assholes to ruin things for everyone. I don’t particularly like having to leap out of the way when one of those guys comes barreling down the singletrack, GoPro camera attached to his head and Metallica blaring in the earbuds. These are the assholes I come into the mountains to get away from. I read on message boards about mountain bikers bemoaing the fact that nobody loves them and everyone wants them banned from the trails. Well, guys – the reason is that there are a few of you who just don’t play nice with others. Most people up in nature do not want to be nearly assaulted by some asshole who thinks every moment in life needs to be him winning an MMA contest.

Tuesday: 13.5 Debs Park, Silverlake Reservoir
1,100 feet climbing.

Wednesday: 12 miles. Flint Canyon & Griffith Park.
500 feet climbing.

Thurs: 13 miles. Arroyo Seco (8), Griffith Park (5)
200 feet climbing.

Sat March 31: 32 miles in Griffith Park.
3,700 ft elevation

Sunday, April 1: 17.5 miles, from ac100 finishline to Echo Mtn (and back).
5,000 ft elevation.

Total: 89.5 miles, 10,700 feet climbing.

Echo Mountain looking out over Los Angeles

San Gabriel Mountains

Finally, a good week. I made my mileage for only the 2nd or 3rd time since ac100 training began in earnest at the beginning of the year.

I attribute this almost entirely to my new Hoka Mafates. I was skeptical of this shoe when I first saw it – it looked like something only mid 90s ravers or extremely short people would wear, but eventually I started seeing elite runners wearing ‘em, which is not something I’ve seen with, say, VFFs, and I started recognizing that the thing that was making every long run a difficult slog & crippling my training was not exhaustion or muscle fatigue but chronic forefoot pain. The downhills in particular were killing me.

As usual, I could not buy the shoe in LA. I could only find two stores in this minimalist-obsessed town (we are at the forefront of blindly following every trend here in LA) that carried Hokas. One of the stores was out-of-stock, and the other (ARC) only carried them in tiny sizes. I ended up emailing Karl Meltzer for information and ordering them from Boulder Running Co.

And this is how I came to run a 35 miler with 6,700 feet of climbing on Saturday, up El Prieto to the top of Mt. Lowe, and back down again via Brown Mountain. It was, sort of, a significant chunk of the last 15 miles of ac100. As I was heading up I came upon and “ran” with Jai Ralls, who finished under 24 hours in 2008. We wound our way up the Mt. Lowe railroad road for a few miles. (If anyone has contact info on this guy, I’d love to talk to him about pacing me).

Sunday’s run was done in the rain. The lesson: Hoka Mafate’s are not good mud shoes. The tread holds the mud perhaps more than any other shoe I own. Luckily, it doesnt rain enough down here for that to be much of a problem.

Tues: 14 miles, Arroyo (6), Griffith Park (8)
1,500 feet climbing

Wednesday: 7 miles, Cherry Canyon
1,500 feet climbing

Thursday: 16 miles, Cherry Canyon (8), Griffith park (8)
2,700 feet climbing

Saturday: 35 miles, Mt. Lowe summit
6,700 feet climbing

Sunday: 12 miles Griffith Park
2,200 feet climbing

Total: 84 miles, 14,600 feet climbing.