From medi@chevron.com Mon Jul 14 09:26:41 1997 To: "'Robinson, Eric \"Junior\"'" , "'Jensen, Stan'" Subject: brief Hardrock report Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 09:23:56 -0700 Hi gang, Well, the San Juan Mountains are un-f**ing-believable. Absolutely intimidating terrain. Hardrock is altogether in another league. I was there pacing/crewing John Demorest and also helping Laura Vaughan. I ran about 6 hours with Demorest from mile 42-60. This was over Engineers Pass from Ouray (7700 feet) to the top (13,200 ft) and down to Grouse Gulch (10,200). Scott Mills paced him from there to mile 92 and then Roland Martin took him in. John had a good run for about 70 miles then the wheels came off. He was basically just out of gas and desparately wanted to quit from about mile 70-85. With help from Laura and others we basically shamed him into going on. He really struggled over the last 30 miles, but showed a lot of guts. He was in 8th place at mile 60 and finished 19th, so you can see that it wasn't pretty. But he was eventually very happy to have finished and is already doing the *woulda/shoulda/coulda* routine, analyzing what went wrong. Laura is amazing. She just kept plugging away, never showed any discouragement. She had never set foot on the course before the race and broke the women's course record by an hour and a half. Her friend Kate (Eric's brother's girlfriend) paced her from mile 42-69 and then she went on her own from 69-92. Eric then paced her in. The weather was mostly very good. Friday (the race starts at 6 am Friday) was mostly cloudy and mild, we got a mild snow shower (in July!) at the top of Engineers Pass at about midnight, but it only lasted a few minutes. Saturday was sunny and breezy. The course still had a lot of snow up high on north and east facing slopes, much more than last year, and most veterans said that the route was slower this year as a result. The course itself is extraordinarily demanding. Eleven mountain passes higher than 12,500 feet. Dozens of river/creek crossings, including two waist deep swift rivers requiring belay ropes. Several snow fields, including a couple with fixed rope glissade descents. Considerable bushwhacking, though well-marked. The runners had wet feet the entire way. John & Laura climbed Handy's Peak (14,100 feet) at 3 a.m. Excellent aid but very far apart - sometimes as much as 6 hours between aid. Jaw dropping scenery everywhere. I have never seen more amazing mountains, very reminiscent of the high Alps. No sleep for 42 hours (a PR, I think). Suzi Thibeault finished in 46:45, her first official finish in 5 tries (she finished last year 5 minutes over the 48-hr cutoff). 99 starters, 39 finishers (40 if you count Carl Yates, who finished about 20 minutes over the time limit). Won by two Brits, Mark McDermott (who was 2nd last year) and Mark Hartell, who was running his first 100 (!!!) in 30:33. Gene Thibeault and Eric Robinson both dnfed. Complete results are available at http://Fox.nstn.ca:80/~dblaikie/n13jy97a.html Definitely a post-graduate ultra. "Wild and tough" is the race motto. Hugely understated. - Tropical John