From owner-ius-l@AMERICAN.EDU Sat Aug 23 15:47:56 1997 From: JDFowlerJr@aol.com Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 17:59:30 -0400 (EDT) To: ius-l@AMERICAN.EDU, ultra@caligari.dartmouth.edu Subject: Leadville 97 report, John Fowler (long) How soon it slips away. Fifteen hours earlier the world had been different, and I was trying to remember, resting in the rental house Sunday night. There was something important that just was on the edge of memory but would not fall into place. The trail between the bottom of Powerline and Mayqueen, in the early predawn hours, belonged to a different world where effort became existence, trees became people, and rocks became tents. Time and space expanded and contracted to their own rhythms, forming a reality orthogonal to the one we normally live in. It was a world stitched together by a brain running out of sugar. The T-shirts they were selling before the race said "Kiss normal goodbye", and Powerline certainly put me in that frame of mind. Then, coming into Mayqueen, the sun began to shine and this misty world evaporated like a dream. I remember a hymn we used to sing on bright Sunday mornings in South Carolina when I was a boy: Time like a never ending stream Bears all her sons away. They lie forgotten as a dream Upon the break of day. In the days leading up to this race, my feelings were quite different from last year, when I was admittedly just a bit afraid of what was about to happen. Last year I started looking for reasons to quit just after Halfmoon on the way out and found them in spades, giving up at Winfield 30 minutes before the cutoff. This year, everything was serene. It was as if I had bought a ticket and fully expected to board the plane and arrive at my destination. There was little reason to be complacent: I had run just 35 miles in the preceding month, due to achilles tendon problems and a cold followed by 2 weeks of persistent coughing that continued up to and during the race. But Jo was full of confidence, telling me again and again that I would get to Mayqueen this year and she would pace me over the last 13.5 miles. She had no doubts and her confidence swept me along. It was just going to happen. I surely had an excellent team to crew and pace me: Jo, my wife, who had been walking 12 miles on Sundays in preparation for the Mayqueen pacing stint. Jesse, my son, a Senior at New Mexico State, who was the team photographer and also would pace me from treeline to Fish Hatchery Glenn Michel, who has run Imogene Pass several times and has climbed all but one of the Colorado fourteeners. Glenn would get me over Hope Pass if anybody could. Harold Trease, an ultracyclist who earlier this year qualified for the Race Across America by riding across the US in 14 days. Harold would do Twin Lakes to treeline and Fish Hatchery to Mayqueen, 23 miles in the dark. Race day started with the buzzing of the alarm at 2:30. I had taped my feet before going to bed so just had to splash some water on my face and put on shorts, shirt, and shoes and was ready to go. Harold was already downstairs cooking oatmeal and waffles. By the way, I used Suzi's taping technique with Elastikon tape and my feet were still in perfect shape at the end. Thanks, Suzi T for Tape! We left the house at 3:25 for the half-mile walk to the start/finish line. It seemed less cold than I had anticipated. Once there, Glenn and I headed over to the park across the street for a last-minute potty break. I walked right up to the door of the rest room and almost went in, when someone politely informed me that there was a line. Sheepishly, I apologized. My preoccupation with the race was strong. The line was short and I got my business done in plenty of time to line up for the start. Jesse took a picture and then, with a blast from the starting shotgun, we were off! My plan was to run at the pace that felt right, more or less ignoring any particular schedule. I was confident that this would work, that I would go out neither too fast nor too slowly. I carried my Ultimate Direction Stratus torsopack, holding 80 ounces of Succeed, throughout the race, except for the stretch between Fish Hatchery and treeline and the last mile, when we hit the pavement. Somewhere along the way I changed from Succeed to water. Also I wore a small waist pack containing an emergency poncho, electrolyte and BCAA pills, a few packs of Power Gel, and assorted other pills like caffeine and vitamins that I might need along the way. After the turnaround, my pacer carried the waist pack items for me along with my Gore-Tex jacket. The only surprise on the way to Mayqueen came when my flashlight bulb burned out. But I had a spare in my waist pack, averting a crisis. Eventually daylight began to shine on what looked to be a beautiful day. At Mayqueen I began what was to be a similar ritual at all of the aid stations: Check in and out, find my crew, eat half a sandwich and drink a can of Ensure or Boost, get my torsopack refilled, and head on up the road. After the climb up Sugarloaf and the run down powerline, I still felt fine and ran much of the paved road at a slow, steady pace, into Fish Hatchery. Here I removed my contact lenses because I didn't want to wear them for 30 hours straight. I can run without them in daylight but not in the dark. I would put them back in at Twin Lakes. Down the road to treeline, I jogged two or three telephone poles and walked one. After turning onto the dirt road, which was slightly uphill, I walked more. At treeline I got my torsopack back and continued up the road to Halfmoon, alternating walking with slow running. The first test would come on the steep hill that begins shortly after turning onto the trail after Halfmoon. This year I was ready for it and took a walking pace that I could sustain to the top. Once there, I was able to run most of the way in to Twin Lakes. I got my legs sprayed for mosquitos at Twin Lakes but should have had a full body application. I didn't realize that those bugs would bite me through my clothes! I walked most of the way through the shoe-sucking swamp and through the various putrid pools, across the stream, and up to where the real work began: the ascent to Hope Pass. I took a deliberately slow pace up the trail, arms flailing at the monster mosquitos that were out for the primo ultrarunner blood. As slowly as I was going, I passed a few people. Most of them returned the favor later in the race. I did stop to rest a few times but was mostly successful in maintaining a good, steady pace. In a meadow near the top, I met Steve Peterson on his return trip, at the same place where we met last year, only this time we where about 45 minutes sooner. Finally reaching the Hopeless Pass aid station, I paused for a delicious cup of Ramen and then got in line to continue up to the pass. The photographer on the pass took an awesome picture of me. I love it! Like Narcissus gazing into the pool, I could look at it for hours. Taking long, loping steps I was able to run most of the way down from the top to the Winfield road. I took the first of two falls during this race while crossing the boulder field, slipping on a wet rock and landing hard on my back on a large flat stone. It rattled my fillings, I'll tell you that! Also it ruptured several Power Gel packs in my waist pack, causing the stuff to drip down onto the back of my legs, although I was not aware of this until I reached Winfield. Shortly after turning onto the road, I heard a woman on my left shouting "Come on, Jay!" Looking down the road, I spied Jay Hodde making his way back and I began shouting like a maniac, "Come on, Jay!" We exchaned high fives as he went by. Into Winfield at 12:35, all that was left was to turn around and go back. It seemed like 17 plus hours would give me plenty of time. So I picked up Glenn and we walked and ran back down the road to the trail. Once we started up the trail, I discovered that after 13 hours I could no longer make any kind of steady progress uphill. We quickly fell into a routine of walk 100 steps and rest to catch my breath. Everyone around us seemed to be doing the same thing. Glenn was giving me instructions on how to walk and breathe, but I wasn't having a lot of luck making them work. Eventually we got into a line with some others and Glenn and another pacer kept us entertained with a steady stream of jokes, which at least made the time go by. After we reached the pass, we were able to run most of the way down to the bottom, stopping for more Ramen at the Hopeless Pass aid station. I got Glenn to tighten my shoe laces there, to help prevent black toenails -- as if I had any left to turn black. At the bottom, we walked mostly back to Twin Lakes. It was getting dark and there were no glow sticks. We briefly lost the trail but Glenn found it right away and we went through the swamp, across the parking lot and highway, and into the aid station where I got clean shoes and socks and donned some warmer clothes. I had thought the next stretch would be the worst from a psychological standpoint, but it wasn't really that bad. Fish Hatchery to Mayqueen turned out to be the worst. Harold and I slowly made our way up the hill out of Twin Lakes, walking for a bit and stopping for me to catch my breath, making slow but steady progress to the top. Along the way we came upon and passed fellow Los Alamosan Dave Scudder and his pacer Blake Wood, having a physics discussion. Once at the top of the hill, Harold and I ran a bit but mostly walked the few miles to the steep downhill that takes you back to Halfmoon road. I figured that if we beat the cutoff at Halfmoon we would have it made, and we had a fairly decent cushion at this point. So we continued to shuffle down the road to treeline feeling tired but not worried. Only a marathon to go! Jesse and I left treeline at a fast walk. I had intended to do some running here, but being comfortably ahead of the cutoff I wanted to save as much energy as possible for the climb up powerline. The logic of this seemed flawless at the time. After a couple of miles I asked Jesse how fast we were going. He replied, "Faster than I normally go." Kiss normal goodbye! Harold and I started out down the road from fish hatchery, walking and running a little. After turning on to the powerline trail, it again became a case of walking for a minute, stopping to catch my breath, and so forth ad infinitum it seemed. I knew that there were three false summits. First false summit: Ho ho, we know about this. Second false summit: Ho, ho. Third false summit: Almost there! Fourth false summit: Uh-oh. Fifth false summit: What Th'??? Sixth false summit: !@#$%^&* We are not amused!!!! Finally we reached the top. I was starting to drag. This was another good place to run but the world was going strange on me, and I just walked -- and walked -- and walked until we reached Hagerman Pass Road. I could see the glow sticks where the trail turned off to the left, only when we reached them there was no trail! This happened about four times before we finally got to the trail turnoff. Then it was down, down, down until finally it got flat again. Almost there!!! Not quite, cowboy. We walked and walked and walked some more until -- finally -- there was the stream and the pavement. There were about five nice people to help us across the stream but I fell anyway, the second fall of this race. Then it was down the pavement and in the gathering dawn into Mayqueen. I paused in the tent for a cup of the fabled, life-restoring potato soup. As I passed by the rows of cots filled with runners, blankets pulled up over their faces, I felt a wave of sympathy for these who had tried so hard and gotten so far, only to fall. Out of the tent and into the light, Jo was ready to trot. She tool off like a jet, leading me over rocks and down the trail faster than I had ever seen her go! After a couple of miles, I had to tell her that I couldn't keep up and she slowed just perceptibly. On to Tabor boat ramp, where we stopped for one last snack. Then we were back onto the trail to the dam. We crossed the road and descended the short, steep trail to the dirt road. Five miles to go! Just then, my right shin decided that it had had enough. Very quickly, a sharp pain developed whenever I lifted my right foot. There was nothing to do but ignore it and hope that I wouldn't have to start limping, for there wasn't enough time for that. And so on we went, across the railroad tracks and onto the Boulevard. The sudden uphill at this point was actually a blessing because my shin did much better. We had never seen the Boulevard in daylight and so had no cues as to how much longer it would be. Finally, a man came down the road and said that the pavement would start after the next curve. And sure enough, around the curve there was Jesse taking our picture. I handed him my torsopack and we continued on to Sixth Street, where we picked up Glenn, Harold, his wife Lynn, and their 14-month old son, Henry, who was riding on Lynn's back. We reached the top of the hill with half a mile to go, and I could see the finish line and hear the crowd cheering. A wave of happiness swept over me. Then there were three more blocks, then Spruce Street, then Pine. I heard the announcer call my name. It didn't make any sense to run at this point, but with all of these strangers, and my friends and family witnessing and cheering, how could I not? So I stepped into a trot and reached the red carpet, then the finish line, and there was Merilee with a medal to go around my neck and a hug, and it was finished. 29:38:02. Big hugs all around. Kiss normal goodbye! John Fowler Los Alamos, NM JDFowlerJr@aol.com