From owner-ultra@caligari.Dartmouth.EDU Sun Apr 20 17:47:57 1997 Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 17:43:04 -0700 From: combs@broadvision.com (Dave Combs) To: ius-l@american.edu, ultra@caligari.Dartmouth.EDU Subject: Ruth Anderson 100K results + story (LONG) Cc: combs@galaxy.dartmouth.edu Ruth Anderson 100K, 4/19/97 Lake Merced, San Francisco CA Preliminary Results (all runners from CA unless otherwise noted) Place Name 50M Finish 1 Rae Clark,45 6:03 7:37:53 2 Joe Schieffer,45 6:07 7:39:39 3 Rick Simonsen,37 6:29 8:08:21 4 Jake Niebaum,31 6:38 8:23:35 5 Jim Ross,32 6:45 8:43:14 6 Ken Gregorich,38 6:43 8:45:20 7 Greg Nacco,37 7:05 8:56:21 8 Charles Crompton,49 7:00 9:02:06* 9 Jean-Paul Mazaud,37 7:08 9:13:36 10 Dan Martin,49 7:28 9:26:30 11 Pat Shannon,45,TX 7:28 9:28:10 12 David Kim,54 7:32 9:28:22 13 Mike Palmer,43 7:40 9:28:37 14 Roger Dellor,54 7:43 9:32:37 15 Jeff Bott,25 7:25 9:33:08 16 Rena Schumann,35 7:16 9:43:31 ------------- 17 Gary Wang,29 7:35 9:50:50 18 George Rehmet,30 7:40 9:56:30 19 Earl Looney,49 8:13 10:13:50 20 Eric Ianacone,50 8:07 10:21:54 21 Linda Elam,51 8:20 10:30:20 ---------- Wayne Kocher,59 8:20 10:30:20 23 Robert Lapanja,42 8:03 10:44:20 24 Joe Holmberg,56 8:35 10:50:26 25 Richard Pon,45 8:31 11:06:54 26 Robert King,37 8:08 11:09:00 27 Eric Robinson,29 9:06 11:53:02 28 Barbara Elia,52 9:44 12:22:05 ------------ Alan Kaplan,41 9:44 12:22:05 30 Cassandra Johnson,50 9:54 12:49:xx ----------------- 31 Art Grimmitt,44 14:07:xx** 32 Dale Coats,58 14:07:xx** 33 Mike Tselentis,70 15:26:xx** 45 starters * Delayed for several minutes--see story below. ** indicates early starters, anywhere from 45-50 minutes early. Since their 'start' time was from the aid station, the actual time to get to the true start line is an estimate. This is the first race that Bay Area Ultrarunners has put on since Dick Collins passed away recently. Dick was the long-time race director, but that job was taken over (superbly, as is their trademark) by Jim and Vivian Skophammer. Their loyal crew of volunteers turned out in force to provide help at two different aid stations, one at each end of the lake. Yours truly showed up just to help out with whatever was needed, and ended up having a wonderful time spending most of the day as the lap recorder and one of the cheerleaders. There was LOTS of help with the latter job, which we'll get to in a minute. First, the race: It rained over the whole Bay Area Friday night, for the first time in several weeks, and left many of us wondering whether or not the conditions would be as bad as two years ago, when there was a downpour in the middle of the afternoon. Luckily things were just foggy with a little drizzle as the runners began to assemble in the dark at the north end of San Francisco's Lake Merced around 5:00 a.m. I arrived about 5:30, and was put to work helping Vivian hand out race packets and get the record crowd of 48 runners checked in for the 6:30 a.m. start. Part of the reason for the turnout was that this year the race was part of the Northern California Ultra Grand Prix. Another significant part for some was to pay their respects to Dick by running in one of his races. Ruth Anderson, for whom the race is named and who had planned to run the race with her best friend Dick, showed up to go it alone anyway. By the time Jim led the crowd the .75 mile to the start line (needed to make the race finish at the timing area) there were only three no-shows, and many of the area's 100K speedsters were present. It promised to be a fast race at the front, and with cloudy and cool conditions, a pretty decent running day for everyone. Rae Clark set off at a fast pace, with Joe Schieffer and Ken Gregorich in close pursuit. During the first of the fourteen 4.47-mile laps of the lake Rae built up about a one minute lead. The other two stayed within a minute or two for the next four laps or so. Everyone spent time dodging the walkers, dogs, weekend runners, rollerbladers and bikers on the (mostly) paved path around the lake. Around lap three the dropouts began. First was George Staub, head of a delegation from the fast Fleet Feet team in Sacramento. His knee was bothering him badly, so he became the second of the cheerleaders. Next was Stan Jensen, still recovering from an ankle sprain just before American River. Craig Eldridge, Maryann Murphy and Errol 'Rocket' Jones joined the cheerleading crowd just before the 50K mark. As many of you doubtless know, having Errol as a cheerleader ("ringleader" may be a better term) can be good or bad. He is very encouraging, but with his own particular style. This means that he will not let you drop out at the aid station. Rather, he will, with great relish and in a loud voice, heap friendly abuse on you until you get your sorry butt out there onto the course again. Of course with George, Maryann, Craig, Stan and me sitting around helping him, this became a great spectator sport. The cheerleaders spent almost as much time abusing each other as they did the runners, to everyone's amusement. Back to the race...Rae continued to lead, and Joe started to drop back slowly, losing perhaps a minute per lap through the middle of the race. With four laps to go, Rae held a six minute lead over Joe, and Ken had dropped fifteen minutes back of Joe with problems of his own. Rick Simonsen and Jim Ross, Fleet Feet teammates who had been running together for much of the race wearing identical team outfits, finally split apart with Rick starting a charge toward the front. On the women's side Rena Schumann, who had led from the gun, kept building up her lead over Linda Elam, and broke into the top 10 overall. All of a sudden the race changed with four laps left. Rae, who had been slowing slightly for several laps, lost two minutes of his lead over Joe in one lap. The next lap he picked up the pace again, but lost another 30 seconds. 30 seconds more on the next lap. With one lap left his lead was trimmed to three minutes. Joe, who had earlier been more concerned about who was in third than how far Rae was in front, was definitely on his horse now. Unfortunately for everyone in the race, in particular Charlie Crompton, a pedestrian darted into the street a mile or so along the course, right in front of a police motorcycle. The cop had no chance to miss the guy, but tried to anyway by laying down his bike. This didn't help, and ended up hitting the pedestrian and then sliding straight for Charlie, running on the path alongside the road. Charlie got a couple good scrapes on the leg out of the deal. Luckily for both the cop and the pedestrian, Charlie is a member of the California Highway Patrol. He immediately stopped, then used the motorcycle's radio to call an ambulance, police, etc to the scene. In a few minutes they cordoned off a big area that just happened to include part of the race course. Racers (with the exception of Rae, who had already passed the scene) were forced to detour at least 100 yards to get around the blockade. Ultimately both the cop and the pedestrian were taken to the hospital with various broken bones and other injuries. Luckily neither was in critical condition. How much his impromptu stop cost Charlie is unknown, but there are at least two people that are VERY thankful he was there! Back to the race again...As he passed the bottom end of the lake with half a lap to go, Rae looked behind and could see somebody moving up fast. He picked it up, just in case it was Joe. Several minutes later, Rae came blasting up the last hill and along the path to the finish line, the wire-to-wire winner. Less than two minutes later here came Joe in full flight, having cut an additional 1:14 from Rae's lead on the last lap, and two minutes from his own previous lap time. If the race had just been one lap longer... Though Rae's time was off his course record of 7:15, it was the first of a race-record number of finishers under 10 hours. In all 18 people broke the barrier, with Gary Wang, completing his first 100K in 9:50:50 and George Rehmet, finishing his 200th race at the tender age of 30 in 9:56:30, bringing up the rear of the sub-10 group. Several minutes ahead of Gary and George was Rena, running very consistently for most of the race and repeatedly showing up at our finish line aid station before she was expected. While she fell out of the top 10 overall, she did set a big PR in her wire-to-wire win for the women. Linda, coming back strong after a couple of years with serious biomechanical problems, ran with Wayne Kocher for much of the race, and they crossed the line together just after 10:30. Joe Holmberg crossed 20 minutes behind Linda and Wayne, having cut an hour and 10 minutes from his PR. Richard Pon ran well his first 100K, finishing a shade over 11 hours. Alan Kaplan had a hard day, knowing in the first 50 yards that his mind wasn't really into racing the distance, yet hanging in there for over 12 hours to finish. Most of his last several laps he ran with Barbara Elia who, I can tell you from personal experience at Quad Dipsea, is a great motivator and friend. And finally there was Mike Tselentis. After starting early, Mike cheerfully went slowly round and round the lake enjoying himself, always showing up with a smile at the aid station. At 50 miles there was a question about whether he would stop, but he just kept on going. With two laps left he and Jim agreed that since it would be after 9:00 when he finished, we could pack things up and go, and he would just call in his finish time. He headed out into the drizzle on his last lap a few minutes after 8:00, just before we finished cleaning up. All in all it was a wonderful race, with great friends, lots of good competition, lots of laughs, some pain and a ton of satisfaction. I doubt I'll ever run 100K on the road, but you can bet I'll show up to help at this race next year! You might want to be there, too! Cheers, Dave Combs lap recorder and assistant cheerleader ==================================================================== Dave Combs Architecture Engineer combs@broadvision.com BroadVision, Inc. W (415)943-3682 333 Distel Circle H (415)960-3604 Los Altos, CA, 94022-1404 ====================================================================