From waiban@pixi.com Wed Sep 24 13:56:42 1997 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 11:02:01 -1000 From: akabill Subject: Tantalus Triple Trek 50k 6th Annual H.U.R.T. TANTALUS TRIPLE TREK 50k Saturday. August 30, 1997 Koolau Mountain Range, Oahu, Hawaii 3 Loops Single Track Trails w/5,700' total climb Place Name Finish Time 1 Jeff Huff 4:46:23 2 Ben Cavazos 4:47:44 3 Neal Yasami 4:58:23 4 Robert Egbert 5:04:26 5 Frank Pugliese 5:12:12 6 akabill Molmen 5:12:26 7 Tony Guerra 5:13:56 8 Joe Galope, AZ 5:22:47 9 Freddy Drosch-Halmes 5:24:48 10 Gregory Pirkl 5:33:00 11 Richard China 5:54:21 12 Michael Garcia 5:56:40 13 *Colleen Shibata* 6:06:52 14 Kurt Eades 6:11:17 15 *Sandra Burgess* 6:20:24 16 Ed Covell 6:41:51 17 *Shoko Koyama* 6:52:19 18 Gilbert Ikehara 6:52:58 19 Dwight Yamada 7:18:25 20 *Vi Jones* 7:27:55 21 Ted Ropp 7:45:45 22 Ed Fishman 8:48:00 "You're not going to finish down that hill, are you!!?" said Quad-Dipsea Race Director John Medinger when he first toured the Tantalus Tropical Trek course. And, of course, we do. Three times down "Roots and Rocks," each time faster than the time before; if only because, "practice makes perfect" and going down the third time means you survived the first two. The Tantalus trails are ten minutes and a thousand years from Waikiki. The ancient spider web of trails is set in the Koolau Mountain range that forms the backbone of the northwestern half of the island of Oahu. Originally footpaths and pig trails they have been beaten out by day hikers (and eventually State workers) over the past centuries into a marvelously varied accessible journey through a tropical rain forest. Unlike most mainland trails the surface at its best is forgiving, except of course for the hard set roots and sneaky pete rocks. Hawaiian Ultra Running Team (H.U.R.T.) members have been training here for years. Beginning in 1992 HURT invited the public for a little pre-Labor Day fun in the mountains promising "challenging trails...with dramatic vistas" "possible mud" and "some roots and rocks" three times around a figure eight course. The race starts by the Hawaii Nature Center in Makiki Valley and goes straight up rising about 550' in 7/10 mile. Called "Ruts" it follows the path of an early road that has been reclaimed by the jungle. The road has long since been washed away and slick gullies with some rocks set in red dirt have been left behind. Surrounded by wet steamy jungle with varied trees, ti's, gingers, ferns, vines and grasses this section wears you down going up. The third time around it is tough. You will hardly hear the birds singing then. At the top of Ruts the trail goes right, crosses a Makiki stream and takes you across "Dips" or the faces of three cliff knuckles in Makiki Valley. Still in varied jungle the single track trail rises three times and dips twice over the course of a mile ultimately rising two hundred feet. Here you have your first experience with slicked out close together root tops set hard on the trail with small but slippery sections of lava rock at the base of the dips. Along the way you pass the "fountain of youth;" a much visited site that lives up to its name for those who regularly make the effort to drink from it. Dips forms the waist of the figure eight course and is crossed six times by the triple trekkers, each time it gets longer steeper slicker. At the top of Dips is the "Four Way." to the right is home and hard left are the many faces and voices of "Peacocks." Go left and after a flat mud prone section you climb a mud staircase and then there is the joy of racing alongside a very steep cliff face on an 6-8" wide packed dirt trail with magnificent views of the upper valley. After zigzagging down a steep thin very soft earthy switchback (with some roots) there is a dry gavelly hard wood forest just before a steady rise through a long thicket of giant bamboo and then down through weedy guava trees. Listen for the peacocks. Now one-third of the way through the first loop you are up another 300' and you are really having fun as you cross the road and the first water stop aid station. Where the trail crosses Round Top Drive begins the Manoa Cliffs Trail. The first portion was rightly known as "giggle hill" before the State laid gravel and steps up the inside of the cliff. Used to be you could rip a groin muscle almost without trying while racing up this section. Now it is very tame but tough getting to the long gently rising portion that overlooks Manoa Valley. Here the trail wends its way in and out along the cliff face. What was a still hot run with 90-95% humidity is now a breezy cool run with 95-105% humidity. Assuming, of course, that it is not raining at the 1800' top of the cliffs there is an incredible view down on Nuuanu Pali and the windward side of the island. Here the fun begins again: it is only lives up to the name of "Streambeds" when it is raining. After streambeds comes the trippy toe big "S" switchback and it is "Cruisin" time on the most runnable sections all the way back to Tantalus Road and the second aid station. The 3.5 mile Manoa Cliffs section is very runnable and a favorite of the Triple Trekkers, even the third time around. From the Tantalus Road manmade hogback the trails drops steeply down "Mango's". Still in the cooler wet upper valley the slick 4-6" wide single track wends past lines of avocado trees, hau forests, just plain jungle, bananas, and the always wet rocky face of straight up and down "leptospirosis" cliff as its drops. It would be wonderful except for the pernicious nut grass (called that because you cannut get rid of it) that covers the trodden trail and hides roots, fallen avocados, and cutaways along the cliff. From slick avocado to the rocky roots of the Mango trees to just plain rocks with roots the trail goes back down to where Ruts meets Dips and you go back across Dips to Four Way. Just because "Ed can't remember anything right" Roots and Rocks is also known as Hog's Back. It starts out slick with small leaves and low hard sitting roots and quickly gets steep with very tricky deep root holes interspersed with sharp high cracked rocks and lined by thin hardwood trees. And that is just the first two hundred yards. Then it gets interesting. By any name R&R drops over 800' in 7/10 mile. R&R is as dangerous as you are. Early HURT runners are said to have done time trials down this hill. Memories are that they did it in around 6 minutes. God in a helicopter couldn't do R&R in under 6 minutes. Be that as it may Triple Trekkers jumped this bit with no broken bones seventy-one times this day. That is saying something. Race, you want to know about the race? Heck I was having a fun day dancing in the back of the pack showing the course to a beautiful woman and fellow Western finisher for 2/3 of the first lap. Then she made it clear that this chauvinist should go on ahead and so I did. It was a record field with twenty-five starters. A warm morning following an overnight rain just to liven things up a bit. Course record holder and last year's winner Frank Pugliese did race this date after promising on his strained groin muscles that he would not. Frank went out hard with Ben Cavazos literally two steps behind the whole 85 minutes of the first lap. Three minutes later and within two seconds of each other came Ironman Tony Guerra, visiting Arizona desert ultrarunner Joe Galope, U.H. Cheerleader Neal Yasami and slow but steady Jeff Huff. Twelve minutes later the rest of us twenty five starters began dribbling in. All made it except the second woman. The second time up Dips, as she approached the 4-Way, a course marshall apparently assumed this exceptionally attractive and always fresh looking woman was a late starting single looping Tropical Trekker. He directed her up to Peacocks instead of down Roots and Rocks. She was unfamiliar with the course and, in spite of her instincts, went hard left into a second time around the top seven miles before making it to the end of the first lap. So it goes. The second loop Ben slowed but passed Frank and opened up a seven minute lead on him. Tony and Joe faded while Neal and Jeff hung on. Then came Robert Egbert, the only Trekker with nearly even splits. His 1:40,1:41,1:42 moved him from 8th to 7th to 4th. Then came the rest of us. The third loop Frank's two month's injury caught up to him and he crashed losing over two minutes a mile from his 2nd loop. Ben lost 16 minutes, Tony 9, Joe 8, and Neal 12. Only Jeff Huff picked it up strong the third time around gaining 7 minutes and going from 4th to 1st pulling away at the end. From the middle of the first loop Colleen Shibata led the women. Notorious for spraining her ankle during flat road races Colleen had no problems this Hawaiian Summer's morning. She and Sandra Boomboom Burgess regularly train together on these trails and this was Colleen's day, strong from beginning to end she just pulled away to the finish. Just to prove that after a point ultrarunning is mostly mental: The Terrible Fish was having a bad day. The second time I lapped him his response was "Life is good for you pal." Not normal for the Hero of HURT. Later, after the awards, HURT Guru John Salmonson backtracked up R&R and Dips to find the Fish plodding up hill stooped over using a walking stick to push himself one miserable step at a time. The Guru, having none of this, turned his back to Fish, bent over, whistled, and mooned the okole meister raw. Fish looked up, saw those two ultra cheeks, stood up, threw his stick over the cliff, and shot past John like a two year old who had just discovered the love of running. "It was a race all the way home" reports John. The next day Ed called to say: "Yes, life is good! Life is very very good! Life is Good! akabill