WESTERN STATES 100 – 2006 RACE REVIEW

This was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I went out to Squaw 
Valley to pace Sarah Lowell, a friend of a friend, who was looking for a 
pacer for her second running of the Western States Endurance Run. My friend 
must have said some pretty good things about me as a trail runner for her to 
pick me. In 1997 she ran it in 28 hours and change. This year it was rumored 
that she was shooting for a sub 24 hour finish. And from what I’d heard, she 
was definitely capable of doing it. We corresponded by e-mail a few times to 
sort out some logistical details, and finally talked on the phone a couple of 
times the week of the race. I arrived at the Best Western in Truckee CA and 
met her crew, her best friend, Katherine, the crew chief, and her sister, 
Karen. These three ladies were all obviously very close, and they quickly 
welcomed me into their circle. The day of the race, Katherine took Sarah to 
the 5am start. I was left behind to get some extra sleep, but ended up waking 
at 2:30 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went for my daily run (3 miles 
minimum) on the Ponderosa Golf Course behind the hotel, showered up and got 
ready to leave with the group to wait for Sarah at the first checkpoint where 
we would see her, Robie Flats, 30 miles into the race. Sarah came in a little 
slower than 24 hour pace, but looking strong. She said she’d been running 
much of the way with some of the top ranked women, but had slowed a little 
after the last aid station. We still had high hopes. After we sent her off, 
the crew went to lunch, checked into the next hotel and made some last minute 
adjustments to the goodie bags that had been prepared for the checkpoints 
where the crew was planning to see Sarah. The next checkpoint was Michigan 
Bluff at 55 miles. When we got there we found a race official with a computer 
that was able to report the last checkpoint a runner had passed through, 
estimate their present location, and predict their arrival at Michigan Bluff. 
If she’d been on 24 hour pace she’d be arriving around 7pm. However she’d 
slowed considerably since we’d last seen her, suffering from a calf injury 
that had popped up just a few weeks before the race, as well as the near 
record heat. Normally, the pacer would join the runners at Foresthill 
Elementary, at 62 miles. However if a runner came through Michigan Bluff 
after 8pm, they were allowed to pick up the pacer there, in order to have 
assistance in the dark, which is the primary role of the pacer, safety. At 
7pm we decide that I should drive to Foresthill and register for my pacer 
number and try to make it back before 8pm. The pacer number looks just like 
the bib that the racer wears, but with a yellow background. I got back to 
Michigan Bluff with ten minutes to spare and Sarah was not in yet. At a 
little before 9pm Sarah was brought in by a race official. She’d been pulled 
from the race due to severe dehydration, along with many other racers at the 
same point, Devil’s Thumb at 50 miles. It was a canyon with temperatures of 
about 110 degrees. Sarah had been vomiting uncontrollably, had lost a lot of 
weight, and they pulled her off the course. Our hearts all sank. Before I 
even had a chance to go up to the vehicle they’d brought her in, someone 
overheard our situation and asked me to pace her husband, who was a long-time 
veteran of this race, and knew early in the race that he’d need a pacer this 
year. Supposedly Sarah was as disappointed for me as she was for herself, so 
I think the news that I’d found another runner to pace helped her a little. 
I’m sure if she’d been satisfied to just finish the race, she would have made 
it through, but she had high aspirations, and she took the risk and pushed 
the pace. The calf injury is what pushed her over the edge. When I returned 
to the lady who had just asked me to pace her husband, she started telling me 
about how her husband had been running this race since it’s early days, and 
what a veteran he was. But she also started telling me about all the ailments 
he’d been having recently. This made me think maybe I’d accepted too quickly. 
Maybe this guy wouldn’t make it in and then I’d have to figure out whether to 
get a ride to the hotel (where I didn’t have a room because I’d planned to 
run through the night) or perhaps just be an ultra groupie and hang out at 
aid stations. With just a few minutes before the cut-off time, and almost 
zero possibility of getting to run even one step on the Western States trail, 
a race official at the tent, where they were attending to racers, announced 
to anyone listening that a pacer was needed. I volunteered and was directed 
to a small man hunched in a folding chair who looked barely alive. I found 
out later that his name is Jamshid. He is Iranian by birth, but is now a U.S. 
citizen and holds the U.S. record for swimming the Spanish Channel. He was 
imploring another race official to let him back out on the trail. He was 
insisting that he always gets sick and throws up at Western States, it just 
happened earlier this year because of the excessive heat. The race official 
watched him drink a few sips of something and told him if he could keep it 
down, he could return to the trail, with a pacer, and try to make it to 
Foresthill Elementary. I watched Jamshid suppress a gag once while sitting in 
the chair, but was fortunate that the race official had momentarily looked 
away, and missed this valuable bit of evidence that would have suggested to 
most mortals that this human being was in no shape to attempt to run another 
45 miles. When the race official finally gave permission for Jamshid to 
return to the course, he slowly got up and stumbled onto the street. We 
walked slowly to the dirt road where we entered the dark. I turned on my new 
headlamp and Jamshid turned on the flashlight he’d just borrowed. Jamshid had 
never left this aid station in the dark, and his flashlight was with his 
friends at Foresthill. Jamshid and I walked. We did not run. The dirt road 
turned uphill and we walked slower. We walked so slow that sometimes 
Jamshid’s foot would pause in the air and he would begin to tip backward, and 
would catch himself from falling. After doing this several times he said that 
he was falling asleep. We had not talked much to this point. I was planning 
to let him give me some clues as to what he would want to talk about, if 
anything at all. He had provided me with the first clue. I asked him what we 
should do about the sleeping. His reply was that we had to start running. On 
the next downhill he started a jog that was so slow that I could easily walk 
faster, but I managed the same shuffle as him so as not to point out how slow 
he was moving. This was miserable. We’d been gone for about 20 minutes and I 
doubted we were even a quarter of a mile away from the aid station. The 
running must not have been the right thing to do because it made him throw up 
everything he’d consumed at Michigan Bluff. When he then lay down in the 
middle of the road, I was pretty confident that I’d probably end up carrying 
him back to Michigan Bluff. He told me he only needed a minute and I asked 
him if he wanted me to time him. He said to give him two minutes. In that two 
minutes we were passed by another runner with his pacer, and they didn’t seem 
phased in the least that a runner was taking a nap in the middle of the road. 
When I told him his two minutes were up, he spent at least another minute 
just standing up. After a little more walking, Jamshid asked me to come sit 
down with him and be his therapist. I learned that it had been exactly one 
year since his best friend, a fellow ultra-runner, had died. And just the 
week before, he’d found out that another close friend had been diagnosed with 
cancer. Jamshid had been very depressed all day, and was torn between giving 
it all up, and continuing on in honor of his friends who weren’t there with 
him. When we began walking again, it was even slower. I started to think that 
we might at least make it to the next aid station, and then I would have at 
least gotten to do a little night trail “running” at Western States. After a 
long time of slow walking, Jamshid volunteered information for the third 
time. He pointed into the dark woods to the left of the dirt road we were on 
and told me the trail turned there and we’d be behind those trees soon. I 
thought he was just delirious. But then I saw trail markers turning us off to 
the left onto a single track trail. Jamshid told me he would be in front, so 
I got behind him. It seemed that getting onto the single track was the 
beginning of a miraculous turn-around for Jamshid. He started to jog a 
little. After a long time, he told me that this was a section of the trail 
that he enjoyed running the most. I thought to myself how sad it was that he 
would not be able to “run” it this year. Then the trail began to make sharp 
switchbacks and decline rapidly. Jamshid’s pace picked up and he turned into 
a new man. Before long I was struggling to keep up. I had witnessed an ultra-
marathon miracle, but I didn’t know how long it would last. So I decided to 
enjoy it. As Jamshid got further out ahead of me, I started to wonder whether 
I’d be able to keep up with him at all. I could see his light periodically 
down through the woods and at one point he seemed to be two switch backs 
ahead of me. As he got further ahead, the dust was settling that he’d been 
kicking up on the trail. It had been obstructing my vision in the light of my 
headlamp earlier. That helped me pick up my own pace a little, and as we 
neared the bottom of the canyon, and the trail flattened out a little, I was 
able to start catching back up. When we got to the bottom there was a creek 
crossing and Jamshid jumped right into the middle, with both feet. Another 
runner was gingerly stepping over the rocks and almost fell in when Jamshid 
landed and began splashing about. After he’d gotten sufficiently soaked, he 
turned back onto the trail, and resumed the slow walk. This was the pattern 
throughout the remainder of the race. We walked painfully slow on the up 
hills, and ran like maniacs on the down hills. The steeper and more technical 
the trail, the better Jamshid ran. It was really very amazing. When we got to 
the Bath House aid station, one of Jamshid’s friends (Ron from Alaska) was 
there with Jamshid’s pacer number. See, I still had Laura’s pacer number, 
since I’d been recruited to assist Jamshid on very short notice. The next 
check point was Forest Hills, and that’s where pacers normally picked up 
numbers. I’d planned to get Jamshid’s pacer number when we got there. Now I 
figured I’d end up dropping out at Forest Hills and letting Ron take over. 
From the Bath House Road aid station to Forest Hills it was all up hill and 
of course, we walked, very slowly. Eventually Ron suggested that if I wanted 
to run ahead, that would be ok. So I ran into Forest Hills where Jamshid’s 
crew was waiting for him. The cut off time for Forest Hills was nearing and 
it was looking doubtful he would make it in time. The check point chief was 
on a megaphone announcing the amount of time until the cut off, and about the 
time he said “one minute” a light appeared down the trail, and it was Jamshid 
and Ron. The rules on cut off times are that you have to “exit” the check 
point by the cut off time, so Jamshid ran through the check point, hopped on 
the scale, not even long enough to let it give a weight, and sped through the 
exit, with just seconds to spare. There his crew had a lawn chair, some rice 
pudding, and a Starbucks bottled Mochachino. I watched them tend to him and 
started wondering if his crew might give me a ride somewhere. As Jamshid 
started to get up, to return to the trail, he asked if I could keep running 
with them. I told him no thank you but that I really enjoyed the run and 
wished him luck etc. But Jamshid was insistent that he really wanted me to 
join them, and I should ask someone. There was a race official there with us, 
and she said that racers could only have one pacer, that was the rule. 
Jamshid asked if there was anyone else we could ask. She pointed out the 
checkpoint chief, Scott, and Ron and I approached him as he was beginning his 
long job of closing down the Forest Hills checkpoint station. I explained my 
predicament to Scott, fully expecting him to tell me the same thing, that 
only one pacer was allowed. However, I suspect that with the excessive heat, 
some of the race officials were thinking it would be better to have a few 
extra pacers on the course on this particular night. As it turned out, this 
was probably a good decision. I did continue running with Jamshid and Ron, 
and on about the third long down hill, Jamshid and I outran Ron for the final 
time, literally leaving him in the dust. Through the rest of the check points 
our cushion under the cut off varied from 18 minutes to five. Jamshid very 
slowly recovered from his nausea, taking very well to a bottle of the Ensure 
that I found in one of Sarah’s drop bags. This was Jamshid’s ninth Western 
States, which meant if he completed it within the cut off time, he’d be 
exempt from the next year’s lottery. I was surprised several times at how 
well he remembered the course. At one point as we approached a checkpoint, we 
stopped at a creek crossing just a few hundred yards out, and this time we 
“sat” in the water. Moments later in the check point, when Jamshid was 
standing dripping wet on the scale, it occurred to me that this was part of 
his strategy to keep from getting pulled from the course for weight loss 
(dehydration). 

Some of the more memorable moments throughout the remainder of the race 
included crossing the Rucky Chucky River on the raft, walking up the hill on 
the other side as the sun rose, walking up hill through the back 
neighborhoods in Auburn thinking that the Placer High School track had to be 
right around the corner, and finally crossing the finish line in 29 hrs and 
55 minutes, five minutes to spare until the official cut off. With less than 
a mile to go, Jamshid told me that when he finished he was going to get an 
IV. I didn’t realize this was a voluntary thing. When they put Jamshid’s 
medal around his neck shortly after crossing the finish line, he begin to 
fall backward and was caught by some of the volunteers. He very easily talked 
them into giving him an IV, and quickly regained his composure, for the most 
part. He became so gracious of my participation that it got a little 
embarrassing. I walked around the finish area for a while, trying to find a 
place to get out of the sun, more than a little dazed from the miles, the 
heat, lack of sleep, and a little of my own dehydration. I felt like I was on 
the brink of crying and laughing at the same time. I was so happy for 
Jamshid. This finish was so important to him. I was also enjoying the fact 
that I had been part of such an epic adventure. At the same time I was going 
through a little pity party because I couldn’t find Sarah, Katherine and 
Karen and was wondering how I was going to get to the hotel where my stuff 
was. When they finally did show up, I did start crying because I knew that 
they would understand and that they would be attentive to me, which I really 
needed after spending 13 ½ hours totally thinking of another person the whole 
time. It wasn’t until we were finished that it struck me how tired I was when 
I had a chance to start thinking of myself. These ladies did not disappoint 
me. They gave me hugs and were very excited for me and helped me get some 
lunch. 

The next morning I returned to Squaw Valley and ran the first 4 miles of the 
race out and back. It was beautiful, steep and surreal with the snow fields 
out there in the middle of the summer, with temperatures possibly already in 
the 80’s. I recovered fairly quickly from this run, probably because of all 
the walking. My experience out there made me want to run this race myself one 
day. I went out there thinking this, and at Michigan Bluff almost changed my 
mind, watching people coming in with distended stomachs from low electrolyte 
levels, feet so swollen they had difficulty pulling off their shoes, cuts and 
bruises, difficulty even walking. It looked like MASH. 

As I said before, it was an epic experience. It was like I lived a brief 
lifetime that weekend. I look forward to going back one day, probably as a 
pacer again, maybe for Sarah, and hopefully one day to take on the whole 
beast, as an official runner.

Prince Whatley
August 31, 2006