From owner-ius-l@AMERICAN.EDU Sat Jul 6 21:27:48 1996 Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 23:36:27 +0400 (EDT) From: Mike Franusich Subject: Cruisin' the Western States Trail To: ius-l@AMERICAN.EDU Western States from the Back of the Pack As I was sitting in the shade at the finish line, looking at my finisher's medal through damp eyes and biting my lower lip, Norm came over to see how I was doing. He told me that it's tough for a guy my size to do that course, and that it "took a lot of guts." I realized later that what Norm said was not a new revelation to him, but that he had just kept it to himself and had given nothing but encouragement. That's the way Norm is. Running and finishing Western States was a dream and a goal that started for me back in the early 80's when Bobby Yee, who owned a running store in Monterey, would tell me stories about his own adventures on the course. At the time I was a 175-lb. 2:40 marathoner with 9 percent body fat, starting to move into ultras. I sent in my application for the 1987 WS, but didn't get picked in the lottery, and in July of '87 I got nailed by a mystery illness that sent me on a long slide into a deep pit. A few years later I weighed close to 240 and couldn't run more than a couple of miles without getting a sore throat and fever a few days later. For the past several years it's been a long series of little climb a little and slide back a little, but I was slowly making progress out of the pit. I could go on and on about that, but this is an ultra running list, not misc.support.groups.poor.little.me. Two years ago, on a whim, I ran my first fifty since the downturn, just to see how it felt. I wasn't fast, but I was fast enough to qualify for Western, so after nine years I gave it another shot and got picked! Six months of training with the excitement of finally getting a chance at my dream carried me through the awful Eastern winter and to the starting line at Squaw Valley. I had never met my crew, Skip and Diane Eastman, but we had some long talks on the phone. Diane impressed upon me the importance of taking it really easy in the first miles. Just as she told me, there was a ton of excitement as people crested the top of the first climb and flew down the first long downhills. I just cruised, not wanting my 211 pounds to go tumbling. As it turned out, all my downhills were slow, but my quads felt fine the entire course. I did see quite a few people fall, but I didn't see anyone get seriously injured. Trouble for me hit right after Duncan Canyon on the climb up to Robinson Flat. I started getting nauseous, probably from the gatorade I drank when I ran out of Cytomax. I began to see me dream evaporate, but I followed "The Queen of Barf's" advice and let loose over the side. A couple of Pepto tablets, a few soda crackers, and some slow sips of cold Cytomax had me feeling fine as I pulled the grade up to Robinson. Even after giving back a bunch of fluid on the way there, I still weighed a bit over my starting weight when I got into Robinson. At all but the last two medical checks, I was at least a couple of pounds over my 211 starting weight. They say there comes a time in every ultra where you know you're OK. That point for me was on the downhill to Dusty Corners, when I figured I only had to average three mph to make it in. There were still over sixty miles to go, but I was convinced that I was going go the whole distance. On the way down to Dusty Corners I caught up with a guy dressed like a Tarahumara, and we ran together off and on for several miles. I started calling him "Bag Man", and he seemed to get a kick out of that, not until Michigan Bluff did I learn that "Bag Man" was Gary Cross, going for his tenth finish. Gary and I had talked at Squaw, but I didn't recognize him with his bag on, nor did he recognize me with a hat covering my bald head. The two big canyons were a lot different than I imagined -- mostly wooded instead of open and rocky. I cruised down the hills, getting passed a lot, and powerwalked up the hills, passing a lot of the same people. A few people that I passed were injured and just limping along to get to the next aid station, and a few more were just defeated and were going to give it up -- all people with their own stories and dreams. One guy was lying on a rock shivering, so I stopped to make sure he wasn't in immediate danger, got his bib number, and climbed on up to look for the first medic I could find. I met a doctor coming down the hill and told him about the fellow. The doc asked me "Is it the big guy?", I told him "no", but refrained from saying "no, I'm the big guy." I guess there was some "big guy" out on the course that day that had some people worried. I pulled into Michigan Bluff right on the 30-hour split, ready with a plan to quickly deal with my blistered feet. Skip and Lauren Lechner, my soon-to-be-pacer, pulled off my shoes and socks, slathered my feet with Bag Balm, pulled on a pair of thin socks, slathered those, then pulled on a pair of my regular thick socks. My shoes went right back on, and I was out of there, flashlight in hand, in just a couple of minutes. I asked Tony Rossmann about the cutoff times at Foresthill, and he told me not to worry about it, because he had come through Michigan Bluff 45 minutes later last year and had still got in 29 hours. His encouragement spurred me on. The rocky downhill into Volcano Canyon took longer than I wanted, but I still got to Foresthill right on the 30-hour split. Lauren was ready with my headlamp and fresh bottles, so down we went into the California Street loop. Once we stepped off onto that trail, every step was farther than I had ever run, but we were having too much fun to even think about the distance. I was hoping to get a few more minutes in the bank on the way to the river, and we did get there by 3:40, well ahead of the 4:30 split. Skip was waiting there, and we did a quick supply reload and battery change in my headlamp, and into the river I went. What a gas! I'd wanted to cross that river at night years, ever since Bobby Yee told me how fun it was. The next several hours seemed a blur to me, as Skip and I trotted along the rough stuff and open the tap a bit on the smoother footing. I found that I couldn't run very fast if either of us was talking, as I needed all of my concentration to pay attention to the trail. This was the point where "be the trail" became the nice way for one of us to tell the other to zip it. Skip and I were having a blast with those endorphined-out zaney conversations, but there were still a few miles to go and not a whole lot of extra minutes to burn. Rolling along the contours in the early morning light, I started to hear music echoing through the trees. All through the night it had been the hum of gnerators that told us an aid station was nearby, but this one was different. Pretty soon I recognized the voice of Aretha Franklin, and then we could see Christmas lights through the trees. Coming up a small grade I saw flour at the base of a tree and thought "hashers?", and then I started seeing flour at the base of every tree along the trail just as we turned a corner and saw a neon Coors sign hanging from a bridge. All doubts were erased when we saw the big H3 on the bridge, along with the international beer check sign drawn with flour. I then knew we were close to home, since it's always an easy run in from the beer stop. (They were serving Sierra Nevada, of course, but I stuck with water.) On out and on up to the Highway 49 crossing, where we caught Diane and Lauren by surprise with our early arrival. Ditch the flashlights, grab some Cytomax and sunglasses, and roll on out of there for the drop down to No Hands Bridge. Once again I choked on the rocky downhills, but we got to No Hands almost a half hour ahead of the 30-hour split. From there I knew I could walk it in and make it, so I didn't push at all, to Skip's consternation, since I was afraid of locking up with a cramp just shy of finishing. Lots of people passed me running up the hill, but time no longer mattered to me. I knew I just had to roll on in. So the "big guy" and Skip pulled the grade to Robie Point, where Diane and Lauren joined us for the victory stroll down to the high school. Onto the track where Skip told someone at the gate how to pronounce my last name, and down around the turn I trotted to the finish line I'd wanted to cross for over a decade. Someone put a medal around my neck, and someone led me to the medical check, but I was too excited to notice much. I found an empty lawn chair under one of the IV tents, and sat down to cool off a bit. Next to me was Dink Taylor, the speedster from Alabama. The first time I'd seen him was in the 50-miler where I qualified for Western, and where Dink had run a 5:53. Turns out he had some major stomach problems and dehydrated pretty badly, but he toughed it out for the finish. It's rare that you see one of those elite guys tough it out for a slow time. I sat in the tent for a few minutes and a few cans of orange soda, then Norm came by to check on me and congratulate me. I was finally back. Oh, and "Bag Man" got his 1000-mile buckle! Mike Franusich Pittsburgh, PA _____________ Note to the guy who followed me around at Squaw Valley telling me that I was too heavy, too old, and from the wrong part of the country to finish Western: nyah nyah nyah!!!