All images and video courtesy of THE TIMKO. Well, the good ones. The crap ones are mine.
Paced Bob last night at the Boulder 100. The event is 100 miles via out and back loops at the reservoir, with each lap being a bit over 7 miles. Of course, this was my first and thus far only 100 last year and so I am pretty familiar with it.. For many, this is the worst possible 100 one could choose. You pass your car every lap and for many the temptation to quit is too great. For me, the proximity to home – meaning I could do the event with my family and friends being able to attend, and run with me – made it actually more attractive. There is an aid station every three and a half or so miles, and I seem to be mentally numb to the repetitive nature of the course.
Of course,
I cratered last year when I did this event. Coming through 50 miles in about eight and half hours, a lack of training for such events caught up to me, along with a general slowing of pace with darkness. I had enjoyed an amazing crew of my family and pacers (Wyatt, Aaron, Lucho, Jeff, Homie, JT, Brandon, JP, Marty, JV and probably someone I am rudely forgetting) but I had slowed to a walk over the last couple laps – posting times per lap that would hardly challenge an elderly pedestrian with a hip injury. I had gone from early thoughts and aspirations of a 17 hour effort to an 18 to a 19 … to just getting the damn thing done in 24 – as if getting 100 done in one rotation of the Earth meant something more.
As I entered the last lap, I determined I had about 4 hours to accomplish this stunt. But when I announced these intentions to Bob … he would have none of it. Looking at his watch and doing some quick math he pondered, “Well, we’re not sure when you are going to do one these again … if ever … and 21 is going to sound a heck of lot better than 23 … you are going to run … because walking sucks.”
And I ran. Well sort of. I might have went from a 17 minute mile waddle, to a 14 minute one. But Bob took the mental whip to me and brought me around on that last lap. I grunted, groaned and even whimpered. While my pace was still slow, I was now in a place where I had not been before – and the damn thing hurt. Bob who “ran” this last lap with me in jeans and racing spikes (as he happened to just have those on) later confessed he could not bring himself to look at me because he might feel bad and let up a bit. All good in the end. I learned something about 100s, pacers, and digging deep.
Fast forward to this year: I had contemplated the
24 Hours of Boulder (same event as the Boulder 100 really) for a short bit. While I had sworn off 100s until I adequately prepared for one (see, I had done one without adequately training), a loop hole that I could exploit would be the 24 hour event. Common sense kicked in and decided against it.
Bob however hinted he had some interest, even though he had not been training much. Given the rare opportunity to register for it on race day, he figured he could make a game day call. Hearing this, I of course, decided to nudge him as much as I could. Why not? It would give me the opportunity to return the pacing favor. Bob started the event 9 AM on Saturday. While he started his trek around the res, I sat at a kid’s soccer game 20 miles to the east.
I took shelter later in the AM, when the rain and wind began to whip up. Finally, after prepping dinner after a relaxing afternoon, I headed west to Boulder, to meet
Rob T, and check on Bob’s progress. I got there around 5:30 PM.
Coincidentally, as I was pulling into the east lot of the res, Bob was just heading out for his 8th lap. He informed me that he had just gone through 50 miles, perhaps a bit slower than I had. “Really?” was my immediate reaction. Then I jokingly guessed that Bob would end up running about five hours faster than I had.
I was pretty close. He ended up running four hours or so faster.
I did a bit of checking up on how he was doing. He seemed great – good spirits, moving well, eating. All basic functions were fine.
We loosely agreed to let him do laps 8 and 9 on his own. I would join him for the 10th. In the interim, I caught up with Rob. We decided to tune into Kona … watching the live video cast from Hawaii on our cell phones. Truly, technology advances in the last decade are nutty. Here we were sitting in down coats on the shores of the Boulder Res as the sun set behind the Flatirons, in lawn chairs, watching an event LIVE that was occurring a third of the way around the globe. Crazy.
Bob clicked in (and we nearly missed him) around 6:50 – so around an 80 minute lap. This would become pretty much the pace we would see for most of the night. Running just under 10 minutes a mile, but getting to 80 ish minutes a lap when considering potty stops, some walking and time through the aid stations (the splits will be up on the Gemini Adventures web site).
Lucho joined
Rob T and me, and needless to say this meant there was the intake of carb based beverages in order to assure we did not bonk while helping Bob.
The race lap end has changed a bit from last year. This year it went through the facility building that is out there on the shore versus being at the end of the parking lot like it was last year.
It got dark on his 9th lap, and so I walked out to the first dam and caught him there. This lap had gone slower and he was fighting some stomach issues, but still moving pretty well. I suspected that some of the slowing was just the outcome of darkness. I think we all tend to slow a bit when it gets dark (although some more than others). We got into the aid station and got him a new shirt, and some Raman, spending about five minutes there total. Bob was moving pretty well, and we had some cloud cover so it was not too cold (and he was generating heat). Resultantly, he elected to stick to shorts, even though we were probably in the 40s on the overnight.
And out we went (around 8 and change). Typical stuff. Running. Some walking. Assuring intake of fluids and calories. Bob is pretty experienced at that stuff so he just needed the occasional reminder. Lot of B.S. ing about nothing: training, parenthood, lack of training, politics, over training, religion, nutrition and training, marriage, altitude and training, dogs, optimal training in less than optimal conditions … you get the idea. All under the dark, with headlamps in the distance.
I recall when I did this event last year, Marty came by in the middle of the day and ran with me for a bit. Then he came by like at 10 PM that night. He told me about his day. He had run with me. Then he had gone to a movie with his wife. Then a volleyball game for his daughter. Than they went to dinner. And then for a walk after dinner. All that, while I ran around in circles at the res. It magnified to me how silly the whole thing was.
We played with some math out there. With 5 laps left, we could start to make some predictions about where he would end up – but you need to be a bit careful here. A lot can happen in the last 35 miles of a 100. And we started to see that. It seemed like we passing someone every couple of minutes out there (never getting passed), and this would magnify more as the night would go on. But we toyed with a variety of scenarios. 90 minute laps became a bit of a target – at least for the start, just to play the game.
We dealt with some stomach stuff, but again, he was still moving well. I decided I stick with him for the 11th lap. We came in right around 80 minutes for the 10th, did the check in stuff with Rob, Lucho and Bob’s family and were off. It was great having them right there: Bob had all necessary gear at his car. I could just call ahead to Rob’s cell and dial up what Bob was looking to get so that it was all prepped in as we cruised into the station.
The aid stations, while short, were filled with a lot of laughs. Just before this video, it was said, “man, I so love to watch you hurt like this.”
ob’s stomach seemed to settle on the next lap, and he just kept on chugging. Another 80 and change. I turned him over to
Rob for the 12th, and settled in for a few beers with
Lucho. Now, as it was midnight, we had imbibed a few – the conversation was incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and attractive. Many secrets of great endurance feats were revealed there … and they will probably not be revealed again until the next time we get called out to help some poor sucker on a 100 miler where we end up sitting in lawn chairs next to a cooler for most the night. More seriously – the dude is gold.
Rob texted that they were heading in and again, after a fairly quick transition, we were back out. With two laps to go, there was not a huge change in pace, but subtly I noticed that Bob was running a bit more, and maybe even a bit quicker here and there. Not greatly so, but maybe 10-15 seconds a mile. You could begin to feel the trigger being slowly squeezed.
And then … the last. One last pit stop, and we got word it was 1:52. A finish before 4 AM would mean a sub 18. That would call for a 68 minute lap … I knew how I felt when I had got to 93 miles in this race last year and such a feat seemed impossible. We had been clicking off the 80s, but to crank that up sub 70 seemed like a stretch. Still, and 18 and change for a 47 year old who took all of August off and had spent most of his summer screwing around hiking 14ers was a pretty damn respectable outcome.
Of course … Bob was hell bent for the sub 18. And I knew it right away as we headed out. I had grabbed him a cup of broth in the aid station at his request but when I turned to give it to him, he was already gone. I had to swing around at the cut off curve around the lot to get it to him because if I was running at the pace he was, I was not gonna get it there without spilling it. And we ran. By the time we hit the first dam wall, I was wondering what the hell I was doing – running 7:30 pace at 2AM, after running some 20 plus miles, in the dark, and with a few brews in my system. Frankly I did not want to.
But no way in hell was I gonna get dropped by him as his pacer. I did not want to run at that pace at that time with that gut full of beer, but I did not want to deal with the ensuing crap I would get if I was dropped. He was pressing the pace, and we even saw sub 7 a few times. Ugh. Wait – what the hell was I thinking? Bob was yet again, in the last miles of a 100 showing me something: how to dig. Last time he did it as a pacer. This time as a racer. He grunted, wheezed, winced, and was pushing. We reached the fair aid station, and as I filled his water bottle – he was again gone (so I had to work a touch to catch him). By the time we reached the shelter at Coot Lake, I was wholly confident that he was going to break 18 – it was just a question of how much. We came to the parking lot and I peeled off to get
Rob. The finish was epic. (warning, it might not be the best video for those weak in the gut).
And … pretty much every mistake I made last year, Bob just did not make. He paced himself more slowly in the beginning. He did not falter in his pace significantly at night. And he stayed on top of his nutrition. Well, admittedly, he did not “train” for this … but he has a history.
We sat around for about an hour, getting our wits and stabilizing a bit before we all took off and headed home. Awesome. Yes … another fun night at the Res, hanging with good friends, enjoying a few beverages and laughs, running, and learning about how to dig and see what you can get out of yourself. I keep learning it is a helluva lot more.
