Back to the Texas heat and notes on the race weekend...

I'm sitting in my girlfriend Sue's living room in Dallas,
it's very nice and cool in here.. good thing CAUSE IT'S
104 outside. But of course you guys know that since the
majority of you are in Texas also. But there is a very
nice pool out back that I can't wait to get into. Tonight
we will go out for drinks and dinner with my friend Janis
and her husband. At least I have very good friends in Dallas!

Texas is truly it's own country, I really notice the
difference driving from state to state. I love Texas
but I do hope someday to have at least a second residence
in Colorado. Anyone want to invest in a place with me and
we'll co-op????

I want to finally write about the weekend at Putnam Basin
tending to the aid station at mile 94. The good : by the
time the people get to this point they really need our help
and truly appreciate us being there... The bad : you are
at the end so you are the LAST ones to be able to go home
and the hours are very long. I could say that it was remote
and we had to hike in but that is a GOOD thing. I loved the
challenge and the beauty of the site.
I was up at 5:30am race morning to go to the start
and see everyone off. There were many excited people and
all my new friends were saying "see you at mile 94 !!",
such an optimistic group...I knew that we would not see
about 30% of them. 140 people started the race!!

We met our horsepacker at 2pm that day to load all our
gear and start into Putnam Basin where our aid station would
be. It rained a bit but all in all a beautiful day. Once
at our site we set up tarps to shelter our tables, set up
our tents, hung the Texas flag, gathered firewood and filled
giant water bottles with water from the beautiful stream that
flowed down from the peak, past us and down down down the mountain
to Bear Creek that flows past Silverton. We treated the water with
a product called Pristine and it works very well. After we
were all set up and all supplies were organized we ate our
own dinners, built a nice fire and went to sleep around 10pm.
We listened to the radio most of the evening to hear the
status and progress of the lead runners. We needed to be sure
we were up and ready for the first person through. Our radio
guy was a man from Boulder and his 2 sons, 14 and 16. All 3
are licensed radio operators and took their job seriously.

At 3 am Mark radioed in to see where the leader was. He was
already on his way to us so we set the alarms for 4:30am so
we wouldn't miss him. I never went back to sleep unfortunatley..
Kirk Melzer came through our aid station around 5:30am, the
guy was KILLING it and broke the course record. I think he
finished the whole darn thing in just over 24 hrs... We sent
a scout up the trail with a radio to get the guys order so
we would be ready when he came in. He wanted bouillon... but
he didn't say chicken or vegetable. So the big debate became
"is he a vegetarian or isn't he?". I predicted he would want
chicken and if you are expecting chicken and get veggie you
will not be happy. Marcy bet he was a vegetarian (personally
I think all really good endurance athletes eat meat)..
So to solve the issue we made cups of BOTH. As he ran in
we said "chicken or veggie?" He chose Chicken !! That was
probably the biggest issue we faced the entire weekend.
Everything went really smoothly and we all worked very well
together.

The rest of the day was spent waiting for runners. After Kirk
the next person didn't come for at least 2 hrs. This gave us
time to explore and I hiked up and over the ridge where the
runners would be coming from, maybe 2.5 miles. It was very
beautiful and I'd go back any time. As a matter of fact a
family was camping right across the creek with llamas! The
mom was writing an article for the NY Times on camping with
kids and llamas, look for it this week or next.

As the day wore on more and more runners started coming in
and we saw it all. Happy people, tired people, scared people,
but all in all VERY FRIENDLY AND APPRECIATIVE PEOPLE. I
cannot believe how polite and concerned for us they were,
even after they were caught in a terrible lightening and
hail storm on the exposed ridge about 3am on Sunday morning.
The lightening actually struck close by to one guy and
knocked him off his feet !! The oldest guy was about 72
and the oldest woman in her 60's. Many famous endurance
athletes came through, wish I knew who they all were.

Finally we were listening for the last few people, 10 more,
8 more, etc... counting them as they ran through. Where
were some of our friends? A couple had dropped unfortunately.
Where was my buddy Joe? Turns out he was the very last one,
he didn't make it to us until 4:30am and it was at least a
2 hr. run from us to the finish. He didn't make it by the
6am race cutoff time Sunday morning, but was only 40 min.
late. Poor Joe, he spent so much time training knuckleheads
like me and organizing races that he totally neglected his
own training.

We all went to sleep after Joe left and I slept like a
rock till 7am when the radio told us we were released to
pack up (you have to wait until the last runner is in
before you can go). We packed it up, left most of it for
the horse guy to come take out and the rest we hiked out
with. Straight to the awards breakfast we went and got
there by 9:30am. It was inspirational to see all these
people who just ran/hiked 100 miles to still be smiling
and walking up to get their finishers poster. And
listening to the male and female winners was amazing.
They are all such nice people and I wish I could be them
when I grow up!!

105 People officially finished the race.

Sunday night I drank beers at the Silverton Brewery
and had dinner with Joe, Joyce and many runners. It
was fun to hear their stories. Next year I think I'd
actually like to pace someone for 20 or more miles...
we'll see !!

My goal now.. To do 30 miles at Palo Duro Canyon in October.
In the meantime I'm committed to the Colorado Relay in
Frisco, Colorado in September... 112 miles run in segments
by a team of 8 to 10 people. My mom is going up for that
one with me since my Godmother lives in Denver; and No, she
won't be running. I will start training with Joe again once
I get back to Austin this week... his new business is
TejasTrails.com if you want to join me !!

I will continue to blog since Will and I leave for Lake
Tahoe and then Yosemite on July 29th. I'm taking full
advantage of this unemployment. It's been fun and I will
be home in Austin Friday night. Will comes home from camp
on Saturday!! YEAH!!