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The trail beyond Butt Crack was kind of neat, maybe because it was less traveled. The bushes had grown tall and the terrain was varied. We made it back down in time to get our grilled cheese sandwich, made by Brandon. We got the last one! Next we headed out on the old Boney trail to go through the valley and over to the canyon. At first it all seemed familiar. We found Lee and Wini out on the ridge top. They had the “vibrators” from the goodie bags with them. They had hiked up a shorter route so they could see some scenery and the runners. We continued on. The trail crisscrossed a dry creek a bunch of times. I remembered this from our first Coyote, but not from the year before. Somehow I had an image of just running through grass and down a hill and then coming to the canyon. Eventually, we hit the fire road, where there were trail markings, and realized that last year we must have gone the wrong way.
As we trotted down the fire road, we had the option of taking a right turn up Fireline (aka the Overlook trail), or continuing straight. Going right would add 2 miles. We continued straight. Laura and Glenn came down the Fireline trail only a few yards in front of us. We made fun of them for running all that and only making about 5 yards of progress. Laura said she had wanted to jump from the top of Fireline to the final hill, which was really close. We walked to the aid station. The volunteers were happy to see us, I think because their job was almost done. After the aid station we took a right turn to head straight up to Cardiac, a very steep climb. We were lucky it hadn’t been raining much. I had imagined with all the earlier rain there would just be a pile of bodies that had slipped down the hill after attempting it. You almost have to use your hands to get up, it’s that steep. Don said how it’s so much easier when it’s not in hot weather--it doesn’t seem bad at all. Yeah right. But once up Cardiac, you get to run down Ray Miller, which is usually fun, but guess what? Yes, the rains had affected this trail. There were some areas of slippy sloppy stuff. It wasn’t terrible though. We’ve certainly run on worse. But it wasn’t sweet Ray Miller anymore.
Because we’d cut out a little mileage, we finished with time to spare. That meant we could head to the hotel Jacuzzi. I wasn’t too sure about how great it would be in the pouring rain, which had just started, but it was worth a try. Right after we had finished our run, we had more special food from Bill. He was cranking out soft tacos with all kinds of fixins’ and while you waited there were little smokies for appetizers, specially spiced. It was the best food ever, once again. When we got to the Jacuzzi, Laura was already there and the water was hot. We got her to talk about GU for a while. (Her dad is the inventor.) She has a lot of faith in it, which is cool to hear. We stayed in the tub a while. It was great.
Finally we had to go get ready for bowling. Yes, bowling is more mandatory than the running at C4P. We had our special bowling shirts, too. People had nicknames on their shirts. Lee and Wini were on our team again this year, plus another fellow Californian named Chris. Since Lee had hurt his back though, we got Jerry as a substitute bowler. Jerry and Chris were both good bowlers, and seemed to be on their way to throwing strikes. But then I took my shirt off to show my special ZombieRunner jog bra. It was supposed to distract the other team, but I think instead it threw off our own team. And my own bowling just stayed gutter ball bad. Lisa “Sweetness” on the other team said, “Oh yeah?” and took off her top to show a black tank top. Then a couple of the guys took their tops off. I think if the place had been warmer, we might have had a better ripple effect through all the bowling lanes. Tropical John got a strike from taking his shirt off. My plan really backfired. Oh well. We finished not last (not first either) and went over to the room where the food was.
We got pizza and settled down for Chris’ presentation of awards. There were special prizes for bowling and there was the passing of the BCD coveralls. Luis entertained us with his story about the mini bull testosterone award, which he cherished as the highest honor (no one has one of these, this is the highest honor, hell, they pass out those Western States cougars left and right, look there’s Scott, you’ve got, what five of those things?) but Luis had to pass it on to Luanne, who had somehow out-testosteroned him. He got a crock pot to make up for it, and ran around with it like it was the World Cup trophy. The new people got the best stuff, as they should. There was a selection of nice Patagonia stuff on the table for them. Chris said that’s to sucker them, ah, convince them to come back next year.
On our way back to the room we went to another convenience store and bought our selection of junk food. I got my Twinkies that I’d been craving since the bottom of Gridley. We bought a breakfast burrito and Hot Pocket for the morning. Then we watched some TV.
Sunday, sadly the last day
Sunday morning’s weather looked doubtful. It had rained all night and still looked bad. We gathered up lots of clothes and headed out with our breakfast. Well, it wasn’t that bad, I guess. We had to go up the not so sweet Ray Miller for this run. After the long very gradual climb, we went around the ridge and down a great switchback. Since I’d made a pit stop, I ran really fast (so I thought) to try and catch people on the downhill. But I didn’t. There was a mini aid station/check point and then we were on the route we came out on the day before, crisscrossing the dry creek. The trail was sheltered and went by fast. We caught up to two guys who were just standing talking. One of them said he was thinking about going back because he thought he had a stress fracture in his foot. He’d had one before. I talked to him a little bit, since I was a little concerned about my leg, too. We went on, while Cheri and Lynn (the singing ladies) caught up and talked to them. We heard Lynn telling him to get his butt going on the trail because she’d been running with a broken toe all week. So don’t be a cry baby.
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It had rained during the week. The trails were soft but not sloppy (yet). Don ran ahead of me. I had to pause when the trail opened up after going through the trees and undergrowth. The view to the left was the big valley that we would be running through on Saturday and Sunday. I was happy to be out there again. Up the trail I could see Don was running with Ann Grove. Wayne had caught up to me and we were chatting away. Ann and Wayne are a great running couple. I am impressed with their light-footedness on the trail. We caught up to Don, and then Ann and Wayne continued on while I slowed down. We finally came down the Ray Miller. It is difficult the first day because it is so tempting to just fly the trail, but we all know that many more miles are in store, so just take it easy. As we returned to the parking lot, other runners who had finished yelled for me to beat Don, so I grabbed his arm and passed him at the last second. Maybe that is a problem with this weekend--people will do whatever anyone tells them to do. After hanging around some more, we realized we better go get ready for dinner. We were talking with Mike, and Sook, who we found out is older than she looks. We figured her for somewhere around 30. I won’t tell how old she really is. She looks awesome for her age.
