Western States Reverse, July 22, 2004 Where Does the Time Go?

"Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived." --William Parrish in Meet Joe Black In Auburn on Wednesday evening, Don, Philip, Estelle and I discussed our options. We could start at 6:00 am as planned, getting maybe 5 hours of sleep, or we could adjust our start time, so that we would go into this long run somewhat well-rested. Considering the amount of time we planned to be out on the Western States trail, we opted for an 8:00 am start. This gave us time to get some dinner, get organized and tape our feet before bed. And, as I pointed out, it would give us time to get McDonald's for breakfast. The idea for the run came about when Don and I were deciding what long adventure we could do this summer. We had talked about the Tahoe Rim Trail, which is 165 miles of continuous trail on the ridges surrounding Lake Tahoe. Then Don had the idea of combining that with the Western States trail, because Squaw Valley wasn't very far from Tahoe City. We talked with Greg Soderlund, the RD for Western States, about this plan, and he casually mentioned that no one had run the Western States trail in reverse. The next day we told Greg we'd decided to do an out and back on the Western States course, but he already figured that his suggestion would have taken hold. It took us a while to settle on a start date. We wanted to finish on a weekend, and we planned to run the course straight through. We had other runs planned for the summer, so we had to fit it in between. And we didn't want to conflict with the Western States race or with the Tevis Cup, the horse race on the same course. So, we decided to start on July 22nd. In the meantime, Philip Stark had gotten so caught up in our discussion that he volunteered to run with us the entire way. Estelle volunteered to crew just about the whole thing, too. (They were our new friends.) We had many email conversations about gear and supplies, particularly what packs to use since in some areas, we would not be able to get crew to help us. We wanted to use our two-bottle waist packs when we could and would use a new GoLite pack with a 3-liter bladder when we had to. We knew the weather would be warm. We made it out to the track (had our McDonald's breakfast sandwiches on the way) and started at 8:24 am. The Western States finish line is permanently marked on the track, so we knew exactly where to start. We left the track and the adventure began. Don had a handheld GPS with trail data from Tim Twietmeyer. The roads through Auburn were a good place to start testing the navigation, although our route was pretty obvious.

We were soon on trails. During the whole run, the section from Auburn to the river was the only time we would see any people on the trail. We first encountered two women on horses. One horse stopped to pee in a creek crossing--this was just like water that we would be drinking later. I tried not to think about all horses having this habit. The other people we saw were actually having a class while sitting at a stream crossing. The instructor was saying something about Meet Joe Black and dancing to get the most enjoyment out of life. We were certainly enjoying life at this point. We were laughing as we went through our aid station stop at No Hands Bridge. Everything was nice, and it was so sunny and pretty. Highway 49 was all smiles too, although we lingered a little longer there to nibble on some food and refill water. We knew the section after that stop would take us a little while, so we stocked up. We had our two-bottle packs plus extra hand-held bottles for the heat of the early afternoon. It got hotter and hotter. My big toes felt pressure but didn't hurt. On the way down to the river, the trail was exposed and hot. We knew we were heading toward the river crossing so at least I could tell myself that soon I would be cooled off. With our later start, we reached the river at possibly the worst time of day. The water level is controled by a dam upriver. They let more water out in the early afternoon, so that the river rafters get a good ride. In the morning and later in the evening, the water level is low. We knew this before hand, but figured we'd just find a calm part of the river and swim across. It was 3:30 pm. Don and Philip looked at the river. Glen and Estelle were on the other side, looking worried. They had already gone in the water earlier. Don and Philip seemed to think that the current wasn't that strong, and we could just go across here. The trouble was, it would be hard to go up or down river and find a place where there was access to the river on both sides. You could see how fast moving the water was, and I was picturing the WS video where they show a guy almost lose it even when there was a cable to grab onto and the water was shallow. We bagged up all our stuff and tied it to Philip. He ventured out. I sat with submerged shoes, cooling my feet. The shoes were waterproof and floated. At first, Philip seemed fine. Then he started to swim. Then he was quickly swept down the river without going across. I said shocked, "and he's a swimmer." thinking what hope do we have. He was taken through the rocks "oh that's gonna hurt" and then stopped. I was really worried that he was beat up. Don and I headed back up the river bank and down river, looking over at Philip. I saw that he finally got to the other side and made it out. There wasn't an easy way to get very far down river, so Don spotted a trail over on the other side and decided to aim for that. We were wading along the edge of the river, and then he went in. His swimming looked a little frantic to me, and he certainly didn't go straight across, but he ended up very close to the little trail up the bank. So, I followed, trying to head on a diagonal, and looking fearfully at the upcoming rocks. I didn't want to be swept through the rapids. Don was reaching out his hand, but I missed it. I made it to the side a little ways down from him, into the brambles. Sure those blackberries were good earlier. I knew I had to grab something, and found a non-prickly branch. I got one foot on a rock and just held on. The water felt fast. I thought to myself that this was not a place my mother would have wanted me to be. Don waded down to meet me and we got up to the trail. Standing up gave the water less to pull on. As we stumbled up the trail and over to Estelle's truck, I was laughing. We took quite a long break to laugh some more at ourselves, change shoes, and just sit. We somehow missed Glen and Estelle. They had continued on the trail down river, thinking that's where Don and I were headed. I removed all the tape from my feet. It was mostly coming off, and seemed to be doing more harm than good at this point. My feet had been in the water too long. My right big toe already had a blister under the toenail. I powdered my feet and let them air out. I changed to my larger-sized Asics Culmulus shoes. The Diet Coke was good. I later explained to Philip that there is a term in hangliding that applies to him. When all the pros are gathered at a launch site waiting for ideal conditions, they'll encourage a less experienced person to launch, or test the waters, so to speak. If they have a good flight, everyone goes up, but if they don't, well, of course they all wait. This person is commonly referred to as the "wind dummy."

We eventually got it together and headed up toward Foresthill. Any time that we had gained on our schedule was lost with the extended time crossing the river and recovering from it. Peachstone would be our next aid station stop, which would have limited supplies since Estelle and Glen would have to hike for a mile to reach us. The trail from the river was the hottest part of the run. It was over 100 degrees. The sun was directly on our backs and, even though I kept wishing for it, the trail would not turn to let us hide behind the hills. It just stayed straight forever. My calves were burning. Don started getting a little loopy. Then he got quiet. Then he got sick. He looked a bad color. His lips were paler than his face, and his face was chalk. He recovered a bit after throwing up, but had lost a lot of energy. He was arguing with himself over whether he'd had too much or too little salt. Estelle and Glen came down the trail to meet us. Don laid down. We got to the Peachstone area and tried to pretend it was an aid station. Instead I got eaten by mosquitos. They were horrible. I wished I could just lie on the ground like Don, but I was being constantly bitten. We had some Major Dickasons chocolate. Soon after Glen and Estelle left us, Don was throwing up again. This time he made sure to take extra salt right away. That seemed to work. He perked up and even started running again. It was also cooler by then, which helped all of us. It was getting dark on us before we reached Foresthill. Philip carried emergency microlights in his pack. It was amazing how bright a single LED could be. Glen came down the trail to meet us with real flashlights. Philip and Don were moving along well and went on ahead. I wandered along with Glen. We reached the intersection with Foresthill Road and Estelle had the chairs set up with all our stuff out on a tarp. But there was no Don and Philip. We thought maybe they had turned right up the road without seeing the stop. Glen drove off to see. Then they came up the road. Philip had turned at the previous intersection of the trail with the road, and Don had gone to get him. The three of us sat in the chairs for a while. We were an odd looking group. Foresthill road was uphill and then we turned on Bath Road. Estelle drove down part of the way to refill water. Then she drove around out to Michigan Bluff, while we went through Volcano Canyon to get there. At Michigan Bluff, we made the switch from bottle packs to backpacks with hydration bladders. It took a while. I wanted to make sure my special side pocket things were in easy-to-reach places--lip balm, Bodyglide, eye drops, electrolytes and other pills.

We headed off down the trail in the darkness. Even downhill was hard for me, but going up the next side of El Dorado Canyon was extremely slow. We knew that somewhere at the top there would be some water. It started to get light. We'd gone through one night already. At the top was Deadwood cemetery and then Devil's Thumb. During this section the mosquitos came out to play. They were even worse than before! I've been plagued by flies on runs before, but never this. I was being bitten all over, and smacking them didn't seem to kill them. We found the water pump and it was in good working order. It seemed so rustic to be pumping water out the ground. It was good water too. I smacked more mosquitos. We saw the Devil's Thumb briefly, and then went down the trail that so many Western States runners had dreaded coming up. I remembered that there were steep sections and wondered how it would be going downhill. The trail was good for running down, but pretty dusty. I don't think I was running, I was really plodding. When we reached the bridge at the bottom of Deadwood Canyon, Philip put his feet up to rest. I decided to put my whole body down. It was nice to be flat on the bridge, warm, with no mosquitos or flies. For a very short moment I was in heaven. Who needs sleeping pads? As soon as we started uphill to climb out of the canyon, I was slow again. Last Chance awaited us at the top, with Glen at Dusty Corners beyond. I think we had more mosquitos. I swore to myself that I would never again forget the bug repellent. We went along on fire road for a while after the climb and then turned onto the pucker point trail. It was a nice change from the fire road, with great views off to our left. I was not in an appreciative mood though. I was tired. There were still flies and mosquitos. The trail seemed to go on forever. Maybe knowing that there would be aid at the end of the trail made it take longer. Finally we saw Glen, who had run down to meet us. He had ice water and offered it to us. It was good, but I needed something other than water. I'd long forgotten that drinking CLIP is always a good thing for me. I guess I just didn't feel like going to the effort. Glen ran along with us. He said it was over a mile, or something long-sounding like that. When we reached his car, he had all the aid station supplies laid out for us. We sat for a bit. It was pretty warm. The next section had lots of fire roads. We hoped it would be shaded, but the sun was high. This stretch took us to Little Bald Mountain. At first it was downhill, but after the bridge in Deep Canyon, it was a long gradual up. This part of the course wasn't that hard, but it went on forever. I thought about how much I'd rather be going in the opposite direction. My world was reduced to following the footprints of Don and Philip. I got to know their tread marks pretty well--Don's Brooks Addictions and Philip's Montrails. I stopped looking up because each time it just seemed like there was a long hill in front of me. I was tired. I was trying to work out what to do next. In my mind, even 100 miles was too big. I needed to sit on a log. I told Don I couldn't make it. I was so sad about not being able to keep up with them. He said we'd figure it all out. It would be ok. Maybe 100 miles would be enough. We just had to keep going.

Suddenly, we all perked up because Lee appeared on the trail with Estelle. He pointed out the peaches for us. They were sitting on a sign. My peach was good. Lee went with us to the aid station site. Estelle had to turn around the truck, so she waited for us to go by. It took a while, but we didn't notice, because when we got to the aid station there were cheese burgers waiting for us. This was the best surprise. We sat on logs. Estelle made it back--the truck had gotten stuck. Then she drove down to Robinson and got chairs and some other supplies for us. We were actually just sitting in the middle of a fire road. That wasn't completely obvious until a truck wanted to come through. Philip toyed with changing shoes. We were just happy to be there. It was 71.6 miles. We brought up the idea of ending at 100 miles. Lee said not to talk about it yet. He thought we shouldn't decide until Robinson Flat. Of course, it was all clear in my mind. I thought we might as well admit it, so that everyone could adjust their plans. If we were coming back again, Lee and Wini would be meeting us again in the morning. If not, they could do whatever they wanted and not worry about us. Don agreed with me only because he didn't want to be out here through Monday, which was how long it would take given our current pace. And it would be difficult for other people to stay out through Monday too. I felt I had resolution and just maybe I could face 28 more miles. The Little Bald Mountain trail looped around to Robinson Flat, where Lee and Wini were set up. It was 4 miles, and was not hilly. It was a great section of trail because it went around the mountain, providing views of the valley and hills, some of which had been burned in the Star fire. We kept up a good pace for this section and arrived at Robinson Flat in no time. It was during this section that reversing the course felt really weird. In the race, when you leave Robinson, the trail is pretty and almost cultivated looking, which seems normal since you are leaving a camp area full of people, a civilized area. Then the meadowy feeling falls away as you go up rocky hills. This way, we found ourselves in surroundings that didn't look like anything we'd been through before. And then we arrived at camp. Wini and Lee were making sandwiches. These were the best. After all our ham, turkey, and cheese, the fresh salmon salad sandwiches with fresh iceberg lettuce were a welcome change. They tasted great. Watermelon was good too. Wini brought out all kinds of fresh fruit. It was like being in paradise. The nice thing was how happy Lee and Wini were to be there. They truly loved that area. So, even though Don had said we should make this stop a short one, we lingered and ate. Then, we had to figure out what to do with Glen. His plan originally was to run to Squaw and back to Robinson with us. Since we weren't coming back to Robinson, he either had to come back alone, or somehow have his car go to Squaw. There were no more drivers though. We eventually figured that he could come back alone to Red Star, where Lee and Wini would be and could take his car. That would shorten the run, and it would be ok as long as he waited until it was light to make the trip. With that settled, the four of us finally took off on the fire road to Red Star. Lee and Wini would meet us again there. Estelle would head to Squaw for (hopefully) some rest. We had 7.6 miles to go to Red Star. We were heading into the evening. Glen and Don chatted away and moved ahead of Philip and me. I think we talked. I don't know. The fire road rolled along. At the fork in the road we went right. Philip remembered Glen saying the aid station was a mile after that. It got dark quickly. When we thought we'd covered about a mile, we got a little nervous. Maybe we should have gone left? It wasn't all that clear. We had been following leftover markings from the Western States run, but didn't see any out here. We thought about going back. We also thought about going forward. I tried looking for familiar footprints, but in my haze couldn't tell. Would there really be other feet out there? I tried yelling, but I guess sound didn't carry. We eventually decided to continue forward, and then a green light appeared. Don had come back to find us. I guess we were a little annoyed about being separated in the dark. Lee and Wini had all kinds of food out for us again. More sandwiches and melon. Wini started digging out different snacks we could take with us--organic chocolate and various things. Healthy stuff. I also had a sandwich to go. I think I kept adding sandwiches along the way, but not eating all of them. The packs we were using were big enough that we could just keep adding. We were now filled up with 3 liters of water and our gear. I had a long sleeve top and a jacket in case I got cold. I did get cold when we stopped, but then I'd warm up again. This was a pain with the pack, on again off again was time consuming and tiring work. So we thanked Lee and Wini and said for sure that we wouldn't be back from Squaw, and headed off into the night. It was dark except for an orange glow low in the sky. I tried to imagine what the trail looked like. It was single track with lots of rocks. My feet were at a point where the rocks were a problem. It hurt to step on and over all the rocks. Not that there were really so many rocks--on a normal day I don't think it would seem like a big deal at all.

We were looking for one big rock, cougar rock to be exact. That was a landmark in the trail. During Western States, the photographer always hangs out there. It was hard to find in reverse. In fact, we missed it but then doubled back when Glen realized what we had done. Lee said afterwards that they had seen our footsteps going around the rock. The trail after that seemed to just double back on itself. I was sure we'd run all this before, fallen trees, lots of rocks. It was all the same. I thought any minute we'd see Lee and Wini's minivan. We came to a fire road and continued along. We had to deal with being really tired. So, someone had the bright idea of just napping in the trail on a smoother section. Five minutes. That worked for me. We didn't have our compact sleeping pads with us, but it didn't matter. We were so tired it was pretty easy to doze off. Glen woke us up a little more than 5 minutes later and we got moving again. We did this twice. For the second one I was searching for a smooth and not too cold area for a while. It kept me going to think that I could stop. After a while, Don and Philip started talking about the trail seeming weird. Glen agreed. We were heading down and in the wrong direction. Don got out the trusty GPS and it showed us off course. As he retraced our steps, it became clear that somewhere we had missed a turn. I was too tired to be annoyed. I dragged on back. We'd gone over a mile out of our way. The turn was kind of hidden, but if you looked closely there were trail ribbons in the grass. The GPS was right on it. It was a single track trail going up from the left of the fire road. Once we were on that trail, things seemed familiar again. The yellow flowers with the big leaves, the streams that took over the rocky trails, and the big boulders and trees matched my vague memories of early miles of Western States. I hoped the finish was closer than I thought. We'd made it through another night. Our estimates of finish time kept slipping and then we stopped talking about it after getting off track. The end would be soon. That was all that mattered. We could enjoy the last part, even if it was difficult and uphill. My stomach had decided the run was over quite a while ago. Water made me nauseous, salt didn't seem to help, and little bites of food only temporarily helped. I couldn't eat any more than a few bites though. My stomach just kept emptying so fast. Philip seemed at a low energy point too, but then when he figured out how long it was taking us and the time he had to leave Squaw to go to Davis, the times didn't add up too well. We went from thinking we had time for showers and naps to hoping that we'd make it there in time to leave. I wondered if the trail would ever head up the mountain instead of just tossing us around in the boulders and creeks below. We were rolling along. Endlessly. The turn came suddenly. A few switchbacks and we could see where we were headed. At last. A real milestone that meant we were almost at the end.

So we reached the top and then what? I think we had assumed it would be simple to just follow the fire road down to the bottom, but the way was not clear. Don found the Escarpment, a steep, scramble area where we had to butt slide at the end of it. Then there was a single track, then it was all fire road. I thought we'd never get down. Estelle came up to meet us. She was relieved and happy and taking pictures. I was dead tired and in pain. My quads were gone at about 50 miles. This last 4 miles downhill was killing me. I wasn't sure if running or walking was worse. And I still had to pee. Then I could see the end, and I looked at Philip to see if he looked different for completing his first 100 miler. There was something, but maybe just the glazed look of a person who has been up for 48 hours. Speaking of the time, we were approaching 48 hours total but were not at our finish yet. Should we try for it? Don said he was game. I was appalled. After all that, we had to sprint? So we agreed not to, but we did jog it in with some kind of style, and the starting line for Western States will always be known to me as the Start/Finish. The first thing I looked forward to was a sit-down bathroom, and I knew where to find it. Squaw was bustling with activity, and I had to smile about how we must look to these people. I watched Philip all dirty and weary walk by a man and woman dressed in active wear looking fresh, perky and white--all starchy white like a commercial. The first food Estelle gave us was McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. They were the best. I think I had a soda. It's hard to know what else happened. We staggered around a bit, got in the car, and I sort of slept all the way to Auburn. I was confused though. For a while during the drive I thought, "This should only take 20 minutes, since we are just going up Foresthill road." I was confused. The drive from Squaw to Auburn takes a couple hours. Estelle had to make the drive with no great conversation from any of us. Don and I checked into the hotel in Auburn and slept for a while. At around dinner time, we headed out for a collection of post-run recovery food. We ate as we watched whatever junk was on TV. It was the best food ever.

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