WESTERN STATES 100 MILE TRAIL RACE, CALIFORNIA
Report by Max Bogenhuber
For those not in the know, the Western States 100 is a 100 mile race through the California Sierra mountains, starting at Squaw Valley (near Lake Tahoe) and finishing in Auburn, not all that far from Sacramento. Elevation changes are about 18000 foot of climb and 22000 foot of descent. I have run the event three times and I have been told by someone here that it must be an easy run, because it has more downhill than uphill. That someone shall remain nameless. But I DO hope that he will garner enough courage one day to enter that race, finishing it is a different story.
There is always a tendency to shut up about a race that one did not finish and I really don’t want to write about my experience this year, but rather the valiant effort put in on that scorching June day by Andrew McKenzie-Hicks.
Andrew and I got to California a week before the race. We drove up to the mountains to get a few runs in on the trail before race day. I know most of the trail reasonably well by now, but for Andrew it was all a new experience. I had told him back here that it gets hot up there: On that first training run about halfway along the actual trail it began to sink in just HOW hot ! We used up eight 16 ounce drink bottles in about 12 miles.
I had been pretty crook for some time and because of that had not been able to train like I normally do for this, so I quite honestly did not expect to get to the finish, but! had to go to the US anyway and I had entered (you have to enter by November the year before), so I decided to take it easy and see how far I would get.
There were all sorts of stories going around about cut-off times being extended because of the heavy cover of snow in the early miles. Now this is a bit hard to explain, super hot temperatures and snow on the trail !…you have to bea kidding ! Well, I kid you not, we had about 38 degrees at 6000 feet, the day before the race and yet over the first 30 miles there was snow on the trail on and off. The snow was pretty hard and really did not present a problem for me to run on, but some runners practically crawled over it. Its funny what the fear of the unknown can do to people.
I sort of struggled my way to Forest Hill (about 62 miles), but after taking an hour and fortyf ive minutes for the last two miles before getting there, I realised that it was pretty useless to carry on. So that’s where I quit. It was a good place to stop, because this is where runners pick up their pacers, if they have one. And this is where I’ll pick up Andrew’s story.
Fred, my brother who lives over there, had arranged for a pacer for Andrew. So while I was hanging around Forest Hill this guy came up to me and asked me where Andrew was. We searched the progress boards for his name, but soon became aware that these boards are not updated too often. So we waited around. I was starting to worry about Andrew when he had not arrived within an hour of my arrival there. I knew that he had put his first torch (for night running on the trail) in his Forest Hill drop bag. So I told his pacer that he would have to get there before dark. Well time went by and it got dark and no Andrew. Once the night had settled in and it was pitch dark, the pacer went home thinking that Andrew must have pulled out somewhere. No more than five minutes after he left Andrew turned up looking for his pacer. I did not want Andrew to know that I was out of the race, so I kept away from him and after a while Andrew decided to head out into the night on his own.
Not long after Andrew had left, my sister in law (a pretty good runner herself) turned up with the news that the guy she was supposed to pace had pulled out of the race at an earlier aid station. So I said why don’t you pace Andrew!?

We decided to go down to the next major aid station to meet him there. This station is down by the American River and you can’t drive down. So she ran the three miles from the road down to the aid station, in the dark, to wait there for him. She waited there for six hours. No Andrew. At this stage she was sure that he must have pulled out of the race somewhere between Forest Hill and the River Crossing, ran back up to the road and got a lift back to the finish at Auburn.
Meanwhile, my brother had finished the race in 11th place, we had been to the motel for a shower and a sleep and returned to the finish area (these are long races). When we got back there, we checked the progress board and found that Andrew had crossed the river and was on his way to the finish. But we had no idea how long he would be, so we went for something to eat downtown.
When we got back, there was Andrew, looking a bit worse for wear but in good spirits. For me, this was a very emotional moment, because I had given up on him and was feeling sorry for him because I knew how much he trained for this.
When he told us his side of the story I realised just how tough it must have
been for him. He had passed out coming out of one of the canyons where the day time temperature had reached 48 degrees. After regaining his senses he made it to the next aid station only to be held there, by a race doctor, for some time. And from then onwards he would get held at several aid stations because he had lost too much weight. When it dark on him out on the trail and he had no light because his torch was at Forest Hill, he stayed close to a runner who had a torch. Having done the race, I can assure you that’s a tough way of doing it. To Andrew’s credit he perservered and finished in just under twentyeight and a half hours. That performance shows a lot of guts and a big heart, there are not too many runners that would have carried on after what he had gone through.
This year only 56 runners, out of 387 starters, made it in under 24 hours. That’s the lowest percentage ever by a long way. And only 209 runners made it to the finish inside the cut-off time of 30 hours. Would that guy that said that this must be an easy run please stand up, repeat what he said, then send off his entry for next year’s race. I’ve got a spare one !
As in all previous years, the winners, male and female, again came from the local area re-enforcing my believe that one has to live and train on that trail
to ever perform well in that race. But it would be good to see some of our top ultra runners make the journey to trail runnings altar and give the Americans a run for their money.
Note: Forest Hill to River Crossing = 16 miles,
River Crossing to finch    = 22 miles.
First male – Tom Johnson in 17:08
First female – Ann Trason in 19:05 (third outright)
387 starters, 59 females (15% of starters)
Males had a 41% finishing rate
females had a 71% finishing rate (who called them the the weaker sex ?)

by Tim Erickson

Dudley Pilkington, our oldest living Australian centurion, will turn 90 in June 2009. That being the case, it seems an appropriate time to zoom in and review his centurion walks and the wider canvas of his life.
Dudley was born on 16th June 1919 in Queenstown, Tasmania, the 7th child in a family of 8 children. Queenstown, its hills stripped of timber to fire the local copper smelters and permanently denuded by the sulphurous fumes which belched from the smelters, was a surreal nightmare. Its river was badly polluted and it had the appearance of a deserted moonscape. By any measure, Queenstown was one of the wonders of the world, a profound reminder of humanity’s capacity to destroy and pollute.

His father, a Boer War veteran, died in 1922 from complications caused by lung damage due to many years working as an underground miner in Queenstown. Dudley was only just over 3 years of age at that time. His mother had many offers of adoption but kept her family intact, something for which Dudley was always grateful. Dudley grew up in the sulphurous fumes – he reminisced recently that at times it was so dense that it could make you cough if you inhaled through the mouth. This was his first real playground until his family moved to Devonport in 1929 when he was 10 years old.
Dudley recalls that it was around 1926 when he was in the Queenstown State School as a 7 year old that he saw in a school dictation booklet that an Englishman had walked 100 miles within a day and this had been done wearing a suit, bowler hat and cane. This obviously sowed the seed of ultra-distance walking in his mind. When he finished school in Devonport, he returned to Queenstown where he worked underground at the Mt Lyall copper mine from 1937 to 1939.
With the outbreak of the war, he enlisted in the army and naturally joined the 2nd Australian Field Squadron Royal Australian Engineers. He worked in a variety of roles – as a miner, in water reticulation, building toilets in the trenches, excavating and as an army cook. He suffered fractures to multiple vertebrae in the back as a result of a blast during taskforce demolitions in the Northern Territory. After 4 years of active duty, he was eventually demobilised and returned to civilian life. This injury led to spinal column deterioration and further problems over a continuing period of time.
His mother had moved from Devonport in 1940 to live in Nicholson St, Yarraville (Melbourne) and the whole family, born and reared in Queenstown, moved and settled around her again as they were demobilised from the services. Dudley married in 1944. Now living in Melbourne, he became a Waterside Worker, riding his bicycle around the various wharves in the Melbourne area. In February 1956 he transferred back to Devonport in Tasmania so that his wife could be with her family. He became an employee of the Australian National Line and spent 19 years in their service before finally retiring.

All thoughts of walking were put from his mind for many years. It was not until he was 47 years of age (1966) that his thoughts turned once again to walking but as a means of rehabilitation – his walking was undertaken to help limber up the shoulders, arms, neck and back muscles for improved flexibility. The milkman saw him one morning and asked him if he was training for the fund-raising Retarded Citizens Welfare Association walk which was a distance of 30 miles.
Dudley decided to give it a go and eventually came in as the winner in 5 of these 30 mile races over the next few years. He was actively involved in various organisations and became associated with Graham Wright, a Public Relations officer from the Hobart Blind Institute. Dudley decided to organize a fund-raising 100 mile walk at the local Spreyton Park Racecourse on 15-16 December 1972. All funds raised were to be used for bulk buying Talking Book Library materials. He used the opportunity to complete the 100 mile distance himself in a time of 23:29:00, becoming Australian Centurion Number 7. The racecourse lap was slightly less than one mile so the 100 mile distance was calculated to be just over 107 laps. Dudley walked 108 laps to be sure so actually walked slightly over 100 miles for his qualifier. It was not all easy going – at one stage he lost 15 minutes with cramps in one leg. As a final challenge, the grass had not been cut!
Now fully enthusiastic about the 100 mile walk, Dudley travelled to Adelaide the following year (1973) for the Adelaide Harriers Jubilee 100 mile walk. Unfortunately he could only complete some 60 miles before being forced to pull out. The hot weather (it reached 33oC) that day took its toll with only one person finishing out of the 11 starters. That finisher was Fred Redman, one of our four founders. Dudley remembers walking the last lap with the 62 year old Fred along with fellow co-founder Len Matthews who was at that stage a very old man but still so enthusiastic about walking. Other well known retirees that day included Chris Clegg, eventually Australian Centurion No 11, who completed around 80 miles before collapsing at the toilet block and unable to continue.
In 1975 Dudley participated in the 100 mile walk held at the George Knott track in Melbourne on 18-19 October and was successful in a time of 22:59:00 (some 30 mins faster than his 1972 time). However, he developed haemorrhoids for the latter 9 hours of the walk and took 4 days to recover.

Since then, Dudley has been an enthusiastic member of our elite club, closely following all club activities and performances and regularly corresponding with me. Dudley was a fulltime carer for his wife for over 10 years until she died in 2003, after 59 years of happily married life. He has now moved to a retirement hostel in Devonport but still manages to get out for regular walks. Even today Dudley suffers from incurable back problems and finds it hard to sit and write or do such activities. It is a constant
source of aggravation but one that he continues to overcome with his typical determination.

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Results for 1990

Photos of the winners

Newspaper reporting 1

Newspaper reporting 2

Newspaper reporting 3

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This is a report from Ulrich Kamm about his Centurion attempt in England in 1989.  A Centurion is anyone who walks 100 mile in a recognised 24hr race.

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