Archive for the ‘USA’ Category
1993 Badwater Run
Trishul Cherns
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 ?)
The Pedestrian Mania
From The New York Times , December 1, 1867.
A kind of pedestrian mania seems to afflict this country just now. We hear of erratic pedestrians rushing across this continent in every direction, just as the recent meteors traversed the heavens. Side by side with telegrams announcing the progress of events in Italy we find, day after day, telegrams an nouncing that of a pedestrian walking so manymiles a day for so many thousand dollars.
The six-day heel and-toe walking-match between William Edwards, champion of Australia, and Frank Hart, the colored pedestrian of Boston, for $1,000, was concluded at the rink here at midnight last night, Edwards winning by nine miles and five laps.
Article from Google Newspaper Database
This is from The Evening Independant on 22 March, 1927. Weston was aged 88 and struck down by an Automobile in a New York hospital. Read the full article for complete details
The articles in here are only touching the surface and this will grow immensely in the next few years