Western States 2015 - Last Chance year five

For the fifth year in a row, I managed to waggle my way into volunteering at the Last Chance aid station at the Western States Endurance Run 100 mile trail race from Squaw Valley to Auburn. Only around 370 runners get the chance to run this race each year (several thousand try to get in), and it's as close to a Super Bowl as there is in trail running.

There are over 1600 volunteers to support those runners, and I get a kick out of being one of them.

For the last three years, I've been "Ice Boy" for this aid station that sits at about mile 43.3. This entails dragging hundreds of pounds of ice to a remote location in the Sierras, then keeping buckets of icy water filled so that the Car Wash Ladies can properly cool off the runners before they head out to the hottest part of the course - the canyons.

Last year, I had this banner made to hang at the Car Wash. The goal was to show the elevation changes between the previous aid station (Dusty Corners, on the right edge) and the next (Devil's Thumb on the left edge). An alert volunteer pointed out that the bit on the left was pretty wildly out of scale. He was right.

So I "fixed" it. (And yes, you are correct that there's no practical reason that the runners are going from right to left. The official race elevation charts do that, so I just copied them.)

One surprise was that someone decided to cut down a couple of dead trees and block the path we use to fill our buckets at the spring off in the distance. The logs were big enough that we couldn't move them or easily step over them, so I ended up clearing a new trail that went around them, which worked fairly well.

Bonnie and Gail Jr. filling a bucket.

Most of this year's Last Chance group.

A unique thing about this aid station is that you have to drive on part of the course to get here, which means you have to get here pretty early, before that "road" gets closed to traffic. Many of us show up on Friday and camp out while some drive in early. But we are all stuck here until the last runner comes through.

A bonus is that we do not have to deal with crews or pacers at all - it's just us and the runners, which is pretty sweet.

Eventual winner Rob threw his bandana on the ground and started filling it with ice before we could point out that there was a table he could use to make that easier.

The Car Wash Ladies are REALLY good at what they do.

The Car Wash Ladies, as usual, were awesome. They managed to get even the tiredest runners to smile and feel better about things before kicking them back out onto the trail.

There were times when we were spread a bit thin with multiple runners at the same time, but mostly each runner got a LOT of attention.

Magda, the eventual lady winner, looks like she's trying to choose which color sponge to have squeezed over her head.

One thing that was very different this year than previous years was that all of the leading runners took the time to get ice and cool off. In previous years, very few of the leading runners would take the time for that process. This was predicted to be a hot year, and it appears the runners took that seriously. (Of the 320 or so runners that came through Last Chance, only about a dozen skipped the car wash.)

Mark showing up earlier than expected - he was flying!

Save the sandwich!

With our ongoing drought, I was a bit concerned that the spring we use for this water might be more of a trickle this year, but it was in fine shape, so we could be very generous with the cooling water.

The water is naturally very cold. It could be a bit of a shock.

Jerry getting thoroughly cooled off.

Sam getting the full treatment.

This guy was feeling really rough when he showed up. He wisely skipped the food and came straight to us. There's an old saying, "Beware the chair!" but there isn't an old saying "Beware the ice chest!" He took his time, got completely cooled off (I've never seen a bucket get dumped on a runner before), then hit the buffet. He came in pretty broken and left like a fine tuned race horse. It was a great transformation to witness.

Edie getting cooled off.

We didn't know it at the time, but this is 70-year-old Gunhild on her way to the most amazing race finish I've ever seen.

Alvin cutting the cutoff pretty close, but still in great spirits and looking fine.

The aid station closes at 5 PM. I load up all the drop bags and various other things I brought, and head down to the finish line. If everything goes right, I get there just before the winner comes in.

Second place finisher Seth coming around the track.

I ended up arriving before Rob came in, but after dropping off the drop bags I had to find a place to park, and ended up missing his finish. But I did get to see almost all of the rest of the finishers.

The scene at the high school football field is pretty amazing. I love how loose it is - how you can stand along the track and get high-fives from the runners. Once they finish, many join us in cheering in the rest of the finishers. I'm not a night guy, but this is one night where staying up is the only logical thing to do.

Magda with her family coming in for her lady win.

Many of the runners show up with lots of family, crew, pacers, friends - it's an amazing scene as they circle three-fourths the way around the track on the way to the finish.

Corn-fed Kaci representing Nebraska and taking second.

Mark finishing WAY under 24 hours.

Jerry running in with his kids.

Franco decided to take on the Original Six Hundo Challenge this year. (Here's a link to a Jimmy Dean Freeman post about the challenge.) The number of people that have accomplished this, which requires running the original six 100 mile races in one summer, is low - I believe two managed it last year.

Noé bringing in the only finisher from Mexico.

The runners enter the track through this gate, and it's fun to hang out there and watch the entourages pour in.

One of my favorite things is when a finisher's kids run in with him or her. This was extra funny - last year Sam's son was raring to run him in, and his daughter was WAY not into it; this year the roles reversed, and the son refused to join his dad.

Edie with an amazingly talented entourage.

The signs I put up just past the aid station's exit for the runners I know.

As usual, this event was a blast. It's so cool seeing so many elite runners as well as normal runners all finishing this event.

And then there was Gunhild.

As mentioned earlier, Gunhild was responsible for the most exciting finish I've ever seen. Runners have to finish in less than 30 hours to be an official finisher. Tropical John kept us up to date with Gunhild's progress, since if she finished, she would set a record for the oldest lady finisher.

But it was going to be close. One fun thing was that Rob, who had won the race a bit over 15 hours earlier, headed out to help her make it - like all the rest of us, he found it really hard to just sit and wait. When she came in the gate with less than a minute to go, the place erupted. I've never heard so much cheering at a race.

It was so exciting I failed to get any pictures of it. But there is a video from USL.TV.

There are lots of race reports from this event, but a really fun thing is a video put together by Billy Yang, who is well known for his trail running movies. This one is a bit different though, since it's about him running the race. If you want to get a bit of a feel for what it's like to run in a 100 mile race, this movie is a great place to start.

Also, I've posted all of my Last Chance runner pictures here.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see more of my pictures with snarky comments here: Pre-race, Race at Last Chance, and Race at the finish.

Double Dipsea REDEMPTION!

[Note: I apologize for how long this is. But it's mostly pictures so it's not as bad as it looks.]

Historically, the Double Dipsea race was held on Western States weekend, so I was unable to run it. That changed last year and I was thrilled to take a shot at the race.

And I failed.

I missed a cutoff with only about 3 miles to go. I decided then that I didn't need to run the race the next year. But when the registration opened up earlier this year, Mrs Notthat was really keen to run it for her third time in a row. I rolled my eyes and signed up too.

Ironically, Mrs Notthat ended up getting an injury and had to miss the race. This gave me an out - it really isn't as much fun for me to run these races without her, so it would have been easy to bow out. But there was a pretty big part of me that was ticked off with how the previous year went down. I reread my race report from last year and realized that I really should not have a problem finishing this race - it's just a slightly long and slightly tough Half Marathon and I would have 5:19 to finish.

But like Rocky Ridge, this is a race with a mystique that really gets in your head.

Above is a simplified course map. In this case though, just because it's an out-and-back doesn't mean you can't get lost - there are many places where you can wander off the course if you're not careful. To help avert that, there are MANY brave volunteers at this race, with a lot of them guiding the runners.

One thing that added to my confidence this year was that I was going into the race knowing what the cutoffs really were. (Last year they were adjusted out mid-race. I'm sadly not a guy that easily adapts to change - knowing the real cutoffs from the start was a big deal to me.)

A unique thing about this race are the wave starts. Based on your age and your knack for using a toilet seat, you got held back a bit. The race starts at 8 AM, but only for women over 80. There are 22 waves, and my advanced age put me in wave 15, with an 8:41 start time. (The youngest runners started at 9:01.) Note that you can start with a later wave, but you cannot start with an earlier wave.

There was also an option to start at 7 AM with the early start, but those runners do not get an official time, although they are official finishers with medals and such. I considered taking advantage of that, which would pretty much take the cutoffs out of the equation, but I really do get a kick out of the wave starts, so I decided to take the risk and stick with my assigned wave.

One of a number of road crossings early and late in the race.

When you think of "Dipsea," you usually think of stairs. This trail is infested with them. Some of the stairs are more useful than others. These early ones were pretty good, especially at getting the heart rate up and going.

The Dipsea trail is known for jaw-dropping views. For this race though, we had a thick marine layer at the start which meant we didn't have to worry about being distracted by a view. It also meant it was wonderfully cool.

The first aid station is on the top of Insult Hill. That name makes a lot more sense when you are coming the other direction, which we would be doing much later.

After coming down Insult, you enter a rain forrest that is so lush it's really hard to believe we're in the middle of a severe drought.

As we neared the top of that first big climb and the Cardiac aid station, we were above the marine layer and got a bit of sun.

The Cardiac aid station at the top of the climb. Such a great sight!

Irual (not her real name) stopped to freshen up in the porta-pottie.

Medical people with a fallen runner.

When you leave Cardiac, you start down a treacherous bit of trail that often takes runners out - they are so excited to get a bit of downhill that it's easy to go too fast and trip.

Look at those roots!

This downhill eventually becomes much more run-able after that initial bit of trail.

The downhill bottoms out at the entrance to Muir Woods with this creek crossing. If you look closely, you can see Nosaj (not his real name, in orange) taking pictures of us as we come through.

Picture by Nosaj. Bridge by the Minimalist Architects of America.

The Muir Woods aid station. And the start of another climb.

Dyoll (not his real name) heading back.

As we started up the hill out of Muir Woods, we started seeing more returning runners. Often the trail was wide enough, but there were a number of places where it was too narrow for runners to comfortably pass, which made this a real test at times.

"Hi Llib, which is not your real name!"

As we got closer to the town of Mill Valley, we started having more road crossings. All of them had volunteers to stop the cars for us.

Once you get to the top of the hill, you are pretty much in the town, so things start to get interesting.

And then you hit the infamous Dipsea staircase. 688 steps. Fortunately, they are broken into several flights to give you some breaks.

Eventually you get down all those steps and reach the turnaround aid station. This is also the first cutoff (11:25) - I showed up at 10:52 in great shape.

I'm not sure who took this shot, but I was really happy to be halfway done.

After refilling my water bottles, I headed back up those stairs.

They. Never. End.

Eventually, if you stick with it, you make it to the top of the stairs and that hill. It's an awesome feeling to get a bit of downhill for a bit.

The sweepers, Aynwat and Mas, not their real names.

As I was going down that hill, I met the sweepers coming up it, which meant they were well behind me. That was a good thing. Even better, it meant there would be no more two-way traffic (at least with runners).

ITR Mit (not his real name) protecting that car from me.

We had the trail to ourselves.

Next cutoff - Muir Woods (12:00). I got there are 11:40. It's all still good.

Coming out of that aid station though is a long, often tough climb back up to Cardiac. This is the stretch that ate my lunch last year.

Eventually you get back to that gnarly bit of trail that means the climb is nearly done. Cardiac aid station it near!

And just like that, it's here! This is the third cutoff (1:00). I got here at 12:37. Last year, this was the aid station that did me in - I missed that cutoff and was pretty trashed. This year I made the cutoff and was feeling OK. It was a really warm climb, so I took some time to cool off, and then practically skipped out of there.

There is still Insult Hill, but other than that, the climbing is all done.

These stairs were REALLY challenging on tired legs.

Duck under that tree and you start up Insult Hill, which actually was a nice break after all the downhill.

The last aid station, and the last cutoff (1:40). I got here at 1:13. I'm home free. Finally. It is one mile to the finish and it's on mostly gentle downhill. Unbelievably, I still had some legs, so I started moving fairly fast, all things considered.

A huge thing was that, as we got lower, we got back into the protection of the marine layer. It felt SO GOOD to hit this cool breeze.

A few more steps, a road crossing, and this gets real.

Picture by Nosaj, again. I'm getting air!

I completely forgot to take any pictures as I approached the finish. I threw my soaking wet hat much higher than I would have thought possible (thankfully it didn't land on anyone) and let out a yell.

Picture by Lechar, not her real name. One of the very few times you'll see me hatless in a race.

I cannot describe the feeling I felt as I came in. This was easily in the top three finishes for me.

This is a special race with a unique format. It's hard, with tough trails and all those steps, but it's also beautiful and often fun.

The hoodie was a bonus being sold by DSE. I liked its conservative use of colors.

The medal and the fun patch.

The shirt and hoodie backs.

One of the things that adds to the challenge of this race is that, until you get back to the Muir Woods aid station, you are dealing a lot with other runners. In my case, all the fast runners that I started ahead of have to pass me, then pass me again on their way back.

One thought I had was that, if I was a bit faster, I could wait and start with the last wave. That way I wouldn't have to deal with any runners trying to pass me and would only have the runners coming back at me. (I believe my finish time would also be penalized, but that would be fine - my concern would be the cutoffs. In this race, Muir Woods and Cardiac would have been really close if I had waited.)

And finally, a HUGE thanks to the MANY volunteers from both Brazen Racing and the Dolphin South End Runners that made this all possible - you all were rock stars!

And that's about it.

REDEMPTION!

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see more of my pictures here.