CH- CH- CH- CHAAAANGES! Probably a good thing. But I really don't like changes.

[Note: This is going to be long and boring with very few interesting pictures. Honestly, there are much better ways to spend your time than reading this.] [Although there might be a few interesting bits here and there.] [Probably not though.]

Back in June of 1977, I graduated from the San Juan Basin Vocational-Technical School's two-year Electronics program. We spent as much time learning about vacuum tubes as transistors, and a very small amount of time learning about those newfangled integrated circuits. And no time learning about microprocessors since, for the most part, they didn't exist. 

I studied and got my First Class FCC license, which meant I could legally work at any broadcast station. But mostly I learned to fix TVs and other electronic things. I loved (and still love) having that as a super power, although it makes me sad that many things are no longer repairable.

Our class of '77 that went to Denver for FCC certification tests. (I'm in the center back row.) We made the local newspaper!!!

When I graduated, I went to Colorado Springs where my buddy Kcir (not his real name) was already working. I looked in the help wanted section of the newspaper and saw an ad for an employment agency. I went there and they set up two interviews for me: A long shot one with a company that was really picky and another with a store that needed someone to install car audio bits and CB radios.

I still have a CB radio (collecting dust in the garage). I was "The Cosmic Cowboy" in southwest Colorado. I once talked to the Rubber Duck - CW McCall!

The long shot worked out (much to the surprise of the employment agency), and the rest is some odd definition of history.

It has always boggled my mind that I managed to convert my vo-tech education, that included absolutely no writing classes, into a job as a technical writer for Apple Inc. Granted, this didn't happen overnight, but this is not how you envision career arcs to work.

I'll get into that career arc in a bit, but the main news is that I'm now retired. After a bit over 46 years working various jobs in the tech industry, I'm now able to just sit in a recliner and watch game shows all day. My initial goal was to wait until I turned 65 and could get Medicare, but then I realized that a more practical goal was to wait until Mrs. Notthat turned 65 (yes, I robbed the cradle a tiny bit - I'm nearly a year older than her). That happened this spring, and I finally took the leap at the end of November.

This wasn't a slam dunk of a decision - I had a pretty sweet setup, getting to work full-time from home on things that were mostly interesting and challenging. But I was noticing that I didn't attack new challenges with as much zeal as I used to. It was becoming harder for me to do some of the more boring and tedious bits of the job. 

But it's done. I flipped the table and walked out on November 30. 

There was a cake. A REALLY nice cake. It was not on the flipped table.

OK, let's get to that career arc thing.

June 1977: Ampex Corporation (Colorado Springs)

This was that long-shot job. There is an excellent chance you've never heard of Ampex Corporation. There is an even better chance that you have benefited in one way or the other from the things they invented. 

The area they hired me to work in was as an electronic technician on their new one-inch video tape recorders. (Up to this point, broadcasters had to rely on video tape recorders the size of a Ford Pinto that used two-inch wide tape - these were reel-to-reel machines where an hour of tape could weigh 30 pounds.)

Ampex VPR 1 one-inch video tape recorder - my introduction to professional video!

This was well before VHS or Betamax. 

After a year or so, I started getting opportunities to travel a bit for work - I spent several month-long stints in the Bay Area (where the Ampex headquarters was) helping to bring up new products. I even spent a month in Rome, Italy as a try out for being a field service engineer there (I bailed on that after realizing I wasn't as much of a hotshot as I thought I was). 

Finally, in…

August 1980: Ampex Corporation (Bethesda Maryland)

… I took the leap and became a field service engineer for the Mid-Atlantic region. This was an awesome job (for a while). I quickly knew where all the TV stations were in the area (Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and DC), as well as all the government facilities that had Ampex equipment (there were a LOT). There are many stories I could tell from this period, from having my company car stolen on April 1 (it made the news), being quickly ushered into a safe room due to an "issue" at the US Chamber of Commerce, spending enough time at the CIA headquarters that they got me a badge, spending enough time at the Pentagon to be able to find my way around proficiently (and standing in the center area while a newly elected Reagan gave a speech) - this was not a dull place to work.

It has always amazed me how often name gets spelled incorrectly.

Better than all of that though, is that this is where I met the soon-to-be Mrs Notthat - she worked in the same field office. Soon enough, our daughter (destined to be Weird Haired Mom) was born (oh man - another story) and the erratic-ness of the job got to be a challenge.

So in…

November 1984: Ampex Corporation (Redwood City California)

… I became an instructor, teaching one or two week classes to people that bought our stuff, showing them how to use and repair it. This position involved a fair amount of travel, often for two or three weeks at a time, but it was almost never spur of the moment type travel - it was planned and manageable. Occasionally Mrs Notthat and WHM got to come along on the international trips.

The sign along 101 that had been there forever, which is sadly now gone.

This was a pretty awesome job, but Ampex started to flounder a bit (they had totally missed the boat on consumer video recording, even though they held many critical patents on the process, and were missing the boat on the new digital TV boom that was just starting). So in…

September 1987: Abekas Video Systems (Redwood City California)

… I was lured away to an upstart competitor that was formed by three previous Ampex people - a company that there is even less of a chance you have heard of - Abekas. 

A fun thing was that, in addition to teaching classes much as I had at Ampex, I actually got a computer, and for the first time, started writing user manuals. (Ventura Publisher ring any bells for any of you? This was pre-Windows.) I still did a lot of travel, but the writing bit was a nice change. I had no real background in writing at all, but there was a great editor there that was able to point out how bad I was at this, but even better, point out ways I could get better.

One thing that happened after a few years was that I became a manager over a few people. Any of you that have successfully managed people, especially while doing a real job at the same time, are heroes. That was a rough time for me - I really didn't enjoy writing reviews and such and I didn't enjoy working with budgets. 

But I got better at it. I learned some survival skills. And then in…

December 1998: Accom Inc. (Menlo Park California)

… Abekas was bought by Accom, which was interesting since Accom was largely founded by the same people that founded Abekas (but had been bought out of Abekas by another company a few years previously). 

Many at Abekas were laid off at this point, and I was actually hoping to be one of them. But I was retained. I told the owner of Accom that I would likely quit rather than join them doing the same thing I was doing at Abekas, and he assured me that he had other plans for me.

Abekas had previously bought a Polish company that was in the cutting edge of virtual studios, ELSET. The idea was you could have a set with a green screen as the background and maybe a desk for the people to sit at, but then use a computer to generate a virtual background. This was all very clever and VERY complicated, but I enjoyed jumping into it and learning all of its peculiarities. 

This person is standing on a plain, green stage - SGI computers are providing the background. The trick is having the background track any camera moves and setting objects to be in front of or behind the person.

This was a tough job though - many long nights and weekends spent working through all of this, plus a LOT of travel. By now, our son had been born, WHM was getting older, and travel, even planned travel, became hard. This was an amazing experience - working with the Polish engineers was a highlight of my working life - but it took a pretty huge toll.

In December of 1999, Abekas sold ELSET to a competitor based out of Israel, ORAD. That would guarantee an even heavier travel load, so I bowed out, and in…

January 2000: Spruce Technologies

… I became a tech writer (almost no travel!) for Spruce Technologies, a small company that made DVD authoring software for professionals. DVDs were a hot new thing - at the time I started there, I did not own and had never even watched a DVD. I had no idea about how you could do all kinds of clever things with them using menus and other tricks to create some pretty wild experiences. 

One of the user manuals I worked on for Spruce.

This was a great job - it was a fairly small company so I ended up doing a lot more than just writing user manuals and online help. It was a blast. 

In 2001 rumors started that we were up for sale. People were nervous. Some ambitious plans had not born the fruit that had been expected. There was serious competition. There was a layoff. (I survived it, and gained the office plant that I still have.)

Our authoring software was based on Windows NT, so it felt likely that we would logically end up with a Windows-based company. So naturally, in…

July 2001: Apple Incorporated

… we found out that Apple, who had their headquarters just down the street from us (I did not know that at the time - I was seriously into Windows at the time), had bought us. This was a massive surprise, but Apple's current DVD authoring software, DVD Studio Pro, was based on their OS 9 operating system. The new OS X operating system was going to require a complete rewrite, so it wasn't that big of a deal to start with a bunch of Windows engineers.

A lot of people were not kept as part of the acquisition, and I had large doubts that I would be kept, but I was - I think a few people said nice things about me, although I joke that there was an accounting error involved. 

Starting at Apple was really something:

• It was the first time since Ampex that I was at a company with several thousand employees. It took some adjusting to get used to that.
• It was the first time I was working at a company most people had heard of. I started getting contacted by people I hadn't talked to in years, asking about employee discounts.
• I had to learn to use a new operating system. Ever since Abekas, where I first started using a computer, I worked with Microsoft DOS and, later, Windows. My home computers had all been (and were still) Windows. We had an iMac at Spruce for testing our authored DVDs, but that was the extent of what I knew about them. 

I started in the help writing team for the Pro Apps - Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, Cinema Tools, and mostly, DVD Studio Pro. After a few years, I moved over to the tech writing part of the Productivity team, which started with the iWork apps then slowly grew to include several other apps.

My first, and most obscure, Apple user manual.

I loved working at Apple - there were normal challenges like long days and weekends, and office politics like at any large company, but there was also the huge satisfaction of working on applications that were used by millions of enthusiastic people. (Granted, that also means that millions of people are going over the help and user manuals, and will eagerly point out any issues they find.)

All of that makes it amazing I got away with my proudest accomplishment at Apple:

My primary editor at the time ("Hi Nitsirk, not your real name") would not shut up about two things: The Giants (which was OK by me), and lemurs. All lemurs. Anything that had anything to do with lemurs. 

(Fun disturbing fact: A bit after this manual was out in the wild, I had a dream that the Lemur Preservation Society sued Apple over this since it was spreading wildly false information. When I talked to them, they said that they actually thought the text was funny, but they had to make a point, and were sorry that I was likely to get fired over this. It was not a great dream.)

And that's about it. A bit over 46 years of working in technology (I left out all the jobs I had in high school and before that. Many of those are worth their own posts.)

The obvious question is what am I going to do now. I don't really know. There are lots of projects around the house that will keep me plenty busy. It will be a period of adjustment, and I'm confident I will adapt.

But for now, there are game shows to watch.

That's it - move along…

Alaska is cold, but there is the aurora…

[Note: This is really long and really late. But there are pictures!]

Anniversaries that have a round number need to be roundly celebrated. Our 40th wedding anniversary was in February, so we decided to splurge a bit and try to see the Aurora Borealis (northern lights), and one of the best places to do that is Alaska. 

A real challenge with Alaska in winter is, well, it's cold. Really cold. And probably snowy. So we decided to make it as easy as possible for us, and joined a tour specifically organized for seeing the aurora. I had never been on an organized tour like this before, so it was going to be interesting. Mrs Notthat found a suitable tour by Melita Trips - a big selling point was that they had a guest speaker that would give multiple lectures during the trip, astronomer Dennis Mammana, who had been highly recommended by friends.

Rick and Eileen, our tour guides, posing in front of a huge bear. They were amazing at dealing with all the issues that randomly popped up during the trip. (Rick and Eileen. Not the bear.)

The trip started with a flight from Seattle to Fairbanks. (Well, it really started the day before with us flying to Seattle, but that wasn't officially part of the tour.) All of this flying was my first time on a plane since early 2020 (and all that that implies). 

The first surprise was that there was a water line break in the kitchen at our Fairbanks hotel - our rooms were fine, but there was no way we were going to get to have our first dinner together as a group there. So we ended up eating at Big Daddy's BBQ ("Northern Most Southern BBQ") (it was really good). After that, we checked in then got together for our first Dennis lecture. (These lectures were really good and helped so much with the rest of the week.)

We then got on the bus and headed for the World Ice Art Championships. The sculptures were astonishing.

How is it possible to get that kind of detail?

Such great imagination!

Seriously - everywhere you looked you saw astonishing sculptures.

After that, we all got back on the bus and drove out to a dark area for our first shot at seeing the aurora. 

Auroras are a bit flaky. They are not tied to a precise schedule. Or a loose schedule. They laugh at the word "schedule." You never really know if they are going to appear or not. The best you can do is put yourself in a good position to be ready if they show up. There are websites that give you an idea of your chances of seeing anything, and those websites were not very encouraging that first night. 

And they were right.

But, we all got a chance to try our hands at taking night shots, and there were many stars to look at.

A number of people on the tour brought really nice equipment to take pictures. Red lights were used when light was needed just to avoid blinding people whose eyes had adjusted to the dark.

This is just me holding my phone and taking a shot of the stars. I was a bit astonished it came out this well.

The thing to keep in mind, this is our first day! We flew to Fairbanks, ate BBQ (!), checked into our plumbing-challenged hotel, had our first lecture, saw amazing ice sculptures, and got to stand around in the dark waiting for the aurora. At about midnight we loaded back onto the bus and headed back to the hotel. (A few determined people stayed up once we got to the hotel and managed to see a mild display of auroras at around 3 AM. I was not yet that desperate.) (But I could be later.) (Man I was hoping it didn't come to that.)

On day two, we first went to the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska (go Nanooks!), where that picture of Rick and Eileen with the photo-bombing bear was taken. Next, we went to one of the most unexpectedly fascinating places - the Poker Flat Research Range. They do a variety of things here, but the real star is that they shoot rockets into the auroras to study them. These are not huge rockets with people on them, but small rockets based on missiles that they are able to load up with experiments.

First a lecture by Dave about what this facility is about. I loved this! (Picture by Rick.)

Next, we got to go inside a launch pad. A bit oddly, we were not allowed to take pictures in there. (Picture by Rick.)

Tours are not a normal thing done at this facility, so this was definitely a big tour-related bonus.

After that, we headed to the Chatanika Lodge for dinner and to wait for it to get dark for our second attempt at seeing the aurora. The lodge is normally closed on Mondays, but, just for us, they opened for dinner and to provide a nice warm place to hang out while waiting for aurora excitement to break out.

Chatanika Lodge. There was a large area in back where we could watch for the auroras. And a bar for when we needed a break from watching for the auroras.

So many dollar bills! They were on almost every bit of ceiling and wall!

We hung out there until a bit after midnight. By 10:30 or 11:00, it was feeling like we were getting skunked again. 

And then, there they were!

This was so cool! The went like this for about an hour. No way I expected a photo like this from just my phone.

A bit after midnight we headed back to the hotel. We were all thrilled - as I said, there is no guarantee that you will see an aurora on a trip like this, and after the first night, the possibility that we might not see any felt a bit too real. 

But we saw them! The rest of the trip was just gravy! (Spoiler alert: It was going to be REALLY good gravy.)

For the third day, we checked out of the hotel, got on the bus, and headed to the Chena Hot Springs Resort. Along the way we stopped at the Great Alaskan Bowl Company, then a stop to see the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Mrs Notthat and I in front of the pipeline, waiting our turn at hopscotch (see the person in the background). (Picture by Rick.)

It amuses me that they have to put radiators to dissipate heat on the pipeline.

The Chena Hot Springs Resort is really something. It's in the boonies. (Granted, Alaska is 99% boonies.) There is no cell service and erratic WiFi, so it feels even more remote than it is. The resort has a lot to do beyond soaking the hot springs, but the main thing we were all there for was the aurora. After another Dennis lecture, we prepared for another cold night of trying to see them.

There is a nice dark field you can walk to where you can watch the aurora, or there is a snow coach tour to the top of Charlie Dome Mountain.

Our waiting snow coaches. These things sounded like they would be fun! Ha!

Each snow coach had a main unit with seats for three and the driver, and a trailer with benches along the sides to seat eight. Mrs Notthat and I got to sit in the front with the driver. 

This picture does not remotely capture how rough this trail was. Or how these snow coaches were so completely lacking in any kind of ride-smoothing suspension.

It was a rough, slow, noisy ride up to the top of Charlie Dome. It turned out to be worth it though. There were a couple yurts that you could sit in to warm up, but the real show was having a great view of the dark skies.

The only lights were the arriving and departing snow coaches. But even that didn't affect the aurora.

The aurora got started before we got up there. And they were way better than what we had seen the night before.

Again, this is just me holding my phone. Astonishing!

The aurora went on like this for quite a while. The auroras were lighting up the horizon. I remember wondering to Mrs. Notthat what it would be like to actually be under the aurora. We took several breaks in the warming huts, and finally went out for one last look before catching a snow coach back down. 

You'll never guess what happened next.

The aurora went right over the top of us!

It was spectacular. People were gasping. Shutters were furiously clicking. I took this video, starting at one horizon and panning straight overhead to the other horizon.

The people with proper cameras got amazing shots, but what I managed with my phone were only a small bit short of amazing. After half an hour or so, the aurora calmed down and suddenly the wind was REALLY cold and it was REALLY late and we managed to catch a snow coach back down. I thought it would be nice to ride in the back this time and let someone else get to sit up front. 

I was an idiot.

The ride in the back going down the mountain was remarkably uncomfortable. We were all sliding on the seats towards the front, squishing the people at the front. I spent the ride down desperately trying to brace myself so I didn't completely flatten the poor person to my left. That ride took forever (these things are not fast, and even if they were, they couldn't go very fast due to the roughness of the trail). We were so happy to finally make it back to the resort.

The next morning, during our next Dennis lecture, he said that on a scale of 1-10, what we had seen two nights ago he would rate at about a two. What we had seen last night though, was an easy nine. It was truly remarkable that we were in the right place in the right conditions. We would see some aurora on other nights, but nothing would match what we had seen that night. 

The rest of our stay there was spent catching up on sleep and doing some other activities. The resort uses the hot springs not just for recreational swimming, but to generate their electricity, heat all the buildings, and heat the enclosed gardens where they grow most of the fresh produce served in the restaurant. 

The plants all grow using hydroponics - no dirt is involved!

Next we toured their Ice Castle.

More astonishing ice sculptures.

The ice bar. What would an ice bar use to serve their drinks in?

One of the coolest things was that they made martini glasses out of ice. Here is a link to a video showing one being made.

The ice martini glasses are not proper souvenirs since they, well, are just ice. So the tradition is to smash them out front.

It was so weird to see all these shattered ice martini glasses from previous shatterings. It really looked like bits of glass all over the place.

The highlight of the next day was a ride in a dog sled.

This was not nearly as comfortable as it looks. Still, pretty cool!

The ride itself was a lot rougher than I had expected, and it was a bit wild how we would slide around corners. All in all, I'm glad I can say I did that but I did not feel like I wanted to take a second lap. After we had all gotten our rides, we got to go pet the dogs. 

It was a lot of fun wandering around and petting all these dogs!

Mrs Notthat petting a couple of our sled dogs.

And that's about it. The next day we took a bus back to the hotel in Fairbanks, then the next day we got up wildly early to fly back to Seattle. 

This was a once in a lifetime trip. We were so fortunate to have such a spectacular aurora display - it's not uncommon to have trips like this only see minor displays. It made things so much better to be part of a group - not having to deal with rental cars and getting the lectures and tours were such huge bonuses.

At Chena - the owner likes to collect aircraft and fire engines.

Of course there were issues that came up (Alaska Airlines did remarkably poorly at handling a group, there were some minor bus issues, and a few other things that happened), but Rick was great at keeping everything on an even keel. I would not hesitate to recommend Melita Trips for this tour.

A huge thanks to him and Eileen for making this all fun, and Dennis for the education!

That's it - move along…

PS: One interesting thing - it only snowed on us once, and it was pretty light and on the next to last day there. We did have an abundance of cold though.

PPS: I just assumed that Alaska in general was mostly a fairly high elevation. It turns out that Fairbanks sits a bit below 500 feet. MUCH lower than I would have expected.

WSER 2023 - The 50th running and my 12th year at Last Chance!

There was a point in the fall when I wondered whether the 50th running Western States 100 race could even happen. The wildfires were devastating and unstoppable.

As it turned out, they were stoppable, due to a heroic effort. But a lot of damage had been done. Last Chance had been spared, but man, so much of the course after it was a mess.

And then we had a remarkably wet winter, and a remarkably wet winter after a wildfire means even more challenges putting this race on. 

In the end, all those challenges were met and the race got the green light. 

There is a reason the cover of this year's official magazine didn't feature a runner for the first time that I recall.

One challenge that couldn't be fixed in time was a badly damaged Mosquito Ridge Road. 

The Mosquito Ridge Road saga

Mosquito Ridge Road provides important access to a number of aid stations, including a couple that are crew accessible. This road goes from Foresthill to French Meadows, providing access to Last Chance, Dusty Corners, and several more aid stations. Anybody that has crewed a runner at Duncan Canyon and/or Dusty Corners has used this wildly twisty, hilly road. In the past, it's been infamous for having areas limited to a single lane due to road damage. Between the wildfire and the wet winter, the road gave up completely and is requiring significant repairs that will take until late summer to finish. 

The runners lost access to their crews at miles 24.4 and 38. The trick was going to be getting the volunteers to those aid stations served by that road. Fortunately, the section that was so damaged was between Foresthill and the turn to Dusty Corners/Last Chance - from that turn to French Meadows was fine. And these hills are infested with back roads, so we would be able to access the locations, but man, it would not be straightforward.

The end result was that, instead of heading to Foresthill out of Auburn, we headed to Cool and then Georgetown, then took a few back roads to get to French Meadows, where we were able to get onto the undamaged bit of Mosquito Ridge Road. All of this meant it took about two hours longer to get to Last Chance than normal. 

(There was an initial proposal for us to take a route that went past Robinson Flat instead of Georgetown - this would have been a bit shorter, but was hampered by snow until very late, when a bulldozer was brought in to clear the road.)

Last Chance

There was some concern that the challenging access might cause some volunteers to stay home this year. That did not happen.

Nearly 60 volunteers at Last Chance braved the challenging access.

The general consensus was that it would be warm for the runners (once they got past the 20 or so miles of snow covered trails in the high country), but not nearly as hot as it was last year. And once again, it was decided to bring an ice trailer to Dusty Corners, and for Last Chance to get its ice from that trailer.

Loading the Dusty Corners ice trailer.

Once the trailer made it to Dusty, we drove up to it and picked up our 1200 pounds of ice. I doubted we would need that much, based on the forecast, but nobody wants to risk running out. (We ended up  using between 900 and 1000 pounds.) 

As cool as it felt at Last Chance this year, the runners knew what was coming - the fire had turned the climb up to Devil's Thumb from a largely shaded slog into a totally exposed slog. It was going to be brutal, and most of the runners prepared for it by packing their hats, sleeves, and bandanas with ice.

Shading the porta-potties to keep them from roasting in the sun.

Two things: It was odd seeing people actively seeking out chairs in the sun, and that table under the awning was added to make it easier for the runners to go through their drop bags.

One thing that took some getting used to was how much brush in the Last Chance area had been thinned in an effort to aid in fire prevention.

This is the hill I put up the signs the runners see as they exit Last Chance. This is what it looked like in previous years.

That same hill this year. It was weird being able to see so far with no obstructions.

Click HERE to see all the signs.

For the most part, the day went smoothly. Many of the runners were having foot issues due to having to spend so much time running on snow, but they were also enjoying the milder temperatures. 

Getting a shower and ice refill.

Attending to a runner meant doing some running yourself sometimes!

The Pixie Ninja dominating some watermelon on her way to her ninth finish!

One of the coolest things was that we had no runners drop at Last Chance this year! (Out of 22 potential places to drop, including a bit oddly, the finish line, only six had nobody drop. At least part of this was because the logistics of dropping here are not great, especially this year with that long drive. Three dropped at Devil's Thumb, the next aid station.)

Maybe my favorite WSER moment of all time

Donna and Tessa alerted me to a special runner in the race - John Almeda. John is non-verbal autistic, and for personal reasons, I was especially fascinated and anxious to see him come through Last Chance. One interesting bit - I think this was the first time in my 12 years I've seen a pacer bib here.

I had to restrain myself from being a fanboy, and the last thing I wanted to do was distract him. I had made him a sign which was in the swarm of signs on that hill - I really hoped he or his pacer would notice it, but seriously, the chances weren't great (they had no idea it was there - I decided to risk having it be a total surprise). 

They noticed it - his pacer took this shot.

Even a week later, this makes me tear up! I mean, just, WOW!

John finished in just a bit over 27 hours. This is so very cool.

Some boring stats that only I find interesting

One thing I'm always fascinated by is the finish rate of the runners that come through Last Chance in the final 90 minutes or so. Based on history, the guidance is that you need to get here by 4:20 to be on a 30-hour finish pace. The actual cutoff is 5:25. So theoretically at least, runners showing upon the last hour should be reasonably doomed. Here is a chart:

Gaps show where runners were unable to finish the race. Click or tap this to see it larger (if you find such things irresistible).

I picked 4:00 PM as the time to start tracking finishes. I found it interesting that four runners in the twenty minutes between 4:00 and 4:20 finished in the 27th hour - a couple of those were pushing the 26th hour! These are runners that seriously thrive on the second half of this course.

For the next twenty minutes, from 4:20 to 4:40, you have five runners that finish in the 28th hour! From 4:40 to 5:00, the runners are finishing in the 29th hour - the interesting thing is that only six of these twenty six runners were unable to finish. For being significantly behind the 30-hour pace, that's really remarkable!

Starting at 5:00 though, things start getting a bit rough. Only two of the twelve runners during the last twenty five minutes finished, but the last one of those came in at 5:14 - nearly an hour after the projected 30-hour pace!

The lesson is that it isn't a fantasy that those runners coming through so late have a realistic chance of finishing - they really do! Maybe they will get to soon start working with their crew and pacers, and that makes the difference. Maybe night running is their thing.

Maybe that second scoop of ice in their bandana and that third piece of watermelon is just what they needed, and it's now game on!

My very dusty van back home.

Wrapping up

This was a challenging year to volunteer at Last Chance due to the longer drive, but even that wasn't so bad thanks to detailed directions given by Dusty Corners Doug! The weather was much more pleasant than usual, the mosquitos didn't seem to be any worse (granted, they've set the bar pretty high), and the day went by remarkably fast.

For the second year in a row, I chose to drive straight home rather than stopping at the finish line. This decision is a big struggle and is always regretted a bit the next day, but as I've gotten older, pulling an all nighter after working the aid station all day is too much of a challenge. Maybe 2024 will be different.

That's it - move along…

PS: I just realized that I didn't provide my usual introduction to the Last Chance aid station. It is the aid station with the longest serving organization - for 41 years the Stevens Creek Striders have managed Last Chance. It's at mile 43.3 and just before the first of the traditionally very hot canyons and the famous Swinging Bridge. One of the things that makes it great is that there are no pacers or crew allowed - we have the runner's full attention! One of the things that makes it challenging is that access is cut off fairly early in the morning on race day since parts of the road are also part of the course, which means you can't leave early or come in late (many of us come in on Friday and camp overnight, much to the mosquitos delight - a bonus of this is that you can explore some great sections of the course). Another thing is that there is no cell service for most people, which means that using GPS navigation is often an adventure.