HURT 2010 Personal Stats

HURT 100

Statistics for Mike M.

...................N-P..P-J...J-N.......Total
Loop 1 2:03 1:38 2:21 6:02
Loop 2 2:39 1:30 2:22 6:31
Loop 3 2:35 1:59 2:23 6:57
Loop 4 3:21 2:05 2:30 7:56
Loop 5 2:47 1:53 2:16 6:56


Averages 2:41 1:49 2:22 6:52 34:22

(The formatting is difficult and I have given up.)

Well there is the raw data. Looking at it I have the following comments. If you keep in mind that the aid station stops are included in the NEXT loop then it obvious that my stops are difficult. Secondly the Nature Center is the worst.

I think what I need is one bag with just the essentials. Electrolytes, Muscle Milk, Lube, Lights. I started getting the staff to do my water, but even that can be a hassle if they don't know what they are doing.

I have to admit that I am often confused when coming in, but unlike a raw stash the aid stations are filled with very well meaning people who won't stop asking you stupid questions. I forgot to lube up at least twice, and that after I was busy trying to answer somebody's questions and forgot my emergency jar I always carry.

I am not complaining. I think the trick is to get the routine down better so I can get in and get out. I could have saved an hour of total race time with easy five minute short cuts in the aid station.

The short comings aside I believe I did much better than I ever expected to do. My new routines such as Muscle Milk on the heights, Blocks, low sugar, ice water, all seemed to aid me in maintaining my mental and physical acuity much longer than I have done in the past. Another factor was the Beano which I took to avoid gastric problems. It worked. I have run too many races with a gut full of gas and pain, or forced off the trail. There is an hour right there.

Of course having been out on those trails for 60 hours in much worse conditions just gives me a much better understanding of the problems I have to deal with while out on the trail.

The training, Many hundreds of miles of long slow jogging and walking, followed by faster 20 mile pacing loops, followed by even faster sectional pacing loops, gave me an understanding of the trail and the tasks I had to accomplish. Going up the first hill was often either a red flag or a caution just because I knew where I had to be at that moment to get where I wanted to go at the required time. If you know the terrain you can push the flats and light slopes and gain time if necessary.

100 mile running is a moving meditation. You need to be aware of every moment. Lose that awareness and you will either slow down, fall, or go too fast and injure yourself. You must always be in the moment. It is as hard as a long vippassana sit. The best thing you can do is put your head down and work on making the next step the best one you have ever taken. Don't look up at the heights, or whine, just head down and take your best step.

As I have said in the previous post, the weather was stunning. Dry, cool, and sunny. There was almost no mud on the trails. A few of the seeps were moist, but everything else was hard ground. I went down a few times, once quite hard, but it was inattention, not a slip.

I ended up with some knee soreness, I won't call it pain. I have blisters on my feet and some raw spots on my ankles from an old pair of socks that seemed to have shrunk a bit. I have some blisters, but nothing I wouldn't expect after the last loop where I ran too fast too far. On the trails I kept it together. I didn't bonk, didn't tighten-up, didn't hallucinate much, kept my electrolytes under control and maintained.

The journey for these races is in the preparation. I will remember this year for all the Runs that Rex, I, and a lot of good friends did over the past months. Getting out into the hills above Honolulu is always a treat, but to be able to visit many wonder places again and again was a wonderful gift from the spirits of the trails.

Like Rex said. It is just a foot race. I agree completely. But I also feel a good deal of satisfaction about the time, and the fact that I kicked some ass on the last loop. No body else over sixty finished the race, though Gary Marr at 58 tore up the course and came in almost an hour in front of me.

The End of HURT Training is on the Horiizon

At the 'Bench' on the Grassy Knoll above Nu'uanu.

I've been training so much I've been too tired to care about posting to a blog that very few people read, even if it is my diary of the trails. As you can see on the running log to the right of the text I have been out on the trails a few times a week for the last few months. After the 60 hour birthday run Rex and I have done a 60 miler, a 12 hours of Hogsback, another 60 miler, and numerous 20 milers for speed, mixed in with some shorter 10 to 15 miles runs for speed and timing. It has been a long hard process. A process that basically comes to an end about a week from now and a few days before the HURT 100.

Rex, Jan, and Ernst on Last 20 of Training Season at Paradise Stash

Today's run was not for speed, we are both kind of beat up and it seemed to make no sense in pushing too hard. But even with our relaxed pace we were putting down times that are very good and well within the realm of the times we want to be clocking during the HURT. We managed to make it to the three-way at Pauoa Flats in under 60, the bench in about 75, and then did an down and out of Nu'uanu in under 90 minutes. Even in its disjointed order the times speak of a 6:30 or so. Its about what we want to be doing, and if we can do it at a hard pace, rather than a run, then we have achieved our goals. (The opportunity to run, or need to, if the case may be, is there but it takes about 40 percent greater effort and produces only minutes of time savings on each section. Yes it adds up, but the toll on the body is just too great. Better to be smart and go slower at a good hard race walk.

People thought I was nuts when I decided to do the 60 hours of HURT for my birthday run, and Don got down right nasty with me when I decided to do another 60 two weeks later. By the time we did the Hogsback 12 hour night run he had quieted down, and after the last sixty he just gave me a pat on the back and told me I was a lot more crazy and capable than he had thought. Of course the proof will be in the 100 miles we run on the 16 and 17 of January.

The trails are in great shape, so I am expecting a hell of a storm in the week before the run. That's OK, I did three nights of rain on the 60 hour run. It was as cold and wet as I have seen up there on the ridges. It didn't stop us then and I don't see it making much of a difference if it does. Times will suffer of course, but that's just the was it is.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Get out and run a bit, or at least walk.

Rocky Raccoon

The ROCKY RACCOON 100 MILER: February 7-8th, 2009

Typical Trail at Rocky.

It was one of those Ultra Travel days that one can not prepare for, no matter how one tries. But getting into Phoenix at 10:30 in the evening made it impossible to avoid. I had an early flight out to Houston and there was no sense in getting a hotel room, or calling on friends or family to come and get me. So I laid around for ten hours in the Phoenix airport, which is not particularly 'through passenger' friendly...not even much carpet to find to crash on, and couches and benches in very high demand.

The plane ride to Houston, when it finally eventuated, was routine and welcome after the boredom of the Phoenix night. I had looked into doing something in Houston before heading north to Huntsville. My choices were a produce market or the National Mortuary Museum. For some reason, it must have been my upbeat attitude upon getting out of the 'air travel' purgatory, I chose the produce market. And having perused google before leaving I had an idea of where it was, though I managed to leave the map at home. And it was one hell of a market! A few acres of produce and Hispanic vendors. All the produce you could want and at very reasonable prices. I ended up with some ice cream banana, some sweet oranges, and a bag full of the biggest peanuts I have ever seen. However I was too tired to actually get in line at one of the vans in the back and have a meal. A breakfast burrito would have done me well, but I get that way when I travel sometimes... unable to make any real decisions I wander aimlessly. I finally found myself back a my car and headed north again. Outside of Huntsville I stopped at the Sam Houston monument. Big Sam Houston stands about sixty feet high and glows in the Winter sun. Photos

After nearly twenty-four hours of airplanes, airports, and rental cars, I got to the motel room, beat and banged up, and seeing too many fingers in front of my face. I got into the room, collapsed on the bed, only to find Gideon’s bible. Gideon had checked out, he’d left it no doubt..........you’ve heard the tune...

I woke in the morning to find the weather was grand, the sky bright blue and as big as the state of Texas. It was as warm as it was when I was running the Manoa Falls, not three weeks before in Manoa. So for me it was cool; but for others it was a sauna, as they had just come from St. Paul, or Kansas where the temperatures were in the teens. I started the day with a trip down to the Race venue, which is on a small lake just south of town. This part of Texas is known for its low rolling hills and expansive pine forests. I kind of liked it. It had pine, holy, oak, and the occasional palmetto palm growing in thick cover over more oak and pine scrub. Not thick at this time of year, but certainly forest. I can only imagine what this place is like in hotter, wetter times, when the chiggers, ticks, mosquito's, snakes, and heat and humidity make it more exciting than one may desire. February is a fine time to run southern Texas forests, and this particular February seemed to be optimal.

I spent the rest of the day buying vast quantities of Ensure and Boost. Given my experience in the HURT just three weeks before I was convinced that the liquid supplements would be my salvation. When I had finished going from one store to the next I had a stash of supplements that could fill my car trunk. Weather I would need this, or even be able to drink it all in the time I had to run the race was a question I just didn't want to deal with. I was driven only by the goal of having enough and not running out, something that had plagued me in the latter laps of the HURT, where I had to rely on the aid stations to supply it. I made a meal of boost and some peanuts and went to bed early.

I was up in the night, I put on a long sleeve HURT shirt, and the rest of my uniform and it did me just fine. But my support bags were packed with all kinds of cold and wet weather gear. Outside my room I found a lot of other runners packing their cars. The Rocky Raccoon had 240 paid 100 milers and about as many 50 mile starters. A big race. I got there a bit early fearing a crowed lot, but given the parking lots at the lake it was no problem at all.

It was an informal start. There may have been a prayer, I couldn't hear. We were standing around one minute, and the next people were slowly making their way through the aid tent and over the start line. I hit my stop watch and we were off. As usual I was not running, and just stretching out a bit over the first miles. Even starting far back in the mob, I had a lot of people come by me. But the ground was soft and the trails rolling, and before I was really ready I found myself jogging along at a faster pace than I am used to doing at that stage.

As I found out very quickly, this race is a sprint over rolling dirt or sandy trails and twisty curvy forest paths, or down straight long rolling dirt roads and tracks. But don’t think it’s a lark, the paths are crisscrossed with roots, and the trees come alive in the night. I stumbled numerous times in the early miles, failing to see the roots hidden under the debris and once even managed to take a good fall as I whacked a high root. I whacked and bumped my shoes, and was left wondering if my right big toe nail will ever have time to re-grow. So if you come out this way, be fast but be wide-eyed, for these rolling trails can be deceptively technical, particularly in the early stages of the race when you may think you are running smooth open trail.

I knew I was moving along well, but I was not really push hard. Somewhere after the first hour and a half we joined up with the fifty milers who were doing a slightly different loop. The trails became a bit more crowded and the sun came up. I found myself running with Kelly who was doing the fifty miler. It was her first Ultra and she was a bit concerned. She needn't be as she had some good Marathons. Her pace was a bit fast for me, but she was a steady runner and I could gear down and stick behind her. Following her over the last half of the loop, even with some conversation, brought me back toward the finish at 4:15. When we hit the start/finish I wished her a good race as I knew I was not going to be maintaining that pace. I was already feeling the twinges of things not quite right in my legs. It was easy to change my pace a bit, and to ignore them, they were no problem if I was doing a 50 K, or even a fifty miler, but I knew I was pushing things so early in a hundred miler. But Kelly was nice to talk to, and her pace was quick, and it felt good.

I slowed on the second lap, but I was still running a fifty miler with my body, and my mind knew that I moving too fast. I was passing a lot of runners, hard to tell if they were fifty milers or hundred runners. I was running light on my camel pack, trying to keep my weight down, and just using the heavy liquid load that the late night and early morning ensure and boost were bringing to me. There was no Bag Balm to be found in Huntsville and I had only a small amount with me. The Vaseline is never much of a help, and early in the second lap I started to have problems with the typical places. I slapped on more Vaseline and pushed on. I ran out of water twice as I tried to keep my pack light. It was stupid planning, as I could have taken a few seconds to dump in some water at the aid stations. But I was enamored with my fast pace and not really looking to far down the road.

As the sun came up the weather got really nice. I was running with a black long sleeve HURT shirt and it was perfect for the conditions. Most of the runners around me were complaining of the heat. I welcomed it, as it was still just a bit cool for Hawaii conditions. I pushed on, jogging more than I normally do and joining up with various people when our paces coincided. These were small conversations that generally ended at aid stations when I pushed through and most others took a bit of time grazing and chatting with the volunteers and other runners. I just ticked off the list people I passed, their backs to me as they reached for food. I'm not particularly social on runs, and as a middle of the pack runner people often get a laugh out of my silent stalking competitiveness. My feeling on this is that, many of these people can beat me in a strait out run, so I have to get by em any way I can. Aid stations are often much easier points to pass people than out on the trail, where have a tendency to feel a bit more competitive.

Late in the second loop people were starting to complain of dehydration and muscle cramping. The aid stations were hawking electrolytes, salt, and three kinds of energy/electrolyte supplements. There was no reason to be getting screwed up early in the race. But Mid-westerners and Texans are a stubborn lot it seems. A few guys had stripped off their shirts and were running bare chested. These were not guys like Gordon, or Ed, or Don, who are used to the sun, but kind of Michelin like fellows with pasty white winter skin and pinkish-blue hues. I wanted to stop them and scream at them to be careful, but they were ahead of me, and I figured it would not matter anyway. Nobody from Illinois wants to hear how we do it in Honolulu. These guys slowly began looking like New Englanders, the kind with big claws and hard shells you find in pots of boiling water; bugs.

The second lap ended and I was under nine hours. It was startling. I started to think I had a chance at 24! The numbers began to run though my mind. Three more fives and I had it. I could slow down I told myself and still do it. All I had to do was three fives! I think I said something to Marty when we were running together and he just wished me luck. Another guy, who was just past seventy, but looked 62 or so, laughed when I told him we could all make 24. I was running along preaching to the guys in my class about how it was a perfect day to break 24, but there were few takers on my message. I should have known at that point that I was forgetting that I had already pushed too hard, and had a lot farther to go, 55+ miles, to actually make 24. But for those twenty miles or so, I was a true believer.

I came in on the end of the third lap still feeling pretty good. I was starting to have some gut problems, I was having some nasty chaffing issues, I had a problem with my left heel that I knew had become a blister, but that was to be expected at 60 miles--at least that is what I told myself. It was already dark and I was moving a bit slow but I managed to get my shoes changed, to my Adidas Super Nova Trails, as I had a pretty blister from my Ascics, my lights in order, nutrition taken care of, and to lube myself heavily against the chaffing. It took longer than I had hoped, but 24 was still there as a goal. I pushed on. Now it was two just under five or so.

I had done the first 20 in 4:10, the second in 4:20, and the next 20 in just about 5:00. Then I had that long aid station stop. Hey I was thinking I’d still be done before I started and headed out on loop four needing to pull in another low four. I was still feeling good, but my body was beginning to show the wear. I pushed but I was slowing and there didn't seem to be much I could do to increase my pace. In the dark the tree roots seemed to come alive and reach up and grab at my shoes. I was tripping a good deal, stumbling, and occasionally getting those long kind-of-not-quite falls that sap one's energy and mark a funny colored toe nail.

All-in-all I did the forth lap well, but I had to add in the aid station stop and that blew the number well past five. I remember sitting there drinking an ensure playing with my gear and getting my lights ready. It came to me that pushing on at the pace I had been keeping was going to be a very difficult problem. If I had done fives to begin with, I might have been able to do a four plus. But to have done a couple of four pluses, and a couple of five pluses, meant I had wasted myself. There was nothing left in the tank. 24 was out of the question. Well, perhaps I thought to myself, a finish with twenty-four in it was possible. I calculated that out, and even that seemed to be a bit optimistic. But I left it on the table, and headed out on my last lap knowing that I was not going for 24, and that I needed to start watching myself a bit more closely. I can't say I gave up, but I did realize I was in the process of doing what I often caution other runners against. There were other hundreds to run, I needed to keep that in mind.

My pace was good through much of the final lap. That twenty-four something finish actually remained a possible for a long time. But it faded eventually and I was going for a twenty-five. I pushed on, but not with the typical 'last loop' madness I can usually muster. It just wasn't there. I was hanging on, watching my knees which were showing soreness. I had some serious chaffing, my guts were not good, my left foot was still sore from the blister, and some of the problems from that I had at HURT actually came back to haunt me. But I was making a fair time.

I'm not sure what happened at the Damn Road aid station on my return. I had maybe ten miles left, I was slow but doing a good walking pace. I thought I saw Mike Smith at the table, and I wanted to be cute and sneak by him. I just went to my drop bag, downed an ensure and headed out. I was pushing a bit, but everything seemed OK. Then suddenly for no apparent reason, at least if you discount the previous 90 miles of hard push, my left hamstring just tightened. It wasn't quite a pull, but it was suddenly very sore. At any other time I would have stopped, but with only ten miles left I knew I had to push on. Suddenly I was gimping along slowly. The pain was manageable but constant. I could put very little weight on my left leg without some severe pain. I put up with this for half an hour or so, making little distance. Then I took off one of the laces from my gaiter, wrapped my face cloth around my knee and tied it tight just above my knee. The pressure against my contacted hamstring seemed to help a bit. I was still gimping, but I making a better pace.

Somehow I think I took a wrong turn. I don't know where or how, or even if I did, but I never saw Mike, nor a few other runners that I had been moving along with, I was with a small group of people spread out over a half mile of road. It was that pre-dawn dimness when things are seen strangely. Perhaps with a bit of hallucinatory splendor at times. Anyway I kept looking for this left turn that never came. Not finding it I continued down the road. An endless road. Just gimping along at a slow pace. Time left me behind, telling me it would meet me back at the room. A few people passed me but for the most part I was alone on this trail I did not really recognize very well. Things moved in the brush, light flickered ahead and behind, the sky was turning gray, shadows that may have been other runners appeared here and there. Seconds seemed to suddenly turn into minutes. I limped along trying to regulate the pain levels.

I wasn't tearing anything, or dealing with a torn muscle. I could feel the tightness of the contraction all the way up to my groin. I could move, but I knew if I pushed too hard I would indeed tear the muscle or the tendon. So continuing with caution seemed to be the thing to do. As long as I was cautious I could finish. And at near 92+ miles there was going to have to be some really serious reason to stop me.

Finally, after much too long, I found myself back on a familiar path and the final aid station loomed ahead. I crossed the Park Road, and asked for some duct tape. I was lucky, they had some. I grabbed it and began to wrap my leg. All the volunteers could say to me was 'That is going to really hurt when you try and get it off!". "Well it really hurts now, so it is an even trade, I guess," was my reply. I pushed on. Hours of time evaporated. I kept shaking my head. I knew I had slowed down, I knew 24 was out of the question before I started the last twenty, but I could not understand where the 25th hour had gone. Suddenly I was looking at 26 hours on my watch! But a voice in the back of my head was laughing hysterically. "26+ hours you moron! When you ever going to do this again? Just finish and stop belly aching!"

I took my own advice and just pushed on without all the BS whimpering. I would finish, and the time would be the time.

I gimped on, the pain ebbing and flowing, my pace an inversion of the hamstring sensations. I actually passed some people, was passed by others, but kept pushing. I crossed the line at 26:28. Almost 2 hours faster than my previous PR, and likely my life long PR. I have no plans to go after Twenty-four again! Marty, Ed, and Carl. finished close behind me. We took a few pictures. Mike Smith finished forty minutes before me, and I still can not figure that out. I never spoke with Mike at the Damn Road, so I don't even know if that was him at the aid station table, or if it was anyone for that matter. My mind was just over the edge out there at 88+ miles and it was the time of seeing. I waited around for him before I finally asked and found he was all ready in and gone. I showered quickly and came back to the start to congratulate a few of the runners I had spent some time with. Then I limped back to the car and drove back to the motel. My thigh was sore for a couple of days, and I did a lot of massage on it to loosen it up. It slowed me down the following week at the Dry Rock Ridge Run, but that's another post. It still tells me it's there when I run hard.


The Rocky Racoon is a well run race. A fast race. It is a good one to consider for a first 100, or for a sub-twenty-four attempt. The race staff is wonderful. The support is very good, and the volunteers willing and helpful. I always felt at home. There were plenty of HURT alumni there. Mike Smith, Carl Gammon, Marty, Andy, Ed, were among the crowd I ran with. There were others in the fast gang who were there as well. I don’t know if there were any other HURT 09 finishers there, but I talked to a guy who had paced at HURT. He told me I was nuts to be out there. (So what's your point?)This is a Midwest annual event, the culminating run of a number of their Ultra series. There were over 200 Hundred Mile starters and as many 50 Milers. Lots of people. Lots of Texas good cheer and hospitality. Huntsville is an interesting town. A bit of a college place, well known for the gigantic penal institution, home of Sam Houston, dripping with a lot of that 'new money' and the high end communities to show for it, but still having a lot of rural life style running in its viens.

The terrain is rolling pine and deciduous forest, with the occasional palmetto palm tree. Lots of holly, and oak. It is pretty in a South Texas winter kind of way. The warm weather of the week made it quite pleasant. But beware! Huntsville Texas can have temperature variations of over 60 degrees in a day. Wake up to sub 30 and see above eighty by afternoon. The storms can roll in fast and nasty. My fun run can quickly become a nasty never ending treck along muddy, cold and wet trails.

I had lucked out, but I saw the medic to help
Unwind the roll of duct tape from my hamstring
The Nurse said Mikey looks like you met your match
But I said, 'good nurse it's only a scratch'
And I’ll be better,
I’ll be better Doc, and soon be able.

Then I fell back in my room
Only to find Gideon’s bible
Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with poor Mikey’s revival......


Rocky Raccoon in 26:28

HURT 100 SPLIT TIMES

Here is an analysis of my HURT 100 split times

Spreadsheet

My averages over each section were

Nature to Paradise 2:40:48
Paradise to Jackass 2:00:00
Jackass to Nature 2:29:12
Average total Loop 7:10:00

Recovery

Out on the Kalawahine Trail.

One Definintion of Kalawahine is Cleansing Rain.

Well, the hallucinations have ebbed, and the periods of coma like inactivity have passed. I have managed to scrub the dirt off most of my appendages and the blisters are not as bad as I had feared when they were burning the bottoms of my feet. I still have GI problems, but I always have those, and for some reason nobody is the least bit interested in hearing about them.

I feel relatively good, I have some knee pain I do not like, but I will go easy for a few weeks. I am coming back into the world. The endorphin bath is always quite blissful, even with the tremendous pain and hardship it takes to get there.

loop 1: 5:59:00 Being Really Stupid actually slowed on last section to rest.
loop 2: 7:05:00 Minor Bonk coming into Paradise (chills/sweats, loss of balance)
loop 3: 8:11:00 Major Stop sock change, bonk (20 minutes) Loop run all in the dark
loop 4: 7:34:00 Gut Cramping (15 minutes slowing)
loop 5: 7:01:00 Gut Cramping (30+ minutes-- almost put me out. I just walked through it.)

35:50:00

I'm wondering what I can do next.

2009 Hurt 100

The HURT 100 Finisher's Shirt and the 100 Mile Finisher's Belt Buckle. (How do I attach the buckle to my swim trunks?

It took me 20 minutes to get my camera and have somebody take a shot. I came in and stood at the sign just like this for 10 minutes before I realized nobody gave a shit.

I finally grabbed Rex and got this picture. This is one of the most sincere handshakes I have ever made. Rex saved my ass at least twice on this HURT 100!


Fish was with me in spirit if not running right in front of me on the entire HURT. The training we did together is the base I depended upon. The last loop was a typical 'all out' run that we did again and again in training.

And......it wasn't. I wrote a long story about the last one I did in 2007. This one was less dramatic, but no less eventful. I once again finished in 35:50. This year with a lot of help from Rex, who paced me through the last section. Fish and I had run that last section out of Nuuanu so many times that it was just natural to let it all hang out. Thanks to Rex, who saved my ass at one aid station stop, and helped me through what appeared an impossible task of getting out of Nu'uanu, to Fish who has trained with me for months, and to Don who was with me at most aid stations and watched over my progress. I am most fortunate to have such good friends.

We who about to die, salute you!

Well I am not about to die, nor do I need to pay homage to a mad emperor, but the days are gone and the hours are fleeing, and the HURT 2009 is upon us.

I have trained well, I believe I have prepared well, and I am ready to meet the trails for as long as it takes to do five loops. It will be wet, cold, slippery, and unpleasant. But that is what it is. I have my idea of how to do it and that is the plan I will stick to.

Time now to simply do what needs to be done for the next 48 hours.

A Siren Song and a Warm Bed

Mike Minch faces his first 100 Miler

I have been moving forever and I must move forevermore. There is only the shuffling of my feet and the occasional attempts to run which are stalled by the pains in my legs. It is clear to me that the myth of Sisyphus is derived from ancient tales of runners given phenomenal tasks.
I am weary but it is the tightness in my hip that is slowing me. Occasional runners plod past me and I feel only mild frustration. The sense of urgency has abandoned me, and this is no longer a competition; it has become a way of life, an existence, a soul purpose. I move on, each step is past me. The next step faces me and demands my strength. I am in the meditative state.

I am running without a light as the brightness of the moon is almost blinding. It lights the trail with a cool feverish glow that causes what it touches to vibrate and casts long ink dark shadows that ripple softly across the barren landscape. It is the world of the Necromancers where the pale sun is near death and strangeness stalks a shadowy land.

Dark forms on my right become Mayan warrior heads as I approach. They line the trail like a history painted on the walls of a ceremonial pyramid, each head marking the passage of an ancient reign. I know each will tell me some gruesome story if I stop, but I move slowly by focused on the trail. They silently mouth strange curses and charms to me; each in turn offended when I do not stop to listen to his tale. One head leers at me flicking a snake-like tongue, eyes wide and ogling, it raises a dagger as I stare back in fascination. The image morphs and I find myself confronting a dancing kokopeli who plays a tune on his flute that draws me toward the darkness. Blackness sweeps over me and the entrancer slides out of my vision in turbulent rolling focus as my eyes cross and roll to search the back of my brain.

Forcing myself to concentrate on the moonlit form, I come almost to a stop before the shimmering dancer takes on the appearance of the white fluffy heads of a large cactus. I look ahead and a giant grinning coyote sits like a chinkit guarding the left of the path. I gaze to the right for its twin just as a large dog bounces out of the deep darkness howling and yipping after my unsteady steps. Turning on my headlamp in the hope of dispelling the marauding images I find the moon is so bright the beam of the LED makes only a smudged and cloudy mark on the ground and conjures up distortions worse than those of the simple moonlight. I turn off the lamp and jog slowly on.

The trail is familiar. I have passed over it five times already, but the vistas off the trail are surreal aggregations of animals, Indian spirits, and tawdry trailer parks. I just accept them as they appear; it is too much trouble to fight to clear my brain. It is ok I tell myself as long as I can see the trail, as long as I do not allow some enchantment to lead me astray.

A coyote growls and yips not 30 yards away, pulling me from another cycle of moon struck illusions. Yipping back I press along the brightly lit path through a large sleeping pueblo village where I am suddenly startled by a smiling black haired woman who waves to me from a second story window of the pueblo. She calls out the window and sings a song promising a warm shower, clean sheets, and eternal sleep in her arms. A siren I tell myself but I am tempted nonetheless and stagger toward her home. Her white cotton gown is translucent in the moonlight and I can see the roundness of her breasts and curve of her hips. The wooden stairway, the smiling woman, the promise of a warm bed it is all so good. Then suddenly I stumble and my attention is momentarily on my feet, Looking up I find she is gone, and the pueblo has become yet another light industrial zone trailer park. I do not want this to end, but there are no lights, no second story windows, no enticing woman; just large metal boxes. Moving on the memory of the promised warm bed and the dark haired woman’s knowing smile and laugh fill me with desire like a soft hit of pakalolo. I may be tired I think to myself, but I am not dead.

The sky lights up as I catch the flash of a large meteor burning a florescent green and yellow trail through the western sky. It moves so slowly it appears to be a burning plane and as it disappears behind the mountain I half expect to hear an explosion, but all is silent. Moments later another flashes along the same path. They are so clear and bright I feel I can almost reach up and touch them. I stop, raise my arms and give thanks to spirits of this place for the beauty of the night.

A coyote howls and briefly drowns out the sound of my feet shuffling over the gritty trail. Another trickster off to the left answers the call, the barking and the yipping echoing back and forth through the glowing moonlit night. I yip back and howl at the moon. A long mournful cry echoes from my lungs and the coyotes chuckle in response.

I am somewhere beyond 75 miles. Somewhere out on that long stretch of trail that winds up into the hills before beginning the long arch of the loop that carries the trail back to its beginning. I have stopped shivering. The pain in my hip is no longer so bad that I limp along, but I still cannot jog without looking like some kind of busted up land crab skittering lamely along the rocky path

I press on and slow only when the trail begins to become unfamiliar twists and coils along the back of a giant rattlesnake. Shuffling along the coils, I look ahead to see a car sized wedged head moving back and forth in the distance, its black eyes reflecting bits of moonlight as it prepares to strike. Entranced I stumbled toward it hypnotized by the shimmering eyes. It strikes and just as the great fangs are about to rip into me two runners appear out of the blackness, their headlamps bobbing in unison.

Squinting and shaking my head I mutter the often repeated acknowledgment ‘Hey how you doing?’

The often heard benediction ‘Good Job! 'Keep it up buddy', is the quite reply.

I’m tempted to ask “Where’s the beach brah?” but know it’s an insider joke.

The world flips and I am once again in a race that has no ending. Pains in my hip and feet replace the numbness that had filled me; the outlandish landscapes are held back by this brief brush with beings from an alternative unreality. Then as I push on as my eyes cross, and I focus once again on a world gone mad. I make my way silently through another trailer park toward a giant smiling neon cowboy who waves a great ten-gallon hat back and forth on a mechanical arm and as I pass he howls a loud ‘Yippee!’

My aid-station stop at 75 miles had been hard at best. I sat down on the bench of a picnic table and could have fallen asleep with my head propped on my hands. Perhaps I did. My body simply dissolved and I sat there as naked as a skeleton, little more than pain and complete exhaustion. When I rose to get a drink my hip spasmed and I doubled over, staggering to the cooler. Somebody asked me if I was all right and I shook my head ‘No all left actually” I mumbled. Somebody else asked me if my leg was cramped. I shook my head and ‘piriformis and rotators’.

“Few steps and I be right as rain?’ I heard myself quip. It was the most outlandish thing I could think of saying, but they seemed to believe it the truth of an affirmation. It was preposterous that I was thinking of heading out again. The reasons for stopping were mounting.

I looked down at the salt streaks that formed like icicles on my shirt and made the mistake of reading the shirt front. H awaii U ltra R unning T eam…. Is plastered across my chest. HURT. Well I am that, I thought sardonically. But the shirt had POWER. It was a bit of the Islands, and I suddenly realized it carried with it the strength of mythical Hawaiian trail runners, and more importantly, the Hurt Family. The shirt evidently also had an audio chip built into it because I distinctly heard Don Fallis chuckle at me and tell me this was the time that he told me would come. This was time where it counted.

“Now look Mike, you are not very fast, and you are certainly not too bright, as your present situation shows,” He added with a laugh. “ But you are not a quitter. You are not going to stop,’ he said with a taunting laugh, “because you can not come home a quitter!”

People in the station looked at me kind of strange when I answered Don on that one.
Now, I had asked John Salmonson for the shirt, and I put it on with pride. But, quite frankly, it wasn’t until mile 75 that I realized I had yet to really earn the right to wear. I looked up and I could feel the entire HURT gang standing silently at my side in that Aid Station. I could feel the power of Hawaii. I cannot honestly say I wanted to feel that power. The strength to go on came to me unbidden. But I knew I was going on despite all my excuses, and all the reasons to do the ‘sane’ thing. So I struggled to my feet, had one last drink of Succeed, and hobbled, shivering and quite miserable toward 90 miles. It was insane and I giggled about it for a mile or so. But there was no way I could quit. I would crawl before I quit. HURT was not going to DNF the Javelina. And I was, on that particular day and place, the HURT.

Fountain Valley lies to the east of Phoenix, which is one big sprawl of homes and developments that fall upon the dry land like a colossal cancer. Fountain Valley does, indeed, have a fountain. One which shoots so high into the air it is as if the earth itself is taking a long needed leak and I whenever I gazed at it I half expected to hear Gia sighing in relief. It is so high, in fact, that one can see it from many places on the trail even though it must be five miles from the McDowell Mountain Park, miles from the Pemberton trail that winds snakelike up into the foothills and then takes forever to work its way back down. It is low desert, despite the trail’s climb, with saguaro cactus and mesquite brush. There are lots of coyotes up there but the javalina were too shy to accept the honor. The way is along mostly gravely trails and tracks, hard packed and well used. The trail winds in and out of arroyos and rock formations, up and down a mild grade that can turn the distance between aid stations into an eon long march.

The daytime had been clear and hot, too hot for a soft-bodied creature such as myself. My water consumption peaked near 60 plus ounces every five miles or so, with a high dosing of electrolytes to balance the inflowing river of fluids. The low humidity, perhaps 15 percent, meant that every opening of my body was expelling water at a rapid rate. Lungs, nose, mouth and skin were all being sucked dry. Salt collects on the body faster than on a Hawaiian tidal salt flat and abrasion is a constant problem at all those common tender points. A large can of Bag Balm was my regular friend at the main station. Though it felt very good not to be soaked and smelling like an ammonia factory, the trade-off to parched and dry was no less difficult, and the cautions no less severe.

It was the hardness of the trail that I found most difficult. Much of the time it was like running on asphalt. My right piriformis began acting up early and I could only beat on it with my water bottle for so long before the compressions became a problem of potential bruising. Ibuprofen had its limits. The bad hip cost me hours of time. Race walking saved me and allowed me to finish.

I ran with gaiters and was glad that Don had lent me his pair. The dust was so fine it worked its way through my shoes, but the heavier stuff did not get into my socks. I saw a few runners at aid stops who were having foot problems that appeared to be related to gravel and sand. The bottoms of the arroyos were often like running along Kailua beach and there were sections where the rock and gravel was strewn so loosely down hillside paths it made it hard not to kick up lots of dust, gravel, and rock. Desert running demands gaiters. In fact I think gaiters are a new essential for me no matter where I plan to run.

I started smart with a reasonable time on the first loop, got stupid for a couple of loops chasing those ahead of me, and then paid for it through the night. I saw a chance at doing under 24 hours disappear by 60 miles, 26 fall by 75 and 28 at 90. I managed to get something together on the last ten miles but could not break 28 hours, and settled for 28:24. I was happy with that considering how I felt out there beyond 75 miles. It is my belief that I could do a 24 if everything went just right, and an good 26 with proper self pacing.

The Javalina Jundred is a great race and a good run for a virgin 100 miler. In terms of difficulty I met a few people who had done the 100K at HURT and were in the 26-hour range at Javalina. I did 22:20 for the HURT 100K last year and did a 28:24 100 Mile at Javalina. If you can run streets it’s a fast run. If you are a mudder you may suffer, as I did, from some foot, leg, or hip wear due to the hard packed nature of the trails. The trails have some technical issues but you could probably encounter just as many in that 200 yard rooty section coming into Manoa.
Jimmy Wrublik and his crew of Javalina Jundred Aid Station volunteers did a wonderful job. I was treated very well at every stop and every effort was made to make my stay good and short. But it was at 60 and 75 miles when I really needed the help. I came in at 60, the heat of the long day frying my body and brain, and there was a very kind volunteer waiting for me. He stuck by me seeing to my every need, getting me to eat and drink when I just wanted to sit, talking to me about my gear and my plan, and finally offering me a lot of encouragement when I limped off in search of 75. That really helped. I never got his name, but I will always remember his kindness. At 75 I was spaced out for a long time and the patience of the volunteers was phenomenal. Limping away from the station I felt like I was going out the front door of a Hospice when I’d come in destined to quickly leave via the rear exit.

Javalina offers the Hawaii Ultra runner a complete change of scenery and methodology. The washing machine loops (out, turn around, and back the way you came.) give you a chance to see all the runners on each loop and get a good feeling of participation in the event while still remaining fairly isolated on the trail. The optional Halloween theme is fun and adds to the character of the experience. I followed the Grim Reaper for miles and would occasionally catch sight of him flashing across a barren ridgeline, black robes flowing, sickle held high, a group of collected souls following close behind him. I finally passed the Dark Soul when he stopped to take a leak. At the time the surreal nature of that occurrence seemed to have almost life changing significance. One of those ‘You had to be there!’ moments, I guess.

I strongly recommend the run. Jimmy and his gang are a great bunch of people. They got Aloha! Mahalo Jimmy and to your Crew!
November 21, 2006