| Rucky Chucky Roundabout 50Km Foresthill, CA March 22, 2003 Page 2 of Photos |
| RACE DAY: SATURDAY (3/22): Saturday morning I drove from Folsom up to Foresthill to the elementary school that served as Start / Finish. The weather turned out excellent. About 30 minutes before start of race I ran into Wini and Lee Jebian of the Bay area... I had paced Wini at 2003 Rock Racoon 100Mi in early February. It was nice to see both of them again. |
The Rucky Chucky Roundabout 50km course consists of 15.9mi down to Rucky Chucky River Crossing and 15.9 mi back up to Foresthill along the WS trail. This race was resurrected from the defunct Ruck A Chuck 50k from 6 or so years ago. Robert Mathis is the RD for Rucky Chucky Roundabout. Before the start of the race Norm Klein asked for a moment of silence to honor the troops in Kuwait/Iraq. Then the race started prompty at 7am. We ran down Foresthill Rd (Main St) for about 0.3 of a mile then the turn on to California Street which gave way to the trail after about 0.75 miles. Then downhill for about 1.5 miles. Zoom. It took about 40 minutes for the stampeed of runners to thin out, just after the first aidstation at 3.7miles. |
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| From studying several elevation profiles of the Western States course I was under the impression that the section between Foresthill and RuckyChucky was mostly downhill with some occassional short but insignificant uphill segments. The fallacy of this impression was quickly revealed. There were several sections of climbs that must have been about 300ft-500ft or more sprinkled in with the descents. One of the descents was a blast to go down... rocks and ruts. My confidence has returned for traversing the trails since falling on the Bandera course in November and breaking a bone in my right hand. I did not fall at all during RuckyChucky. The second aidstation was around 9miles and the third aidstation (Norm Klein's aidstation) was at 13.9mi. Just before Norm's aidstation, the lead runner passed by me in opposite direction heading back to Foresthill.. |
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| Photo 8 : Runners replenishing at the 2nd aidstation "Peachstone" |
| Photo 9 : The third aidstation, "Sandy Bottoms": Norm Klein on the left and unknown volunteer on the right. |
| Photo 7 : Alan on one of the switchback sections. |
| Photo 6 : Runners ahead going up the hill... lots of manzanita along the trail. |
| Photo 5: The Start area at Foresthill Elementary school about 20 minutes before the race began. |