Going into the event, my two main concerns were: 1) Being properly dressed for the cold nighttime temperatures. In January 2003, I had a miserable experience in the last 10miles of Bandera 100Km because I was not adequately prepared for the nighttime temperatures and wind from a clothing aspect. I became so cold that I was getting a headache and I wanted to lie down on side of trail and curl up in ball to stay warm...this misery led to an all out pity party . Ranting and raving to myself as I continued at a snail's pace down the trail, I swore off doing any other winter races that required me to run after dark. I did not want to repeat this experience at SD100. I spent time researching average temperatures for late November in the area where course was held (I estimated there would be 11-13 hours when temperature would be below 40 F, with the low being close to 30 F ). Everytime I have near the Crest further north in the Sierras, it has been rather windy. Based on that, I anticipated there might be some windy sections on the SD100 course. In the days between sending in my entry and packing my luggage, I fussed and fretted over which clothing layers to assign to each dropbag. I ended up purchasing a new Polartech Jacket by Columbia at REI about a week or so before the race. The REI salesperson swore up and down that I would be overdressed for the conditions and overheat with this choice of garment. I , on the other hand, kept my mind stubbornly focused on how miserably cold I was at Bandera and how slow I become at nighttime in 100s. Guess who is very happy with her purchase! 2) Overconfidence regarding finishing. From course descriptions I had read and topomaps and elevation profiles I had examined, the SD100 course did not seem worse than WS. In fact, it seemed it should be somewhat easier . SD100 was my third 100miler. I had completed 2002 RDl00 and 2003 WS100 with relatively few problems. I felt I had just enough experience with 100milers to be dangerous to myself, and continued to remind myself that there are no guarantees with the 100mi distance. Despite having much less vertical ascent and descent as WS, SD had much less daylight (~10.5 hours at SD100 vs. ~15.5hours at WS) which I felt should be factored into the equation. In addition, I had been doing some focused hill workouts since WS and I wanted to try running about 10%-20% of the ascents in the first 25miles of SD100. I have been trying to reclaim some of the hill fitness I once had with road bicycle racing in the 1980s, on the trails now. Being older now it is taking effort, but with patience I am making some progress. I had put together a detailed plan for the race, similar to what I had done for RDL and WS. My BASIC goal was to finish under the 31 hour race cut-off, my WOULD BE NICE goal was to finish around 27 hours, and anything under 27 hours would be icing on the cake. I flew out to San Diego on Thursday before the race. The purpose of the trip was twofold: to run the event, and to spend time visiting with a friend of mine that I had worked with in the 90's who now lives in San Diego. The plane landed a half hour early at 11am, and I caught the shuttle bus to the off-airport rental car facility. The bus was snagged in the airport traffic, and as I looked out the window the gray aircraft carriers caught my eye. Immediately my mind was transported back 23 years, flooded with memories from the summer of 1980 when I spent a summer stationed at San Diego Naval base as part of my Navy ROTC training on tender ships USS Prairie and USS Jason. It was a summer full of new and different experiences, some interesting and some too strange and scary. My favorite on-base refuge was the Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool. I swam many laps that summer. I never have regretted getting out of NROTC after the second year and not pursuing a naval career. I returned to college that fall happy to blend into the background, back into my world of books and numbers. As the bus pulled into the rental car facility, my mind quickly returned to the present task at hand. Picking up a rental car, I drove north to Torrey Pines State Reserve along the coast. I spent about two hours packing drop bags from the trunk of my car. There was then still ample daylight to take a 3 mile roundtrip hike down to the beach to touch the ocean water and back-up to where car was parked. I then reached my friend's home around 6pm. Friday morning I met Philip at the San Diego airport. Packing my dropbags the day before, I realized I was missing two gel flasks. To remedy this, we stopped by the San Diego REI store to get two flasks and then by RoadRunnerSports which was just down the road from REI. I finally had a chance to try on different sizes of Leona Divides. Philip bought his first pair of Montrails. From there we headed out to Poway, then to the quaint historic town of Julian (which firefighters worked hard to spare from the Cedar Fire), then south on 79 through the fire-burned Lake Cuyamaca region. There we saw many strange, haunting and sad sights, including melted plastic white fence . Philip expressed the similarity of this particular scene to that of the well-known abstract clock painting by Dali. Our uncanny timely arrival to Pine Valley Restaurant was just a few minutes before the scheduled start of the pre-race meeting and dinner . Inside the rustic restaurant, we found other runners ,RD Paul and some of the volunteers, as well as a welcoming warm fire burning in the fireplace. All members of the Texas group had made it to the meeting. Paul briefed us on the race, then a dinner of salad, garlic bread, spaghetti with meatballs and pie was served. The Finishers' Awards were plaques which Paul had just received and he was puzzled to find a typo on the plaques. He apologized for the incorrect spelling of "November" , which appeared on the plaques as "Novermer". many chuckled, and no one felt the typo was a major problem. As a result of the post-fire changes made to the 100mi course (the 100Mi race was now a double 25Mile out-and-back), Paul had added a 50mi event. Over the course of the meeting and dinner, Philip transitioned from his original decision to pace me the last 37miles, to a final decision to pace me the last 50miles and getting Paul's permission to have the last 50miles of the 100mi event count as a delayed start for the 50mi event. Everyone would get something from the deal; which made me happy. I like win-win situations. And with that, Philip and I headed to the primitive cabin to complete a few final tasks, and then to get to sleep. |
| SD100 was not on my original list of scheduled ultras for 2003. During SNER 53.2Mi in mid-September, as I was battling the hot temperatures and some fatigue in my effort to reach the finish line, I decided that I was done with races for 2003 (I had been considering running Palo Duro 50k in Oct). My plan was to return to Texas, give another unit of blood and then take it easy in November and December with plans to run my next race at Bandera 100Km near San Antonio in January. I had first met RD Paul Schmidt and his wife Kathleen in June at WS. I then ran into them again at Arkansas Traveler in early October, as I was at the AT100 event to crew and pace a friend. Paul spoke several times to me about his upcoming SD100 event. Returning to Houston, I looked up the SD100 webpage and read about the course.The race course, situated about 50miles east of San Diego, was to be a 50mile out-and-back utilizing a stretch of the PCT in the Laguna Mountains and a network of trails in the far east section of Cuyamaca then a short section south to Noble Canyon for the turn-around. I was intrigued, and it is difficult for me to pass up a trip to CA for a race once the idea has lodged in my mind. There is a part of me which will always be a Californian, and that part of me will always embrace an opportunity to spend time in mountains and hills. Of the 12 ultras I have run, 7 have been in California. Later that week, Austin-based ultrarunner Joe Prusaitis sent out an email to Texas ultrarunners to generate interest in getting a group together for SD100. Back in July, I had lost my job in a lay-off and still was not working. I felt that if I did not have a job by Oct 31, then I would go ahead and plan to enter SD100. This required me to break my "One 100Mi race per year " rule, but I figured that once I would start working again I would not be able to have time off for out-of-state races for at least 6 months. A benefit of running SD100 is that I would have my qualifying run time for the 2005 WS100 Lottery. During the first week of November, after the Cedar fire was contained and I was still unemployed , I made the decision to send in my entry! We had a group of 6 Texans entered in SD100: Joe Prusaitis, Mike Riggs, Sammy Voltaggio, Rick Gastelum, Terry Sheldon, and myself. I was the only one not from Austin. I already new Joe, Mike, Sammy and Rick from being a member of HCTR (Hill Country Trail Runners Club in Austin); but this was the first time I had met Terry. After sending in my entry, I contacted Doug Spencer who had paced me at RDL and WS, to see if he would like to pace me at SD100 since he lives in Southern California. Doug was already entered in Saddleback Mountain Trail Marathon for that weekend, and had to decline my request. With the post-fire changes to the course, I felt this might not be a bad 100mi to try running solo. In an exchange of email messages with Philip Stark, whom I had met through the ultralist in October after posting a question about hydration packs, I mentioned my plan to run SD100 and that this might be my first solo 100Mi. Given Philip's interest to gain more experience in the ultrarunning sport, when Doug could not make it, Philip generously offered to pace me for ~30-35miles as long as he felt okay after running Helen Klein 50Mi (his first 50Miler) two weeks earlier. More information was exchanged, and as the race approached Philip felt adequately recovered from HK50 and agreed to pace me. RD Paul arranged primitive cabins near the start of the race at Lake Morena County Park for the Texas group. He provided mattresses, additional sleeping bags and a lantern for each of the cabins. |
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| San Diego 100Mi Endurance Run "Novermer" 22-23, 2003 Laguna Mountains, Pacific Crest Trail by Linda Hurd |