On the other end of the spectrum, each personal and individual ultra experiences remaining in our heads or hearts. Undocumented, secret and exposed to time and memory fading.
In between, a broad spectrum of books from ultra runners, magazines and occasional newspaper articles, occasional movies, hundreds of blogs, millions of social media posts, a few websites with race results and archives. And the untold and unwritten urban legends which are so much harder to capture now that we don't gather around the firepit anymore...
In this digital age, you would think that everything is being captured and stored somewhere on the web or in the cloud. I would argue that we are facing a huge paradox though: yes, never have we stored so many bits of data and the amount actually keeps growing exponentially. Conversely though, such data is super easy to lose and wipe out either by mistake, or because life and death go on and records, digitized or not, disappear.
With that, I can confess that I love keeping historical facts and artefacts. I don't mean stealing from museums but, on the contrary, keeping things which I know won't or might not be kept otherwise. But digitization isn't enough --I've scanned 37,000 pages of souvenirs stored in my garage these past months-- we also need structure to keep them in places which survive single individuals. Digital libraries and museums, anyone?
To make a long story shorter, as some people have heard already, I got kicked out of IBM a few months before the timeline I had in mind for retiring. At least that gives me more time to reconnect with our local ultra running community. For the past 20 years, I often had to leave early after finishing a race to rush to the airport to catch a plane for a business trip, in the US or overseas. In between, 80-hour weeks were frequent and didn't leave much room to socialize beyond Facebook and the like. There is also some pressure to act on my side as we have plans of spending more time in France during retirement.
I'm especially drawn to touch base with people I don't see at races anymore. Early March, I stopped by Norm and Helen Klein's for instance. This time, I had pinged Mike Palmer and offered lunch in Berkeley. Also invited Stan Jensen to tag along. Now, and to set proper expectations, the setup, eating while chatting, wasn't appropriate for a rigorous session about the Bay Area ultra running history. Yet, and for the sake of potentially triggering further interest from volunteers to share additional stories, let me write down a few anecdotes I caught from this lively discussion, during which so many names were mentioned.
First, it blew my mind again to realize how much of our local ultra roots I missed by being 10-15 years behind Mike and Stan. Time flies fast for a sport which started so small in the eighties and now growing so fast that 250-mile races need lotteries. Mike and Stan show the same initial race in their UltraSignup logs, American River, the kind of rite of passage on the way to Western States. Mike finished 11 Western States while Stan and I have 3 under our belts (... buckles). Overall, Mike shows twice as many races as Stan as he kept racing until 2020 while Stan transitioned to quasi-full-time ultra (and marine) volunteering.
They talked about Dick Collins of course, the initial local legend with more than 1,000 races including many ultras. Dick's story has actually been quite documented on the web, especially the caring and encouragement to others. I hadn't realized though that Dick got into running later in his life, in order to improve his heart condition and health. And that he didn't have the typical athletic runner build.
We talked about Western States, naturally, from Norm Klein as RD before Greg Soderlund and Craig Thornley, oher members of the WSER Board, and the books of John Trent (Second Rise), and Shannon Weil's (Buckle Fever).
We talked about BAUR, obviously, the Bay Area Ultra Runners club which still provides race logistical support to a few events around the Bay.
One club I had not heard before though was the Berkeley Running Club which had illustrious members such as Ann Trason, 14-time Western States champ. I've seen Ann and her walker at a few races this year, inspiring mental resilience and passion of our sport and community. I still have great memories from my first Firetrails 50-mile participations when she and Carl Andersen were co-directing (18 finished for Mike, 7 for Stan and 5 for me, with plans of running it again this year). Needless to say for the insiders, Firetrails is actually named after Dick Collins.
Another anecdote had to include John Tropical Medinger! I didn't know that, in these nineties, John was living above Berkeley, but that explains why the Epiphany Birthday Run occurs over these hills. Sweet to hear that John had created a tradition of recognizing 100-miler finishers by throwing parties. So cool, and how am I not that surprised of him... Grateful to Adam Ray for kind of a similar local party with his Scena Awards night.
We talked about other folks sharing the same age group as Mike and Stan, for instance: Steve Jaber, Carl Jacob, Jim Magill. And slightly younger ones such as Dave Combs and Charles Stevens. How Magdalena Boulet has so humbly and efficiently taken over Miwok, after Tia Bodington's years at the helm.
Discussed how easier it was to get into Western States in the 80s, yet it took 3 years for Stan before he got picked. I pointed out my amazement seeing people entering the Cocodona 250 lottery only to be surprised --and frightened-- to get picked... It's going to be interesting to track the finishers' stats in 2027!
Stan shared how he initiated the web presence of ultra running in the US with his run100s.com website, even running the original official websites of prestigious ultras such as Hardrock 100. Back to Dick Collins, that beautiful and posthume crowdsourced collection of personal anecdotes.
We chatted about life, about the eventual end of running careers --a hot button for me, the changes in Berkeley over the past 3+ decades Mike has lived here, changes in our sport, and society in general...
Having managed run100s for more than 30 years, Stan is THE American ultra running history open book. And this goes beyond all the information captured in his website: Stan still had crisp memories about a Ruth Anderson 100K race he finished a few seconds ahead of Mike, back in 1995. Or that time he paced Mike at Angeles Crest 100. So cool to also reconnect these two ultra buddies together!
Then Stan, always so prepared, took that amazing picture off his folder, from Dick Collins' life celebration, the VIPs of ultra running in the Bay Area in the nineties, including: Errol Jones, John Medinger, John Vonhof, Suzie Lister, Will Uher, Jim Skophammer, Ray Piva, Carol La Plant, Mike Frankfurt, "Yo-Yo", ... (Photo scan credit: Stan Jensen)
Ironically, Stan isn't in the picture, he was either taking it or, as usual and always, helping out behind the scene...
Overall, this isn't at all making a formal history book chapter by any measure. More of a call for more people to dare to share their stories, while we also work on finding ways to retain them for the... ultra long run!
Anyway, I feel so blessed to have discovered and learned ultra running here in the Bay Area, with the support of such an active and friendly community. One more facet of the Silicon Valley gem, albeit not the most popular or best known one. But we, ultra runners, appreciate the silence of running alone in the woods, far from the crowds, don't we?
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