Post TRT DNF: amazing tales of the tail of the pack

Mind the valiant runners who finished this 100-mile beast in 30 hours or more, after a good night of sleep thanks to a painful early DNF/drop for me, my first wish when I woke up at 6 am this Sunday morning was to run up to Tunnel Creek and do that second Red House loop! And get a glimpse of the tail of the pack and the closure of an aid station which I'm not so accustomed to since my captain years at Last Chance in 2005-2006 (Western States aid station).

While the Hobart aid station remains opened even longer, it only sees the 100-mile runners 4 times, versus 6 for Tunnel Creek. And Tunnel Creek also gets the visit of crews which Hobart doesn't. That makes Tunnel Creek the busiest and hardest aid station to manage in my view, not to mention the hardest to track runners at with 3 ways to get in and 3 ways to get out. For instance, speaking about the time span of the station: on the 3.4-mile up to the station, I crossed one volunteer from the medical team who had been working for 30 straight hours! At the station, I got to know the doctor leading this team who was all smile after being up at the station since Friday 6 pm (42 hours total). Here is Andy with his wife, Joann Ellero, and mother in law, Mariza.

The other fixture of this station for the past years has been the amazing Noe Castañon, who volunteers everywhere if not running an ultra himself. Noe welcomed us, the front runners, before 7 am on Saturday morning and here he was helping the last runners still on the course at 11 am on Sunday. Seeing him yawning I teased him "Are you getting tired, Noe?" and he replied, with a big smile, that it had been a long day indeed, but so rewarding and exciting. But when I thanked Andy for all he did to keep the runners going, he turned to Noe and said that Noe was the man, and he was just doing what Noe said... ;-) Here is Noe listening to Chuck Amital.

I arrived at the station at around 8:25 am, just in time to see John Brooks taking a short break on a chair. John is part of our Quicksilver ultra running team and it was a delight to see him smiling with such great spirits before embarking on the final and still grueling 15 miles to Spooner Lake. John completed the two loops in 31:46.

John had run the whole race with Chuck Amital who, at 57, competes in our Grand Prix in my age group, like John.

Chuck is with Pamakids and was followed this morning by a couple of teammates whom I saw going through the station after I completed and swept the Red House loop.

Speaking of teams I want to point how friendly our team competition in the Grand Prix has become over the years. In the first years, starting in 2007, it was quite competitive between our club and Tamalpa, then Excelsior. But now, I find it completely flipped upside down: at the image of the ultra running community, it is much more about emulation and friendliness. We encourage each others though our struggles, our hearts our broken when anyone of us drop or get behind, and we enjoy seeing others striving. For instance, I was bummed to hear that Chikara Omine and Karl Schnaitter had dropped mid way. Our team had our fair share of misfortune with Stuart, Frederic, Marco, Joe and my DNF. With 138 finishers and about 80 DNFs, the outcomes of the race were very different across the board. Special congrats to teammate Mark Tanaka for completing his 6th TRT 100, screwed (without a crew!), and Jill Cole for taking 4th in the women division in 27:26. Big shout out to Paul Broyer (Excelsior) who finished 5th overall in 22:41, he is the one ramping up the fastest among our Bay Area ranks in my opinion. And, on the women side, I was blow away by the win of Roxanne Woodhouse who finished in 23:38 and 8th overall, at the age of 53!

Back to my recovery run, before going down the loop, I asked the night captain of the aid station if they needed me to take off the ribbons and marking and he replied that it had all been taken care of. Well, 1 hour and 20 minutes later, look at what I came back with! 4 ribbons, 2 flags and 7 direction signs, not a bad harvest! ;-)

Despite her hip pain, Agnès did hike up to the aid station with our friends Todd and Janet, to get my drop bag. With the time I spent sweeping and connecting with the volunteers and runners, they had already left when I finished the Red House loop. Before flying down, everybody at the aid station was treated with a cool visit of a guy hiking the whole TRT (Tahoe Rim Trail) with 3... lamas!

Elite ultra runner, Jennie Capel, was among those enjoying this zoo experience!

On the way back, I met my club mates Karen Bonet and Nattu Natraj. Nattu was pulled out by the medical staff at his second passage through Hobart yesterday. He was suffering from asthma, couldn't get his heart rate to slow down and had a low level of oxygen in his blood. At mile 40, a bummer. Karen is also an accomplished ultra runner, and right now preparing for 2 more iron(wo)mans.

With such a perfect weather, the views of the lake going down were breathtaking (a matter of fact when running at this altitude anyway)!

Big thanks to Agnès for carrying my drop bag, allowing me to run down to Incline Village and get such a great 18-mile recovery run before driving back to the Bay Area.

One day has passed and I still think TRT 100 isn't for me but we'll be back in the area for sure, and maybe run one of the 'shorter' ultras. It is such a scenery and event and, again, I'm so in awe with the back of the pack runners I saw this morning toughing it out to get to the finish line under 35 hours. And grateful to all these volunteers who gave us their entire weekend so we could enjoy these trails and ultra challenges in a safe way. More amazing and personal tales were formed throughout the weekend thanks to all of you!

PS: more pictures of this valiant runners fighting the 11 am cut-off at Tunnel Creek

TRT 100 2016: still a beast for me

It was the third consecutive year I entered and toed the start line of this event. With two DNF (Did Not Finish) in 2014 and 2015, my main goal was to finally finish it and tame the beast as a redemption. There are two ways to look at a third attempt when the first ones failed. Of course, I like the optimistic American angle much better: "third time's a charm", meaning that luck will finally come on you if you keep trying three times. In France, we have a way more pessimistic view on that, the saying is "Jamais 2 sans 3" which means that if you failed twice already or there has been two catastrophes, then get ready for a 3rd one in the series. Amazing how our cultures think differently and, assuredly, this permeates trough all aspects of our society.

I wasn't sure about the luck, and there is nothing easy in ultra running, so I thought to myself that I was indeed hoping for some charm but it was going to be a tough charm... With that, I didn't have much of a flight plan but was hoping to break 24 hours, or 22 hours in the best case. My main goal was then to start slower than the previous years, and be conservative on the first loop. Not a very elaborate plan.

Speaking of planning, the check-in on Friday was closing at 3 pm and I made it by 3:02 pm (Mark Tanaka beating me with a 3:03 pm!). Google sent us on backroads (88 over the mountains) without considering quite a few road maintenance projects which slowed down our progression considerably. Thankfully, the volunteers were cool and quick, so it worked out, just in time to drop my Victory Sportdesign bag for Tunnel Creek too!

I also liked the fact that the briefing was held outside instead of the cramped amphitheater of the State Capitol. Here is Race Director, George Ruiz, and his wife, head of the volunteer organization:

It was exciting to meet with Simon Mtuy again.

Simon is from Tanzania and, every year, spends a couple of months, between May and July, on our ultra running scene in California, running races such as Miwok, Ohlone and Western States. He has run Western Sates 10 times (2002-2013) and that's where I got to know him. When in Tanzania, he guides expeditions around or to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro (see his company website, SENE - Summit Expeditions & Nomadic Experience).

I went to sleep just before 9 pm but unfortunately woke up before midnight and couldn't get back to sleep before my 2 am alarm. Yikes, after a few short nights during my business trip to the East Coast this week (I flew back on Thursday night from North Carolina), just 3 hours of sleep were going to make a day running in the mountains even more challenging...

Agnès drove me to the 5 am start. It was just on the chilly side, with a sky super clear and blazing with millions of stars!

Following the Race Director's suggestion, I didn't start with a headlamp. Since I had to start slowly anyway, I was perfectly fine letting 50 runners or so go ahead and staying behind a group with a couple of headlamps and a more reasonable pace as we climbed the Marlette Lake trail. The pace looked fine although we passed a few people on the way. I had no idea how many people was ahead but didn't really want to know anyway not to get caught into competition.

The bad news is that my GI system was still giving me quite a hard time. I've had some diarrhea from time to time these past weeks and I was bummed that kicked in again today, really bad timing, no charm, yikes... I had to stop in the bushes after 1 mile down in the Red House loop and saw a handful of runners passing by. I did caught up with them eventually and tied along them on the way up to make sure I wasn't going too fast. This group included Chris Zurbuch (#244) from Pomona, CA, and Ian Grettenberg from Davis, CA, who paced me last October at the inaugural Folsom Lake 68-mile.

Yet, despite all my efforts to not run as fast as the previous years, my splits were about the same. But at least this time, I wasn't in the lead...

Back to Tunnel Creek, mile 18.5, I went straight to the portapotty and spent about 10 minutes at the station. With this long stop, quite a few runners from Excelsior caught up and I even saw Simon in the station as I was returning my drop bag. I followed a few Excelsior runners and tried to stay behind Paul Broyer but lost him before the Bull Wheel aid station as I couldn't keep up the pace in the uphill sections. Paul was the 9th runner to complete the first 50-mile loop, he is on a roll!

We were less than 22 miles in the race and I had already lost most of my stamina... The next 8 miles to Diamond Peak became quite depressing. I got passed by a few runners, my guts were super painful with any pounding and that prevented me from even running the 5 miles down to the ski resort, and my mental will was fried. I had pretty much decided that this was still not worth continuing through 70 miles and 35 hours of hiking but, after crying of disappointment, decided to give some time to see if I would heal enough to rebound. Agnès and our host, Janet were very supportive and patient in the process. Ann Trason took care of me and really wanted me to continue, sharing one of her stories when she finished second to last, but finished.

The medical staff gave me a pill of Imodium but that wasn't enough to get rid of the GI pain. We waited for almost 2 hours for teammate, Frederic Garderes, in case I could help him getting back to Tunnel Creek. But Frederic also had a bad day and decided to drop too (he didn't train much these past months due to his recent move to San Diego).

With that, TRT remains an untamed beast for me and, as I write these lines in the afternoon of the race, I don't think this 2-loop format is for me. At least not until I have taken care of some bad stress I'm getting at work and which most likely contributed to the TIA in March. You need quite some balance to effectively compete in ultra running, and I didn't have it this weekend to say the least.

The race is still on as I write and UltraSignup put up quite a good live tracking to follow the progress of runners (when the input data is accurate...), and the updates give me mixed feelings. The list of drops is steadily growing and that breaks my heart. I see a few runners striving at the front, and others struggling in middle or the back of the pack and can imagine their pain hiking over the numerous slippery boulders on the trail. I'm in awe of the many runners who will finish and have finished this beast over the years.

A huge shout out for the overall organization of this race. Between remote aid stations, the extended hours, the workload at Tunnel Creek which is traversed by all the runners of the three races including 6 times by the 100-mile finishers, this race requires many super dedicated volunteers.

Tahoe Rim Trail 100-mile 2014: yikes, again...

It was the 9th edition of Tahoe Rim Trail 100-mile, not quite the 41 years of the mother of all trail 100-milers, Western States, but a history and legacy is steadily forming in Nevada. And, along the history of the event, the creation of many very personal stories as participants experience both "A glimpse of heaven, a taste of hell..." (as the event tag line says). From our Quicksilver team, Mark Tanaka was back for a 5th finish. Defending champion, Bob Shebest, had already 3 finishes under his belt, each time shaving 2 hours of his time. Victor Ballesteros was back after three bad experiences and DNFs on this course. And, including the 50-mile distance, there were runners coming back for their 10th participation.

In comparison, my own story with TRT 100 is rather short. 2 years ago, I got in but broke my shoulder the day before the training runs, farther on another section of the TRT, a few weeks before race day: DNS (Did Not Start). Last year, I really enjoyed discovering the course in the first 50-mile loop but messed up my stop at the main aid station and got dehydrated and lost motivation in the next 12 miles, dropping at Tunnel Creek 4 (4th passage through that aid station): DNF (Did Not Finish).

This year, it was supposed to be "my" 100-mile scoring event (we can only score one 100-mile event in our Grand Prix) except that I later decided to fly back from Europe in June to run the 24-hour race which was added later to our list of events and where I logged 127 miles, getting the points of a 100-mile event. With that, my main goals became to improve the M50-59 age group record which was at 23:03.

Agnès and I drove to Carson City and arrived just in time for the check-in (I hadn't realized it was such a drive from the Bay Area with the long stretch on Highway 50). Quite a few familiar faces but also many runners coming from other states with a handful from abroad (Canada, Mexico, France).

For the pre-race briefing, the Nevada State Assembly amphitheater was filled with an unusual population, several hundreds ultra runners all anxious to hear about the race details and conditions, especially the weather forecast.

Last year was exceptionally hot and dry but other years are actually chilly with some of the trail sections covered with snow, so quite a range. And the week leading to the race had an unusual high number of storms with lightning on the course as well as rain and even hail. At least this was cooling off the area and it wasn't supposed to be as hot as last year. And here is Dean explaining the subtle use of the timing mats at Tunnel Creek:

While it was amazing to get the timing chip technology introduced to this event for the first time, I must disclose from the feedback I received from family members and friends and my own when tracking other team members later, that the website needs some important user experience redesign to become more intuitive...


For those following my blog, you might remember that I did run a "fat ass" in June with Guillaume Sautai in, or more precisely around, Rouen, France. Guillaume included TRT in a family vacation, touring the American great west. Here he is, at the start, between myself and Frederic, another Frenchman of the Bay Area and new teammate on our Quicksilver Ultra Running Team.

Chatting with Guillaume while getting ready...

We started promptly at 5 am. The temperature was already in the high 60s and it felt good to run before the sun hits us later in the morning.

Bob Shebest immediately took the lead and I thought I'll never see him again. I really wanted to pace myself (read: not start too fast) and, without pushing at all, settled in 3rd place for the first climb. Last year I didn't take a lamp with me and had to piggy back on the runners in front of me and guess where the rocks and roots were, which is a bit stressful and risky. This year, I took a headlamp with me which I switched off at 5:30 (you really need light for 20 minutes).

On the final switchbacks of the climb, we caught up with Bob, then he disappeared in the next downhill section, he is such an amazing descender! Just keeping jogging the last uphill before Hobart (mile 7), we caught him up again and I actually passed him to take the lead as he made a stop at the station, while I had enough fluids in my two bottles to cover the first 11 miles to Tunnel Creek 1. We were a group of 6 runners and, for what it is worth, that is nothing, I was the first to get to the "photo shoot" as we were passing a ridge with the sun rising. Bob passed all of us again in a down hill, then we passed him again on another climb. Sincerely, the pace felt ok but my plan wasn't to race against Bob so that got me uncomfortable. In the switchbacks down to Tunnel Creek I even told the group "I'm too hold to be at the front!"

We reached Tunnel Creek at 6:54 am, that is 4 minutes faster than the race plan I had printed out on Thursday, credit to Frank Schnekenburger's UltraSplits website. Despite power hiking the 3.5 miles and 1,700 feet elevation gain up to Tunnel Creek, my crew, Agnès and our friends from Incline Village, missed me by 2 minutes. The time I find my drop bag to take a Vespa, I was the last of our group of 6 to take the plunge down to Red House. I could still see Bob in the lead but, with 2.5 miles of steep downhill in which he excels, that was the last time I was going to see him that time. Here is Bob in a solid lead by mile 17:

With the pounding of rushing down the steep trail, my intestine started to hurt really bad. I started to have some GI (gastrointestinal) issues earlier in the week while teaching at a boot camp in Austin, TX, and was hoping to have it under control by race morning, but not quite so unfortunately. It became unbearable on the way up to Tunnel Creek 2 and, with the pain, I had hard time smiling at the runners who were crossing in that section and nicely providing us with encouragements.

As I reached the aid station, the medical staff took my weight which was just one pound below the weight on my bracelet. Then I rushed to the porta-potty, my first of many stops to take care of my diarrhea. I was still able to drink but, too uncomfortable with my GI system and being a bit nauseous, I wasn't eating much, certainly not enough to sustain the effort throughout the day and night at this rate. In retrospective I should have stopped longer at the station to take care of the issue but, with the racing spirit in my mind, I went on toward Bull Wheel, albeit now at a much lower pace which was kind of depressing only 20 miles in the race.

I got passed by a few runners in that 9-mile section to Diamond Peak, making 3 or 4 stops behind bushes or rocks to take care of the painful "business..." It almost feels that the saying "shit happens" is appropriate in my race report to sum-up my morning, sorry for the crude expression...

It was a relief to see my friends at Diamond Peak, along with teammates Toshi and Sachin. Toshi had come from the Bay Area to pace me from mile 50. 2 weeks ago, he was already on this Tahoe Tim Trail completing an amazing feat, covering the entire loop, 165 miles, in 75 hours, solo and unsupported! They helped me refill my bottles and off I was on the incredibly steep 2-mile ski slope up to Bull Wheel. Not only steep but also sandy, making each step a challenge, especially under a burning sun now. By Diamond Peak I was still right on track according to the 20:40 pace chart, not far from my 2013 splits.

Including a long and painful "pit" stop near the summit, it took me 60 minutes to cover the 2 miles between Diamond Peak and Bull Wheel, yikes, slow motion! As I was approaching the end of the hill, Chris Calzetta caught up with me. Chris joined our team 4 years ago and had a few very successful ultras before getting injured then moving to Monterey and focusing on work and soccer. It was his return on the ultra scene and he seemed to really enjoy the day so far, power walking the steep hills with his poles. We ran together for a few hundreds yards after Bull Wheel but I told him not to wait for me and, indeed, I lost sight of him pretty quickly. I got passed by another handful of runners in the 3 miles to Tunnel Creek 3, on a trail which is both somehow technical with the big boulders and busy as we cross many of the 50-mile and 100-mile runners on their way to Bull Wheel 1 and Diamond Peak 1.

Agnès welcomed me at Tunnel Creek and I told her how bad my GI issues were getting. After another stop at the porta-putty I finally decided to take the few minutes needed to assess and address the issue. I had in my drop bag a medicine to treat stomach and GI issues, which I should have taken at my first or second passage through Tunnel Creek. I also asked for ginger candies which I had heard can help in such cases. Like at Diamond Peak, I was 4 pounds below my Friday PM measure, which was still manageable.

I left the aid station with Victor who started the day with a conservative pace and seemed to finally have a good day on this course. I was barely jogging and he was running so I didn't see him for very long. I actually walked most of the 5 miles to Hobart, getting passed by more and more runners and feeling quite depressed with my average pace falling down, now over 11 min/mile. What I like in ultra running is really the running part, not the walking one... During that section, I decided that I was too sick to meet the goals I had set for the day and that I will stop at mile 50. I spent 30 minutes at Hobart, taking 2 cups of soup, a delicious smoothie, cooling off my head with ice water and staying in the shade of the tents. That helped but I still didn't have the energy, at least mentally, to run. I asked a volunteer (Ken, 10th last year) to text Agnès that I'll drop and to release Toshi so he could pace Chris who didn't have a pacer.

Again, I walked most of the next 3 miles to the next aid station, Snow Valley, at mile 43. That seemed so long, I was really not interested in spending all night moving at that slow pace. I enjoyed the great service and company of the Boy Scouts manning the aid station and stopped for another 15 minutes I believe, able to drink a cup of soup and a few chips. The intestines were now feeling better and I started jogging again but I couldn't even keep up with Mark Tanaka who was himself on a rebound after a tough morning.

Five miles from the 50-mile checkpoint, I got passed by two runners who were shuffling solidly and I decided to try to pick up their pace. It felt really great to be moving and running again and I felt better and better, passing other runners in these final miles getting us to the barn. It felt so great that, upon getting to the aid station, the idea of dropping wasn't so clear to me and I was confusing the volunteers and Agnès with my hesitation. Seems like I was even smiling when I reached the aid station... ;-)

On one hand, with 11 hours for that first loop instead of 9 last year, 90 minutes behind my race plan, it was very clear that I had missed my key goals for the day. But there was still a possibility of finishing, maybe even under 24 hours, or even under 23 hours. Now, with all the pit stops, I was chaffing pretty bad, with the GI issue I had not fueled properly all morning, and my mental was pretty low having had planned for the last 15 miles for a drop at the end of the first loop. To add to the bad excuses, the weather was turning pretty bad in the area and it indeed fired a few nasty hail storms on runners later in the afternoon.

Looking at the results, I'm amazed at Bob's performance with not only another win but in a blazing 17 hours and 38 minutes, a new course record (previous one was set by Thomas Crawford, 30, in 2010 at 17:47)! 2 hours and 45 minutes ahead of second place, Mark Austin, from Boise, ID (Mark who came last year to win the 50-mile race in 8:38). Chris placed 5th in 21:30, Victor 17th (23:28), Mark finished his 5th TRT just under 24 hours with 1 minute to spare (and "screwed" that is without any pacer or crew the whole day and night!); Amy Burton (QuickSilver) took 3rd in the women division in 24:08, 1 minute behind Jamie Frink, Guillaume placed 24th in 24:16 and Frederic completed his first 100-miler in 26:03. And Charles Cheya of Sacramento improved the previous M50-59 age group course record by almost half an hour (22:35:31). We were 10 QuisckSilver team members to toe the line and 8 did finish, quite a successful rate overall: Jill in 29:53, Stephen 30:36 followed 4 minutes later by Scott (30:40), Harris in 32:57 and Jeff in 34:08. And it was inspiring to see other team members stepping up to pace us: Toshi, Guy, David, Greg, Clare, Sandra, Lisa, Harris, kudos to you too!

Apart for the late afternoon storms, the weather conditions were much better than last year, at least not as hot (correction as I read some comments after my original post on FaceBook, the night was actually chilly and even the award ceremony got cancelled on Sunday afternoon because of lightning, rain and flooding. Good for another yikes!). This, plus the support of the volunteers all passionate about ultra running, contributed to many personal successes. It remains a tough course and the loop format is certainly part of the challenge of this event especially if you had a bad experience in the first 50-mile loop.

On Sunday, our friends, Agnès and I hiked up to the Tunnel Creek aid station again to get my drop bag, a good excuse for a morning exercise and some post-race stretching. It was so impressive to see the last runners going through the aid station before the 10:05 am cut-off at mile 85, and also the volunteers who had been up and busy since 5 am the previous day.

That's ultra... volunteering, with Noé Castanon being a prime example of, volunteering when he can't run, even when recovering from shoulder surgery. Here I am with Noé, proudly carrying my Victory Design drop bag (thank you Victor! ;-):

Overall, I'm of course disappointed for having failed at meeting my goals at this race again and adding another DNF to the list (5 out of 101 ultra races in 9 years). But I feel that diarrhea is still a good enough excuse to have only covered 50 miles and it wasn't worth more pain given that I race so much. My main regret beyond of course not getting the unique 150th Nevada State anniversary belt silver minted medallion, is that, after 10 attempts, I'm still struggling at the 100-mile distance. Speaking of racing, next one is in 2 weeks, Skyline 50K, a distance which fits me much better (it will be my 47th!).

Congrats to all who succeeded at TRT, good luck to those who didn't, for a rebound, and I always enjoy meeting you on the trails, or the web!