The 11th Annual Trans-Sierra Classic For years, Jeff Hausch has been trying to talk me into doing a run that he and his brother organized years ago that starts in Onion Volley, and ends at Zumwalt Meadows. Onion Valley is a trailhead west of Independence at an elevation of about 9000 feet, and Zumwalt Meadows is in Kings Canyon National Park, whose elevation is about 5000 feet. Between the two is Kearsarge Pass, which is almost 12000 feet high. The total distance is about 22.5 miles (if you don't get lost). The race is unsupported except at the beginning and end, so you have to carry everything you might need. Two other fellows from work, Rocky Rhodes and Gary Specker, decided to try it this year, and we started training a couple of months ahead. Every Friday, we tried to run the "power poles" (a 1600 foot climb), and toward the end of the training, we got beyond the top of the power poles to the top of Black Mountain -- about 2800 feet of climbing. The longest training run we did was about 18-20 miles. The only things we couldn't (well, didn't) simulate were the sierra trail conditions and the elevation. Most of the running we did was on dirt with very few boulders to make running interesting. The biggest problem with the run is logistical -- you have to get the runners to Onion Valley (a 9 hour drive), and then get the car(s) around to Kings Canyon (another 7 hour drive). We recruited a driver (Len Cardinal) -- a summer intern at Silicon Graphics who wanted to see California. He may have seen a bit more than he bargained for. The run starts at 7:00 AM on Saturday, so we left work a little early (10:00 AM) on Friday with another runner (Bob). There were no traffic problems, and Len got to see the sights in Yosemite as we drove through. We had lunch in Bishop, and finally got to Onion Valley at about 7:30 PM. In Onion Valley, we met Steve Chang, a runner who drove up a couple of days earlier to get acclimatized. Apparently he had done the run a year before and had had a very bad time with the altitude. The car was pretty tightly packed with 5 people and all our gear -- luckily, at least from the standpoint of rider comfort, a sixth runner was unable to make it. We set up camp, walked up the trail a couple of hundred yards to scope it out, and started to eat. The plan was to load up on bran muffins to guarantee a giant shit in the morning to avoid trouble on the trail later. After eating, we were careful to pack all the food securely in the car and hide it under blankets since there was a bear wandering among the campsites all evening. Rocky and I shared a tent, and luckily, he was used to sleeping on the left side, and I on the right so we didn't have any marital problems. I got a fair amount of sleep that night. I got up at 5:30 AM and hod my breakfast -- 3 cups of coffee, 4 power bars, and 92 ounces of water. The coffee and the bran muffins from the night before did their job for me almost instantly, and I think they worked for the other runners as well. In the morning, we met the other runners who had driven up from Los Angeles and had arrived at 1:30 in the morning. They included Jeff's brother Bill, and two others named Peter and Fuzzy. Jeff had conveniently planned a knee operation a few months earlier and claimed to be unable to run. The runners are categorized into 2 "teams" -- those from northern California (no-cal runners), and those from southern California (lo-cal runners). I think the main reason Jeff wanted Rocky to run was in hopes that he would beat Jeff's brother and Peter, or at least give them a run for their money. A few of years ago, someone from no-cal got seriously lost a couple of times, and was out for more than 12 hours. He somehow got going uphill after the pass and didn't notice (!?!). Anyway, after a bit of searching, he was finally led out, and the next year, the no-cal runners all had a T-shirt with a skull and a red "no" circle with line through it on the front, and the text "No-Cal Brings 'Em Back Alive" on the back. Jeff wanted to produce a similar shirt, but Rocky and I suggested that a more accurate caption might be "No-Cal, No Brains". Rocky was planning to win, but Bill and Peter both looked like real runners, so it wasn't obvious how things would work out. Rocky and I had never run 22.5 miles before, but were in pretty good shape. Gary has run a number of marathons before, and I figured he'd beat me but not Rocky. On the one long run we'd done together, I ran out of steam toward the end, and both had to wait for me. On very short distances, I can usually beat Gary, and on intermediate distances, we are pretty well matched. Bill and Peter also regularly do marathons, and they claim that one of the reasons that the trans-sierra classic was organized was to fill a hole in their schedule of running events. All of us carried fanny packs with a couple of bicycle bottles full of water (about 16 ounces each), and pouches with room for a few cubic inches of stuff. I carried an emergency space blanket (metalized mylar to reflect heat) and figured that if I got hurt, I could just wrap up in it. I also carried a pack of matches, some toilet paper, a map, 3 power bars (a bar loaded with carbohydrates and other bizarre stuff that tastes pretty good, and works just like rocket fuel on a bicycle where I've made extensive use of them), a package of Gatorade, and a pill bottle with a couple of aspirin and some iodine water purification tablets. I also carried a pair of dry socks -- if I made a mistake at a river crossing, I figured I'd get a pretty nice set of blisters running for 15 miles with wet socks. I was going to take a small windbreaker, but it was pretty warm when we got up, and I figured I wouldn't need it. I think most of us carried about the same stuff, except for Fuzzy. Fuzzy has been running the trans-sierra for years, but is unlikely to win. He takes it easy, enjoys the mountains, and carries a few joints to aid in his enjoyment. He knows the trails backwards and forwards, is incredibly dependable, and has a small broom tied to the back of his pack to indicate that he is the sweeper at the rear of the pack to make sure that everyone makes it out OK. He's apparently performed this function more than once. I also taped a couple of band-aids over my tits to keep them from being rubbed raw by a sweaty T-shirt, and basically filled my shoes with Vaseline to prevent blisters. Somebody was also putting Vaseline between his thighs to prevent chafing there, so I figured I'd do that as well. Finally, although I was feeling great, I prophylactically took a couple of aspirin. A few minutes before the race was to begin, we ran into a fellow in the campground who is a writer for the Inyo Register. When he heard what we were up to, he decided to write a story comparing the Trans-Sierra Classic to the Bay-To-Breakers. I think the main difference is the number of runners -- 8 lunatics versus 100,000 lunatics. Anyway, now that we are going to be written up in the Inyo Register, the run will stop being fun. I figure there will be at least 50,000 entrants next year, and 100,000 the year after. I was lucky to be involved in the last good year. At the starting line, I was appalled to see that there weren't any starting blocks installed, and that Total Race Systems (TM) was not handling the computerized times and splits. We didn't even have the tags that you rip off your runner's numbers at the finish so that the timers can properly associate the times with the runners. At least we got a bunch of pictures at the start. A couple of people (Gary and Fuzzy at least) carried cameras along on the run, and I'll probably eventually get some of the better prints. Gary had one of those disposable cameras (fixed fl setting with ASA 400 film), so we'll now find out how those work. Since the trail is pretty narrow, Bill started, followed by Rocky and then me. I don't know the rest of the order, but I suspect that Fuzzy started last. We had all been told that although everyone might start out running, after the first corner, everyone basically walks to the top of Kearsarge Pass, but lacking brains, Rocky and I decided to see how much of it we could run. We passed Bill after a few hundred yards, and ran for at least the first mile and a half (the total climb is about 5 miles). My calves were starting to cramp up, and I was following Rocky, so I started to walk, and noticed an amazing thing -- on the steep parts, my walk was as fast as his run, and I got to stretch my hamstrings on every step. We changed our strategy and walked the steep pitches and ran everything that was level or gentle uphill. We would have run downhills too, I think, but I don't remember seeing any of them. Anyway, we started to pick up quite a bit of distance, and finally we lost sight of the two people who were running together behind us (Bill and Gary). When we finally got to the top and had a pretty clear view of a lot of the trail below, we saw them, perhaps 1/2 to 3/4 mile back. (We later found out that our time to the top (1 hour 8 minutes) was 4mminutes better than the previous record time to the top. We also found out later that we were 1 1 minutes ahead of the second group at the top. We wasted no time (well, about a minute and a half, really, leaving our marks on top of the pass), and started down the other side. Since we were coasting downhill, we figured it was a good time to eat a power bar, so Rocky and I both had one. I had practiced eating on the run on our "power pole run" many times, but I had a hard time getting the power bar down, and it took along time. There are only a couple of tricky turns to make and one is a couple of miles below the pass. Rocky and I, of course, took a wrong turn above Bullfrog Lake, and wound up quite a bit higher than we wanted to be, and had to come down some pretty steep switchbacks to get back to the main trail. We were pretty annoyed to get caught from behind almost immediately after we got back on course. Just before we were caught, we stopped for water, and I opened my pack and found that the pill bottle had come open, and all the iodine tablets and the aspirin had been ground up and mixed with sweat to form a purple paste all over the inside of the pouch in my fanny pack. Luckily, I was with Rocky, and got tablets from him for my two bottles. It was particularly easy to follow the directions: "Shake bottle with tablets for at least 3 minutes". I think the best part of the run was passing backpackers going in either direction. Many of these folks had been out for days, and suddenly, out the blue came a bunch of nearly naked runners carrying only tiny packs. They couldn't believe that there were any people that crazy, especially toward the end of the run when we told them where we'd been 4 hours earlier. So the 4 of us (Rocky, Gary, Bill and I) ran together for a few miles. Then Bill started to turn on some speed, and Rocky and Gary sped up to keep up with him. I knew that if I did, I'd blow up for sure, so I just kept on at the pace I thought I could maintain for the rest of the race. As it turned out, Rocky had no trouble hanging on, but Gary overdid it, and after he dropped back, I caught him after a couple more miles. I passed Gary when he stopped for water and didn't see him again until the end. They say that marathoners often "hit the wall" after about 20 miles, and so it wasn't too surprising that I bonked at about 18, given the terrain. I just couldn't run, even though the trail was almost all gently sloping downhill. I started stumbling a lot, and actually fell down a few times. I started experimenting, and found that I could pretty much maintain the pattern of running 100 steps and then walking for 20, and also walking up any of the small uphill pitches. All of a sudden, the trail started down steeply again, and I was afraid that I'd really hurt myself if I fell down, so I took most of the switchbacks very conservatively. About half way down, I was passed by Peter.  By this time, I'd been running for about 3 hours. I'd also been tasting the power bar I ate just after the summit regularly, and it didn't taste so good after the first time. I figure that what happened on the switchbacks was that I actually had a chance to digest some of it, and I felt pretty good when I got to the bottom. (I also knew that from the bottom, there were only 2 miles of level running left, and that may have had something to do with it.) Anyway, I ran almost all the rest of the way. Unfortunately, I got screwed up, and ran down the wrong side of the river, and had a fairly hair-raising river crossing on a log near the end. I think it wouldn't have been hair-raising if I hadn't run 22 miles or so beforehand. I finally finished in 4 hours, 31 minutes. Rocky won in 4:14, Bill was second in 4:27, Peter was third in 4:29, and Gary finished in 4:35. The course record is 3:55 (held by Peter, I think), so Rocky came amazingly close, considering that he didn't know the course, and it was the first time he'd ever run so far, or on that kind of trail. Blowing 10 minutes at Bullfrog lake didn't help much, either. Steve finished in about 5:20, Bob in 6:30, and Fuzzy came in after about 8 hours. The support at the end was great -- a bunch of friends of the lo-cal runners and Jeff had driven in from LA and SF, respectively, to man the finish line, as they apparently do every year. Most of them were pretty drunk, since they supplied each finisher with a folding chair, and as much water and champagne as he wanted. To protect our health, they thoroughly tested all the champagne bottles for us before we took the risk of drinking any. One fellow named Marz (spelling?) spent most of his time trying to pick up the cute ranger. He never succeeded in getting a date, but he'll try again next year. After relaxing in the chairs for about 15 minutes, it was almost impossible to get up. All the little blisters announced their presence and all my muscles were incredibly stiff. It took me 10 minutes to waddle over to the bathroom and back (perhaps 100 yards each way). I also discovered that my tit covers had sweated off sometime early in the run, and 1 had a pair of bloody spots on my T-shirt. My underarms were also pretty sore where they had chafed -- I think I'll use Vaseline there too, next time. We then hiked over to the river, where Rocky and I just sat with our feet in the water, and most of the others went swimming. We then walked back to the finish to wait for Bob and Fuzzy and for the drivers coming from Onion Valley with all our food. Our driver beat Fuzzy, but not by much. We were famished by the time he arrived, and he later said how amazing it was to watch us tear into the food. There were a lot of yellow-jackets trying to eat too, but nobody got stung. After everyone arrived, we drove back to the reserved campsite, and Len, our driver, decided he'd go for a run. Somebody told him it was a couple of miles to the campsite, so he figured he'd run a mile up the trail and then back to the campsite for a 4 miler. Well, it turns out it was about 6 miles to the campsite, and he had the longest run of his life. It was pretty hot, too. A car full of Italian girls showed up looking for a place to camp, and Marz offered them space in our area. While we cooked (and later ate) dinner (surrounded again by hundreds of yellow-Jackets), Marz and a couple of other fellows spent time "helping" the girls. Marz was still gone when the campfire started, and so we passed the time telling Italian jokes. Altogether, there were about 20 people in our group (not counting the Italians), and the lo-cal folks brought a case of champagne and a couple of cases of beer. No-cal brought 4 bottles of champagne, 2 of wine, a case of beer, and some Pym's liqueur. We drank most of it that day, and even teetotaler Rocky had a glass of champagne to celebrate his victory. I made sure I drank a couple of quarts of water afterwards to avoid a hang-over, and had to get up to pee every 2 hours. The next morning I was really stiff, but I was probably better off than I would have been if I hadn't gotten up to pee so often. At least I stretched my legs a few times during the night. (The next night, at home, I slept like a rock, and could barely move my legs the next morning.) In camp the next morning, I figured out that the men's bathroom had a door behind it that didn't have a step up, and this useful tip was appreciated by all the runners. That next morning, we also discovered bear tracks all over Jeff's car -- he had climbed up on the windshield to see what was inside. Luckily we had carefully covered the coolers with towels and blankets. On the ride home, we stopped at Grant's grove so Len could see the sequoias, and we got to "hike" around the nature trail. It must have been a pretty amazing sight to see 4 men, all of whom looked like they were in pretty good shape, hobbling along the trail and looking at any steps up (and especially down) with extremely jaundiced eyes. Even though I'm still a semi-invalid, I'm looking forward to doing it again next year. Maybe I'll try to learn something about downhill running before then. Rocky and I also plan to do a marathon shortly, so as not to waste all the conditioning. Once we've done one, we'll never have to do another. Now, if I can just hobble over to the printer, I can print this out. Unfortunately, I've been sitting still for quite a while, and my legs feel like lead.