CCC 100 Report

I'll start with the short version: Finished my 5th straight CCC 100 with the help of my solo crew Glenn Tachiyama. Glenn's been with me for 6 years at this race now. Total time - 24:46; 2nd fastest of my 5 finishes here. My 15 year old daughter Danielle ran me in from the last aid station to the finish which was AWESOME!!!

My goal was to finish under 23:00 hours and I had it in my head that I could run under 22:00 hours. This was partly based on past experience and my performance at the White River 50 miler (see White River 50 Mile Report below). Considering my prerace problems (see my previous post), maybe I should have ruled that out. I took calculated risks however, I adapted along the way in order to finish as well as I did. That's where the experience comes in I believe.

Longer version:
My race started with medium hopes of being able to pull off running another PR (currently 23:36). That would make 5 PRs in a row. I was hoping to get momentum by glomming on to the front group ... boy they run fast. Don't they know it's a 100 miler. I watched Phil Shaw (my pre-race favorite to win), pull away effortlessly. I was in about 8th after 100 yds; plan A was not working. A mile or so further and more passed by and I passed some. No problem, once into the climbs I'll catch back up. Well, I did pass two at the first aid station but that's because I didn't stop there. But they soon caught me as did a couple more. I couldn't really get moving on the climb. I felt stale and had to do what I could. Donna Utakis, the eventual woman's winner (and 2nd last year) caught me near the top ... right around Goat Peak and we worked together from there. I went into the next aid station just right ahead of her and we left together. She was helpful to pace off of as we started our first down hill section. That section went by quickly as we talked and she shared what was up with her and her plans for the race. As we were climbing to the next aid station, she kept saying that she needed to go faster. I wasn't sure why because she was moving very fast as it was. She told me that she really wanted to win. I managed to stay with her through the next aid but she soon lost me on the climb. She REALLY wanted to win.

Well, I was on my own now from here on out. Running from their to Tacoma Pass was great as usual. It's the best part of the course ... if I could have it at the end of the race, that would be perfect. But it's not and I made sure to enjoy the ride while I could. Coming into Tacoma Pass was a blast as usual. Lots of people waiting for runners and I heard a lot of "Yay Tony!" I couldn't tell who was saying it because there were so many people. Arthur's wife and his pacer Stacy, Lisa Bliss, others I can't remember now but hopefully will be reminded when I see pictures. I couldn't see Glenn, then he came out of nowhere. Gave me my belt and two new bottles (one with water, one Gatorade and both with ice). I was in and out so fast. The only down side there is that I was alone again. The next section went pretty well. I had passed a guy in the aid station and didn't really expect to see him after a long section of silence. After going in and out of the next aid station (boring) and a couple of miles down the trail, I heard someone behind me. The guy had caught back up to me. Since we were on a nice downhill at this point, my competitive spirit took over and I picked it up. I thought he might be hanging on to me and that was cool ... I needed to be pushed. Around and corner then BAM! I did a face plant. I felt a pain in my calf right away. Now, how does one fall forward and bang his calf? I looked back and saw that my leg hit a branch that was hanging over the trail. I got up, looked back to see of the guy behind saw me (we're so funny like that), but he hadn't yet turned the corner. I took off and brushed off along the way. We came into Stampede Pass almost together and to a big cheering crowd again.

I made sure that Glenn had my small flashlight for me before leaving here since it was a requirement. I had one that could fit into my belt (waste pack) as it would still be light for another couple of hours. That worked out fine even though I was to start slowing down from this point. I was ok out of the aid station but soon noticed that I was feeling kind of yucky. Nothing in particular. I just felt down; I was going slow for no reason that I could pin point; and I was feeling lonely. I moved along and tried to pick it up every once in a while. The guy who had been behind me passed me and I didn't even try and stay with him. When I got to the aid station, I wanted to just hang out and eat food so that I could be around some people. There wasn't much food that I wanted however, so I just kept putting away the watermelon. Bill Thomas came in and left while I was there. I was envious to see him go up and kiss his wife. She cheered him on, gave him words of encouragement, and he was off with a smile on his face. I walked out after him, turned a corner, saw a large stump and just sat down right there. Just then, another runner passed by. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. Not feeling depressed or anything that, it just felt real good to just sit there and relax. I knew that I was alright but wanted to rest and this felt oh so good. I got up in what seemed like about 5 minutes or so. Feeling a bit satisfied, I moved on. Still lonely, I tried to move my thoughts to other things which helped. My stomach was sloshing and I knew that I wasn't paying good attention to the salt versus water ratio. Nausea came on but it wasn't too bad - just enough to add to the blah feeling I had. I couldn't remember whether my water retention was from too much salt, too much water, or what so I planned on asking when I got to the aid station. I was hoping that Lisa Bliss (Dr.) was there as she had been at the previous stations - she was crewing her husband David Bliss. In the mean time, I passed through a creek that looked really inviting. I decided to wash up from my fall. Washed my face off, then my arms and legs. It felt really refreshing and was glad that I did it. Then it was time to start moving again.

When I got to Ollalie Meadows (mile 47), Glenn was about the only one there. Van "Pigtails" Phan was also there which helped (it was nice having people there I knew). She asked if I wanted soup and I said, "Yes please!" I asked her about the salt thing and she and Glenn conferred. Yes, too much salt. Oh well, I ate the soup anyway which made my stomach feel great. Glenn also brought me one of my 4 caramel frappachinos - it was AWESOME!!! Having those two there and getting some calories really helped out a lot. It was getting pretty dark now and Glenn gave me my headlamp to go with my flashlight. Glenn said, "You're doing good. You are still running a good time." I don't know if he knew it but that's the kind of thing I needed to hear. From him it means a lot because he knows how much I trained and what I'm capable of ... so it wasn't one of those comments you'd hear along a marathon route, "Lookin' good!" Instead, it had meaning and power behind it.

I left the aid station just after Eric Clifton had. Just a 100 yards or so down the trail, Eric was coming the other way. "Going back?," I asked. "Yes, it's too cold," he answered. I'm not sure what his situation was, crew/no crew or whatever, but he didn't have a flashlight. I continued on feeling much better both physically (stomach) and emotionally. When I started to feel lonely again, I reproved myself for feeling sorry for myself. After all, I have so much and so many people who care about me .. "so quit feeling sorry for yourself." Then a thought came into my mind, "I'm not alone. God is always there." My faith wavers more than I'd like and I fail to humble myself ... knowing all along that I can do NOTHING without Him. I prayed about my lonely feeling and asked God to reveal Himself to me. Just as that prayer/thought left my mind I looked up and saw His majesty. Those awesome stars were just chillin' out there. They were bright and large - just magnificent. I felt small but also like I matter to God, which I know I do. I perked up quite a bit and things moved along much quicker from here on out. I didn't wish for the next aid station, or landmark, or turn, but rather took them as they came. I was surprised to see that there were only two glow sticks pointing to the road do to the rope section. I knew this section was overgrown but I'm telling you, if I hadn't run this 4 times before, I would not have followed this path. There was really no indication that I was on the right path. A few hundred yards and I would see a ribbon. Now, it's pretty much pitch black outside and ribbons were not very easy to see; so I was somewhat operating on "blind" faith. I finally got to the glow sticks that lead me to the rope section. I won't go into detail here but lets just say this section left a lot to be desired. I was anticipating it to be bad but it was terrible. Nuff said. On to the road and in to the long tunnel I went. I plugged away all the way through until I reached the parking lot on the other side. I couldn't see once out and knew I was going to have to ask Glenn for a different headlamp (I need to get a new one). I found my way to the road and ran to the next aid station.

I was surprised to find out that they had move the Hyak station. It was ok with me because I got there sooner. Not sure how the logistics went for everyone else. Glenn gave me his headlamp, my usual bottles, belt, frappachino then asked if I wanted music for the road. "Yes please!" I turned on some Bee-Gees and was moving pretty well towards Kachelus Ridge, the next aid station. As I was leaving Glenn asked if I wanted to know my time. I said, "sure." He told me 12:30 which didn't sound that good to me. I was a bit over half way (53 miles) and if I double that time (25 hours) I'd be lucky. There was a lot more climbing to do.

I moved steadily down the road, running all the way until it started to climb again. I had planned to make this one of my working points to take off some time. Since I didn't care about my time too much anymore, I was as hard pressed to work this climb. I did try and power walk some and even had spurts of slow running. The music was a good diversion and when I was able to sing along to a song, I knew I was ready to run again. It was a long climb, but I expected that and tried not to anticipate the aid station. There were a couple of false alarms that made me happy for a while before the disappointment. First, someone had parked their truck on the side of the road and had their lights on. I think they were sleeping and waiting for a runner. Anyway, before I had gotten close enough, I thought it was the aid station - NOT. Next, there was a group of teens, not related to the race, who decided to camp right in the middle of the road. They had even started a fire there. Again, I thought it was the aid station until I got a closer look. Luckily, this time I was pretty close to the actual aid station.

Once in the aid station, which was pretty boring (can't think of much to say about some of these stations ... a chair and some water on the side of the road would not have been much different. This sure wasn't Kendall Kreft's from 3 years ago nor Tim Lofton's from last year). I asked if they had soup and they scrambled to see if the water was hot enough to make me a "Cup-o-Noodle." It wasn't but I drank the warm broth and chewed a bit on the hard noodles, thanked them for trying, then left.

The downhill wasn't too bad. I knew it would be long and prepared my mind for it. I was tired of the music and just left the earbuds in. Nothing much here just pluggin' away until I got to the bottom over 7 miles later. I did a mixture of walking and running. I couldn't sustain the running as my hips were bothering me and my quads were shot from taking the brunt. Not a good sign for the last part of the race but there were still climbs ahead and that would use a different set of muscles.

Into the campground and there were a few more folks. The runner who had passed me way back at Stampede Pass was sitting there eating a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches. Glenn came over to see if I needed anything special, exchanged my usual then asked if I would want Carol O'hear to pace me, "YEAH!" I didn't realize at the time what was going on but Carol hadn't agreed to it yet. Glenn had been working on her for a while and she still wasn't ready to commit. She was supposed to pace Marty Fagan but he had to drop. Then she was pacing Brock Gaverly and he dropped between Hyak and Kachellus Ridge (had to catch a ride back to Hyak). She was cold and ready to go home to her husband. She asked, "Do you want me to pace you?," to which I replied simply, "Yes please." She took a while to get ready and I was getting cold. I still had yet to get a grilled cheese sandwich so I was waiting anyway. Glenn put half of it into a plastic bag and I put that into my pocket. The sandwich was great and we were finally ready to go. Carol hadn't been through the trail-from-hell at night so this was going to be new for her. We actually made pretty good time (may have been a PR for me through here). We worked pretty hard - I ran whenever she would run and didn't stop until she had to. It's so dang technical in there you really have to be careful. I slid a couple of times down the side of the cliff because the path was so narrow. But nothing too bad happened in there. We passed by a guy who looked pretty despondent. He said he was ok but wasn't too believable. He was right about in the middle of the trail and was probably trying to decide which way would be quicker to get out. I'm pretty sure that guy dropped. Out of the trail and over the river to the Mineral Creek aid station. This was a pretty good setup. Glenn gave me my usual and Carol even got a frappachino from the aid station folks, led by Ray Gruenwald. They had some nice stuff there but I didn't really need much more that Glenn had for me. I had to wait for Carol as she didn't seem like she wanted to leave. Glenn then suggested a jello and I said, "Yeah, I forgot about those." I sat down and ate it quickly then we were ready to go.

I tried to run some of this 7 miles uphill section of fire service road. Carol tried to get me to run more and at first I was having trouble. Eventually, my running stints were getting longer and longer - more like I had wanted to do all the way up. This section also seemed to go by fairly quickly for me. It was pretty much light out by the time we got to the No Name aid station. Marlis Dejong was here and she and Carol joked around. Marlis teased me a bit about my hair getting long again, about me being a smart ass and then told me to get out of her aid station. It was just the light humor that I needed. The next section to Thorpe was longer than I remembered. 4 really long miles. I think it seemed longer because it was pretty technical and trying to stay upright was making me tired. We got to Thorpe where Tim Englund was helping out at the aid station. I dropped my bottles and started the climb up. I told Carol to climb up faster ahead of me so that she could enjoy the views from the top. I was actually climbing pretty strong at the time so I wasn't too far behind her. Down we came again to Tim's aid station. I really didn't need/want anything but Carol insisted I take more water so I did. I had to pretty much drag her out of the aid station once again as she seemed like she just wanted to hang out and talk. I thought it was funny; didn't really matter because I could just go ahead and know that she would soon catch up. She did and I told her we had 3 significant climbs before the downhill to the next aid station. We hit two of them and at the top she asked if this counted for two. I said, "It better!" My memory was correct and the third climb was less of a challenge for me than the previous two.

Finally to the top of the third and on to the down hill that headed into the French Cabin aid station (mile 88). I wasn't smelling pancakes enroot so I figured it would be water and out. When I got there, I didn't recognize the AS crew. They did have pancakes but they didn't look that good. I grabbed one, put butter and syrup on it and wolfed it down as we walked out of the aid station. It was kind of raw and didn't quite settle well with my tummy. There was another runner who was sitting down in the aid station. He said he wasn't doing too good and would have to sit for a while. We never saw that guy again although I think he was the next finisher behind me.

My tummy was a bit queasy so before we started climbing through the saddle, and up the last climb of the race, I ate a gel to get the pancake taste out of my mouth and hopefully settle my tummy. It worked believe it or not. We got to the top and I told Carol that the rest was down hill. I was slow going as my quads were still shot and it was painful running down hill. I would run for long stretches and then stop and walk a few steps, then start all over again. Carol is a good listener and could hear when I stopped and would stop too and keep walking. Even though it was slow going, we seemed steady and I didn't dread it like I thought I would. I had thought retrospectively at that point of the race, "You know, all of the sections that I had dreaded really weren't that bad." We finished the down hill section and I told Carol when we were on the last stretch into the aid station. Danielle and my wife Maya were there as was Glenn. I gave Glenn everything and took one gel and one water bottle. He told me it was 10:00 so we had hit 24 hours. I said, "Hey, I can break 25 hours," which was a surprise to me. Remember at Hyak I was at 12 1/2 hours.

Danielle and I left and she started chatting away right off the bat. We stopped almost right away because she was trying to eat an energy bar and get some water and I just wanted her to get it out of the way so we could run in. And run in we did. We averaged under 9 minute miles along this section. Her teenage chatter was just the diversion I needed to keep my mind off my legs and the miles flew by.

The finish was a bit anti-climatic as there were only a few people there. In the past, the race director was there to shake our hand and hand us our finisher's buckle. I was looking forward to this year as it would be my 5 year buckle if I could finish. Much to my chagrin, no buckle at all. I wrote the RD about it and hope to hear that I will be getting my 5 year buckle soon.

CCC previous years and my progression:
2001 - DNF at mile 35
2002 - 28:07 / 19th of 60 starters
2003 - 25:33 / 8th of 58 starters
2004 - 25:11 / 5th of 70 starters
2005 - 23:26 / 12th of 96 starters
2006 - 24:46 / 8th of 67 starters