NB2V - But Mr Ranger Sir!

"Mr Ranger isn't going to like this Yogi!"


"Hey Boo-boo, what Mr Ranger don't ... caaan't hurt! ... But Mr Ranger sir!!"



"Yes Farmer Jones ... we'll get on those pesky runners right away!"

What a great time I had running this event!

We just wanted to run from North Bend to Vantage. That's all! Nothing more, nothing ... well maybe a little less. RD Shawn "Cojones" Lawson was freaked out when the snow kept coming this spring and made frequent trips to the pass to "inspect" the trail. Much to her chagrin and consternation, the white stuff covered way too much of the trail. Well, we can still make it through the snow, as long as the tunnel is open - What? Tunnel won't be open until June!

So, 108.5 became 92 miles. We would run about20 miles, get a ride to Easton, then run another 70+. That was the plan anyway.

The day started out pleasant enough. Shawn, Arthur, Steve and I ran to the McClellan trail head together, then caught a ride to Easton. Once we got to Easton, Shawn and I took off right behind Tim Lofton who'd beaten us to the ride. Arthur was fiddling around and Steve decided to run the last 11 miles of his planned 50K with his dad and ultra runner Bob Stoyles. Bob, who turns 80 this year, is an inspiration and gives me yet another goal to reach ... running into my 80s.

The stretch from Easton to Cle Elum was pleasant; nice and warm with smatterings of horse riders, their dogs and plenty of road apples to further brighten our day. I was feeling good and pulled away from Shawn, caught Tim and kept on moving at a nice clip. I arrived alone at Cle Elum (50K mark) where I met Judy (Shawn's mom) who was just heading out to met Shawn on the trail. If I had remembered that I had a spare key to the car (bumble brain) she could have kept going but I digress. I grabbed my hydration pack, which I filled with full water bottles (I don't need no stinking bladder), and headed out for the 18.5 unaided miles to the check point (almost 50 miles).

I really, really enjoyed this section. The horse ride seemed to stop in Cle Elum so there was no need to stop and walk around the huge but easily frightened four legged beasts. It was definitely warm but I never really felt over heated - or maybe I just didn't recognize the symptoms. I noticed that I was getting a slight headache so I removed my hat. I stumbled across a 6" wide irrigation stream that someone had freshly shoveled. It looked inviting and I took up the offer. There was some lush grass there so I had myself a picnic. There I took my peanut butter and honey sandwich out, doused it with water from one of my bottles, and leisurely ate. I drank a full (16.9 oz) bottle of green tea that I had with me, dunked my head in the water, and wet my arms and legs before finally heading back out. I felt amazingly refreshed but felt somewhat saddened that I didn't share that experience with anyone. I put my iPod back on and dialed in the podcasts I had downloaded for this journey - these were sermons from Alistair Beg; a Scottish pastor who has a radio program out of his parish in Ohio. As I listened to the 3rd or 4th podcast, I chuckled to myself on one of the topics; it was on Laziness. But I quickly came back to reality, noting that even us ultra runners are lazy about some things - tough things like working harder on my marriage; getting more into the study of the Word; teaching my children in the way they should go; and so on. As I said, I really enjoyed this section warm as it was and eventually came upon the next aid station - Thorpe.

Most crews were there as they all had time to catch up with that long stretch. Judy helped me get my things together for the next section and Ray (Jane Herzog's husband and crew), helped me to move some things around in the car to get to some of the smaller bottles of water I had stashed. I wanted to throw some in the ice chest for the next aid station, which was about 8 or so miles away. I discussed the possibility of rain with Ray and Jon Yoon (who was crewing Tim), and I swear they said, "It's not going to rain." That's all I needed to have an excuse to leave my rain jacket - it was hot after all. I was not a mile out when I was hit by the first squall. I "shrugged" it off and continued (silently praying that it would just pass over). The clouds didn't seem to be moving very fast but at least they were heading in my direction - what! On the next squall, I was just passing a woman (who had on a rain jacket by the way) and her dog ... she kinda chuckled as she said "hi" and scurried passed. I looked frantically for the first set of brush with a dry spot. Found one and planted myself there until the squall moved on. Two more squalls and I found myself at the end of this section of the trail and on the Central Washington University campus - the same location I send thousands of $ to educate my son. Once on campus, I called said son and asked him to meet me at Dominos. I was getting hungry and pizza sounded good. I arrived at Dominos in time to catch another down pour and order a small pepperoni. Kris showed up and I told him to bring my pizza to the rodeo/fair grounds where I would next see Judy.

I only got a little wetter on the jaunt to the fair grounds. Judy, who had Sheila (Arthur's bitch), took the opportunity of my arrival to go down the street and get herself some dinner while I dog sat. She was back in a flash and Kris arrived with pizza. He and I sat in his truck and talked while I chowed down on some hot food. He asked where I was headed and I explained it to him. "Coo'," was his normal response. My kids are pretty much numb to the distances I run so 100 miles sounds the same as 50 miles or a marathon ... it's just what Dad does - the freak! As Danielle likes to say in admiration. Eventually Shawn and Arthur showed up ... which is good because I really didn't know where to go from there.

While Arthur got his stuff ready, Shawn listened to her voicemail (we all carried cell phones for the journey which is a pretty cool thing to be able to do on something like this). She got some disturbing news from one of the runners, Ray Gruenwald. It seemed that a forest ranger was pulling some of the runners off the trail somewhere between Cle Elum and Thorpe. Shawn was understandably upset and made attempts to call a few runners. I told her there was really nothing we could do about it and likely, the runners who really wanted to run would just move ahead on the trail and continue. While Shawn fussed with that, I visited with Kris for a while. I started to get cold (having been there an hour by now) so I strove to get Shawn and Arthur back on the trail before I lost interest in the whole thing.

Back on the trail we were all slow going. We were cold and stiff - soon to become warm and stiff. We made pretty slow time to Kitatas and we piddled around there too long again. It was finally dark enough to wear our head lamps. We got out of there and headed into "unknown" land for me. I would not have known which way to go without the others. It was a slow and monotonous drudge on the annoying rock laden trail. We arrived at the trestle and spent only a little time looking for the chalk arrows that Jay (Shawn's brother) had left for us. The "single track" downhill was freaky-dangerous to me; especially in the dark and with legs that were stuck on 'just lift em high enough to get over the 2" rock' mode. Delightfully though, once we arrived at the bottom of the trail, we got to run on the road for a short way to Army West; our final aid station.

70 miles into it and we couldn't get moving again. Shawn wanted to take a nap and Arthur (aka aid station boy) couldn't get his stuff ready for the final 20-21 mile trek. Bored and annoyed that it was now raining again, I got out a blanket from the back of my car and laid out on the road for a quick nap. I was awaken momentarily by Shawn who was trying to get me to come in out of the rain. "No!, " I recall barking. I wanted to lay down, not sleep sitting up. Of course she had no idea what I was thinking. Eventually, like 5 hours later (major exaggeration there), Arthur was ready and we started out down the trail - albeit the wrong trail. After a while, and not after just a little bit of whining because of the annoying rocks on the trail, I noticed that the trail didn't look familiar. I didn't run this event last year but I did crew for Shawn from Cle Elum and ran the last section with her. So this section I was pretty intimate with. What triggered the thought for me was the whining about the rocks ... I don't remember this trail having so many rocks on it. Then I looked up and saw the flashing red lights (not that kind) and said to Arthur, "I think we're supposed to be up there" - "What, are you sure?" - "Pretty sure" - "Are you sure?" this time with more annoyance. I called Shawn (who wasn't going to get any sleep now) and ask, "Are we supposed to be up on the trail by the flashing red lights?" - "Yes. Where are you?" Not on the trail with the flashing red lights that was for sure. We ran back almost all the way to the car and found the correct trail. We added nearly 2 miles but were now on the right track.

Back on the correct trail, we filled out the forms to let the army know we were in the area and we were off, again. At that point, I really started to feel heartburn from the acetic drinks (citric green tea and Gatorade - and I'm sure the pizza didn't help). I had been feeling it for the past few hours but now it was coming to a head. I had to stop to get it out and told Arthur to move on. I had told him that I had already lost interest in continuing on so he probably thought I was just turning back. I puked all the bile out - not even self induced; it was just ready to leave. I felt pretty darn good after that so I hoofed it, trying to catch up to Arthur. I guess I spent too much time on the side of the trail as I never did see his head-lamp. I continued on at my now leisurely pace until it started to down pour. Three things I'm really a wimp about - in order 1) being cold; 2) the dark - I just hate running in the dark; 3) being wet. I can deal with wet without the other two. I found a pretty big tree that had a good dry spot. I 'did' manage to have the insight to bring a warm shirt (that was in my hydro back pack) so I would change that as soon as I got settled. I warmed up immediately after putting on that shirt and put the wet one in a plastic bag I also brought along (gee, I guess I was thinking ahead). I put my light rain jacket back on and lay down to nap while I waited for the rain to quit, or at least slow down. I woke up after what must have been 5-10 minutes and it was still raining pretty hard. I still hadn't seen Shawn or Tim - or did they pass me and not see me? I was a few mile into this trail (about 4) but still had 16/17 miles to go. I recalled last year when Shawn and I ran this section how windy it was ... determined I didn't want to get wet again and then hit that wind. I made a decision to go back to the car. Judy may have already left but I should be able to get there before Katlin (Shawn's sister) left. I called Judy and she had left. I asked her to call Katlin and Katlin soon called me back to confirm I was coming. Yep! I saw Tim who said he had awaken Shawn who had been sleeping in a bush. I'm glad I wasn't the one who woke her up ... this time. She was close behind and I stopped a while to discuss my options ... or our options. She said she was falling asleep on her feet (so had I); no trying to talk me into continuing and no trying to drag her back with me. I left, running with greater conviction (it was still raining) to get back to the car. Finally back to Shawn's car, I got in - wet, and peeled of some of my clothes.

Katlin gave me some cold pizza (I can't believe I was hungry again)! Then I took a nap while we waited for Scotty Raltin, who she was crewing. We eventually got word that Arthur had finished; had heard Ray G. come through (he was running self supported); and still no sign of Scotty. I went back to sleep and Scotty eventually showed up. He had gotten lost at the trestle and figured he had put in an extra 5 or 6 miles. He was done for the day so we headed to Vantage.

At Vantage, Arthur was still the only one who had finished. Ray Shaw was there with his motor home which he allowed us to use to change out of our wet, smelly clothes. Soon Tim showed up followed by Shawn, and Jon Yoon cooked us some pancakes - yum! Pancakes and beer for breakfast. People started to leave as we waited for Ray G. to come in. I decided to call him and find out where he thought he was. He was watching the mile markers and we determined he was about 8 miles out. He was low on water and was in conservation mode but sounded in good spirits. Shawn and Arthur were trying to nap and I was wide awake (cause I was a slacker earlier). It occurred to me that I could take water out to Ray and set out to do just that. I met him about have way with water and I kept him company for his last few miles.

It turns out the ranger was taking runners off the course because of a "farmer" who was a constant complainer. Next year it sounds like we'll need to get permits.

Until next time ... *tc