Steve Patt's
Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run

September 18-19, 2004

• Preparation
• The Race
• Analysis and Final Thoughts (this page)
• Los Angeles Times article
• Pictures only
• Other race reports, 1993-2004

As noted at the end of the previous section - after all was said and done, I did it! I had juggled decisions about preparation, tapering, choices of equipment, fluid and caloric intake, when to push and when to back off, what to wear, and, in some sections of the trail, literally where to place every single footstrike, but in the end, I had solved the complex equations. It probably wasn't a miracle, but it sure seemed like one! What about those decisions?

The course and the race organization

I had heard mixed reports on the scenic character of the course, with some saying that the fires had really damaged it. But as far as I'm concerned, this was a truly spectacular course, and I was delighted to have the chance to spend 30 hours on it. I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation. As far as the race organization, whatever problems they have had in the past certainly weren't in evidence this year - this race was perfectly well run, extremely well marked, and all-in-all a perfect race experience.

My time - could I have gone faster?

My final time was just under 30 hours; I had estimated 27 1/2. But my estimate had been a loose one, to say the least. When I tried to estimate my time for Western States, there had been dozens of runners who had run the same ultras as me, in around the same time, whose times I could compare with to make an estimate. For Angeles Crest, the comparisons were few and far between. In the end, the overriding factor had been my Western States time of 27 1/2 hours. My knees developed a serious problem in that race, and I had to walk the last 55 miles (!), so I've always figured that 25-25 1/2 hours represented a Western States time I could achieve. I knew AC was a few hours tougher (higher altitude, more climbing, more night running), and so I figured 27 1/2 might be about right. But it was a pretty rough guess, and my failure to achieve it says more about my ability to guess than it does about my run.

Of course there were some unanticipated complications. The toe problem definitely caused me to lose 15-30 minutes on various downhills, and the surprising fog on the Mt. Wilson downhill probably cost me 10 minutes as well. I might have lost 10 minutes due to stomach issues. But in a run of 100 miles, there will always be some unanticipated complications, and if it wasn't these things, it would have been something else. There was one thing, however, which was under my control - aid stations. At Western States, I thought I had a chance (a slim chance, but a chance) to achieve the magic 24-hour barrier, so I went through that race spending a minute or less at almost every aid station, 2 if there was a weigh-in. In that race I spent only 48 minutes in 23 aid stations. At AC I wasn't chasing any such goal, and I spent more approximately 91 minutes in the 14 aid stations. Definitely if I was more motivated I could have cut out a lot of that, possibly as much as an hour. The question, of course, is what would the consequences have been? As it turned out, I had a great finish to this race, and felt fantastic afterwards. If I had pushed faster through the aid stations and passed on the "mini-breaks" during the race, would I have felt worse at the end of the race, and lost more time than I had spent? I'll never know.

The end of this race was really an amazing experience. In many ultras I've done I have faded badly at the end, and in particular, gotten very stiff. People pass me a few miles from the finish and finish many minutes ahead of me. This time, it was my turn. Kristina, who I had passed at the base of Sam Merrill (mile 86), finished 50 minutes behind me; Suki and Sarah, who I had passed a little earlier, came in nearly two hours behind me. Each of them had encountered some sort of problem in the late going, and believe me, I've been there. What this demonstrates is how easy it is to lose huge amounts of time at the end of a race like this. In this case, though, it wasn't just others fading, but me (for once!) putting together a strong finish. From Idle Hour aid station (mile 83.7) to the finish, the section which goes over the last 2000' climb on the course, I had the 15th fastest time of everyone in the race, beating four of the top ten runners in the race, rather remarkable for someone who finished 46th overall (out of 63 finishers and 84 starters).

Food and drink

My eating and drinking plan didn't go exactly as planned, but close. Cheese/bagel sandwiches which had worked for me in training proved too dry for the slightly increased intensity of a race. The "milkshakes" worked well, although they do take time to consume at aid stations, since the bottles are really too big for me to take along and stick in my pack to carry to the next aid station. On the way to the race I had picked up some Russell Stover chocolate mint fudge bars, which I had a couple of during the race and were definitely moist enough to eat, for a nice change from GU. GU worked fine. But what basically worked was my idea to drink all calorie/electrolyte replacement fluids (Succeed Ultra), rather than my "usual" mix of one bottle of that and one bottle of water. This alone gave me twice as many calories as I would have consumed otherwise, and kept me reasonably stable energy-wise for the whole race. And, most importantly, this particular drink met my expectations based on my experience during training - I was able to tolerate it just fine for 30 hours straight, and it went down as well warm as cold.

The biggest food-related problem I had turned out to be GU wrappers. Finishing a GU, I fold it so that the open top faces inward, and put it back in the same pocket with the uneaten packets. Unfortunately, for some reason in this race more than in other races or training runs, I had "GU leakage" - remaining bits of GU leaking over the unused packets, so that when I went to take another GU, my fingers would get all sticky. Normally on runs I carry water, so I just wash it off if that happens. But in this race I was carrying exclusively a replacement drink, and it turns out (yes, I tried!) that washing your hands with that just makes them more sticky! At one point I even resorted to pulling out one of the WetNaps I was carrying to wash my hands. In the future, I have to remember to perhaps bring a plastic bag just for trash, or some similar solution, to avoid this problem. I can't say it slowed me down any, but it's definitely annoying to be running with sticky hands. Perhaps I'm too easily annoyed!

Crewing and pacing

Crewing is pretty much a given at this race if you have a spouse or friend accompanying you, but what I discovered was that it's not as simple as it seems. Unless you've done it before, understanding who does what is tricky. If I ever repeat the process, I would definitely work on a strict "handoff" model, rather than trying to refill bottles while I was waiting, and/or leave my crew to accomplish tasks like refilling bottles, replenishing GU, etc., while I devote my attention to the aid station table. As far as pacing, I definitely proved (to myself) that even at a tough race like this with many long stretches between aid stations, a pacer is definitely not a necessity, and, having "conquered" the race by myself, I feel that much better for having done so. Is it possible I might regret that way if thinking if something had gone wrong? Sure, it's possible, but not sufficiently likely for me to worry about it.

Music

For the last few years (since the invention of the iPod, pretty much), I've done most of my long training runs with music. It gives me something to "do" and "think about" while I'm running, but, perhaps remarkably, when I am really am thinking about something, the music just tunes out, to the point where I can suddenly realize I've not heard a note of the last few songs because of other thoughts in my head. In the past I've never run a race with music, though, because I always wanted to concentrate fully on the race, and remember every detail of the race and the course, rather than some music I've heard dozens of times before. But this time, with the long lonely stretches of trail and the relatively small number of people running the race, I thought I would try it. I actually feel like I run faster when listening to music, particularly "upbeat" music, so I even purged my music player of all the slow songs. I started the race with music, and with my eight-hour batteries (actually I think it was seven) even managed to change batteries once on the fly. But coming into Three Points I needed to change the batteries again, and in making the transition, I stuffed the earphones into the pocket of my pack and somehow the little fuzzy part that helps hold the earpiece in your ear fell off and, between that and the batteries, I said the heck with it and gave up on the music. And, as it turned out, I was happy I did. I definitely felt "better" about the race and more in tune with my surroundings for the rest of the race. That will be the last time I listen to music during a race.

Race times - the data

Here's the raw data, mostly presented for the benefit of others in the future who will do the race and are looking for data to help them plan like I did. Note the significant amount of slowdown during the night hours (Chilao to Idlehour). Some of that is due to my toe problems, but for the most part, except as noted in the race description, I "felt" as I was running quite well. Quite clearly, I wasn't running as fast as I "felt" during the night as I was during the day.

*Pseudo-pace is calculated by adding a mile of distance for every 1000 feet of ascent. In principle, according to my "theory," this should really be only for equal amounts of ascent and descent, but for this purpose, it's close enough. Note how much smoother the "pseudo-pace" curve is than the uncorrected pace curve.

• Preparation
• The Race (this page)
• Analysis and Final Thoughts
• Los Angeles Times article
• Pictures only
• Other race reports, 1993-2004