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Angeles Crest 100 2000 Report: Matthias Schoeck

I had always imagined that I wouldn't run my first 100-miler until I
felt trained and ready for it.  But then, I didn't follow that rule for
my first marathon and first ultra either, so why should I for my first
100-miler?  When I learned in May that I was going to move to Irvine,
CA in August (I was living in France at the time), it only took me a
few weeks to decide to sign up for the Angeles Crest 100 at the end of
September.  No reason to start with an easy one, or was there?  At the
time I was just getting back into running after an injury that had
taken me out for 10 weeks, so I hadn't exatly done any high or even
medium mileage training.  But hey, I'd have 4 month to get up to the
distance.  Well, ok, so I also had an international move, starting a
new job, etc. to deal with, but those are technicalities, right?

To make this short, until race day I hadn't done anywhere close to the
training that I would have liked to have done.  I was also pretty tired
from non-running-related things happening in the last couple weeks and
I seemed to have caught a cold that kept me awake for parts of the last
two nights before the race.  On the positive side, I had been over the
entire course in training runs during the last 6 weeks which was both
comforting and scary.  I knew what was ahead of me and where to pay
attention so as not to get lost (which would have been really hard on
race day on a very well marked course), but I also had some idea of how
hard it was going to be.

Sarah, my girlfriend and crew, and I arrived in Wrightwood around 10:30
on Friday morning, Sep 29.  The check-in was easy and friendly, I got
to say hello to a few people who I had met during training runs, and
everybody's blood pressure was much higher than what's normally
considered healthy.  The rest of the day was nice and relaxed (the
first one in a long time) and went by quickly with race preparations,
the trail briefing, and the pre-race dinner.  We stayed at a private
residence in Wrightwood that night - really nice people (like everybody
else we met at the race; and my memory leaves me as for the spelling of
their names, so I better don't try) who let us and another couple have
their guestrooms for the night.

3:15 came early and there was plenty to do to get ready for the 5:00
a.m. start.  I had decided to start out as slowly as I possibly could.
People always said that I shouldn't run the uphills but powerwalk
them.  I agree in general, but I've always found that powerwalking
wears me out way too quickly and that slow walking is the way to go for
me on steep or long hills.  I leave the power part for those guys up
front.  And still, I'm faster than a handful of other people.  Maybe I
just don't know what powerwalking is.  Or maybe that handful just
really got the slow walking part down.

The race starts immediately with the first long uphill, 2150 ft up to
the Pacific Crest trail, so it was walking from the beginning.  I said
hello to Sena Hoodman and Bill Ramsey whom I had met at local training
runs in the Irvine area.  They were moving ahead and I never saw them
again.  I then walked for a mile or so with Hans-Dieter Weisshaar who
was doing his 17th 100-mile race this year at AC and introduced me to
Kevin Sayers as we were walking along.  I had met Hans-Dieter the day
before.  He's an extremely nice guy and gave me all kinds of good
advice.  All that happened during the first mile of the race.  I met
tons of other people later on, but I don't remember many of the names
any more.

The first quarter of the race went by without great excitement.  I
walked the uphills and tried to run slowly on the downhills and flats.
Sarah did a great job taking care of me at the aid stations.  We had
worked out a plan of what I wanted at which aid station, but obviously
it was all based on guessing since I had never done a race like this
before.  It turned out that my hydration plan was pretty good but that
I need to work out some better ideas for food.  I had Gu and Hammergel
which I was eating regularly.  For solid food I was relying mostly on
bars (Harvest and Clif bars) and on anything that would look good at
the aid stations.  The problem was that nothing, including the bars,
ever really looked good and I just didn't eat enough.

At Vincent Gap (mile 13), the climb over Mt. Baden Powell starts.  I
loaded up 150 oz of water into my Camelbak for the 12 mile section
(yes, I need that much) to Islip Sadle, grabbed a sandwich from Sarah,
and took off, walking slowly up the hill at the back of a big group.  I
mananged to eat the sandwich, but I just didn't like food very much in
general, so I didn't eat much else in the entire 3:16 hours that that
section took me.  I was feeling somewhat tired already at the end of
this part, but I figured that was probably normal after 25 miles and
6000+ ft of elevation gain (that was the last altitude reading I had as
my altimeter watch died just after the summit of Baden Powell).  Yes,
I'd like to feel all fresh this "early" in the race, but I guess I'd
just covered a pretty hard marathon and I would be alright.  Overall I
was still doing fine when I reached Islip saddle where the first
medical check was located.  I weighed in at 2 pounds higher than the
day before, showing that my hydration plan was working (even though
part of the difference might be due to the scales).

The section over Mt. Williamson to Eagle's roost was short and went by
without problems.  Problems started in the following 7.5-mile section,
through Cooper Canyon to Cloudburst summit.  You start by descending
into the canyon, after which there follows a long and gradual ascent
back out.  It was afternoon by now and it was starting to get pretty
warm.  I made the mistake of pushing too hard through this section.  I
had a little chart with me which, among others, contained the intervals
that the cutoff times allow you for each section.  And even though I
wasn't anywhere close to the cutoff at the time, I was getting too
obsessed with the idea that I should be faster than the cutoff interval
- which I ended up being, by about a minute, but I had worked much too
hard for that and when I got to Cloudburst, I felt pretty crappy.

I grabbed some potatoes and cookies and walked a good part of the
following, mostly downhill section to Three Points (mile 42.7).  I did
managed to eat a Clif bar and felt a little better when I got to Three
Points, but I still wasn't doing very well.  I forced down a Coke,
Sarah gave me another sandwich, and I was out of the aid station
again.  2 miles later I had to stop and take care of a blister on the
side of my right heel.  I could have done that much more easily in the
aid station, but I hadn't thought it was necessary yet.  Another lesson
learned:  take care of blisters as early as possible.  In general, I
had quite a few problems with blisters during the race.  Due to my lack
of training, my feet weren't used to running as much as I would have
liked.  I had duct-taped my feet before the race which helped a lot for
the first 40 - 50 miles.  After that, well, my feet were on their own
and in pain.  The break I took after Three Points was the only time
that I took care of my blisters.  I always like that feeling when a
blister pops...

Next was the road up to the aid station at Mt. Hillyer.  I was still
not eating enough and by now this had upset my stomach enough that I
didn't drink enough either.  Mt. Hillyer was the first aid station
where they had chicken noodle soup and it tasted great, but it just
wasn't enough.  By the way, I never came close to throwing up, my
stomach just hurt and didn't like the idea of eating at all.

I arrived at Chilao Campground (mile 52.8) just when it was getting
dark.  The next medical check was there.  I weighed in 4 pounds low and
was told that I was alright but should drink some more.  Well, I didn't
tell them that I had been 2 pounds up the last time and that I didn't
quite agree with them.  Chilao was the first time I sat down.  Sarah
did a good job getting food and drinks to me, but I still didn't feel
like eating a lot.  So I just grabbed my headlamp and was off into the
night.

The section from Chilao to Shortcut Saddle was an emotional
rollercoaster ride for me.  I knew I had gone more than halfway, but
the thought of the distance still to be run was everything but
comforting.  The moon (only a couple days after new moon) with its dark
side visible was beautiful for the first hour after sunset (as is the
entire course).  And overall I felt pretty bad.  I was swinging back
and forth between "I'm going to keep going anyway" and "I'm going to
collapse from lack of energy and water if I keep going".  When I
reached Cloudburst at 59.3 miles, I was really afraid of doing some
serious damage to myself because of my depleted state and sat down in
an aid station chair with the intention of not getting up again.

This was the point when having a crew really paid off for me.  No, I
wouldn't have dropped immediately if I had been by myself.  I had 2.5
hours on the cutoff at the time, so there was no need to drop yet. But
I would have just sat there and not done much to better the situation.
Granted, the aid station crew (I learned after the race that that was
Kent Holder and his team) did a great job (just as all the other
volunteers), but they had other people to tend too.  So Sarah and Jana,
whom I had met on the Labor Day weekend training run and who was
crewing for somebody else, did all they could to get food and drinks to
me, make me eat all kinds of stuff that tasted great and nasty at the
same time, and didn't let me drop.  They also made me put on warm
clothing as I was shivering pretty badly as soon as I sat down.  I
spent about an hour in the aid station before my mean crew chased me
out again.

The next 5 miles or so are all downhill on a dirt road and usually very
runable.  But at least for the first half of that, I was feeling weak
and sorry for myself and couldn't manage to run more than 100 meters at
a time.  And then everything changed.  I assume that the food finally
kicked in and that my body decided that it was useless to complain
about the pain because it didn't get its way anyway.  Suddenly I could
run again (slowly, granted).  I didn't even have any problems on the
long climb up to Newcomb Saddle and started to pass some people here.
I sat down for 9 minutes at the Newcomb aid station (mile 68, no crew
access) and tried to eat and drink what I could.  Then I was out again.

The section from Newcomb to Chantry Flats was pretty difficult for me.
It contains some of the more technical downhill running of the race and
with my tired legs, I simply couldn't run a lot of it.  This is the
only section in which I used the bright beam of my headlamp to see more
details.  Everything else was easily doable with the low beam.  The
first hour of the course, all uphill, I even did entirely with a little
Photon LED light.  I then carried that light with me throughout the
entire race as an emergency backup but I never needed it.

Chilao finally came at 3:15 a.m.  This was the last time I would see
Sarah before the finish because all the remaining aid stations didn't
have crew access.  I sat down for about 20 minutes and she got
everything I wanted or needed to me.  I also changed shoes here, the
only time in the race and probably not even necessary.  The idea of
dropping at Chantry never occured to me.  What was running through my
head was "From here it's only pain and exhaustion and I know how to
deal with those".  My stomach problems had finally settled enough that
they weren't an issue any more and my weight was back to the weigh-in
weight.  I left Chantry about 1.5 hours before the cutoff.

The 3100-ft climb up Mt. Wilson was very hard in the dark.  I took it
slowly, trying to take it a half-hour at a time.  I always told myself
that after those 30 minutes I could lean against a tree or sit down on
a rock and take a minute's rest.  I never actually took that break, but
it kept me going.  Several people before and during the race told me
that I should not go into my first 100-mile race, especially not if
it's the AC, without a pacer.  Well, I'm not opposed to the pacer
concept in general and if I'll ever try to go for a "fast" (whatever
that means in my case) 100-miler, I will probably have a pacer but in
this case I never regretted not having one.  I do like running by
myself and I usually don't have problems keeping myself going when I
get tired.

Once I reached the Mt. Wilson toll road, Ken, who was pacing Todd
(don't know the last names), tried to get me running again with them.
Ken had been around at every aid station when I was there up to
Shortcut and had always been asking how I was and trying to help.  (I
had met the two the day before the race.  They are two of the great
people I met out there.)  When I let them go without following, Ken
made some comment about "morning quads".  Well, my quads were fine,
relatively speaking, but my feet were hurting so badly from blisters at
the time that they just didn't want to take any more pounding.  But
after a while, I starting running anyway and those feet just had to
deal with it.  I always find it amazing that blisters will start
hurting a lot less after a while if you just pound them enough.  It's
probably a sign of nerve ends dying or something like that.  I teamed
up with Stan and we ran it in all the way to Idlehour (mile 83.8).

At Idlehour I sat down and took my tights off that I had been wearing
since Shortcut.  It would have actually been warm enough without them
but I didn't know that at the time and I had to take my shoes off
(equipment error) to take them off, so I never did.  I also left my
light and a set of spare batteries in the drop bag and loaded up on
food.  It should be my last long (12 minutes) aid station stop and the
last time I sat down before the finish.  I met Stefan Schlett again
here.  He was one of the 6 Germans in the race (including myself) and
Hans-Dieter had introduced me to him the evening before.  He didn't
have a good day and was going to run it in slowly, otherwise he should
have been way ahead of me.

>From Idlehour, you go downhill a little and then comes the last long
uphill of the race, 2000 ft to the Sam Merril aid station at mile
89.2.  The climb is less steep than long and it started to get warm
again.  Not much worth mentioning happened on the way up as everybody
just seemed to be plugging along.  Shortly before I reached the aid
station I started to do some complicated maths in my head.  If I'd
leave the aid station quickly, I'd have about 2.5 hours to get it in
under 31 hours.  That would mean having to speed up significantly for
the last 11.3 miles, but my legs were feeling "relatively fresh" now
(apart from the blisters, but they'd just have to deal with it) due to
the stomach problems mid-race and the resulting slow pace.  I didn't
sit down at all at the aid station, yelled "147 out" after a few
minutes, and had exactly 2.5 hours to go for 31 hours.

The rest of the way, I was running "hard" for the first time in the
race.  I was still making sure to drink enough and to eat my Gus and I
took occasional walking breaks simply because I wasn't sure how long my
current high was going to last.  But overall I was moving along very
well and passed a lot of people.  I spent 2.5 minutes in the last aid
station (Millard campground, mile 95.8) and kept going.  I did not
remember from the training run how far it was from the point you hit
the paved road to the finish at 100.5 miles (and in fact, I'd never
been to Johnson field itself), so I did not know if I'd make it in
under 31 hours until I was there.  I hit the finish in 30:58:10.

Did the sub-31-hour finish matter to anybody else?  Probably not.  Did
it to me?  Not really, but it gave me something to shoot for during the
last miles.  It was great getting to the finish.  This was my first
100-mile race and I learned a lot.  I really liked the people I met,
runners, volunteers, race officials, crews, ...  A lot of people put a
lot of effort into this race and I'm thankful that they enabled me to
be there and beat up my legs for a little more than a day.  It was a
great experience and a great learning experience.  The closest I came
to saying "I'll never again ..." was "I won't enter another 100-miler
until I am appropriately trained".  But then, who knows when I'll
change my mind on that.  I will be back.  I just don't know yet when
and where