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HURT Trail 100 Report(HI): akabill

January 20, 2001 Hawaiian Ultra Running Team
(HURT) Guru John Salmonson started the inaugural
H.U.R.T. Trail 100 mile endurance run on inauguration
day in the inaugural year of the 3rd millennium.
        Appropriately at 0545 dark a Hawaiian Kahuna
chanted a blessing for the twenty-nine starters.
In Hawaiian she named each trail segment and prayed
that the gods would look after the entrants in this
most difficult and dangerous trail run.  Later that
night her prayers were answered when Jim Benike escaped
a forty foot free fall unscathed and later Hans-Dieter
Weisshaar slid fifteen feet over a cliffside with only
his pride damaged.
        For years HURT members had been looking to put
on a 100 mile true trail run in Hawaii.  Finding the
venue was the problem until that fateful day when
Jeff Huff, Greg Pirkl and I finished the Tantalus
Triple T-bone 100K and said: "'bad word' we do this
five times and we've got a hundred miler.  We can
do that."  That was when the HURT Trail 100 (HT100)
mile endurance run was conceived.
        Then we measured and found out that the supposed
100K wasn't quite 50 miles.  The HURT Sunday Runners
scrambled to find a course that would give entrants at
least one mile for every dollar of fee.  The entry blank
to the HT100 says it all: "Very tough 100 mile multiple
single-track trails in a mountainous tropical rainforest
with precipitous dangerous drop offs.  There are over
23,750 feet of climb on muddy, rooted and rocky trails.
Ten stream crossings.  This event is designed for the
MINIMALIST adventure ultra runner only.  Don't expect
lots of trinkets.  We will supply 'Aloha', HURT style."
        HURT wanted to do more than just put on a 100 mile
trail run.  Aloha is critical to what HURT is all about.
At its most basic "aloha" is "giving without thought of
return."  When HURT Guru John Salmonson joined the race
directorate he announced in his expansive way "we are
going to give them the best they ever had."  That became
our mission.
        HURT Sunday Runners wheeled and measured every
available trail in the spider web of mauka tropical rainforest
paths.  We read multiple altitude gains and losses and
discussed many complex alternatives.  Finally Jeff Huff
came up with an elegant design and the five-man Race
Directorate (John, Jeff, Mike Garcia, Greg Cuadra and akabill)
set the HT100 route.  Five laps of twenty miles each with two
down and back ups each lap.  Nearly 24,000 feet of gain and
loss on unrelenting soft single-track trails, roots, rocks
and hard packed earth.  The key word being "unrelenting."
No fire roads, no jeep track, no passing lanes, no asphalt
unless absolutely necessary.  They want trails we'll give
them true trails.
        Included are a steep hog back, constantly changing
forests, bamboo clacking in the wind, the fountain of youth,
a waterfall, a pig ravished cliff side trail, sweeping views,
roots, wild pig wallows, switchbacks through head high grasses,
ginger blossoms in your nose, singing Shama Thrush, more
switchbacks cut down a no can see trail with slippery boulders
beneath the feet and nowhere to fall either side, hundreds of
yards of roots that lay high over the ground, a winding trail
switching fourteen times to a jumble of wet mossy rocks, more
rocks with hard packed dirt and gravel falling down a slippery
slope with roots holding the rocks in place, precipitous drop
offs, and trail disappearing into the woods just before a
streamcrossing.  And on and on and more unrelenting beauty.
This course is one breath taking five sense engorging trial.
        These are trails.  Honest to god trails.  Even that .7 mile
of boulders, gravel, roots, and slippery stuff traveled by
hundreds ecotourstii americana every day is trail.  Even the
road leading to the first aid station at Paradise Parking Lot
is more of a trail than what Continentals are used to.
        In early December Stan Jensen came out to Hawaii and
reviewed the HT100.  Stan stood on the flat former parking
lot above Jack Ass Ginger and said: "akabill this course is
two tough (pun intended).  It is tough physically.  It is
tough mentally.  You are going to push the limits."
        And I thought: "YES! We are raising the bar" and smiled
as we spent the rest of the day considering the implications
of the course.
        Jeff's aesthetically pleasing design divided each lap
into three legs with an aid station at the end of each.  John
took responsibility for raising the aid station bar and decided
they would compete to be the best anywhere.  Each would have a
theme and each would provide real food for real ultra runners.
The first (white) leg goes from Makiki Valley to Paradise Parking
Lot 7.3 miles away.  There was the Funky Hawaiian aid station with
fruits, Jook (rice soup), sandwiches, pie, sweet bread and several
oriental specialties.  The second (pink) leg reverses out of Manoa
Valley and down into Nuuanu 5.4 miles away where the Pac Five High
School Cross Country team had the Ulta Burger aid station with
full on fixed up burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, jerky and ice cream
for akabill. The fifteen teenagers were standing by with big eyes
ready to do whatever's including pacing when called on.  The third
(yellow) leg climbs back up Nuuanu Nightmare and around the other
side of Mt. Tantalus back to the Nature Center in Makiki 7.3 miles
away where Big John and PJ had the Hawaiian Hut with its full on
local style Hawaiian food and especially the best Kalua Pig on a
roll anywhere.  It is a long wsy between aid so we required runners
to carry at least two bottles and that often was not enough.
        When the Kahuna finished the blessing we all had chicken skin.
Then the conch shell sounded and we started through a line sparklers
along the single-track trail headed up towards the steep hog back
known as Roots and Rocks.  As soon as there was room to pass Alfred
Bogenhuber Wolfie) went by akabill with his usual challenging
greeting.  Luis Escobar then asked akabill if he (Wolfie) knew
the way and when akabill said "Yes" the race was on.  These two
mad men raced up Roots and Rocks to the 4-way while everybody else
did their best to maintain a solid quick walk.
        In the second tier were Monica Scholz, Lyman Perry, Jason
Hodde and I.  We traveled together to the first aid station with
yours truly going much too fast playing tour guide and story teller
the whole way.  God was that fun.  Then Monica went down letting out
a squeal.  "Black butt buys the beer" was all Lyman and I could say
as we had her run it off and pushed the down hill switchbacks to
Manoa Falls and then out to Funky Hawaiian aid station.
        One of the beauties of the course is that in Manoa and Nuuanu
Valleys you get to see who is ahead and behind you.  Every lap tells
a story.  Coming back at us on Manoa Falls Trail were Luis with Wolfie
a couple minutes behind.  Luis looked very strong and Wolfie looked
like a hunter with a deer in his sights.
        Monica and Lyman were quick out of Paradise Parking aid with me
giving chase much too quick and up we went to the top of Aihualama.
At the top we were into the bamboo forest again and then after the
roots of Pauoa Flats there is totally different forest leading to
Nuuanu Valley.  The grassy ridge with sweeping views of Honolulu and
the Pacific Ocean is tantalizing by day and magnificent at night.
We three raced down a steep grassy knoll past akabill's rump stump and
Vernon's butt slide to Nuuanu Nightmare which is a narrow crumbly trail
with straight downs on the left and jumbles of rocks littering the path.
We broke out onto the Enchanted Forest of Cooke Pines where we got to
see the leaders coming back at us again as we switch backed down to Judd
Trail.  We could run! Then a hidden root grabbed my toe and bam, faster
than I realized I was bouncing off a cushion of pine and up again and
running ten steps till bam going down for a six point landing.  Monica
was amazed.  Saying "You went down without even a whimper."  Lyman just ran
around me on the Judd Trail which is very well marked and still it
disappears into a tangle of roots and over a rock slide and along a stream
and back into bamboo and across the "ford" HURT built just the week
before and up the hill to the Ultra Burger aid station where Stan had stood
and said: "You could get lost between here and the stream." And so you could.
        As we three headed back up Nuuanu Nightmare the whole rest of the
gang came down at us a little more strung out than in Manoa Valley
and so it went through the day and into the night; Wolfie on a
mission chasing Luis with the rest of us strung out along the
trail just trying to hang in there.
        When the race started the weather was as perfect as it can
get and it stayed that way.  Too perfect.  We had had only one
good hard rain since before Thanksgiving.  This meant that nothing
had washed away the thin layer of dirt covering the rocks and root
tops.  When the sun went down and dew was followed by a light rain
the dust became as slick as wet ti leaves on a slippery slide.  As day
turned into night the now slick roots and rocks were an ever-present
challenge to small motor control.  No matter what shoe you wore a
thousand times that night your legs went six different ways from
Sunday and the trick was to hit the ground standing up.
        In the spirit of aloha we had put a 100K option into the run.
Even with a 36 hour time limit we knew that some entrants just
wouldn't be able to finish in time and we figured anybody who
passed 100K on this course deserved credit.  We had eight Grand
Slammers entered but we knew that even they would be challenged
by the time limit.
        Well the 100K option turned out to be a major psychological
barrier.  The course is remorseless.  There are no easy sections.
There are very few places you can relax and just run.  Even
though the State Na Ala Hele group (Hawaii Trail and Access System)
had gone to extraordinary lengths to clear trail and eliminate
barriers there still was no way to relax out there.  Stan Jensen
couldn't possibly realize the full extent of what "mentally tough"
meant on this course.
        Instead of a face saving device the 100K credit option was
too attractive.  The first two to succumb were local Silver Bucklers
(Leadville and Western respectively) Lyman Perry and Jeff Huff.
Finishing their third lap while in third and fourth place overall
the challenge of 40 more miles was more than what they wanted on
that night.  Then came Ben Cavazos followed by Grand Slammers
Jason Hodde and Han-Dieter Weisshaar.  Considering that MiWok
has been recognized as the most difficult 100K in the country
and its sixteen hour cut off is one hour twelve minutes before
the first finisher of the HT100K there was no shame in not going
on.  Later each of the 100K finishers swore that they will be back
in 2002 to finish their business with the trail.
        Meanwhile an unfortunate shoe choice had reduced the bottoms
of my feet to mush and my every step past 100K to the PP aid station
was painful.
        Because HURT knows aloha Lyman Perry leant me his pacer,
Amy Cowan (ultra woman extraordinaire) and then he and Jeff Huff
met me at Paradise Park and fixed up my feet so I could complete
the last 33 miles of the event with somewhat less pain.
        I'm glad they did because I really wanted to be in on the
race between Luis and Wolfie.  Coming out of Manoa Valley the
fourth time Wolfie was just on Luis tail.  He looked like a very
very hungry animal.  An hour later when I was going down into Nuuanu
there was a big gap between the two.  When Wolfie came up out of
the darkness at me his words were "I'm getting too old for this
'bad word'" and I knew the race was over.
        At least that race was over.  All day and  all nightlong
coming at me was Ed Bugarin, retired from Delta Force and now an
adventure racer.  Ed had successfully finished the last Eco-Challenge
in Borneo and was looking for new meat.  Every time I left an
aid station Ed was twenty to thirty minutes behind.  My second
pacer, sixteen year old cross country star, Christal Cuadra had
me convinced that Ed was just behind me the whole way home.
I owe my sub 34 hour finish to her great play acting and gentle
persuasion to run it on in with class and style.  I lived to do
that and at the end knew I had finished the hardest event of my life,
bar none.
        Ed came in 58 minutes later with Monica closing fast.  Jim Benike
had traveled the first lap with his injury-slowed wife and then spent
the next twenty-four hours picking off runners one by one.  If it hadn't
been for his free fall adventure he might have closed on us all.
Mike Garcia was the real hero of the day.  He had convinced Catra to
go out on the fifth loop and then stayed with her promising that
they would finish together.  Even though he was forced to go on ahead
when he arrived at the finish line he refused to touch the gate until
Catra got there.  They touched it together for a 7th place tie.  What a guy!
Just ask Catra.
        By all accounts, and I do mean all accounts, the initial
HURT Trail 100 was a huge success.  Everyone said they would come
back in 2002.
        I don't know what it is.  We created what we believe to be the
toughest, non-altitude challenging, 100 miler in the country and everyone
wants another stab.  Hans-Dieter went so far as to say that the HT100 is
tougher than Hardrock and so he has to come back and finish the full 100.
        We will see in 2002.  The trail won't hold a lot.  I'll be there to improve.


Sign me simply

akabill