Monday, January 17, 2011


We had a very successful Capitol Peak Mega Fat Ass. Last week I marked the upper part of the course, on race day I was going to sweep with Kris. The morning started with me watching the start, then heading up to Falls Creek to set up the turnaround aid station with Glen Rodgers. We then headed up to the peak where Glen would be stationed. I ran down the course to Falls Creek to meet Kris. It was a great warm-up run and I got to see most of the long course runners heading up the hill before I got to the 17 mile turnaround. It was unseasonably warm and dry and everyone was in good spirits. I didn't have to wait long for Kris sweeping behind the last long course runner, who promptly dropped! The last runners left about 10 min prior so I knew we would catch them before the top. We headed up at a steady pace and it began to rain. I ran into Seth in first place bombing down past the trail 50 intersection, he only had a couple of minutes on Yassine though. It would prove not to be enough. By the time we reached the top, we had caught the last runner, the temperature dropped 10 degrees, the wind was blowing and we were in full rain gear. The last guy was 61 years old and just plodding along. As Kris and I followed him, we started to get cold, and he started to have problems. Half way up the steep grunt, we decided I should run ahead and get the search and rescue to drive up to the peak and pick him up. I ran up and over the peak and down to the search and rescue and rode with them back up to the top to pick up the runner. Then I ran back down to the aid station with Kris and grabbed my insulated vest to stay warm. The last runners were now a 1/2 hour ahead of us, but we make up 15 mins on them by the time we reached Fall Creek. Boy it was wet, I've never seen it that wet up there and the trails were raging creeks. It was slow going picking up the flagging and all the water and mud. We never caught up to the last runners and finished just as it got dark. We were both totally soaked and tired but it was a good experience and I got 30miles in!

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