I survived the Western States 100 mile race from Squaw Valley near lake Tahoe to Auburn Washington.
Todd Ragsdale and Esther came with in my folks' camper-van. They were my crew, meeting me at 4 places along the route with fresh socks and tapioca pudding. They were also my pacers for the last 38 miles, which actually was quite a blessing. Todd can talk the paint off the wall, which helped the miles go by.
I tried not to get worn out too fast, but still started feeling poorly just 2/5th the way into the race. Before this I would have thought 13:45 per mile was pretty lame, but there was a lot of uphill (18,000') and I didn't/couldn't go fast on the downhill (23,000').
Bev Abbs and a bunch of other people passed me. But on the other hand, a bunch of really good runners didn't finish. I was 46th of the 238 finishers and 400 starters. I don't know if or when I'd do this race again. I've been going easy on the running since then, but I'm looking at doing Where's Waldo 100k on Aug 22nd.
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