Three days to go until I line up at the Bryce Canyon 100 mile. Threw out my back this morning as I tried to tie my shoes for one last early morning Rancho San Antonio run. Really praying that I'm good to go by Friday, lol. This last weekend I had a blast with running friends up in Tahoe to (hopefully) get some last minute altitude acclimatization. If such a thing can happen...
Views as I climb Tunnel Creek Rd.
This place is like a giant adult playground!
The Tahoe Zephyr Cove Quicksilver crew.
Stuart, cruising.
Starting to lose steam. It looked as if storms were gathering and peeps had about 5 miles left to do - including descending the infamous diamond peak.
Sandra decided to come back down Tunnel Creek with me. Pretty much can't beat the views!
Happy to use someone else's entry for the organized TRT training run!
Meadow on the way up to lake Marlette.
Impressive aid station setup for a training run.
Nearing Snow Valley Summit.
There are some nice patches of snow on the course right now. I had some fun doing some sliding.
Video of my try at sliding:
Video at the top:
The descent from snow valley. I had been here once before when pacing BJB in the middle of the night of the TRT 100 back in 2012. I had no idea how awesome the views were!
Jumping into Tahoe post run. The best shower - ice bath combo. Our abode had a walkway that led straight to the beach. That was nice.
Lexington Aid Station 2016: I got fired from my duty as aid station captain. My duties were taken by veteran Amy Burton who showed me how it is really done. Sadly I didn't even receive the title of deputy captain which fell to the young John Paul Burton. Lesson one: bring donuts for the volunteers! Duke and Bjorn were there to actually do work while I sulked off to the side with my donut.
John Paul - I assume he is doing some sort of important clerical duty required by the captain...otherwise the "deputy" might have actually got away with doing less work than I did.
I had a happy french-man picture and this one. This one makes me laugh.
John Burton ran into our aid station along with the only man in the race who could make him look wimpy and un-impressive. Here he is receiving some aid of questionable legality from the "captain". The "deputy" looked on.
I'm sure Chris wasn't just flexing for this photo op!
The Matt Ward.
The women's leader, Krissy Moehl asks: which way to the weight room?
Haha.
Saurabh - I'm sure he was talking about triathlons or something like that.
Clyde the glide - gracing Quicksilver with his presence!
Some old guys.
15 yr old Briley.
I was sweeping the Quicksilver course when I came upon the Kennedy aid station. The aid station volunteers wanted to know if they could send 15 year old Briley back down the mountain with me (they needed an extra space in their vehicle for a drop from the race). So funny - poor Briley was going to get a fierce introduction to the silliness of this sport. I grabbed some food and we were on our way - Briley eager as a pup to take off! I said: slow down there lad - I need to see if I can shove all of these potato chips down my throat by the top of the climb. The poor guy was completely deflated. All he wanted to do was run and here I was stuffing my face with food. Well, we did start down the other side of Sombroso when I started to probe him about his running credentials. It was somewhere in here that he took a tumble down the trail. It started to hit me that someone had entrusted the safety of this young man to me and I was already failing miserably. His longest run before this was 13 miles - we did 15 with about 2000 ft of climbing and 3000 of descent, lol. Needles to say, he was ready for his burger when we hit the picnic area!
Rescue Copter. I was going up the trail when I noticed the helicopter circling above. I didn't really think much of it as there are helicopters seemingly everywhere around here. As I was going up the trail I noticed a bunch of hikers camped out in the shade of some trees which made sense because of the really hot afternoon. At some point the helicopter was loudspeakering something to me that I couldn't quite understand. I later decided they were trying to tell me to clear the trail. As I climbed I saw the helicopter set down on this open knoll where I was just at. I assume there was someone in that hiking group that needed a rescue.
