Headlands Hundred 2017 Race Report

I have a confession to make: I no longer read race reports.  It's not that they are not interesting, except they aren't.  Or maybe they used to be interesting.  I just can't bring myself to read another account of some poor soul suffering needlessly, trying to cover some arbitrary distance over some arbitrary tract of land within some allotted timeframe.  There are only so many ways to describe the journey and challenges of an ultra marathon, and they generally all include some intricate explanation of what went wrong.  How many blisters?  How much barfing?  How much cramping?  How much tired?  How much hurting? How much blood? How much cold?  How much hot?  How much wet?  How much not?  I could go on, but I'm already getting bored writing this...

So maybe this time I will try to describe the race from a slightly different perspective.  This report will hopefully describe the adventure with an emphasis on the social story.  I think one of the main reasons that people keep coming back for more of this flavor of self-imposed suffer fest is peer pressure.  It's not the overt teen style of "if you don't do it you're not cool",  but it probably is basically the same thing.  I don't think it is an exaggeration to say it takes a village to put on a 100 mile ultra marathon.  Here is a quick recollection of who is involved: runners, race director, volunteers(aid station, parking, course marking, course sweeping, road crossings, course monitors, etc), runner families, pacers, crews, the list can go on.  The question I ask myself is why?  There were maybe 100 finishers in this race.  There were many hundreds of people involved in allowing those fortunate finishers to accomplish their goal.  No one got rich.  What is it that binds this group together and what makes it so attractive?  Maybe a few accounts of my interactions with those people will help explain.

First I am going to go ahead and dispense with the boring details:  I finished 100 miles in the Headlands on the north side of the Golden Gate bridge with a cumulative 20000 ft of climbing in 23 hours and 17 minutes.  I am happy with my race.  I got one blister, did not puke, it was perfect running weather, and I probably drank one case of cola-cola.  I paced and executed as well as I could have.  I seriously can not think of doing anything different that would have resulted in a better outcome.

Ok, I have another confession to make:  I wrote the above on Monday after the race and then promptly lost all motivation to continue the report, that is how much ambivalence I feel towards the "race report" right now!  None of my pictures turned out good.  And I can't write about any catastrophes.  Hmm, maybe the blog is dead.  Or maybe I will use it if I ever get any good pictures again...