0-0-0-0-0-20! My Life as a Rocky Raccoon Pacer!

If we listed our running mileage like a baseball line score, that's what mine would have looked like last week!

Actually, it would be 13.1-0-0-0-0-0-20 -or- 0-0-0-0-0-20-0 depending on how I framed the week! Pretty ugly I know, but it works for me.

(It is what it was last year at this time between Surfside Beach and Austin. No Surfside Beach for me this year; however, Austin isn't out of the question though. Ask me after this Saturday!)

As you read late last week, I was able to make it back into town to pace Rick Cook on loop four (4) - miles 60 to 80 - of his second attempt to complete the Rocky Raccoon 100-Mile Trail Run in Huntsville.

My plane from Vancouver landed early and Gena, Waverly and one of Waverly's friends came to pick me up at the airport. We made it home around 3:20 p.m. or so and I began to get all of my clothes together. I asked Gena to make me a plate of spaghetti as I really hadn't eaten enough that day before boarding my flight (and I slept through the light breakfast served in first class on the plane ride home.)

I got my gear together as I was planning for everything - including going a second loop. I had a second pair of shoes (knowing that the course was going to be muddy) as well as another two pairs of socks. For the first time ever, I ran with two pairs of socks on because I knew that it was going to get cold in the woods once the sun went down.

Gena had gotten from REI the same type of headlamp during the week that Rick recommended. (They're pretty cool actually and I'll be darned if it was the only thing I forgot to bring with me to Vancouver today so I could run around Stanley Park after dark.) My patience wore kind of thin in trying to get the compartment open to put the batteries in so I elegantly asked my wife to handle that for me before I blew up unnecessarily.

I headed to the park in the same red thermal long-sleeved shirt that caused me to roast at the Houston Marathon when it warmed up with my windshirt from The Half in Dallas from November 2003 on top of it. I also carried a new cold weather top with me that I got for Christmas as well as a blanket (in case I had to sit and wait for awhile) and a complete second set of running gear - not knowing what might be thrown at me.

I left my house in Spring at about 4:20 p.m. with plans to be in the park by 5 p.m. I tried calling Rick on the course, but got his voice mail. I next tried to call Bill Dwyer, since I knew he was going to be at one of the aid station, but Bill hadn't made it to the park yet.

I got parked at about 5 p.m. and headed to the Lodge to find Race Director Joe Prusaitis so that I could fill out a waiver to run as a pacer. They needed to print some new ones off and Joe asked if I could wait until they got the 50-Mile Run awards ceremony done.

In the meantime, they had a closed network of four (4) laptops that you could check on the time of each runner and see what loop they were on. I checked Rick's and it said he had done the first loop in about 4 hours and 10 minutes. It was a little after 5 p.m. and there wasn't a second loop time. I checked the time of somebody else that I knew that he would be running with and found his time to be about 3:25 (but also lacking a second loop time.)

That assured me that Rick hadn't run into any problems on the course and had to call it a day early.

Standing close to the finish line was good friend Lee Greb of the Houston Striders. He was there to see Yong Collins finish. (Lee's getting ready to run both the Mardi Gras and Little Rock Marathons so we had a chance to visit a bit and talk about the courses since I was fortunate enough to have run both of them last year.)

Yong, who continually impresses me with her long distance prowess as well as speed, finished the 50-Miler in 10 hours, 36 minutes and 11 seconds.

I stood around the start/finish area until about 7 p.m. when Rick came in off of his third loop.

During that time, I also saw Kathryn Vidal of Houston finish in 11 hours, 20 minues and 47 seconds. I was talking to a gentleman from California (a lawyer named Erik Priedkalns who finished the Western States 100 last year and made the cutoff by 3 minutes and 30 seconds -- 29:56:30) who ran the first 40 miles as well as a man from Montauk, New York (that's on the far end of Long Island) that was going to be pacing 37-year-old Kyle Cashin from Pennsylvania on his last loop.

I got a little distracted and was embarrassed when I mistakenly called Kathryn, "Kathleen" as I know her and Kathleen Mahon (a good friend of Bruce Mansur) because they both are members of the Bayou City Road Runners.

I saw German Collazos of the Houston Masters Sports Association finish his third loop as well as a woman who ran with Rick quite a bit at Sunmart, Nancy Warren from California. (I told the guy that I was talking to that she had a Badwater finish under her belt. Actually, two!)

We also saw last year's winner, Jorge Pacheco, and this year's women's winner, Virginia's Jenn Shelton, 23, both come in and go out. A year ago, Pacheco finished less than a minute off of the course and world record set by Eric Clifton in 1996! But the buzz on Saturday was whether this year's Leadville 100 winner, Anton Krupicka, 23, of Colorado was going to beat both of their times.

As Rick and I were about at the Interpretative Center heading out on his fourth loop, our watches showed the time that Krupicka would have needed to beat the record and we didn't see the shirtless runner come flying by us.

More to come ....