The Avalon 50 Mile Race

or

What the F&$# Was I Thinking?!

Friday afternoon, I aimed the old Mini Cooper towards Long Beach, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles and boarded a ferry to the tiny town of Avalon, on Catalina Island. The one hour trek by boat provided amazing views of crystal blue skies and a bouncing ride on huge chop. Which I love. Honestly. It nearly rocked me to sleep a few times as I heard fellow runners chatting and catching up, sipping their $5 beers and snacking on their $3 Snicker bars, wavering on the unsteady seas.

I checked in to my hotel, scrambled out to pick up my bib number, and jammed about 4 pounds of pasta into my mouth, followed by one, incredibly tasty, incredibly tall Lager.

I was ready to race.

I crashed out around 10:30 (thanks to the help of Benadryl allergy) and before I knew it, my eyes snapped open a the sound of the 4:00 alarm. Checking and triple-checking my supplies, I strode down the 3 flights of stairs in my hotel knowing that upon my return, those suckers would drain the last bits of energy I had.

It was windy and cool at the oceanfront, but before I and 162 other runners even had time to complain about it, headlamps and flashlights in hand, we were off and running!

Catalina Island is well-known for herds of wild bison that roam the mountains and terrain, so looking forward to an encounter, I began keeping my eyes peeled for buffalo...and buffalo chips.

I caught up with another runner who I recognized as a fellow pacer from October's San Diego 100. We'd spent a few hours at an aid station at mile 75 waiting for our runners, but when his rolled in, it was readily apparent that neither of them were about to jump back onto the trail. Luckily, as we were catching up, she pulled up alongside of us and we chatted at a slow pace uphill until about mile 7, when that all-too-familiar itch hit me and I strode ahead.

Around mile 10, after climbing about 1,000 feet, wet drops began hitting me in the face, and I thought, SHIT, RAIN...until I realized, NO, WAIT...SNOW! In the 10 years I've lived in Southern California, I had yet, up until then, to see flakes dropping from the skies, and for about 10 minutes, as the dime-sized flakes drifted around us all, it seemed like a dream.

I steadied my pace and relaxed into the rolling climbs and descents and, after an aid stop at mile 19 at Little Harbor, saw the race leaders coming back towards us, about 10 seconds apart! After descending into the incredibly beautiful but depressing small town of Twin Harbors, I saw the turnaround point about 2 miles up a series of switchbacks, and, counting the runners coming back at me, calculated that I was somewhere around #50 in the pack, which fueled the fires inside me a little, since I had plenty of gas left in the tank. Never mind that I wound up talking to a 17 year old kid running the race for his 2nd year in a row and is preparing for his 2nd 100 miler this spring.

Hitting the aid station at mile 27.7 at the Ithsmus aid station, I knew I'd need to stock up on more fuel for the 6 mile uphill back towards Little Harbor, but the supplies were surprisingly limited to bananas, pretzels, water, Coke, and Skittles. Finding myself incredibly clever, I filled my gel flask with Skittles and grabbed 2 huge handfuls of pretzels and flipped around.

Climb, climb, climb, and up, up, up before a nice, "easy", slow decent back down to Little Harbor, and by now, I was passing folk, and every single one of them wearing the biggest smiles. (Unbeknownst to me, my girlfriend Ann, who was now waiting at the finish after her ferry ride over and snapping photos, was tracking my progress: At the first radioing in of our position, I had checked in around 73rd, but now, as I overtook here and there, I had wormed my way up into the top 60 of the pack).

This year, the race directors wisely eliminated a 2-3 mile out an back towards the race's finish and instead, tacked on a small, outer, 4-5 mile loop around mile 40...which was entirely uphill. By now, I was starting to get a little sore, so I downed a Tylenol and strapped in my iPod for inspiration, which ironically came in the form of Asia's "Heat of the Moment" as cool ocean winds hit my sweat-soaked body. And as I turned a downhill switchback that carried us straight towards the rippling, indigo ocean, an overwhelming sense of peace hit me that could have been:

A. A runner's high

B. Delirium

C. An overwhelming sense of peace

I'm gonna go with a combo of the three.

But feeling myself out there, alone, staring across the crashing waves of the Pacific as I climbed step after step, something in me was stirred, and a oneness with everything living on the planet, just for a second, struck me deep inside. This inner peace was interrupted, of course, but my attempt to down some of the Skittles in my gel flask as the wet, sticky morsels refused to get unstuck one at a time and instead came out in one giant, gray clump.

I overtook another few runners as the uphill grade lessened (not leveled, mind you), and at Pumphouse Hill aid station at mile 44, feeling pretty good, I decided to turn it up a notch, which, to the casual observers passing me in tour buses winding down the trails past me, probably appeared as a meandering, slow jog (I can just imagine the tour guide's banter: "Up the hill, on the left, is the site of the Chicago Cub's spring training facilities built in 1921...on the right, another weaving, drooling idiot...").

At the crest of the hill, now with 4-ish, downhill miles left, I stared in the face a site that makes any trail runner's stomach drop: Asphalt. Straight down. And lots of it. My right I.T. Band had been tightening slowly over the course of the past 8 1/2 hours, so I knew I have to take it gingerly on the hard, downhill surface, but Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" was there to help guide the way.

I hit a switchback that exposed the barn door: Downtown Avalon was a mere mile downhill, and from behind me, I sense someone catching up, so I turned to find Ravi: A runner I'd passed about 6 miles back!

"Come on!" I yelled, slowing down and waving him towards me. "Let's do this!"

He jogged up alongside me, and boy, I saw it in his face: Stick a fork in me, his eyes read.

I pushed the pace for us as we wove through the residential areas around the main drag, and as we hit the final 200 meters, I asked him if he had anything left for a final kick. "Go for it," he wheezed, waving me on, and so, I did, putting everything I had left in me into the final 1/4 mile, crossing the tape in 9 hours, 14 minutes., finishing 41st overall.

Other than soreness and my achy I.T., I felt great! Ann snapped pics all the while, kissing my heavily salted lips, ignoring das goat smell wafting offa my stinking carcass as they draped the finisher's medal on me and I grabbed a cup of veggie soup.

The course was beautiful, the workers, as always, wonderful, but sadly, the only wild buffalo I saw came in the form of buffalo burgers offered at one of the aid stations. I'd pictured them much bigger in real life.

And those 3 flights of stairs back at the hotel? The race may have taken me over 9 hours, but the steps added another 5.