Friday morning we drove to all the crew access aid-stations locations and wandered up the trails a little ways.
We later drove to Mt. Rushmore.
Mark thought all a long that his pre-race meeting was 4:30. It was 3:30 and he missed most of it. From what I heard from other runners, they didn't really give them any pertinent information that they didn't already have from the website.
Mark said the prerace meal did not look that appetizing, so he suggested that we look for something else. He asked the front desk and they suggested Rosco's. It was pretty good. We all decided to call it an early evening and let our runners (Mark &Willie) get some good sleep.
Patsy and I sat in the the hotel room and just watched TV. We both were having problems getting to sleep and we finallly went down around 1:45 am I believe. 4:45 came awfully early. The hotel opened the breakfast bar early because a lot of the runners stayed there. So we got something to eat and headed to the starting line.
I saw a lady wearing a Rockin K shirt this year that did the marathon and a guy wearing a Free States shirt from this year. I did not catch either one of their names, but it was cool running into them. At the second crew aid station I saw Theresa Wheeler, a local running acquaintance and through out the day till her turn a round. She ended up getting second in the 100K. Congrats to her.
It was a very hot day for South Dakota standards. It got up to around 93 degrees. The only good thing is, that it was a dry heat. That gave a little relief. Mark and Willie stayed to their plan to take it easy through the first fifty miles and that is what they did. It would take them a little over three hours to go 12 miles. A combination of the heat and the elevation played a big part in that.
At one of the aid stations Patsy and I climbed to the top of the ridge. We crossed the trail twice and had to climb through a barbed wire fence, but it was well worth it. This is the view.
There was an area on the way down that had a little throat and we went out on the rock ledge. Unfortunately you really can't see the depth, but it was really beautiful. It was an 80 minute round trip from the street to the top of the ridge and back down. Well worth the work.
At the turn around, both of them decided that they could not continue any farther. Willy was under trained and Mark had some health risk issues that concerned him. I was supposed to pick up Mark at the turn around to pace him back home. Beings that did not work out, we had been hanging out at the aid stations with Al from Ontario since mile 17 and his wife, Linda that was a little ahead of Mark and Willie all day and asked her if she would like a pacer.
She said "sure". I picked her up at the 57 mile mark and we made it out of the next aid station which was 7 miles away in an hour and forty-five minutes. We left and headed to the next stop. Everything was going perfect and we got to an intersection and wasn't sure where to go. She made a decision and we ended up off the course even though it was a good trail.
As they were driving back to Ontario when she finished the course, Al went back to the hotel and Patsy was going to crew for us. We didn't have a car, but another couple we met at the hotel had a rental car. Stephanie was attempting her first 100 mile race and her boyfriend, Daniel was going to pace her the last 42 miles, so Daniel was going to have Patsy drive his car, and it was a win for everyone. Stephanie however, dropped at mile 57. So Patsy went back to the hotel with them and by the start finish to drop off Annoying Bob who also dropped at mile 57 and then came back to the aid station.
We ended up going a couple miles before we realized that we were not on the course. We back tracked to the place where we went off course and ended up going down the trail that led us back to the aid station that we had just left. She looked down at her watch and we were twenty minutes from the cut off for the next aid station and we were about 6.5 miles away.
She was devastated. She still wanted to press on, so we kept going and finally made it to the next aid station 50 minutes after the cut off. We had some choice words for the volunteers, but we knew it was not going to do any good complaining to them how that portion of the trail was marked at all. That would need to be taken up with the race director himself. I found out that people were coming in and complaining about the very spot we got lost.
They told us we could continue, but the aid stations would be closed up and there was not a very good chance that they would give her an official finish missing a cut off time. There was no doubt in my mind that she would have finished under the cutoff time of the race. We had 8 hours to do 29 miles. I was confident that she could do it and I was ready to get her there. She was heading for a negative split on a hard course.
What seemed like a night where everything went wrong, actually didn't. Mark, Willie, Stephanie and Linda all left healthy and looking forward to their next races, except maybe Willie, Dan and Steve were the only disappointed ones because neither got to run as much as they wanted to.
Patsy took us back to the hotel and I ate breakfast and took a shower and a couple hour nap. We got up and did some more sight seeing and Mark showed me part of the Lean Horse 100 trail. When we were in Hill City, we went down a street that had tons of shops. We stopped and roamed around for a little while. They were really cool, but expensive.
Took Mark to Nemo where we raved about the burgers they had. He said they lived up to our hype. Went back to the hotel and did not have any problem going to sleep. Got up Monday morning and Mark took us to the airport and got ready for a long road back home.
This was my first time crewing and pacing and I really enjoyed it. Being able to help your runner and tend to their needs was a lot of fun. Runners are dead in the water without a good crew. I firmly believe that.
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