Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Uncle Hal WInton kicking it old-school, trail work. Hanta ho, truthseekers!  AC100 Trail Work This past Saturday I ascended the Aulde Mt Wilson-Phillips trail, departing the Shire of Sierra Madre, wherein the Hobbits were busy for another fine breezy day of debt-stacking down at the Santa Anita Mall, and perhaps the Racetrack. I, of course, was a mendicant on my way to see the first trail work of the new year, led by the inestimable Hal Winton. Uncle Hal, you may recall, is the co-RD of the AC100. In this capacity, he is the head of the AC100 Trail Volunteer Group. This entitles him to palaver, entreat, negotiate, commiserate, and cooperate with the local US Forest Service here in Southern California. On any given day he'd rather be blasting stumps, but these are the necessary steps to ensure that the Race has a place at the table when decisions are being made. Some of the decisions involve who gets to go where when roads wash out, when forests are tinder-dry, and when l...

Guillermo Medina, 2005 winner. AC100 finish line. Johnson's Field, Altadena CA. 050925_9079_01 Angeles Crest has never failed to amaze and surprise. What is canonical received wisdom at 30 miles was turned inside out and abandoned at the finish line. Everything you thought you knew was wrong. Guillermo Medina won it in a personal best of 19:33. By carefully picking and choosing his races for this last year, he saved his mojo for the Big Show. In front of him was Jorge Pacheco, three-time winner. Behind him were two of the fiercest no-brakes downhill runners this race has seen in the last ten years, Tom Nielsen and Andy Jones-Wilkins. Tom's won it twice before . The first time was a remarkable come-from-behind assault on Scott Jurek's  "unassailable" lead in 1999 where he caught Jurek at 83 miles in the black hole that is IdleHour. By the way, that lead was nearly an hour. That was also the year Ann Trason had her head handed to her, and she dropped at ...

Team graphic for the 1997 Leadville effort. Originally posted in 1999. I did LT100 2.5 times, which was sufficient. The schlong remains the same, for those about to depart etc etc ... Stairway To Leadville There's a Kansas femme who's been sold, that all that buckles are gold And she's buying a stairway to Leadville When she gets there she knows, if the entries are all closed With a word she can get what she came for Ooh - ooh And she's buying a stairway to Leadville There's a pile on the trail, but she don't want to fail, 'Cause you know DNF's have two meanings In a latrine by the dam there's a squirrel who scams Sometimes all of our jogbras are misshapen Ooh, and I watch you blunder Ooh, and I watch you blunder There's a feeling I get when when my shoes are all wet And my spirit is crying for Bag-Balm Thru my brown-eye I've seen rings of fire through my knees And the voices of those who are standing just loo...

I love this talk about John Muir Trail and "record fever". There's such a rancid desperate air about it. But it's Spring, and it's with us again.  Blake Wood did a masterful job. The account is low-key, insightful, accurate and bullshit free.  Bruce Hoff did his turn several years ago. Again, low-key, honest, funny and sobering.  Last year Buzzy & Peter treated us to a brass-band fanfare prior to the Great Unsupported JMT Record-Breaking Event. We were directed to the appropriate press flackery, which Was All True, of course.  The air was thick with attitude about it all, Cali trails being wimpy and all, and how Two Colorado Dewds were gonna show ever'body a thing or two about trail running. Unsupported. This was canon law.  The Mountain Gods stirred from their torpors. Pulverized mule turds set the tone, and the howling started there. Four days of no sleep and robotic humping thru what...Gawd's Epic Back Yard. They might as well have run along the si...

...Height & Weight Divisions Well now, time-challenged kampers! We've opened the Mother Lode of All List Topics®™ on this one. Let's cut right to the chase! Here is a brief summary of various Divisions that will be ***firmly*** in place for the '01 KornHole Klassic 69hr Track Run. Height Categories: Dwarf, Average, and Too Damn Tall Weight: Anorexic, Uneasy-About-It, Love Handles & Roll-Overs, and Truck-Scale Worthy. Length: Guys, I suspect that this category will be most rife with obfuscations, hedgings, and outright cheating. Applicants/claimants will argue [invariably] that it all depends on who's doing the "examinations". With that said, here goes. [music sfx: cue up Ron Jeremy] Peewee, Piddling, Dull-Normal, "I'm Feeling Good", and "Too Much of A Good Thing". [For those unclear on the concept, here *is* a difference between 9 inches and 9 centimeters]. Just so no one complains of being left out, for the ladies and the guys ...

Your money's no good here. (With referential apologies to James Douglas Morrison, Francis Ford Coppola, and Don Knotts) ------------------------- Black, fade in. Night, in Wrightwood CA. A young man is in a cheap motel. It's a motel favored by thrifty serial killers on a budget. The higher-priced motel favored by thrifty serial killers on a budget was booked. Solid. Even with the broken glass on the linoleum, somewhere. The cable there was better (but it cost $7.99 more), and you could get the Satanism Channel with the "I Love Lucifer" Marathon Weekend Special ($6.66). This motel had weary wooden floors, 33-1/3 watt lights, a sagging bed with the Great Rift Valley down the middle. Many romances had died in that divide. He could feel every one of them. Our young man is getting ready. Ready for The Big Race. His attention is fixed on a goal far away. About 100.559596975 miles, but who's counting now, huh?... Familiar music is in background, becoming distinc...