Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

The Legit Solo Runner in its purest form is almost a unicorn. I know several of you—and I respect it. My first two hundreds were pacer-less. I got thru Angeles Crest in '91, and Wasatch '92 without a pacer. I had a crew in '91, no crew in '92. But crews and pacers can be fun, if you're willing to be responsible. More on that here . I hear distant “Chariots of Fire” trumpets.  The Solo Runner heroically running the 100 all by themselves—without an entourage, posse, or circus caravan.  The Solo Runner idea was to encourage or goose signups in the Lottery Age we now live in. It's obvious that this can be gamed by  clever people, with few penalties.  However rules are mysteriously bent when celebrity or a course-record might be involved. Take the doddering AC100 for instance. RD Ken Hamada was trying to get less cars up on Highway 2, because each runner had 14 friends with 2 cars each, creating traffic and confusion. So the answer there is to only let in pe...

Somebody runs an ultra, and now they’re bad-ass. The social-media confetti showers down. And compared to the baseline fitness of our wide-butt culture, they are. Butt! You’re comparing yourself to a demographic that walks 200yds and has to refuel. On pavement. At a theme-park. Leaving that behind, now you’re in UltraLandia. But not so fast with that Bad-Ass Prom King or Queen crown. Here’s a convenient checklist to help out. If you… had a drop bag for a 50k had pacers for a 50-mile or 100k had a crew for a 50-mile or 100k Finally, If you had pacer[s], crew/entourage for a 100 Then you aren’t bad-ass. You’re competent. Try running a 100mi solo. You get to manage your own shit. All of it. You don’t get to drift along behind/in front of your pacer, who might be muling shit, etc. Afraid of the dark? Problems with being lonely? This gets right to the core of it all. Do a bunch of these like that and then, maybe, you’re bad-ass. Don’t get me wrong—pacers can be fun and all the rest....

"Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive..." Hope Pass, 1997 Leadville 100. At 12,000', Hope Pass gets all the love. However... Hagerman Pass [approximately 15/80 miles in the course] is the hidden beast in the LT100. Only 500' lower than Hope,  disguised by a pole-line utility road so it doesn't say "big-assed mountain" quite so loudly. Brandon Sybrowsky paced me from Winfield to Fish—he at a low idle to my determined shuffling. Along the way we had some hilarious discussions on poisonous mushrooms, Mormonism, Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, and  paleoarcheology. For starters. Around midnight, Bruce Hoff and I had come back over the top of Hagerman  on the inbound leg, when Tom Sobal, Leadville Mountain Man, camping out with his kids, dryly observed "you don't have any time to waste, you're on the buckle bubble". He was right. I crossed the finish with 40min to spare, to get "La Plata Grande". Damn buckle's so big, I...