| June 2002 Newsletter |
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Tales From the Triennial
In case you haven't seen them: Results
Given that the Triennial is an 84 mile race actually composed of 6 individual race, each longer than a half marathon, writing a single race report would take a vast amount of time and actual research. That's too much work, so here are a bunch of unrelated experiences from my race, along with anecdotes that made their way to me during the day. Accuracy is likely to be roughly at the level of the children's game of Telephone, so take everything in here as gospel for the historical Triennial record.
I ran E-1, which in retrospect was a good choice, since all the really fast people ended up on other legs. I still had Herb's 18 minute head start to contend with, which confused me when I caught him at about 30 minutes. Poor Herb, unaccustomed to early morning light in the woods, had missed a turn and started seeing the blue blazes as white blazes. But he still finished third, and give his finish at 9 minutes or so behind second place Chuck Nicholson, it's likely that getting lost so early didn't actually impact his place.
Actually, there was another fast guy in E-1, on one of the GVH teams. He had a several minute head start on me, but I caught him within the first two miles, and prevented him from getting very lost in a fit of good sportsmanship when I thought he was no competition. I then caught Herb, and then two other guys who were in second and third at that point, and as I was running with them, the GVH guy caught up to us. Shocked, I took off, and he went with me. After a while, I introduced myself, and we ran together for a few minutes, with me cursing myself for having called him back from his earlier wrong turn and wondering if there was any other way I could lose him. Then I vaulted a log and a few seconds later heard a muffled obscenity as he bit the dirt going over. I stopped and asked if he was OK and he nodded, so I continued on, secure in the knowledge that my mutant mental powers had secured me the win. Anyone else racing me on trails should remember this! :-)
At the halfway point of E-1, you have to run up an old logging road for about 15 minutes, which is both annoying and painful. But halfway up, I started to remember it from 12 years ago, in the 1990 Triennial, where I had been unable to find the last turn back into the trails from Fire Tower Road. I decided discretion was the better part of valor and just waited for the next runner to catch me. I know now that it was Truck Rossiter, and I ran with him long enough to get back on the trail, then outkicked him down that long logging road. I'd been recruited for the High Noon team at the last minute that year, and it turned out to have been a good move, since the other two High Noon runners in that leg dropped out. It's so cool learning what actually happened in that race after all these years of not really knowing. :-) (Those results in case you've forgotten them.)
At the start of E-1, my father and I were sitting in the car waiting for a while, and there were three rabbits playing tag in and out of the multiflower rose next to the road. Other wildlife sightings included two deer, and a pheasant. I was disappointed I didn't see any bears - I saw three the first year we lived in our last house in Seattle, and there's nothing like a bear to give you a jolt of adrenaline.
At about the mile point on E-1, you're still on Star-Stanton Road, but it's rapidly petering out. There was a white van parked by the side of the road, and as the scratch start guys like me came up to it, a guy walked out to the van wearing full camouflage and carrying a rifle. Following him came another guy, also in full camouflage, but in an electric wheelchair with a rifle mounted on the wheelchair. <sarcasm>It's good to see people not letting their disabilities getting in the way of their hobbies.</sarcasm>
I only ran the first half of my course in training, due to the extreme heat that week and a meeting I needed to get to. I was regretting it a bit on the roads, which were poorly marked, and about a mile from the finish, when we hit 4"-6" of mud, bordered on each side of the trail by multiflower rose so bouncing back and forth on the edges was a guaranteed way to lose blood. Finally, I gave in and went to the middle, but by that point, I couldn't keep running without falling, and since I'd avoided falling so far, I didn't want to set a precedent. Even worse, the blazes were almost non-existent, and there was one spot where you had to cross a cable that seemed to deny access. Luckily, I made it through without either hurting myself or getting lost, and if I lost a little time, it didn't matter in the end. But boy was I bummed about getting wet and muddy after having come through almost the entire race clean and dry.
Having E-1 finish on a road turned out to be a slight mistake, at least for me, because after 13.6 miles, I wasn't thinking clearly and dashed right into the finish, not even noticing the fact that there was a car coming. The car wasn't particularly interested in stopping, but luckily I managed to get across the road in time.
Other Random Stories:
The Traildogs team was from Binghamton and took a bit of flak for a boring name. What most people didn't realize is that their dog, Riley, ran a full leg of the course (probably 20 miles, given the dog approach of running back and forth) and then ran a portion of another leg. Despite running 25+ miles, he didn't look at all tired at the end of W-3.
The beautiful weather meant that most teams had their own support crews, since everyone wanted to be outside that day. At the water stop on W-3, I spent quite a while talking with the Rochester and Binghamton teams, both of whom were extremely amiable, if er, well-lubricated by that point in the afternoon. The Rochester team was extremely amused that that Finger Lakes Trail crosses Upper Treman just inside the sign that said a permit was required for alcoholic beverages. Of course, by that time, they were extremely amused by just about anything, including each other.
John Hylas, returning to his old form, found himself running E-3 with one of the GVH guys toward the end. In classic John fashion, he was telling the guy all his old stories about training with Dan Predmore and Pete Pfitzinger, and luckily, as they came into the finish, John realized that he should just shut up and run like he claimed he did way back when. He did, and pulled out a second place, outkicking the guy at the finish. There was some story about how the guy he beat had at one point run a sub-4-minute mile, but that could be apocryphal. Of course, they were both well behind Mike Selig, who was by far the youngest runner in the Triennial at 23 and who ran a 2:31 at Boston a few weeks back.
Best answer to my question of "What is your name?" to the finishers at the end of W-2: "No clue." Luckily, a few minutes later the person did indeed remember, or we would have had to award them the Bruce Roebal Prize for Race-Induced Amnesia.
The Bubbles team finisher at W-2 looked rather distraught when I told her that her team's W-3 runner hadn't shown up, so she'd have to run the W-3 leg too. My helpful suggestion that she could waive her head start to have another 12 minutes of rest luckily convinced her that I was indeed kidding.
Earl Steinbrecher, Jr. lost some points for wearing brand new Adidas trail shoes, right out of the box. The heels of his socks and shoes were soaked with blood, but that didn't stop him from winning E-3 by a huge margin. And on E-1 I was worried that I might have gotten a blister.
Amazingly, the guy who fell in E-1 was the only person who didn't finish. And despite some concern over another E-1 guy wearing a full sweatsuit and headphones and claiming he'd never run on trails before, we didn't actually lose anyone.
Enough! I could probably pull out a few more, but like so many funny stories damaged in the retelling, you just had to be there. So mark your calendars for 2005, when we'll see just how the Rossiters try to live up to the old maxim, "If on the first eight tries you don't succeed, change the rules again."
-- Adam Engst
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