On September 15, 2007, I accepted my friend’s invitation to assist her in her quest to run 100 miles at the annual Angeles Crest 100. I thought maybe I would be handing her water at some point and having to lie to her and tell her she looked like she was running well and then go home. Oh, no. Idiotic me should never assume. Idiotic me should ask questions before agreeing to things that may cause harm to his poor sweet body. But alas, my dear reader, I did not ask questions and the rest is history.
My friend, Amelia, needed pacers for part of her quest. So guess what I did. No, I did not get drunk!!! Wrong guess. I ended up pacing her for part of her 100 mile race. I met part of her team on Saturday and I drove to Chantry Flats to drop off my car so I could get another ride about an hour away further into the mountains to meet her… at the 50 mile mark!!! It was here I asked someone how far my car was away. They told me it was 25 miles away. Naturally, after hearing this information, I politely excused myself and went straight to the bathroom to cry. After I composed myself (in the worst smelling toilet in the world) I headed back out to wait for Amelia to come in so I and our friend Tom could lead her on part of her quest.
At 6:15 p.m., she came into the 50-mile mark. At these kinds of races, they promptly weigh you at each aid station. She got on the scale and discovered she had gained three pounds. The funny part of this is while I was waiting for her arrival, I saw five runners come in and they had all lost a significant amount of weight. When Amelia came in, she looked like she was raring to go. She ate a little soup, we changed out her water bottles and away we went. As we left the aid station, I saw a runner in a blanket shivering and dropping out of the race and I saw another guy throwing up. Oh, no.
We headed out onto the trail. At first, I thought this was so great. We were running in the trails the whole time. The sun was setting over the mountains. I was thinking how nice this was and that maybe I would attempt this kind of race. A minute later I tripped over a rock God had purposely placed in my way and I fell on my face. This is where my fun really started. Right after I tripped, thunder rumbled through the sky. Amelia and Tom thought it was weird that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky but that there was thunder. I informed them that it wasn’t thunder. It was God laughing at me.
Amelia looked great the whole run. We would get to an aid station every six to eight miles or so. There we would meet two other guys from her crew who would swap out her bottles and pack her food and tend to her needs. What did I do? I would sit down where the runners are supposed to sit down and dig rock after rock after rock out of my shoe. I did find some joy though. At these aid stations, they have water, Coke, Mountain Dew, soup, cookies, crackers, pretzels, M&M’s, and a whole assortment of other goodies for the runners. Tom informed me the pacers get to partake in this spread. I ran over there in my socks and started shoveling in as many M&M’s into my system as I could possibly swallow. Then Amelia told me it was time to go. Damn it!
While on the trail, I asked Amelia how she was feeling. She said her legs only hurt if she touched them. Then she told me her butt was sore and she should rub it at the next aid station. Then there was a five-second pause and immediately after this was when we realized Tom had been listening to us. How do we know this? Because all of a sudden he goes, “This morning I bought this huge cucumber at the store.” All the while he is making a gesture with his hands to show how huge it was. Then there was another five-second pause and I blurted out to Amelia, “Was that the weirdest segue you ever heard in your life?” She looked at me and said, “Please run in-between Tom and me.” At mile 70, I was now tripping over every rock, branch and bug on the trail. Amelia told me to start talking to her to take her mind off what she was doing. So I told her how I thought my mom hated me as a child because she would constantly torture me by playing that Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand song, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” So what does Amelia do? She starts singing this damn song. So now, my feet are getting torn up by rocks, it is dark and my flashlight is dimming, I am tripping on everything, and I now have that damn song in my head. Ameila must have felt better because she was laughing for a good long time after this.
Well, we finally reached mile 75… at 12:30 a.m. We switched out Amelia ’s bottles and food and wished her luck as we handed her off to another pacer. I must have looked bad because some of the volunteers at the aid station asked me if I wanted to drop out of the race. I promptly ignored them and went to the food table and ate tons more M&M’s. Then the lady working the food table said to me, “Too bad you didn’t get here 10 minutes ago. There was a bear running up and down here for a while.” I think I kind of screamed at this point. Then I asked her which way the bear went. She pointed behind her, which was exactly where my car was parked. Damn it!! I had to get her to walk me to my car. So my night there ended with a 75-year-old lady walking me to my car.
I got home around 2:00 in the morning and I was so damn tired, I just fell in my bed with my running clothes on. When I woke up in the morning, I realized I had mud caked on numerous parts of my body. I then looked at my bed and saw on all the mud caked on it as well. I then took my bed outside and set it on fire. It was beyond cleaning. After that, I got on my computer and checked to see if Amelia had finished. She did. She completed her journey and finished in 28 hours. When she called me later to thank me, I congratulated her and thanked her for letting me be a part of it. You know what she did? She started singing that damn song “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” I hung the phone up on her. That damn song was back in my head and that is where it has stayed since. I knew I should have stayed home that night and watched “Saturday Night Fever” on TBS. It was here I looked out the window and saw the clear blue sky and heard more thunder. Just great!!!