| The First 25 Miles: Lake Morena to Todd's Cabin |
| Leaving the Ridge, it was about another mile to the departure from the PCT onto a dirt road which lead down to Cibbetts Flat Aid Station. Arriving into Cibbetts, Philip was ready with my dropbag and had removed two cans of Boost. I drank one can , and poured the second can into a water bottle. Paul and Kathleen were there. Paul was yodeling up into the surrounding hills, and he told Sammy to yodel back when Sammy reached "Larry's Point" above. As I readied to leave the aidstation, I did not see Sammy and assumed he had left. So I started back up the dirt road which lead to the PCT running some then walking some in an effort to catch Sammy. About 75% of the way up, I see two more of my Austin friends heading down the the road : Joe Prusaitis and Mike Riggs. I took a photo of them and proceeded up the hill around a curve. Then I heard a ruckus behind me and something about Sammy. Sammy was now talking to Mike and Joe. So it turned out that I had not been chasing Sammy up the hill, but he had been chasing me ! After Sammy finished speaking to Mike and Joe, he caught the rest of the way up with me just before I reached the PCT. Reunited with the PCT we turned left to continue our journey. The next section is long , just shy of 8 miles, and is mostly up. As we reached a point from which one could look down and see Cibbetts Flat, I told Sammy this must be Larry's Point. Sammy then proceeded to yodel, and we waited to hear Paul yodel back. You know you are in for a fun time when you get to run with Super Sammy ! |
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| Photo #13 : Cibbetts Flat Aid Station. RD Paul is on the left in Black top and hat with feather talking to a volunteer. Kathleen is on the right in front of the black truck. Sammy is leaned over in front of her getting in to his dropbag. And Philip is in the center (in black) crouched down in front of the dropbags. |
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| After the yodeling session, the trail took us behind a hill and then back facing the valley which housed Cibbetts Flat Aidstation below. Seeing Cibbetts AidStation, Sammy tried yodeling again but we were now outside of earshot. The next mile or so of the course reminded me of the Franklin Mountains Course in El Paso. We continued making progress. The hill on the other side of the valley/canyon had a horizontal marking along it (a dirt road possibly?). |
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| Photo #14:: Mike Riggs (L) and Joe Prusiatis (R) on "The Road to Cibbetts Flat" ! |
| Photo #15 : Not only is Sammy a strong ultrarunner and amazing chef (He is official chef for 2004 Bandera 100K and RR100), but he can also yodel ! |
| Photo #16 : Looking back |
| Photo #17:: Some fall follaige alongside a creek. |
| Photo #18 : Climbing again. Manzanita is my favorite. My heart is always happy to see some manzanita alongside the trail! I told Sammy I would like to add this place to the list of places where I would not mind being buried when I die. With each race I run out west , the list gets longer! In my next life, I want to be a cougar with good hunting skills. |
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| It was around this point, that my mind starts asking the question: "How much longer until the next aidstation?" . If this section seemed long in the daytime, I could not fathom how long it would seem later on in the second-half of course. I was trying to make mental notes about the course along the way in the daylight, so that I could use these notes when traversing the section in the dark. I had to start conserving photos at this point. But there were two interesting hills in this section. One of them had a solitary rock on the top as if the rock was saying "I'm Number Rock around these parts! " . A second hill was littered with rocks strewn in such a pattern that it reminded me of Stonehenge. Shortly thereafter we rounded the backside of a hill and entered into a pine forest. About a mile later we happened upon Dale's Kitchen. There were no drop bags at Dale's. I had a cookie, some M&M's, some soda, and capped of the water bottles. Then Sammy and I departed. Only 3.7mi to Todd's Cabin, which was the 25Mi mark and the turnaround point. About a half mile or so, Sammy stopped to take a break in the bushes and that ended our run together. |
| It was not long after separating from Sammy, that the leader at the time (Curt Maples ) came running down the trail from the other direction. He was then followed by a string of other runners over the next 20 minutes , including the first woman named Diane from Colorado. Everytime I saw her on the course she was friendly. During this passing, she gleefully exclaimed that there was Starbuck's Coffee at Todd's. Soon a white globe appeared up in the sky (it was some sort of apparatus on top of Mt Laguna). The view to the right was simply awesome: The Anza Borrega Desert. |
| The remaining distance to Todd's went by quickly.... we crossed two asphalt roads, some more single track, and then a meandering drop down to the cabin where I found Philip waiting for me with my dropbag and Boost. He reminded me that I was 30minutes ahead of my plan. I told him that I was okay with that. I had been running a relaxed comfortable pace. Prior to the race, I told him that I thought my WBN plan was erring on the conservative side for the first half of race, but that I felt uncomfortable changing the plan to reflect a faster pace. The WBN plan called for me to arrive to Todds at 25Mi mark, around 6:15. Instead I arrived at 5:45. I performed a quick sanity check, and this time was 15 minutes slower than my first 25miles at WS. I did not feel as if I had been running too fast or running too many uphills in the first 25 miles. And I was really looking forward to all of those of the downhill sections on the return to Cibbetts (that had just been uphill sections) ! This aidstation marked the end of his crewing activities. Philip told me he planned to stop for something to eat on his drive back to Lake Morena, where he then planned to take a nap for a few hours. He would be waiting for me at Lake Morena Aidstation when I arrived to start running the last 50miles with me. I thanked him and said goodbye. |
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| Photo #19: Two of the nice volunteers at Dale's Kitchen who would later be a godsend when Philip and I arrived hungry, cold and windbeat late at night. Dale's aidstation was my favorite. |
| Photo #20:: Pretty view from the trail |
| Photo #21 : A view of the Anza Borrega Desert.. Note the stark contrast of the desert landscape to that of the Laguna Mountains in the foreground. (I wish the photo had turned out better.. it does not do justice to the scene. it was a hazy day in the desert) |
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| Photo #22::Todd's Cabin AidStation had a Halloween theme. Philip is in black in the center of photo opening my Boost cans! |
| Photo #23 : A photo of one of my other Austin friends: Rick Gastelum. I saw him after leaving Todd's. |
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