8 Hours at Pine Hollow

This is way late, I know, but getting caught up on my summer would be incomplete without writing about my experience volunteering at the Burning River 100. The weekend was bookended with me picking up and returning three HUGE electric generators, takes-two-people-to-lift-200-pound generators, sandwiching an evening and very early morning stint at the Pine Hollow Aid Station.

Pine Hollow actually had two aid stations. The first was at mile 70.9 when runners arrived from Happy Days. The second was after a short loop on the Salt Run trail at mile 74.2. From the time I arrived at 7:30 PM Saturday night, I joined an energetic group of workers greeting runners as they made the climb up to the aid station from the Sound of Music Hills. Since we had such a good number of workers, we were able to personally escort runners to the tent, get bottles re-filled for them, point out the food, obtain drop bags, answer questions, offer encouragement, and point them the right way for the Salt Run loop.

Of course at mile 70 the runners were coming in tired! But as the night wore on, it was shocking (and I've seen a lot) to see the condition of some of the runners. It really had me re-thinking my intentions to enter BR next year as my first trail 100. I saw people I knew coming in hurting. People I knew dropping. We had a lot of people drop at Pine Hollow, about 30 between the two aid stations.

Two gentlemen who dropped were running unsupported by crew or family. They couldn't go any further and had no one to pick them up. I was tired and was planning on going straight home after the aid station closed, which is the opposite direction of Cuyahoga Falls where the finish is. As it turned out, no one else at the aid station was planning on going to the finish either. Well, I wasn't that tired, I guess. I was able to give them a lift to the Falls and dropped them off around the corner from the finish and their hotel. Both guys were asleep by the time we got there and I felt bad having to wake them up.

Note to self: have support crew on-call for point-to-point 100 mile run. As I've since learned, some of the problems that day included: lack of appropriate training, under-nourishment, dehydration, going out way too fast because it was cooler than normal, and general inexperience running trails and/or ultras.

BR100 2011 registration opened yesterday. I haven't signed up. Yet. The early-bird price doesn't increase until December, by which time I will have registered for my first 100 mile trail run.