OC100, Dutchman Flat - Tales from the Aid

It was my first time really working at an aid station open-to-close, let alone captaining one. Fortunately there are great race directors for the Oregon Cascades 100 in Janessa and Trevor and I had an all-star crew of Kristen, Emma of course, plus our friends Doug, Rebecca, and Drew to make my life incredibly easy. As someone that is not tremendous at (borderline resistant to) logistical planning, everything came together at the last minute, which I absolutely do NOT recommend and will certainly do differently next time. But with it being the Dutchman Flat aid station, my original thought was to take a spin-off of the Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Flying Dutchman and we go with a pirate theme complete with costumes. But I realized the extra expense of the accessories, and also my procrastination put things in a bit of a pinch. So I joked to Kristen early in the week “what if we brought a couch out to the woods?” She replied casually, “It’s not too late!” which sent the thinking gears into overdrive. Over the following 48 hours I contacted a dozen or more people through Craigslist’s “Free Stuff” section to compile a complete living room set. A couch, an ottoman, end tables, lamps, an area rug, and Doug and Rebecca came through with a rocking chair and motivational running poster to tie the room together.

All Saturday morning I kept frantically doing math in my head regarding when we needed to be setting up our post and I convinced the crew to meet earlier than planned, which they all agreed worked out well. While we set up, Kristen kept me sane by reminding me to delegate to execute my vision and we pieced together a solid system of displaying foods, where the cooktop would be most efficient, the arrangement for the generator when it gets dark, and who would take which responsibilities when runners started coming through. And by the time they did, an hour after the original projection, the team was more than ready.

Our mission was to bring good energy, be positive, have fun, and make everyone’s experience go smoothly. Here’s a few stories that stick out in my mind as an encapsulation of my experience through the day and night at the Dutchman Flat living room aid station.

The first few athletes came through looking pretty rough. Blake came in with white, salty sweat all over his face. He was relatively emotionless but it seemed as if it came out of exhaustion. While his crew buzzed around filling bottles and asking him what he needed, Blake seemed in a bit of a daze. He spent a bunch of time standing in the shade staring at the food on the table, disinterested in the offerings. He stretched his clearly tight hips a bunch, took some ice in his pack, and shuffled on down the trail after spending a full 10 minutes stopped. Though he led the race, we had our doubts about the next handful of miles if he looked that battered at mile 55. But to my surprise, Blake went on to extend his lead in the coming miles and ultimately win the race! The man must just know how to suffer.

As the first 15 or 20 athletes came through, things seemed bleak. The course was tougher than a lot of people expected. But the next 30 or 40 athletes changed the game for us. We were nervous we would have to play damage control all evening, but Mark came down the hill to the aid with a flurry of excitement. “Is that a f*cking couch?! MAN I thought I was hallucinating!” He plops down hard. “Oh man, can I get some bacon over here?!” Naturally we laugh and bring him a couple pieces of bacon, as requested. His excitement lit up the tent and we knew we were in for a ride. We also joked with him that the couch had a time limit so while he should enjoy it, he also better get out of our aid and back on the trail quickly!

There is a conversation I knew would be inevitable but terrified me to have. The dreaded DNF. Did Not Finish. Sophie came up to me with her husband and father saying that she thinks she was done. This was the first time I was meeting her and it broke my heart. I’ve been there on too many occasions. My heart has ached when I’ve been unable to continue and it ached just the same when I heard the words escape her mouth. I briefly pleaded with her to rest a little and have something to eat. She had hours before the cutoff. Tons of time. But she insisted that she was happy with the day. This was the furthest she had ever run and that was special in itself. While it wasn’t quite the day she hoped for, it was a wonderful experience and her running lives on. I gave some last minute instructions, made sure her family knew the procedure to make it an official drop from the race, and watched them walk away. It tugged at my heartstrings. It was a surprising reminder that there’s no shame in failing, only in not trying.

In the midst of the battered runners, we’d also see the pacers bouncing around. Even besides the yellow bib, you could tell who was excited to be only just starting their night. Sometimes their energy was electric. Tony rolls into the aid with his runner who looks to have been having a tougher patch, but Tony wasn’t about to let the mellow energy bring him down. He pulls out a collapsible cup, fills it with an electrolyte drink, then flips a switch on the bottom of the cup and the whole thing illuminates. His face lit up too! He danced around for minutes showing everyone his glowing cup and getting his runner pumped up. We got busy and I’d forget, then a moment later he’d swing back past and say “Have you seen this? Look at this freakin’ thing!” and smile and laugh and trot back over to his runner.

An older gentleman, Jerry, came through our aid looking pretty awful, saying that he hadn’t been able to keep anything down for more than an hour and was incredibly low on fuel in his system. We tried all kinds of things but he kept escaping to the bushes to let it back out. Eventually he came to sit and rest, shivering in the cold evening. Kristen gave him some extra TLC with some mylar blankets, got the heat lamp pumping on him, and some calming conversation. After about 45 minutes and a bunch of soup he finally felt good enough to get going. But then threw up again. It seemed like his mind was already made up, so Jerry shrugged and shuffled back into the woods. “Can’t believe I’m going back out without anything in my stomach but I guess I just have to go” were his parting words to us. The strength of the mind is an incredibly powerful thing.

I’d never experienced a race in this kind of capacity before. Having crewed and paced a few 100s gave me a good idea of the challenges along the way and how different athletes respond to them. This definitely prepared me for working at the aid station. But I also learned an incredible amount about the needs of athletes, the stresses of the crew, and the spirit of runners. This was an experience I can’t imagine replicating, but I’m sure going to try. It was a 12-hour high that took 48 hours to recover from and I hope to be able to experience it again in the future, ideally the near future. For any athlete, I’d highly suggest volunteering at a long distance trail race. It’ll reinvigorate your love for the sport, just as it did for me.