Arkansas Traveller - Oct 6 & 7

Driving in to work this morning I was thinking about Rick Cook & Mick Long who are on their way to Perryville, Arkansas for the Arkansas Traveller 100 mile trail run. My first 100 was the Traveller back in 1994.

There were three of us from The Woodlands/Spring area who had been training together. We all had a common friend who had run the AT100 a couple of times and talked us into attempting it. We were in marathon shape to begin with so the transition to ultra training was easy. What was ultra training? We really didn’t know. We decided to do our normal training and include a back to back long run every other week, a 20 miler on Saturday and another on Sunday.

We kicked off our training on Fathers Day with a run from The Woodlands Bally’s parking lot heading south on the I-45 feeder ending up at the downtown Houston Police station, a run of about 30 miles. We used convenience stores for our aid stations. Our ultra friend was a Houston Police officer. He organized the use of the locker room at the station and transportation back to The Woodlands.

We stuck to our training all summer and headed to Arkansas early the Friday before the race, the day was much like today. When we pulled into the Lake Silvia recreation area where packet pick up was….we panicked. There are mountains in Arkansas. We knew we were in trouble. Our plan changed from trying to finish to seeing how far we could go.

There was so much that happened over the weekend I could write a book about it all. A brief time line of events….

Friday
3:30PM – Panic as we drive through the VERY hilly Ouachita National Forest to Lake Silvia Recreation Area.
4:00PM - Pick up race packets and enjoy a campground pasta party. We hope we don’t look and act like total rookies.
6:00PM – Checked into our motel….25 miles from the race start/finish line. Closest one to the event in 1994.
6:30pm - Ordered Pizza and picked up beer since we knew deep down that we were probably not going to finish.

Saturday
2:00AM – Wake up to a strong thunderstorm. Heavy Rain, tornado warnings, forecast is rain all day. Go back to sleep for a couple more hours.
6:00AM - The race starts during a heavy rain storm. The plan is to run to each aid station (walking all uphill sections), refill water bottles, walk 5 minutes and then repeat.

It was very windy and rainy all day. I kept my run/walk pattern as long as I could which was about 40 miles (amazing) and then adjusted to a 10 minute walk at each aid station through 58 miles. The rain had just cleared out, it was dusk, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. At the 58 mile aid station I changed into dry clothes that I had in my drop bag. One big mistake was changing my socks and shoes. If you’re feet are wet, let them stay wet. I developed blisters almost immediately after leaving the aid station. (I would ultimately loose 7 toenails in the days that followed) As darkness fell my run/walk pattern was shifting to less running and more walking. I caught one of my training buddies at 80 miles and drifted slowly ahead of him. I was walking a full half hour out of each aid station and my running was more of a fall forward step….my walking was just as fast as my running. The “run’ motion helped me loosen up from the walking…Galloway in reverse.

I had a crew member/pacer pick me up at 85 miles for the last push to the finish. One big hill, 4 miles of rocks, many large mud holes from all the rain….and the second sunrise of the event….which I still think is very cool to experience.

We all made it…Bob Borsh – 27:24:18, Bill Dwyer – 28:30:30, Steve Maulden – 28:44:09. We had a great crew who helped us keep a positive attitude all day and night.

Rick Cook and Mick Long will begin their run tomorrow morning at 6:00AM. A lot of things can happen in an event like this. Both Rick and Mick are very ready physically and they have a couple awesome crew members in Alana-Rose & Monty Lynes who’s Western Canada personalities should keep it fun.

Think about Rick & Mick tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow night and Sunday morning. Say a prayer for them to stay strong, focused and safe. Their goals are a little different than what mine were. They will both be pushing the pace which is a very risky strategy. A finish would be fantastic for both….but whatever happens they are two amazing runners.


"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift." Steve Prefontaine