Being sandwiched between the Foresthill Divide and Georgetown Divide along the canyon of the middle fork of American River in Northern California during the first weekend of Spring is far from torturous, but returning to humid & flat Houston is mental torture. It will pass after a week, as it always does. I am grateful to have had three days of excellent trail running in the foothills of the Sierras during my brief visit.

THURSDAY: After I arrived to the Sacramento airport on Thursday mid-day, I drove up to Auburn and ran from the Auburn Dam Overlook to No Hands Bridge and then back up to Auburn High School via Robie Point on the WS100 course. There is a waterfall that I passed by along the trail that is always dried up by September during the RDL/SNER races.

FRIDAY: Friday was a rest day. I drove up to the snowline on Foresthill-Auburn road (to see how close I could get to Robinson Flat) and drove some around the remains of an old gold mining camp/town named Yankee Jim located between Foresthill and Colfax before heading back toward Auburn. I took a short detour down Drivers Flat Road to see the Rucky Chucky River Crossing. Part way down the dirt road I was unsure if the Ford Escort rental car could navigate a steep section with deep ruts. So I parked the car on the side of road, and ran down about 3/4 of a mile to check out the road. On the way back up, a station wagon passed me going down the road. I figured if that car could make it down the road, so could the Escort.

So I returned to the car and carefully drove the remaining distance down to the Ruck A Chuck River Crossing, which was plentiful with WS trail signs. There it was, Rucky Chucky... the turnaround point for the 50km on Saturday and the river crossing in WS. The waters of the Middle Fork were refreshing to the touch . The driver of that station wagon was standing on the granite rocks along the river when I arrived. It turned out he was also signed up for the 50k on Saturday, and he was also registered for his first WS100 in June. The runner, Alan Deubner, had come from near Anchorage Alaska but also called the Seattle-area home . So we engaged in a pleasant conversation for about 30 minutes regarding our WS training plans. I told him that Sunday I was planning to run a section of the WS100 course on the other side of the river, and he said he would like to go on the run too. So we set a tentative meeting time at the Firestation in Cool for Sunday morning. Then I drove back to the Sacramento area to visit one of my friends from Intel days who was in the process of moving into a new house.

RACE DAY: Saturday morning I drove from Folsom up to Foresthill to the elementary school that served as Start / Finish. The weather turned out excellent. About 30 minutes before start of race I ran into Wini and Lee Jebian of the Bay area... I had paced Wini at RR100 in early February. It was nice to see both of them again. Wini and Lee will be working Last Chance A/S at WS100 this year.

The Rucky Chucky Roundabout 50km course consists of 15.9mi down to Rucky Chucky River Crossing and 15.9 mi back up to Foresthill along the WS trail. This race was resurrected from the now-defunct Ruck A Chuck 50k from 6 or so years ago. The race director Robert Mathis is from the Lake Tahoe area. The race started prompty at 7am. Down Foresthill Rd (Main St) for about 0.3 of a mile then teh left turn on to California Street which gave way to the trail after about 0.75 miles. Then downhill for about 1.5 miles. Zoom. It took about 40 minutes for the stampeed of runners to thin out, just after the first aidstation at 3.7miles.

The wildflowers were just wonderful... the California poppy was dense in some sections, especially when the trail stayed close to the ridge that followed right above the middle fork.

After looking at several elevation profiles of the Western States course I was under the impression that the section between Foresthill and RuckyChucky was mostly downhill with some occassional short but insignificant uphill segments. The fallacy of this impression was quickly revealed to me. There were several sections of climbs that must have been about 500ft or more sprinkled in with the descents. One of the descents was a blast to go down... rocks and ruts. My confidence has returned for traversing technical trails since falling on the Bandera course in November. (I did not fall at all during RuckyChucky). The second aidstation was around 9 miles and the third aidstation (Norm Klein's aidstation) was at 13.9mi.

My goal going into Rucky Chucky was to treat it as a training run so that I would have enough energy for a 15-25mi run on Sunday. I set my goal for being under 7:30 at the 50k. Just before Norm's aidstation the lead runners appeared and passed me on thier way back to Foresthill. I reached Rucky Chucky River Crossing right at 3hours. I took time to mix up some fresh CLip2 for the water bottles. About a 0.5 mi after heading back I hit a physical slump... I was passed by runners in both directions in this section. It took about a mile or so to pull out of it.

I was feeling much better and about a mile out of Norm's aidstation I could hear two runners behind me , running together. I did not want them to catch up with me. I let this be my motivation to drive me back to Foresthill. At one point I almost gave up, and figured they would pass me sooner or later so I should just let them pass me and get it over with. But then I said this is a good chance to practice pushing myself mentally and physically. So I tried. I found I could pull away from them on the descents and ascents, but on the level segments they would start closing in on me again.

I thought I had lost them with about 5miles to go... but I made the mistake of stopping at the last aidstation to have a water bottle capped off ( it was 70% full, and I had a full water bottle in my waist pack.. so the capping off was un-necessary). Soon after the final aid station the 2 runners were again on my tail. Climbing up the final series of switchbacks (~1.0 to 1.5miles worth) in the last part of course, I figured I better take advantage of the ascent since the last mile or so was flat asphalt to the finish. About half way up I started getting cramps in one of my calf muscles if I tried to run on a certain grade and higher. So I would run in sections I could and would walk once I felt the cramp try to grab on. I was disciplined about taking electrolyte replacement on the hour (I set my watch timer ) , so I think that cramping was not related to lack of potassium.

Almost to the top, another runner was in my sight. I almost caught up with him, but reaching the road section of the course he blasted to the finish.

When I came to the road section of the course, I could see that I had a chance to break 7:15. I kept looking back and did not see the two runners. Although my legs were incapable of blasting, I maintained a moderate pace and I crossed the finish line at 7:14:27.... within my sub-7:30 goal. I was satisfied.

Experiencing this part of WS course made me grateful that I still have a little more than 2 months of training before taper starts. I'm looking forward to the training camp.

After the race, I drove out Mosquito Ridge Road to see if I could get to Big Tree Grove before snow made road impassable. The snow became impassable just after Big Trees. While returning back to Foresthill, it became dark. About a mile after crossing the horseshoe bridge, a cougar crossed the road in the beam of my car's headlights .... this is the first cougar I've ever seen. Seeing a cougar (especially a Sierra cougar) was the highlight of the trip !

SUNDAY: Sunday morning I met Alan at the Firestation in Cool, CA. We left his car there and took my car to Aubrun Lake Trails development, and left it at a parking area near a trailhead of the Robie Trail. From there it was 6.6 miles down to the far side of the Rucky Chucky River crossing. So we found our way to down to Rucky... and stayed there awhile to reflect and look across the other side where the 50k turnaround point had been the day before. The river crossing looked more imposing from this side than the other side. From the other side it did not look too bad, but then you think about having 78 miles on the legs and it being late at night and the quads will probably be tired by then from the canyon descents.. Probably the water crossing is not a cake walk. We both agreed that reaching Rucky Chucky River Crossing in June would be a major milemark in the WS race.. Feeling excited on one hand, and little scared on the other, it was a sobering moment.

So we started traversing about a 15.5 mile section of the WS course, up from Rucky Chucky Far Side (78 mi mark) to Hwy 49 crossing (93.5 mi mark) . Armed with trail maps, topomaps and seeing an occassional yellow ribbon in a tree or trampled in the dirt would help us keep on course for remainder of day (except for an accidental 2mi detour to Hoboken Creek and back!) . We went by the memorial that was set up for the lady runner who had been killed in 1994 by a mountain lion while running the Robie Trail. We went through numerous creek crossings and I had a chance to see how my feet held up in wet shoes and socks. There were numerous red bud trees and manzanitas in bloom and there were several sections of bright indian paintbrush. The day was overcast with a light mist and low hanging clouds making it seem as if we were running in the plush forests of Oregon instead of in this part of CA. The salamanders were in heaven with this climate, and we had to be careful not to step on them while running the trail . The vibrant spring colors are short-lived here. By early May, all the moisture and green of spring will give way to dry dusty trails and brown grass... preparing the setting for WS.

Finally we dropped down to Brown Barr and took the quarry road for a stretch along the American River before turning left to start the climb up to the old quarry, the highway 49 crossing and on to Cool where Alan's car was parked.

After crossing Hwy 49 and a little later departing the WS trail to head toward Cool, we saw a coyote. Mr Coyote quickly jumped up on a fallen oak tree trunk and watched us watch him. We stayed there for a few minutes, and the coyote seemed very comfortable on his perch. He yawned a few times. Finally as the afternoon was drawing to a close, the sun had broken through the clouds. A red-tailed hawk flew by. In this final stretch of the trail I found myself on the Rio Del Lago-100 course, and traversing it back to the car brought back memories from last September. We covered about 26 miles on Sunday. It was high quality playtime!

Alan drove me back to my car in Auburn Lake Trails. Then I drove back to my friends' house in Folsom... down Hwy 183 to 49 to the beautiful Salmon Falls Road which winds through geologic exotic imported-terrain across the south fork and back up to Green Valley Road which leads one into Folsom . Salmon Falls Road had been one of the roads I used for hillwork on my road bicycle in the 1980s, and there used to be a time trial race in the Spring up the road to Pilot Hill. My friends Ron & Christine fixed a nice dinner for me at their home in Folsom when I arrived.

I flew back to Houston on Monday , and am now experiencing the first day of withdrawl !