Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 13:03:52 -0600 To: ultra@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU From: "Blake P. Wood" Subject: Unofficial Barkley results, comments, and observations Sender: owner-ultra@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU I had a lot of fun reading through the ultra posts when we got home last night. I never imagined that David and my "tie" would generate such a lively discussion. So... to answer the question as to who will be listed first: It's David. We never got around to discussing how we'd handle this during the run, nor during the months since David first called to suggest we run together. Nevertheless, I thought the issue was pretty clear and let David touch the gate first. Here's why: I was never able to get my mileage back up after RR100 in February, and David was obviously in better shape than I was. It was clear that he could have gone faster than we did (whether he would have actually finished doing this is another question - I believe that maintaining a reasonable pace and having two sets of eyes and brains to spot navigational errors was critical to our success). Particularly in the last five hours of the fifth loop, my feet were shot and this limited the pace. David could have easily run away from me at that point, but, being the gentleman he is, he stuck by our agreement to finish together. It was certain that we would be well under Mark Williams' time, anyway. In addition, I knew that the "record" and "first American finisher" title mattered a whole lot more to David than it did to me. We made a successful team, both contributing individual strengths, and I would have preferred to have us listed in a tie. But since that wasn't an option, it was clear to me that David deserved to be listed first. That said, here are some miscellaneous observations about this year's Barkley: The weather was the best I've seen in the five years I've been there. It never got too hot. There were some moments of heavy rain during the second loop, but the course dried out nicely for loops four and five. David and I never stopped to sleep. Starting that fifth loop without sleep was really hard! We stayed near each other, but not always together, during the first 1.5 loops. After that, we stuck closely together. We did the fifth loop in the backward direction. I would have preferred the forward direction, which I still believe to be faster, but David was adamant that he preferred climbing Zipline and Leonard's Butt Slide to Big Hell, Little Hell, and RatJaw. At that point in the run, David was having more trouble on the climbs, and I was having more trouble on the descents. But we had plenty of time for the fifth loop, so the direction wasn't a critical decision. We managed to avoid serious routefinding errors, but it still took us three backward loops to get the Little Hell descent right. We also missed the book on the Leonard's Butt Slide ascent in the fourth (nighttime) loop, and had to go back down for it. Typically, I'd give compass bearings, and David would lead to find a good path through the sawbriers. This worked well. Taking a compass bearing saved us from making serious mistakes at least twice, when we otherwise would have headed in a direction that was 90 degrees off. I was really impressed by the large number of runners who made it through the fun run - 10, counting David and me, but not counting David White who narrowly missed the 40 hour cutoff. In most of the previous years, there were only 2-3 fun run finishers. I have no desire to go back. Five times is enough. I finished five loops, and think I proved last year that I could have done it alone as well. Better to give my slot to someone else. Here are unofficial results in elapsed hours, courtesy of my wife, Rebecca. Start was at 9am. FIRST LOOP: Blake Wood 8:12 David Horton 8:12 Andras Low 8:12 Jason Poole 8:12 Tom Possert 8:12 Sue Johnston 8:20 Craig Wilson 8:20 Hans Put 8:20 Fred Brooks 8:21 Mike Tilden 8:30 David White 8:30 Goeff Scott 8:32 DeWayne Satterfield 8:32 Mike Dobies 8:35 Steve Pero 9:07 Andrew Thompson 9:07 Randy Isler 9:07 John DeWalt 9:28 Buddy Brasington 10:06 Joe Prusaitis 10:06 Matt Mahoney 11:09 Ed Furtaw 11:09 DNS 2nd loop Sue Thompson 11:15 DNS 2nd loop Chip Tuthill 11:15 DNS 2nd loop Dick West 11:31 Stu Gleman 11:50 DNS 2nd loop David Hughes 12:03 DNS 2nd loop Steve Miller 12:25 DNS 2nd loop Debra Moore 12:32 Bill Johnson 12:32 Leonard Martin 12:53 Wayne Brasington back in 7:18 from Coffin Springs DNF Chaennon back in 10:25 from Coffin Springs DNF Rich Limacher back in 22:21, DNF Norm Carlson back in 22:21, DNF SECOND LOOP: Blake Wood 19:40 David Horton 19:40 Andras Low 19:40 Jason Poole 19:40 DNS 3rd loop Sue Johnston 20:57 Hans Put 20:57 Mike Tilden 21:00 Fred Brooks 21:00 DNS 3rd loop Craig Wilson 21:16 Geoff Scott 21:16 DNS 3rd loop Mike Dobies 21:16 Andrew Thompson 23:43 Steve Pero 23:50 David White 23:56 Randy Isler 24:01 Buddy Brasington 25:11 DNS 3rd loop John DeWalt 25:24 DNS 3rd loop DeWayne Satterfield back in 15:05 from Coffin Springs DNF Tom Possert DNF Bill Johnson DNF Leonard Martin DNF Debra Moore DNF Joe Prusaitis DNF Matt Mahoney DNF, back in 29:40 Dick West DNF, back in 29:40 THIRD LOOP: Blake Wood 31:18 David Horton 31:18 Sue Johnston 33:44 Hans Put 33:44 Mike Tilden 33:50 Mike Dobies 37:03 DNS 4th loop Craig Wilson 37:03 DNS 4th loop Randy Isler 38:50 DNS 4th loop Andrew Thompson 38:50 DNS 4th loop Steve Pero 39:52 DNS 4th loop David White finished too late in 40:05 Andras Low DNF FOURTH LOOP: Blake Wood 45:40 David Horton 45:40 Sue Johnston DNF Hans Put DNF Mike Tilden DNF FIFTH LOOP: David Horton 58:21 Blake Wood 58:21 ************************************************** Blake P. Wood Physics Div., Plasma Physics Group P-24, MS-E526, Los Alamos Nat'l Lab, Los Alamos NM 87545 (505) 665-6524 Fax: (505) 665-3552 bwood@lanl.gov http://microserf.lanl.gov/bpw/bpwplan.html