C2M brief recap

A quick post to report that the inaugural C2M was a resounding success!

Thursday's bowling night was a blast, with at least a couple surprising hotshot ultrarunner-bowlers by the names of Dean Dobberton (a 206 score!) and Karl Meltzer, rolling a "disappointing" 168. Who knew? My team had the lowest average score at 79 and won some cool hats for sucking so badly. :p Both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons a few of us - run entrants and volunteers - spent some casual hours logging a few miles in Pt. Mugu State Park, socializing with friends old and new, and knocking back a few cold ones.

After the initial prerace activities, the Lion Canyon/Gridley Top and Ridge Jct. aid station folks headed up to the ridge to set up while I marked course up Lion Canyon and met the rest of the LC crew at the ridge. With the staggered start, aid station runner traffic started slowly, with activity and congestion picking up as the hours wore on. Friday night's traffic flow through our Lion Canyon aid station was light enough that most of our group was able to get a few hours of shut eye, but by Saturday afternoon and evening, and with three passes per runner through our Gridley Top aid station, activity was virtually constant. With plenty of liquid refreshment in the form of hops 'n barley for our crew, a fart machine-mooner guy combo (and subsequently renaming ourselves "the 8th grade aid station"), Barb Miller's awesome baton twirling, and our fearless RD dressed up as a giant white Easter rabbit, my belly hurt from laughing so hard. :) I witnessed a total of five moons - two from the moon in the sky both nights and three from runners (ewww). Then we had Naked Topa Man, who showed up wearing only his pack, running shoes, and a sock rubberbanded to his, uh... thing. (His reward being ONE Dirty Girl gaiter.) The stories are endless, of course, with everyone experiencing her/his own hopefully fun-filled adventure through the spectacular Ojai mountains.

As for results, Karl Meltzer ran an incredibly freakish (and I mean that in the most complimentary sense of the word) 19:24 in the 100 miler, with Justin Angle and Andy Jones-Wilkins tying for second in 23:48. Betsy Nye was our fastest woman in 29:32 with Kerry Owens only a few minutes slower in 29:46. David Goggins was first in the 100K, with speedy Amy Sproston for the women. Running radically faster than they and the RD predicted, a few sandbaggers - let's call them Kumeda, Barbeau, Quivey, and Owens - had to forego aid at Thacher and Gridley Botton because they arrived before the AS crews.

We had the BEST core group of volunteers, in particular the S/F and aid station chiefs, H'ard Cohen, Bill Kee, Mark Weineke, Gretchen Garnett, and Brian Polley, who, along with their crews, went above and beyond their basic assignments, which alone were challenging enough. The radio guys also deserve special mention. Most of them are C4P holdovers and were very excited to continue assisting in the latest Coyote installment. As previously mentioned, we are truly grateful for the Zombies hosting C2M on their website and putting in countless hours. Finally, the start/finish at Rancho Grande rivals and in our opinion surpasses the best of 100 miler venues. We were fortunate they agreed to host us as their first big group, especially after Chris "cold called" by climbing over their locked gate, inquiring as to whether they'd play host to a bunch of nutcases for a weekend.

I could write on and on but need to clean and sort gear, go through aid station leftovers, sleep, etc. We are beat! (I think running the event would've been easier than working it!)