With just a couple of weeks to go before the Grand to Grand, I had an enjoyable time volunteering and supporting my friend Tim White at the inaugural Tahoe 200. This is a 200 mile, multi-day race around beautiful lake Tahoe on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Megan Hicks wrote of her experience fast packing much of this course back in the January edition of Trail Runner.
Unlike stage racing this event has no fixed distances to cover each day. The gun goes off and you finish when you cross the line. The time limit for this event was 100 hours (four days+) and of course there were cut off times along the way. Like stage racing you need to manage yourself over several days including rest/sleep/eating/whining/etc. While not "self supported" participants were required to carry a significant amount of emergency gear just in case. Tim's pack came in at around 10 lbs (including water) which is nothing to scoff at in a race of this length.
My volunteering duties were mainly centered around the Armstrong Pass Aid Station at approximately mile 90. At an altitude of about 8500 feet (2600 meters) it was the highest aid station on the entire course and in between the two highest summits at about 9600-9750 feet. Temperatures at night there dropped down to 36 degrees F and the Western Mountaineering sleeping bag did great.
Pacing duties for Tim were split between his brother (Paul), daughter (Haley) and son (Forest) as well as work colleague Jesson Hutchinson and myself. Tim finished in a little over 82 hours! Quite an accomplishment. Surprisingly there was only a 30% DNF rate. Many thought it would be higher.
One of the biggest issues I saw during the race was the lack of foot care! At Armstrong the EMT and myself wound up working on many blister issues. Even the front runners were suffering in this regards before the half way point. Few were washing their feet regularly and changing their socks. Some competitors did not even have gaiters. With a very dusty course this was compounding their problems.
At Tahoe City aid station while working on Tim's feet I had the pleasant surprise to being helped out by none other than John Vonhof author of "Fixing Your Feet". After I got Tim on his way, John and I had some discussions on foot care during this race, techniques and what are the best tapes currently available. Thanks for the pointers John!
All this has just reinforced my experience with foot care on these long, multi-day events. I will for sure be taping up before leaving the starting line!
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