Jon's Bear 100 Crewing Report Version 2.0
It was fun pacing Jon for 15 miles. Ok, ok, Cody, if you insist I'll write more. I got up at the lovely hour of 7 AM and threw all my stuff together to get ready for my pacing and crewing duties today. I was pretty excited to see what this 100 miler thing was all about and excited to see Jon finally do this. Drove to Leetham Hollow and there met Cody, Paul, and Dave and got instructions (or at least a review of the 45 pages of printed material sent to me at sundry times by Jon) on what I was supposed to do. I was a little nervous at first hoping I would do everything right so that Jon wouldn't have to worry about anything, but my duties proved fairly easy to handle. Got Jon thru the aid station in the lead pack and looking like he wasn't a bit tired. Good sign so far. Hung around for a few more minutes trying to help out as best I could, and then left to take care of my crewing duties at Cowley Canyon. Stopped at Quizno's in Logan on the way to grab a sandwich for lunch. Got to the Cowley aid about 20 minutes ahead of Jon and chatted with some of the other crews there and made acquaintances with some. We would be seeing a lot of each other for the next 12-15 hours or so. Jon came through still looking very strong. He was chatting with some of the other runners and seemed to be in high spirits. On pace for his "fast" goal of 20 hours. So far so good. Got him in and out in probably 1-2 minutes, as this was a pretty easy aid. Packed up and drove down the canyon to Right Hand Fork and prepped everything. Cody and Marci showed up and helped me finish while I did my own preparation for my pacing duties. Jon came in still looking pretty strong. Definitely tired after 35 plus miles, but looking very spry and chipper for having run that far. After a quick shoe change we took off. We immediately realized that we had forgotten sunscreen so I ran back and grabbed it. Took me a good 5 minutes to catch Jon, as he was still maintaining a very good pace. Going up Willow was pretty easy and we maintained a steady pace all the way through to Mud Flats. Jon was chatty and seemed to be in good spirits. We talked about how he wasn't going to do like the other guys and go out crazy fast. His strategy proved to be sound later in the race. We caught one of the RDs (I think) just before Temple Fork and then I ran ahead to fill the Cody and Dave in on Jon's needs. After a brief pit stop we hightailed it out of Temple Fork and started the long climb up Blind Hollow. This section proved difficult for Jon and we slowed to a hike for most of this section. I could tell that the fatigue was setting in, especially when he had me pull out the elevation chart and add up all of the climbing for sanity's sake. If I'd have known we were going to be doing math I would have brought some of my Calculus II homework for us to work on. Live and learn. We did figure out that at the top of Blind we would have done over 2/3 of the total climbing for the course, which I think Jon found to be heartening news. We finally summited and Jon started to pick up the pace descending into Tony Grove. I struggled again to build a gap enough to give some warning to the crew because Jon was going so fast. Got to the aid and got Jon and Cody on their way. My pacing duties were over and I was famished so I downed my entire sandwich and a couple of granola bars. The rest of the day/night were spent going from aid to aid and making sure Jon and Cody's (and later Dave's) needs were met. I think we did a pretty good job...I hope I did anyway, seeing as how this was my first time doing anything like that. It was really an eye opening experience to watch Jon at the different stages of the race. I can't say enough about how much I look up to him in accomplishing something of that magnitude. I think it taught me a lot about life as well, but I'll spare you my pontifications on the subject, as this report is becoming lengthy. It was great to finally see him run across the finish line at 3 AM and I am very grateful that I was able to contribute in some small way to his success. Great job Jon! Final note with regards to my hamstring injury: it was sore, but I think that it is improving every day. I am no longer worried about it. Over and out.
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