Volunteering for WS100 (LONG)

[mrs.jacinthe]

Ok, so by now I've had time to process this whole thing and I guess I should write a post about it.  First, let me just say that the experience was *stellar* and I will absolutely make the commitment now to do it again next year.  Second, if you're not familiar with WS100, it's pretty much the Boston Marathon of ultras.  Yes, there are some that are harder or longer or more elite, but there are none quite like the Western States.  The runners tackle approximately 17k+ feet of ascending and 22k+ feet of descending overall, starting with a run basically straight up the side of a mountain out at Squaw Valley and finishing with 3/4 of a lap of our local high school track. Finally, keep in mind that this year was what our station captain called "outlying", in that these runners, who started running at o-dark-thirty, had to tackle snow, slush, mud, barely visible trails (through the snow), 100+ degree heat, and literally everything in between.  So this was not an as-expected race.  

I volunteered at the Rucky Chucky river crossing at mile 78.  I was supposed to take the overnight shift - 11pm to 6am.  But for whatever reason, I was ready and raring to go at 9:30, so I left to head out there.  Rucky Chucky crossing is a point on the American River, way down in the canyon, where the western states trail crosses the river.  Normally, it's what's called a cable crossing, meaning that the volunteers stand on the downriver side of the cable, holding it steady, while the life-jacketed runners and their pacers walk/shuffle/swim across the river, making use of the cable for stability.  When I got out to Rucky Chucky, after a "most-likely-glad-it's-dark" drive down the side of a mountain on a dirt/gravel road, it was clear that this was a PAR-TAY of an aid station.  Music blasting, generators running, multiple food tents, party-lights and floods everywhere.  Basically, the runners could come in, find their crews, rest, eat, pee, whatever, take a quick cool-down dunk in the river, and then head out again.  I found the aid station captain and was told to wander down to the river for my assignment.  So I headed down there.  It is basically down a set of rough-hewn granite "stairs" and down a sandy stretch of trail to the actual crossing.  Since this was a high-water year (a rarity), the organizers had to hire a rafting company to safely transport runners across the river.  There were four boats with experienced river-guide pilots on hand and it was a constant shuffle of boats across the water.  I got assigned to the life-jacket removal station on the other side of the river, so it was on with a jacket, into a boat, quickly across the river, back OUT of the jacket, and then I was set.  

This was *NOT* an easy thing for the runners, although they loved the boat ride, because the far shore of the crossing is essentially a steep sandy scramble back to the regular trail.  So they'd cross, get their jacket taken off, then pull/crawl/shuffle their way up this crazy little sand "dune" and be gone.  My job was just to stand in the middle of this crazy steep hill, stop the runners/pacers, take off their life jacket and glow necklace (to help us see them coming) and send them on their way with a few words of encouragement.  And that's what I did, all night long, climbing up and down this hill, providing a cheerful "run happy!", a "you've got this", or a "rock on!" to every runner or pacer I came across.  

The aid station *EXIT* cutoff at Rucky Chucky is 5am and, like I said, this year was a crazy hard outlyer of a race, so we were very busy from 3am until about 4:30am, when I think a number of the stragglers DNFed themselves.  But about 2 minutes to 5am, we were getting ready to tear down when we could see, on the other side of the river, a pair of headlamps appear.  They were moving along pretty quickly, so the aid station ramped back up again, cheering and whistling and cowbells and all variety of obnoxious noise - it's a good thing no one lives out there, they'd have wanted to shoot us, lol - and these two tore right through the aid station and kept going into the raft with approximately 6 seconds to spare from missing the cutoff.  Full on power-sprint.  Once they crossed the river, we caught them and I ended up with the runner.  I stopped him to take off his jacket, and as was my habit for any runner since about 2:30 am, I asked how he was feeling while I unclipped it.  He pretty much just nodded and flopped forward onto my shoulder.  Like, just resting his forehead there - and sobbing.  I was like, "are you sure you're ok?" and he nodded again, so I just let him stand there until he eventually stood back up.  I said something like "you did this and you can do the next one.  Get on it, you've got this" and he was off again with 40 minutes to go 1.8 miles to make the next aid station cutoff.  I have no idea who he was or if he made it, but man, that was rough to see.  It's stuck with me since and probably for a good long while.  I hope he made it and I refuse to believe he didn't.  Honestly, I've done a lot of volunteering in the last few years and this is the longest any athlete has stuck with me, mentally.  

After that heartstring-tugging experience, that was it.  We tore down the unload side of the camp, loaded everything one raft at a time back across the river (including a 10 foot ladder, which was an interesting experience) and then I drove back up the mountain and home to sleep.

Overall/tl;dr: This was an amazing experience.  10/10 will do again.  I highly recommend it to anyone considering it.  I highly recommend it to anyone NOT considering it.  If you want to come visit me next year, we can do it together and I'll put you up at my house and even let you use my shower afterwards (and trust me, you'll need to ... I had sand/grit everywhere).  

And a photo because photos:

[ktzmoh]

This was amazing. Thank you for writing this up!! What an awesome recap and what a great aid station to get assigned to! Someday I want to come up there and do that. What an experience. When we did that Ragnar, I was pumped for the middle of the night shift because I wanted to see what people looked like running through the night. Amazing.

Anyway, I'm thinking of volunteering for our local 50miler this October. I want to, but I'm worried that volunteering will lead me to signing up and ... yikes.

[labbie]

What an amazing recap and experience. Thank you for writing this. I'm so inspired by the dude that powered through with seconds to spare, glad you could be there for him.

[cinco]

Thank you for sharing! What an experience!

[cole]

Thanks for sharing, how cool!

[kams]

So very cool! Thank you for sharing!

[thom]

I love these stories and experiences! Thanks for sharing; you give back so much and it's truly wonderful.

[taratru]

This sounds so amazing. I love it!

[wawa]

this is awesome. I've always been intrigued by the WS100 because I know a bunch of people who have done the Tevis (horse version) and the idea of doing it on foot has always been intriguing.

I'd be all in to volunteer for that. Except for that whole other side of the country thing.

[gt7301b]

Thanks for sharing and for volunteering!!