Six OTHTC's made the adventure to Pt Mugu to give the inaugural Mugu 50-50 run a try....Chris Rios, Jo Kajiwara, Eric Kajiwara, Elaina McMahon, Andrew "Mitch" Mitchell, and Kathy Watkins along with their masseuse and crew support on her mountain bike, Marla McBride.  The run consisted of a 50 mile run on Saturday and a 50K on Sunday, all in the hills just off PCH south of Pt Mugu Naval base, with a 7600-foot elevation gain. This was a team effort type run....you signed up with a partner and points would go to the ones that stayed together from start to end.

Well, El Nino decided it was not going to let us run this beautiful run and the park service closed the trails, so the event was canceled. Have no fear though, since everyone was there anyway, the RD, Chris Scott, had alternate plans. He worked out an alternate route in the Ojai mountains for Saturday. This non-event was quite a feat, the aid stations were packed in on the support crews backs and they hustled to get the trail somewhat marked and the next aid set up before the front runners came through. They really did a tremendous job. The route was definitely a challenge. Points would still be given to those that stayed together the whole way and would take into consideration the number of miles run together. Eric/Elaina and Kathy/Mitch were paired and ran the grueling 50 miles together in a time of 11 hours and 57 minutes. Grueling because there was A LOT of up and down, rocks, and mud not to mention reading the map describing the course. But we stumbled into the finish just before dusk happy and tired.

Marla had met us at several places along the route to provide crew support (encouragement, jacket carrier, extra food and picture taking). She had to ride the bike up some pretty gnarly trails to get to us. After riding about 50 miles herself, she ran up from the finish a couple of miles to make sure we were all OK and to pull us back in. It was quite an education for her. When she met up with us, we were singing and having a good ol' time. How can they have run almost 50 miles and still be in such good spirits? We think it's the desert sun. Chris and Jo were paired together and clocked about 32 miles. They decided against doing some of the steeper, rockier climbs in and out of canyons....they wanted to get some sleep that night so they would be fresh for the next day.

Saturday night found everyone at a pizza joint all wearing their Mugu 50-50 Hawaiian shirts. The instructions and maps for the next day were given out and it looked like we were in for another adventure.  Again, the original 50K route had to be redone to accommodate as close to a 50K as possible. We decided to call it a birthday run since there were several people that had or were about to have birthdays real soon.

Dawn came way to early, but we were up and running by 7am. This time, we did get to run some of the hills south of Mugu but way back in one of the canyons. The park service had also closed some of these trails since the time they were marked on Friday but Chris Scott said we could run at our own risk just as long as we didn't admit that we knew him...remember...we were on a birthday celebration run! (He ended up getting a fine anyway for the non-event...guess it was the big barbecue and party we were having at the finish that gave it away). Off we went....Elaina, Eric, Jo, Chris, Mitch, myself and Dan Purdy, visiting from back East. Everyone was feeling pretty tired from the day before so we tried to just put one foot in front of the other.

As the first miles faded, everyone was starting to get the hang of it again. Well almost everyone......Mitch had some pretty nasty blisters. So when we got the first loop completed, he decided to stay at the truck and heal for the next 50 miler. (He was smarter than I've ever given him credit for!!!). Somewhere along the way I got separated from the rest of the gang and ended up running some of the miles with Dan and the last several with Marla who had, again, come up the trail from the finish to make sure I wasn't lost. I had bright shoe laces on my shoes just to make sure I didn't get lost!?!?!?!?! The rest of the gang ended up with about 21 miles and I ended up with about 26. So it was a successful day for all. Elaina and Eric won a nice Patagonia jacket for staying with each other through the thick and thin. We are all planning to go back and do next year's run and hopefully get to do the REAL course. I would recommend this run to anyone that is as insane as the rest of us. Chris Scott puts on one heck of a birthday celebration.