I always find it challenging to complete in back-to-back road races that are often offered in the Los Angeles area. Therefore, I entered the Crippled Children's Society Valentine's 5K and 10K Runs at Dockweiler Beach at Playa Del Ray on Saturday, February 13, 1999. This location offers a beautiful ocean beach area with airplanes overhead as they take off from nearby LAX. The 5K started at 8:00 a.m., and I ran all out to finish with a time of 22:37. This is my fastest 5K time in about 1 1/2 years. I had only a few minutes to get back to the start line for the 10K run at 8:30 a.m. For this run, I had to start with an easy pace while trying to recover from the previous 5K run. I actually find that I can recover as I run, hence I picked up my pace considerably for the last few miles. My time for the 10K was 53:30. These times gave me a nice second place award medal for the 60-64 age group in both events.

The next day, Sunday, February 14, I traveled further south to Dana Point for the annual Festival of Whales 5K and 12K Whale Chase runs. This was another very beautiful beach location. The 5K run started at 8:00 a.m., and again I ran all out despite feeling somewhat tired from the day before. My 5K time was 23:15 - only 38 seconds slower than the day before. The 12K run did not start until 9:00 a.m., hence I had more time to recover. This 12K course is flat at the beginning but becomes very hilly as it turns inland. It seemed like I was constantly going up and down one hill after another. I ran easy to make sure I could finish but increased my pace for the last few miles to finish with a time of 67:03. I was hoping for another award in the 5K or 12K but just missed with a fourth place in both events for my age group. Nevertheless, it was two days of nice running weather, two scenic ocean locations, and a total of nearly 20 miles of competitive running in four events. My pace per mile was 7:17 for the Saturday 5K, 8:37 for the Saturday 10K, 7:30 for the Sunday 5K, and a slower 9:18 for the hilly 12K.

It was a windy Thursday morning at 9:00 AM when six OTHTC members (Elaina, Eric, Mark, Chuck J., Barb and it’s me Rick) departed Ridgecrest for the Ventura area. We arrived at our weekend adventure 15 minutes before the start of the first days event, a 7 point something warm up run (Just enough to make us hungry for our first dinner (Fresh Choice). At dinner we met all the participants and the JABOYS (Sook, Maria, Bill, Mike and Chris the race director). After dinner Chris briefed us about the 50 miler that would happen at 6:00 AM the following morning (the Head Nurse spoke up, she said leave this one alone). I could tell right away that he (Chris) was BAD TO THE BONE. The sound of the course seemed intimidating to me (then again any run over a 50K seemed intimidating to me the novice) I then looked over at my friends to gain strength and comfort. Nothing seemed to bother them as they absorbed all the trail information.

Friday morning came sooner than I expected, sleep the night before was sparse because of my nerves anticipation of my first 50 miler. The wind was blowing hard and it seemed colder than Ridgecrest at that time in the morning (I think my big baby meter was pegged out), not one person complained. The 50 mile seemed to pass by easily I guess because we were having such a great time visiting with each other. The wind had turned into a nice breeze and it warmed up to a perfect temperature, Mark and I hung tuff with the veterans and finished before dark about 10 hours 45 minutes and some change. Mark learned how to take care of business on the trail for the first time. Barb ran with the pack to the 14 mile point and ran back by herself (awesome 28). Dinner was at 7:00 PM, now here was the tricky part. We had to go back to PT. Mugu from Ojai (about 60 miles), shower, change, then drive to an Italian restaurant in Ventura for dinner. We made it. Dinner was fantastic (anything would be fantastic after expending that much energy). All C4P runners looked marvelous, especially Mark in the Frog tights he was given on Thursday (we were all hiding our intense pain inside) show no weakness, you big babies!

OK, now we’re talking about Saturday’s 40 mile run. I got up, not much sleep because the 50 miler did something to my sleep mechanism (I think it broke it). I walked to the bathroom (things that make you go hum) and I wondered at that time if I was really going to be able to run or die on the nice cool bathroom tile (I ran). The weather was outstanding and Nardo (Elaina) lead the way. Barb hadn’t decided what kind of mileage she was going to do so she stayed up with us till one of the transition points (she cutoff 10 miles) the Ridgecrest train continued till another transition point and we decided to take a shortcut (4 mile cutoff) so we could climb to the highest point of the course (Tri Peaks). The train was getting kind of silly by then ( heck, we were having non stop fun the whole time). We met Barb coming down the Tri Peak trail, I thought we would be able to catch her (wrong!) The terminator girl from Ridgecrest picked up the pace, we didn’t see her again till No Bike Hill. She would have completed the course before us, but she had to wait for a helicopter rescuing some naked guy on amphetamines (yes these runs are entertaining). We all finished singing songs and smiling. Dinner was at a Chinese place (Chinese didn’t do me well or maybe it was the 93 miles we had completed) all C4P runners were there. Unlike the dinner the night before everyone was moving a lot slower. Chris kept everyone’s spirits high by going over the course of the last day’s event, including Hell Hill.

It’s Sunday (right?) and my feet are barking at me on the way to the nice cool tile in the bathroom. My gut feeling was "what the $#*%@ am I doing", we all blamed Mark and walked to the truck feeling much better. OK, I forgot to mention that every time we (Elaina, Eric, Barb, Mark and me) pulled into the restaurant or starting line we played "BORN TO BE WILD" kind of our theme song for the weekend. Anyway let me finish this story (pinch it off and lets go), we took off like a herd of snails heading for the lettuce barn. I personally felt like my body got caught in a wood chipper, but everyone else looked good. We all stayed together for 20 miles and called it a day or should I say weekend. The weekend

ended with a Bar-B-Que, it was hard to say goodbye to all our new life long friends. I would personally recommend this run to anyone with a good sense of humor (you’ll need it). I’d like to thank Chris Scott for dreaming up such nonsense and all the JABOYS for their outstanding and selfless support, I can’t find the right words to describe my feelings. I guess I feel that I wish the weekend would never have ended......................

Postscript -- The following is excerpted from an e-mail by Chris Scott, forwarded to the editor by Chris Rios:

After two days' events... The first day was a 7+ mile warmup loop to get hungry for dinner. Eleven folks partook of the play, Dan Barger clocking in just under 56 minutes, Rick Hodges and David Strong following 18 minutes later, and seven minutes back the Brat Pack from Ridgecrest (what a crazy and delightful running bunch!!). Rick's sweetie, Liz, polished it all off another 4 minutes back.

Friday's 50 miler in Ojai (slightly revised from the Mugu 50 course in '98 --fewer rocks, more elevation -- about 12,000) had these kids…