Trail Bum: Crewing at the 2010 LT100

This year, I crewed for David Clark of Longmont Max Muscle.

David has been training for this for over a year. He has not been logging historically fast finish-times for many races, but has had a history of unstoppable forward motion. I wasn't concerned before or during the race that he would fail from any weakness, whether mental or physical. Still, a LOT can happen in 100 miles, and there's a lot of people who were tough enough who couldn't get across the finish for various reasons beyond their control. I just hoped that I wouldn't be one of the reasons he didn't cross the finish!!!

I somehow managed to bring my camera case, but the camera wasn't inside, so all I had was my crappy 1st-gen iPhone camera. But I got the most important shots of red-carpet and breaking the tape. David did AWESOME! Never a whimper, never a thought of quitting.

As far as weather goes, this may be the best year in LT100 history.
Anton Krupicka apparently tried to knock off Matt Carpenter's record. He was well over an hour ahead of 2nd-place Duncan Callahan. But alas, Tony's body would have none of that on this day. But what an awesome go at it!!!

Jake Gyllenhaal and another big star that my non-movie-star, non-fanboy head can't identify, and a small crew of others who seemed to be producers and/or directors and movie technician guys showed up and followed the race. And I mean they really followed it. They lived in Leadville for a few days before the race, they didn't sleep much or at all during the 30hr race, and even at night, I ran into them again at Fish Hatchery aid in the middle of the night. Mostly they watched, but I think they helped at times too.
They didn't seem to be filming any final footage of anything. It seemed to be tons of snippets. I was standing around with a random runner and friends at Twin Lakes. Jake G's star-friend was taking photos of us with a huge camera. It was only later that I noticed he had a small shotgun-mic attached. So he was taking movies and over-heard everything we said!
The director guy, of course, had to have a special chair that couldn't look like anyone else's. And of course he parked his glorified ass in it, apparently unable to stand amongst normal folk. LOL And he had to have guys handy to write anything down in case he said something important, like, "gimme a bigger latte manana" or something like that.

What a circus the LT100 has become! There were two para-sail planes flying around, documentaries being filmed, old veterans of LT100 mega-finishes milling around, and new Lifetime Fitness people, who now own and run some of the show.

David Clark moved well nearly all of the race. He executed just about the smartest, most disciplined LT100 I can imagine. His only problem was coming into Winfield, which left him close to the end of his rope. LT100-veteran Nick Sterner was his pacer and crew at Winfield. He knew exactly what David needed to do, and got David's legs back under him and out again. It was a loss of about an hour between Twin Lakes and Winfield, but he had managed to get way ahead at Twin Lakes, so he merely was back to his previous pace-average. No harm done overall.
All I can say is, for a crazy sumbitch, he was one sane, positive, and fun guy the whole way. It was a great time for all.

Nick Sterner paced David from Winfield to Pipeline Road crew-access. Nico Brooks paced him all the way to May Queen aid - the last aid station. Kelly Lotterhos ran him in to the finish.

David had his whole family in-tow. His brother and father even helped crew him and were indispensable assets. His wife and kids and his mom were there. I think everyone involved batted back a few melodramatic tears now and then. It was an experience, let me tell you. David is one heck of a guy to witness 1st-hand. Just seeing anyone do the LT100 is one thing, but David Clark is an extra special kind of character you have to experience to fully appreciate.