Western States Day 3

This was our plan for the morning... get up and down the Escarpment before our conference started at 8 am. In order to do this, we simulated the race start at 5 am and took off up the trail with our headlamps on.

 

Halfway up and the sun is coming up over the mountains.

Getting pretty close. Sun is up and I think we are both slap happy.

 

Made it to the top! We actually went up to the Escarpment and then onto Watson's Monument which is at 8713 feet - the highest point of the race.

 

 

It was a heart thumping breath sucking trek to the top but it really gave us a lot of confidence for the race on Saturday. 7 miles total for the morning, then it was conference time.

 

 



 

Today's lectures included talks from the Medical Director of Western States as well as Medical Directors from several other Ultra-Marathons. They were mostly the "this was my experience" kind of talks. Just fun to listen to with some interesting factoids...

 

*In 1974, Western States was the only 100 mile ultra-marathon in the US. This year, there are 126 100 mile ultra-marathons.

 

*The total number of 100 mile ultra-marathon finishers last year was about 40,000. To put that in perspective, the field limit for the Chicago marathon this year is 45,000.

 

*Knee injuries are the most common ultra-marathon injuries, followed by Achilles injuries.

 

Most of the other factoids were medical cases so I'll skip those.

 

After the conference, John and I decided to drive to South Lake Tahoe for dinner. Squaw Valley is at the north end of Lake Tahoe so we took a nice scenic drive around the lake.

 

 

 

The views here are absolutely breathtaking!

 

Now it's off to foam roll my butt and get some sleep. The closing remarks from the Medical Director at our conference today was for all the crews to get as much sleep as we can these next few nights.