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PLEASE CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING RE-CAP FROM OUR GUEST WRITER ROB COWAN.

Coyote Two Moon (C2M) has to be up there with just about the craziest most completely insane runs you could ever imagine. C2M was much more than just a 100-mile race; it was a weekend of sheer lunacy that combined an incredibly challenging run with some festivities and other wackiness that made for an unforgettable experience.

The events actually started on Wednesday, with a “warm-up” run on the Ray Miller trail and dinner that night, but with other commitments (work, family) I joined in on the fun on Thursday, which of course was Bowling Night –  everybody goes bowling before an ultra, right? C2M start times were similar to "the unknown ?k," with the slower runners starting at 4:00 p.m. on Friday night, and the super fast guys on Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. –  the idea being that everyone should finish in the 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. window on Sunday – yes, Sunday morning. Hence the name “Two Moons”, since most runners had to run through two nights. I was in the middle 9:00 p.m. start group, and the RD was brilliant enough to put the same start group runners on the same bowling teams, so we got to know our fellow 2-Mooner group while thoroughly embarrassing ourselves on the lanes, all while munching pizza and swigging cerveza. The bowling star was Dean Dobberteen, but he must have used up all his energy since he was one of the DNFs in the 100k group.

After the race I headed to my brother’s house in Thousand Oaks, and managed a solid 10+ hours of deep sleep. I have found that a good night’s sleep really helps when running 100s, and I figured this time it was going to be especially important, since we were going to miss 2 full nights of sleep. Yikes.

The race briefing was held at around noon on Friday, and I drove over for the lowdown from the RD, picked up the bib and goody bag (really nice Patagonia jackets), ate plenty at the BBQ chicken lunch, left my 3 fully stocked drop bags, and headed back to my brother’s house along with fellow Marathon Maniac Van Phan from Seattle, to try and squeeze in a few hours of “bonus” sleep. I ended up with 2 ½ hours of light sleep, woke up and got a quick shower in just as pizza was delivered, and we chowed down to try and make sure we were fully fueled. Then it was back in the car and up to Ojai to begin.

The weather was in the mid-40s when we arrived at the start area at 8:30 p.m., and after going through all my gear, I realized I had inadvertently packed all my running socks in my drop bags –  oops! Fortunately, the Thatcher drop bags were still at the start line, so I was able to grab a pair and put on mole skin and toe caps to protect my feet. I wore a short sleeve, long sleeve, light jacket, shorts and gloves, and headed to the start line. Our start group members were bristling with energy, and with a few good Coyote howls we were off.

Having never run in Ojai, or for that matter even visiting there before, I had no idea where the course would go or what it would be like –  other than what I could tell from the course elevation chart, which was downright scary. There was a 1,500 foot climb in about 3 miles right at the start, which took us up to the ridge, and then a rolling uphill 6 ½ miles to the first aid station. It was very comfortable running, and I headed out in the front of our A3 start group with my new friend Steve, who I would see a lot of throughout the next 3 days.

The views from the ridge were spectacular at night, with the lights of Ojai far down below. A little under two hours we were at the first aid station, where I ate a few pieces of banana, filled the two water bottles I would carry all race long, and headed down to Sisar Canyon on fire road. When I say down, that’s no understatement –  it was about a 3,500 foot descent and probably took a little over an hour –  the pace was pretty good with fresh legs. I got down to the bottom, ate a little more at the aid, and headed back up. It was early in the race, so didn’t see any of the 4 or 6 p.m. starters yet. Of course we got to see all of our start group, and everyone was in good spirits.

Along the way up I passed Steve, who had been ahead of me by about ¼ mile, and it was clear he was having stomach issues. He got those resolved and ended up having a great race. About 2/3 the way up to the ridge, the trail left the fire road and we were on single track for the rest of the way up. The ascents at this point were long but very runnable, and as I hit the top of the ridge I was the first from our running group to hit the aid station, where our crazy but lovable RD was manning the fort. Our directions at this point were to run up about ½ mile, turn right at the ribbons, and go to the top of Topa peak and retrieve a playing card that was next to one of those Halloween globes with the skull inside, and bring it back –  its 2 ½ miles round trip. I noticed the RD had his finger pointing way up high in the sky, and when I asked why he chuckled and said “You’ll find out –  and, oh, by the way, be careful as there is snow and ice and rocks that are pretty gnarly” –  okay…

So up I went, and as I looked up the mountain I could see headlights all along the mountain… way up there. So up and up we climbed, and the higher we went the more gnarly indeed did it get. As I passed runners coming down (from the earlier start groups) the warnings came in a steady stream –  “Be careful, watch for the ice, the rocks are treacherous…” As I hit the final couple hundred yards to the peak, it was all scrambling over snow and rock. I hit the peak, grabbed a card, and carefully headed back down. It was so treacherous that coming down took almost as long as going up, and as I headed back to the aid station I had some comments for the RD. I told/asked him 1) Did you say 2 ½ miles or 2 ½ hours? 2) Now I understand why the race waiver was so long 3) I noticed you have a remarkable resemblance to the guy in the globe, and 4) You were abused as child, weren’t you? He just laughed and sent me on my way. Oh yeah, I discovered that my perfect fuel for this race was a cup of instant mashed potatoes followed by chocolate pudding – gave me plenty of energy and kept the stomach nice and calm.

Next up was a few miles on the ridge, looking down, way down, on the lights of Ojai below – and oh yeah, what I call Coyote First Moon high in the sky illuminating everything. Then we headed down another long steep descent to Rose Canyon, a twisty windy, and as the RD said, very runnable single track. Just as I was about to make the turnoff off the ridge, Andy Kumeda was heading back to the aid station I had just left a few minutes ago. I thought to myself, dang, he is probably way out in front of everyone else, and we high-fived and shouted encouragement to each other as we passed. Then it was down the trail, and I started hitting waves of runners from the 4 and 6 pm start groups, and recognized lots of friends on their way up. I also got warnings that there was a tough stream crossing and it was extremely cold at the bottom. The descent went really well and I was lucky to have been carrying two pairs of gloves with me, so I put them on when I could feel the temperature drop and was probably better prepared than most, but it was pretty freakin’ cold at the bottom, and I spent as little time as possible at the aid station and headed back up as quickly as I could, warming as I began climbing. I decided right there and then to carry my jacket, extra shirt, two pairs of gloves, beanie, and tights the whole race, because I was scared to death of being caught without warm clothes when the temperatures got cooler later the next night. As I neared the top I noticed the sky begin to lighten, and by the time I hit the top daylight had arrived and I realized I had been running for 9-10 hours, covering something like 35-40 miles. It was about this time I began to understand how long we were going to be running over this crazy 3-days, and I underwent a subtle attitude adjustment as I realized that this was indeed going to be a very long haul.   

Next up (actually down) was the Thatcher School descent, another big 4,000’ monster. Think West Horse Thief (Saddleback Mountain) x 3. I saw plenty of other runner friends who were on the way up, and they did not look happy. All they would say is “you have a LONG way to go, and it’s a freakin’ bastard of a climb back out. As we would make our way down, and again from our birds-eye view from the top of the ridge it was a LONG way down, it seemed to get steeper and longer and you just knew coming back up was going to kill you. Now that we were starting to get towards late morning, the temps were definitely on the way up. When you finally hit the bottom section of this trail, about a mile from the aid station, it got really beautiful, with canopy, numerous stream crossings, and finally at the bottom one of the best aid stations I’ve ever been at. The volunteers were just awesome, they had all kinds of tasty treats, and it was hard to get your butt off the chair and leave. One thing about Coyote, I spent quite a bit of time at the aid stations refueling and re-hydrating, because this race really took it out of you. I was profusely thankful to the aid station volunteers, racked up a few more bonus minutes, and headed back out. By now it was HOT, and at each of the four or five stream crossings before the big climb up I made sure to soak myself to cool off. Then, it was up, up, and up, and it got hot, hot and hotter. Most of this climb was too steep to run, so I power hiked as best I can and made fairly decent time. I met Gabor near the top, who was on his way down and not having a good day, and we sat down in the middle of the trail and chatted and commiserated for about 5 minutes. We said our fair wells, I got passed by a couple of the “fresh” 100K runners near the end, but made the top in decent shape and was feeling good to be done with the 4th major climb of this race. 4 down, 3 to go.

As we returned to the ridge, we had a little less than a mile to go the next aid, and I had a resurgence of energy. Perfect timing, the song “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down came up on my iPod, and I blasted by the 100K runners who had passed me on the Thatcher climb and beat them into the aid station –  I truly felt like Superman at that point, almost 60 miles into the race.

Next was another ridge section and then a return down to Rose Canyon, but by a shorter, and of course, much steeper fire road. The evil and devious RD had warned us with a twinkle in his eye that we would be seeing Rose Canyon again, but by a much shorter route. My quick thinking said, “oh, that means you are going to kill us with an insanely deep descent” –  he just smiled… This baby must have been a 25% grade over about 2 miles, very steep and hard on the body, and when we reached the bottom it felt good to be at an aid station again. There were LOTS of runners here in various states of disrepair, and I’m sure some runners decided they had had enough and called it quits here. Tanked up and topped off, it was another grueling hike back up this evil hill. As always, the ascents seem like they’re five times longer than the descents, and the top just always seems to be around the next corner. Finally, we hit the top and had about another 2 more or less downhill miles to the next aid.

The next aid was Gridley top, and in my opinion this is where the race really began. I think we were around mile 66, and had probably the two toughest climbs of the whole race in front of us. It was now late afternoon, and the RD, who manned the roving ridge line aid station, asked how I was doing. I told him I was still running, although the course was doing some serious damage to my body. I chowed down on my Coyote Instant Mashers and Chocolate pudding, and headed out once again. I noticed the blisters on my big toes were becoming a big problem, as they were painful with each stride I took. The first descent down to what I called Gridley bottom was another long long haul, and all you could think was “I’ve got to climb back up this thing… shit!” I had to be very cautious going down, and had to walk some of the rockier sections because my blisters were becoming so painful. But I managed to limp down and made it into the aid station right about sunset. The aid station here was great as well, the volunteers commented on how good I looked and how well I was running –  huh? I chowed down pretty good on a burrito, bananas and all kind of other goodies. After some farewells at the aid station, it was back on the course, where I quickly caught up to two really nice 100K runners, Lisa Henson and Karen. Lisa turned out to be the wife of John Medinger, Ultrarunning magazine publisher, and Karen was also an ultra veteran, and as I led us on the hike out Lisa commented “We should be at the top in about 2 ½ hours.” OK. Great. Fine. Time to strap on the headlamps, the temp was now very comfortable. We also were joined by a guy named Mohammed, who was doing his first 100-miler at Coyote –  wow.

On the way up Karl Meltzer went flying by us like he was just out for an easy five miler, no effort, light steps, and then he was gone. It was kind of cool to be passed by an ultra legend, and know that you were doing the same thing he was doing (well, maybe not quite in the same way…). We were chatting and trading stories, they thought I was nuts for doing so many 100s, I was in awe because they had done Western States and Lisa had run Badwater, and we did hit the top right on schedule, 2 ½ hours later. We were at mile 80, 6 out of 7 climbs completed… only Cozy Dell left.

At the aid station I met my friend Karen, who was slumped over in a chair looking thoroughly beaten. I was surprised we didn’t catch her on the previous climb, as I had been seeing her the whole day and was slowly getting closer each time we passed each other. I asked her how she made it up so fast, and she said that when Karl Meltzer passed her, she decided to run up the hill with him. I asked her if she had lost her mind, and she said… Yep. This is what craziness can occur during an ultra, what poor decisions you can make when your mind is not functioning well. Karen was in the 4:00 p.m. start group, is a strong, steady but definitely not fast runner, and she ran about 4 miles at Karl "Mountain Goat" Meltzer pace! Karen has had some heart problems in the past, and I was really worried about her. So all of us went out as a group, headed up to the top of Nordoff Peak, and then down to Cozy Dell, probably the hardest 15 miles (7.5 up, 7.5 down) I think I have ever done in my life.

At the top of Nordoff Peak, you have a fantastic nighttime view of Ojai –  fantastic because you are so damn high, and because Ojai is so damn far below! You can see all the way down to the bottom, these twinkly little lights, and all you think of is how many bad words are in your vocabulary. Things were really starting to bunch up on the course, and there were lots of runners on the way up and the way down. I started off running, well my best impression of running anyways, but the blisters were now ripped open, bleeding, and excruciatingly painful. Although it should have been an easy 2 hour descent, probably 80-90 minutes on fresh legs, it took me 3 hours to get to the bottom, and to make matters worse the last couple hundred yards were rock climbing over boulders to get to the aid station. I slumped down in the chair, totally exhausted and in pain, and knew I had to do something about my feet. I was hoping a change of shoes, socks, and liberal use of duct tape would do the trick. As I pulled off my shoes and blood-encrusted socks, one of the volunteers commented that “I looked in pretty bad shape –  thinking of calling it quits?” I looked at him and said “No fu%#ing way! I came all this way and there’s no way in hell I’m dropping now.” He high-fived me and said “That’s what I want to hear!”

I fixed my feet up as best I could, downed some soup to warm up, crossed my fingers, and headed out of the aid station. The first part of the trail at the bottom was relatively flat, except for the rock section, and as I tested my feet I thought.. “Not bad.” So I was able to throw in short spurts of running mixed in with lots of walking, and began some serious hiking as I headed up the trail. I noticed that I was not getting both physically and mentally tired, and later found out that some of the other runners had to drop due to sheer exhaustion. I began some light head bobbing and lots of yawning, and then began… hallucinating! Yes, I can now vouch for real that people hallucinate, as I started seeing elephants turn into rocks, Indians dancing on the side of the trail, and why is there a billboard in the middle of this trail? I was worried that I was going to walk off the side of the trail, or have a heart attack from my strange visions. Fortunately, I had been warned about this and had some No Doze in my fanny pack, so I popped one, and within literally two minutes had my mind back. This was good and bad, since now my mind was refocused on the task ahead… climb, climb and keep on climbing.

Surprisingly, I think because my feet were in much better shape, the climb out did not seem so bad, especially knowing there was an aid station at the top, and after that a little less than 4 miles to go. What was weird about Coyote is I never really thought about how far I was going, it was perhaps just a little too much for my mind to fully comprehend. Because of the distinct and challenging out and back climbs, you really did break this race into small sections, and just handled them one at a time. Anyways, it was great to hit the top of Nordoff Peak, one mile to the next aid, whoohoo there are the aid station lights, I’m back! I fell into a chair, four full hours after I left Cozy Dell, felt the deep inner satisfaction that I knew this race was in the bag, and recalled that the aid stations were fully stocked –yes, fully stocked, so I spent about 10 minutes savoring the moment and downed a Fat Tire beer –  man, did that taste good! I thanked the RD, now in a bunny suit (help me out of this thing… I gotta pee!) for the incredible job he had done and how much I enjoyed the race. Then it was off into the night again, about 1 ½ miles of climbing, then a little over 2 miles of descent to that marvelous finish line. With no hurry, not a care in the world about my time, I made my way running and walking down the hill towards Rancho Grande and the finish line, and with about ¾ miles left started to run into some of the volunteers who were out on the course cheering us on and guiding us in. I was hoping to finish before sunrise, and as I began to hear the sounds of the finish line, my spirit lifted and I knew I could run the last ½ mile without stopping. As I approached the finish line, I let out a big Coyote howl and it was done. My finish time was 33 hours and 3 minutes. More that 50% longer time-wise than my previous slowest 100. Wow. I ended up "unofficially" in 20th place out of 45 finishers and 67 starters – unofficially, since Bonus Minutes were not included. I later found at that my official time was 31:03, shaved 2 full hours off my time, and I moved up two spots to 18th. Nice.

I hung around the finish line, downed 12 RECOVER-ease, tried to stay warm in the sub-30 temperatures, and just sat around talking with other runners and cheering the finishers as they came in, sometimes in groups but mostly one at a time. Later in the morning we had a post race breakfast and more crazy festivities, and then the awarding of those coveted finishers buckles. That is one beautiful and hard-earned piece of metal that I will always cherish.

Robo

Written, ran and reported by Rob Cowan.

Edited by Charlie Nickell.

Summary:

What: The Coyote Two Moons Ultras

When: March 21-23, 2008

Where: Ojai, CA

Race Directors: Chris Scott

Course Short Description: Totally Nuts!

Number of starters:  67
Number of finishers:  45
Success rate:          67%

Top Finishers:

Overall 100 Miler
1) Karl Meltzer / 17:24:00
2) Derrick Carr / 20:50:00
3) Andy Jones-Wilkins / 22:58:00

Overall 100k
1) John Medinger / 12:23:00
2) Tom Nielsen / 12:38:00
3) Tracey Moore / 12:43:00

For Complete Race Day Results Click Here.

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