Chris "C1" Haley

TARC founder and trail animal extrodinaire won the Middlesex Fells fall classic 40 miler on November 29th in a time of 7:59:00.  He averaged 1:35:00 per 8 mile loop around the rugged Fells course.

This is a trail race for those that love the classic New England surface of rocks, roots and potholes disguised by leaf cover.  What we like to call a “technical” course.  The course is more for billy goats than humans, challenging the runners with constant climbs and descents up and over numerous granite topped hills.  Half-way through runners are rewarded with a panoramic view of the entire city of Boston, looking south, and the Middlesex Fells is a beautiful nature reserve.  The run doesn’t allow the competitor to get into any sort of rhythm as every uphill is quickly followed by a descent, followed by another series of ups and downs across very tricky footing.

So Chris “C1″ Haley is built for this type of course.  He eats up the ascents and deftly manages the downhills, pouncing from rock to rock with his feet barely touching the ground.  C1 is one of the best technical downhill runners I’ve ever seen.

He maintained a steady 11 minute mile pace across all five 8 mile loops - demonstrating he’s already in ultra shape as he prepares for the Cascade Crest 100 mile endurance run next fall.

Full race results here

by: Chris Haley

[Editor Note: This is republished from 1997 - a timeless bit of poetry from our club founder]

I recently paced a runner (a Californian with whom I was not previously acquainted) for the last 32 miles of the 1997 Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run. This was the third time I have paced runners, twice at Vermont and once at Western States. I have also used pacers in my two appearances at Vermont. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, most of the 100 mile trail runs allow runners to be paced (accompanied by another non-entrant runner) for anywhere from the last 30 - 50 miles of the race, depending on the race. This is generally in the interest of safety, as the last thing a race director needs is a delirious runner, 80 miles into a race, wandering around in the woods in the middle of the night. It should be noted, however, that a pacer is not required. Following are the top ten reasons you should give pacing a shot.

10. It will provide a rare opportunity for you to feel faster than the person with whom you are running.

9. You can say you got in a 30 - 50 mile training “run”, although in reality it will be nothing more than a long, slow hike.

8. You can eat all of the great junk food they have at the aid stations.

7. You can fake being a real runner in the race and all the people at the aid stations will tell you how great you look for someone who has run 90 miles.

6. You can tell the person you are pacing to stop whining and they will actually think you are trying to help them.

5. You can enjoy the wonderful sounds of nature - including those of your runner belching and farting.

4. If you’re pacing someone of the opposite sex, it’s probably the only time you’ll get permission from your spouse to spend the night with another man/woman.

3. It’s a good excuse to get away from the kids for a night.

2. You could make a friend (or an enemy) for life.

You may need someone to return the favor someday.

… Congratulations to members Mark Longwell, John Carey and Bob Crowley for finishing, in fine fashion, the 1997 Vermont 100 … Also congratulations to Ann Trason for pulling off her second consecutive Comrades-Western States 100 double victory!

By Steve Pero

Yesterday I ran in the 12th annual DRB 50K Trail Race. This is the Don’t Run Boston 50K and it was my 11th running of this event, I missed last year after moving to New Mexico…we’re here for a couple of years before moving back, so I went back and figure I’ll get 12. I’ve run 13 Boston Marathons (qualified, of course), but won’t get to run 13 of these unless we end up here in the Spring of 2010.
This was my very first ultra race run in 1996, which I won by barely outkicking a guy from Pa….4 years later in 2000 I learned the course really well and trained my legs off and got the course record, which still stands.

The interesting thing about this race is the course is run in a state park south of Boston and uses almost every trail in the park. There are many turns and some at 4 and 5 trail intersections, so you can easily get off course if you’re not paying attention. It has almost 6000′ of climb in the 31 mile race and most of the trail is gnarly single track….lots of short ups and downs beat your legs up slowly. My guess is my average time here has been about 6 1/2 hours….the CR is 5:38….yesterday I ran 6:45 in the first hot day I’ve run in this year. The heat really gets to me, especially when not long ago I was training on snow and ice in temps not much above freezing. As a matter of fact Deb couldn’t run this year because while out on a run a couple of weeks ago, she slipped on some ice and broke the end off of her radius bone in her right arm, which required surgery. She’s now carrying some hardware in there and we are now great bookends because i had a similar accident 8 years ago and have some hardware in my left arm!

Back to the race….it was a tough crowd and my usual strategy is to go out hard to “scrape” off the rookies and wannabees who think they can just tag along, then outkick me at the finish. It sortof worked and after the first 5 miles or so of working the pace and pushing the climbs, we had a pack of 8 following behind us. I knew I wasn’t going to win this year because of my age of 56, but also some behind me were not only younger but much faster than I. Bob Mathes is 55, but he’s not normal

About 10 miles in, it started to get hot in the sun and I backed off of the pace a bit and one guy stayed with me and i was happy to have the company. Chris Shanley and I worked the pace and reeled in two runners who were struggling on the many climbs of the unforgiving Skyline Trail. Now we have 5 runners ahead of us…with the two runners we passed stalking us in the distance, coming into the aid stations just as we were about to leave. Man, I didn’t want to have “this” kind of race!

Soon we came into the 16 mile aid station and hoped we had dropped those two runners, but then in the heat of the next 10 mile loop, I started to struggle a bit. Up high there was a nice breeze, but down low it was hot. We came to a water stop and i decided to dump out the Sustained Energy I was using and switch to plain water. Just as we got to the water stop we heard a noise and sure enough there was Tom and Ryan crashing down a trail through the briars, along with Paul Kearney who obviously got off course somehow. We got going, but just had to stop at a stream to soak a bit to cool off. As I started sipping the water and maybe from the water on my shirt helping to cool me down, I started to feel better, so Chris and I started to run hard again and luckily I know the course well enough that I don’t have to second guess the turns we were making. We blast down the last hill in that section to the 26 mile aid station thinking we had dropped them, but here they are coming in just as we are about to leave. I fill my hand held bottle, dropping the 2 bottle Nathan pack, grabbed a pickle and started to move. This loop we would not give ourselves a break, we were now “really” in a race and they were probably planning on catching us on this last 5+ mile loop…so we pushed the pace. We ran when we could and even when we didn’t want to. Up the hills, crashing through the trees, hopping over rocks and soon there was the pond we had to run around. 1 more mile…we started to run around the pond on the nice clean trail and I didn’t dare look behind us. Chris was running much stronger than i so I told him to get moving, so he left me reluctantly. Over the next rise I see him standing there looking for the trail…I yell to him “Go left!” He looks and see the trail marker and takes off with me chasing him. We are now sprinting around the pond and Chris crosses the line in 5th place about 10 seconds before I do in 6:45:10.

Although this was my slowest DRB, I consider this one a success in that even though I am closer to 60 than 50, I was only 10 minutes slower than 12 years ago when i won that first DRB. I guess the training is still working.

Today as a cooldown Deb and I went and did a hike for 5 hours on the Wapack Trail, where in three weeks we’ll be running the Wapack 50. A very tough single track trail with over 14,000′ of climb. I am very tired right now, but it feels good….time for a Guinness!

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Wasatch Speed Goat Mountain Racing Team http://tinyurl.com/6pctxo

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/ultrastevep