THE 2007 BISHOP HIGH SIERRA ULTRA-MARATHON

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THE 2007 BISHOP HIGH SIERRA ULTRA-MARATHON
May 19, 2007

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Name Time Placing Overall

Jason Grose 13:22:57
61/74

Full Results

The third in a series of painful adventures. But this marks my best time ever despite running an extra two miles on the course because I'm, well, you know, pretty much retarded.

The family joined me this year and we made it into a little vacation to the desert. I know that connecting the concept of "vacation" and "50 mile ultra through the desert" isn't intuitive but I never claimed to be all that gifted in the brains department. The bottom line is that I finished and we had a great weekend together.... except for the wrenching pain and all but that aside, great weekend.

The Pictures:

Day 1 Traveling to Bishop

Day 2: The Race

Results

The Race Report

Here is a map of the course. Start and end is in the upper right corner and then follow the arrows.

Notice on Edison Loop, you are supposed to go straight to Overlook and then back down, taking the right around that loop to get back to Edison.

Well, I was following a guy and he took that turn on the way up and like an idiot, I followed him. Ends up he was hurt and was calling it quits so he just started heading down the mountain.

I caught up to him about a mile down ("top" arrow of the three) before I realized I had not gone all the way to the top.

So I had to backtrack back up the hill to the middle arrow and continue up to Overlook. This added two miles to the course for me before I headed back and took the right turn when I was supposed to.

I still beat my PR by 10 minutes but I would have shaved another 30 minutes off if I would have been paying better attention.

Just so you are catching what I'm throwing here, note that we start at 4425 feet, climb all the way to 9500 feet, and a full one half of the course is above 7500 feet.

If these numbers don't mean anything to you, let me help you out. We started high, went higher, and stayed high for most of the race.

Not only does the climb up destroy your butt and hamstrings but the decent (which SHOULD be the payoff) shreds up your quads and crumbles you knees and ankles.

Add in there that because of the altitude, there is significantly less oxygen to be had which makes breathing a labor of hate.