Number 46 AC100_Kudos (2011) "Drew" AKA Andrew Foote 2011_0730_Sat [see also my "AC100_Race_Report"] Dear Reader,

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1 Number 46 AC100_Kudos (2011) "Drew" AKA Andrew Foote 2011_0730_Sat [see also my "AC100_Race_Report"] Dear Reader, During the "pink cloud" phase of my recovery, about mid-week, I was overcome by gratitude (still am, and hope to continue to be), and riding the wave of enthusiasm and electric excitement that often follows a big race like AC100. I've edited what follows a little bit, but left the rest as I wrote it at the time to best catch the feeling of that heady time and the heady race I just finished and to be sure to convey the real reason why I sat down to write when I did, which was to thank all those people I ran with, and everyone else that helped put this year's race on: FIRST THINGS FIRST! [Monday morning] Dear Friends, It's not surprising that, after feeding our three pups this morning (the first thing), the very next first thing on my list (even before sitting down to my welldeserved sausage and eggs down about 8 pounds) is this letter, to express my deepest and most sincere appreciation, to all my fellow runners, to all the volunteers, and to the race directors, Ken and Hal, of this year's AC Mile Endurance Run. If I've missed something or someone important (considering my mental state right now, a distinct possibility), my apologies, and I will be sure to correct it (when it comes to me) in the future. I began composing this as I was running from Sam Merrill to the finish, starting with a kind of runner's report card that had been going through my head at odd times and places between Wrightwood and Altadena:

2 2011 AC Mile Endurance Run Website: EXEMPLARY Race Book: EXEMPLARY Race Day Live: EXEMPLARY Ham Radio Crews: EXEMPLARY (They make it all happen, and bring it all to life, for our friends and families far away) Trail Work: EXEMPLARY Trail Marking: EXEMPLARY A.S.A.P. (Aid Station Attitude and Professionalism): EXEMPLARY R.J.A.C. (Running Joviality and Camaraderie): EXEMPLARY P.R.S.P. (Pre Race Slumber Party) hospitality and snoring: EXEMPLARY P.R.W.H. (Pre-Race Wrightwood Hosts): EXEMPLARY (could anyone ask for anything more better!?) U.S.F.S. presence and comments, before and after the race: EXEMPLARY Drop Bags: EXEMPLARY (Sure, we had a little snafu at the end, but think of how much we runners depended on our bags getting to their appropriate aid station, during the race, and how all we had to do was throw them in a pile under a sign by the split rail fence in Wrightwood. It wasn't magic that got them to their aid station, back to the finish line, and neatly organized under a nice little sign on the green grass, just off the parking lot, where we didn't have to walk an extra step on uncertain legs and feet to retrieve them. Let's get real and positive here! So thanks to all who made that happen, even if my post-race change of favorite, comfortable clothes and poison removal kit took a slight detour ;<) ). AC100 Finisher shirt: EXEMPLARY AC100 Awards (First Class!): EXEMPLARY (I mean, come on, your own personal, engraved plaque at the finish line!?) R.D.A.P. (Race Director Awards and Presentation): EXEMPLARY Post-race food, festivities, drinks, services, Good Times for families and friends, and location: EXEMPLARY And although I didn't need them, during or after the race (others did, and were fortunate), it was a big support just knowing they were there, and totally on top of their game (due diligence, and all the rest, from the first weigh-in, all the way

3 through to the finish line, under the shade canopy at Loma Alta park, where a happy customer could go for a foot bath, heave basin, or some life saving oxygen), so a special mention: M.T.S.S. (Medial Team Support Services): EXEMPLARY I've used this word a lot, so a definition is in order, because in each case, I meant just what I said: ex em pla ry 1. Worthy of imitation; commendable: exemplary behavior. 2. Serving as a model. 3. Serving as an illustration; typical. The greatest test of any work of art (and I consider AC100 fully in that class, and first in its class) is how easy the artist makes it look. A great artist once said, in response to a comment on how effortlessly the brilliant work appeared on canvass, that if they knew how hard he had to work to get it there, it wouldn't seem so effortless. I sign up on a beautiful website that does all my work for me, print out a TRULY EXEMPLARY RACE BOOK, go run an easy 50-miler to qualify, hop in the car for a day's play and trail work up in the mountains, giving back to keep our forest strong and healthy for everyone, start counting down the months and then weeks and then days and hours, show up in Wrightwood, go out to a GREAT breakfast or dinner and have a good time with my friends, talk about how I'm going to knock an hour off last year's time, get sleepy, go to bed, wake up, yawn, splash some water on my face, stand in the dark under the start banner until the fire engine roars, run through some of the most beautiful country in the world, with some of the most inspirational, friendly and remarkable people running ahead of or behind of me or working at aid stations or as crew, run through the night, watched over by stars and the rising moon, experience the joy of a second sunrise, cruise effortlessly down from Sam Merrill to the finish, get greeted like a champion at the finish line (even if I'm pushing cutoff), get hugs and grub and grog and wobble around with a foolish grin on my face, while thousands of miles away, my family and friends have been staying up all night with me, watching my progress online on a TRULY EXEMPLARY RACE DAY LIVE DISPLAY, in real time.

4 It may look easy, but it's not. It takes talent, team work, and above all, ENDURANCE to put on a first-class endurance race, and we have two such races in our own back yard! For Hal and Ken and Gary, the real work is to come back each year and do it all again, in that very special way that is theirs alone, to call us all together once more, like a gathering of the tribes of old, year after year, each year a new, living work of art even better and more awesome than the last, each year a gathering of faces both new and old. "I want the real life," goes an old song. "I don't want to sit at home and watch tv." Isn't the kind of tradition and fellowship and camaraderie that we gather to celebrate each year what we are all hungering for, and mostly have to go to movies (some of us) to feebly relive and attempt to recreate for an hour or two? Are these race directors not the leaders who are leaders because, sitting there in the great hall, they have earned their place not only in great battles, but long after they were in battle themselves, working tirelessly to ensure peace and prosperity for our tribe, creating alliances of helpers of all kinds and contingency plans beyond counting, giving all their share of responsibility and a chance to be leaders themselves, settling small or great disputes, never taking sides, always displaying those qualities that make them living models of what it really means to be exemplary, always giving others an opportunity to discover that what they thought were their limits were just the red lights out of Chantry Flats, or the start of the old Rattlesnake Trail out of Westfork. We were talking before the race about preparations to celebrate several 30-year AC100 finishes coming up in a few years. How is such a stupendous feat even possible? It s mind-boggling, to be sure! Certainly, the superhuman ability and ENDURANCE of these super, super, ultra runners is something to gaze at, spellbound, like a great masterpiece in a museum. But behind every great ultra runner like this, behind every AC100 winner (as our young winner this year, so wise before his time, so eloquently and humbly acknowledged his comments were for me one of the great high points of the race) there stands an even greater runner; and behind this runner, there is a race to challenge him or her to dream ever greater, impossible dreams, and reach ever higher and ever longer in pursuit of their goals; and behind every great race, there is a Race Director (or two), whose single job it is to make this all possible (not a job, really, a labor of love), to set the stage, write the script, trick the actors into performing, then stand back, light the fuse, and watch us go. That I get to race in the two best races in the

5 world, under the leadership of the three best race directors in the biz Ken Hamada, Hal Winton, and Gary Hilliard with the best and most dedicated groups of volunteers ever assembled, and that I stumbled upon all this one night many moons ago while walking with my wife and dogs at night along the road in Charleton Flats and saw these folks coming up the trail with headlamps on, for that gift, that blessing, I will be forever grateful. Poodle-dog bush, Turricula parryi Andrew Foote, Charleton Flats After all, it s a beautiful world!