My watch was already near 4 pm shortly after we left from Spooner Lake aid station (Start/Finish). Soon Todd and I were ascending from 6,980ft to 8,500ft, my back of head gave me a pounding headache. It was like an army marched with his rhythmical steps, synchronizing with my pounding heart rates. I could not withstand myself with this pain any longer and took one Alive pill hoping to work it out. I also suspected myself from excessive dehydration from the strong afternoon heat while I was pounding downhills earlier. I increased consumption of water, more precisely, drinking a sport drink, coconut water, and coke mix. I approached to the Marlette lake second time, and it was still in beauty to look at light reflection with orange afternoon sun. I was uneventful to move through Hobart aid station take one more pill of Ibuprofen, drink more, eat some PBJ, chips, and watermelon to continued uphill to get the second aid station. At this point, my mind set was pretty much focusing on how to reach to the next aid station rather than thinking big picture of finishing on expected time. I was though frustrated about my health condition. My leg clearly had more juice to move forward continuously, but pounding headache pulled me behind and forced me to power-walk some sections. The marching army of headache sneaked up on me more closer than before, and they were like in a target range to shoot their rifle to finish off their commando.
I managed myself to get to the Tunnel Creek Aid (4th) (62 miles at 12:57:47) and felt that this 100km distance so far was pretty good pace, except my headache and breathing at now. However, my heart rates were well under 140bpm considering breathing so hard. I knew I need to eat some real food for another long stretch of 40 miles to go, but I did not had any appetite to Aid station table. I forcefully had myself soup with bread and refueled with more sport drink. We took off the Tunnel Creek aid station for the second loop of red house loop, and soon we jogged downhill down but a lot slower pace than first time I came down the hill. when we approached the bottom of the valley, I was already walking myself to flat jeep road. The steep uphill section was terrible for my legs that I had to stop middle of the hill to catch my breath once. I managed myself to get to the Red House aid station and had garlic butter mash potato and coke. These instant sugar and carbohydrate regenerated some energies to start jogging a mile stretch traverse section. Coke has some magic to it. I don't know exactly what is chemically activated me to push jogging and power-walking uphill to Tunnel Creek Aid (5th). At this point, all I wanted to eat and to recoup my energy level, but my stomach was not be able to handle much for food. I forcefully put thick and nasty taste of concentrated sugar from the Gu gel pack into my mouth and immediately swallow with water to dilute and washed out the bad sugar aftertaste. The result? I ended up giving an acidic liquid fertilizer to wild plants from my mouth. I felt ease after that but had to give some left over again shortly after walking another 20 ft or so. I told myself "OK, my stomach was now completely empty and nothing to come out".
The second nightmare was happened shortly after the twilight. I pulled out Petzl RXP headlamp and turn on to middle strength setting for extended burn-time for long night jog. After 30 minutes past or so, my headlamp flashed few times for indicating running out of the battery. It cannot be right. I thought I changed it to new batteries before packed into the drop bag at Tunnel Creek Aid station. Apparently, I confused myself to grab a pack of spent batteries and left behind the brand new batteries. My headlight was less than 5 lumen strength to even see a surface of trail. Unfortunately, my backup batteries that I packed in my running pack are also spent batteries that were useless and adding now a little weight to my running pack. Luckily, my pacer letting me to use his headlamp for seeing some obstacles on trail to continue another 6 mile stretch of steep and technical downhills that many enthusiastic mountain bikers would salivate the drop lines of continuous jumps and sharp turns. We, on the other hand, were not able to see small details of obstacles on the trail and slowed down for this section. I had minor twist on my left ankle for twice during this descend but did not fell down to kiss the ground, which was very proud myself of.
I finally see the dim of light way down the trail where it should be my next aid station. My second pacer, Scott Leonard, was awaiting for me there to take over the pacing duty. When I arrived at Diamond Peak Aid (2nd) 20 minutes past 11pm on Saturday, I felt I was spent. I was frustrated myself with this stomach problem, which seems always happened to me for 100 mile races. I told an aid station captain who was also a medical doctor asked about my condition of fatigue, stomach issue, headache, and breathing issues. He suggested to take more real foods, not gels and sugary candies, to settle down the stomach and re-energize by foods from digestion to uptake carbs and sugars. He offered me "Onigiri" rice ball with simply added sea salt and vegetable soup. I sat down the chair and had those food slowly. My stomach wasn't surprised by those foods either. I took time stayed at the Diamond peak aid almost 45 minutes to let my body digest food a bit. I, though, was still not so happy to look at watch that I already lost so much time that I knew I won't make myself to under 24 hour mark. At this point, my objective for the race changed from primary goal of under 24hrs finish to just finish the race. I felt I was ultimate failure to myself. I needed to take much more seriously about altitude I was running and dehydration from an afternoon heat that I was faced on.
Finally I managed myself to stand up and continued another 20 miles of journey to finish line, which was not probably going to be glorious or beautiful. I was ready to take more pain and unpleasant long power-walking. I tried not to think too much about steep 2 mile uphill that was experienced earlier in the day. I had to walk this section first to accomplish my alternative goal at this point. The two mile uphill was clearly the favorite section for RD to give some love from TRT to runners. While I pushed my quad muscles by two hands to step forward very slowly, I still had to stop myself catching my breath for few minutes. One cool thing I discovered myself at middle of chin scraper uphill was to find a small desert scorpion, which was size of my thumb. I personally had not seen a wild scorpion since my childhood, lived in Cairo, Egypt for three years when I was between 9 to 12 years old. The last aid station crew said to me about this two mile section for "Don't worries, it just takes only1hour of slow hiking." Yah, right. I felt this hill lasted me forever, but his estimates of time was a right on the money to arrived next aid station at the top of the hill.
After I left the small aid station, there are runnable traverse section to Tunnel Creek Aid. I started to try jogging the long beautiful stretch of trail, but this caused me shaken too much my stomach to give another liquid (some solids) fertilizer to a beautiful juvenile pine tree. Maybe I was too ambitious about recovering my health condition and running trail to catch up my goal time. I guess I learned denial myself in hard way. It was just because there were no significant ups and downhills at the sections, that does not necessarily mean easy for my tired and screwed up body. Soon my stomach was empty again, and I had no apatite at all. My brain autonomously induced me to gag by just looking at Gu gel packet. At this point, my only a little friend to give me wings were coke. I was so tired to get to the Tunnel Creek Aid Station at that point, and my eyes weren't focus any specific point. I saw one volunteer girl approached me, and she asked me to get anything I needed at the aid. Then all of sudden I was kissing my face to ground. I could not comprehend myself what was just happened. My aid station girl suddenly disappear from my eye sights less than one short second, and I laid down to the ground for no reason. The aid station girl was so surprised that I tripped over by little rock and screamed "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" It took me good two seconds to realize I was on the ground face down. It was just like a comical fall that you can find at many online video sources for laugh. I slowly got up and evaluate myself for any serious damages to my body, but there were no pain associated with this fall. My legs weren't lifted up enough for even walking. At this point, I bet I can totally win a role for acting as a zombi that will be shot by a main character's first shotgun at the opening roll of the movie.
I don't remember much how I got out from the Tunnel Creek Aid to continue my journey, but I remembered that I had hard time keep my eyelid to stay open. My contact lens were so dried, which already past more than 24 hours wearing them since last night (1:50am) and hurting my eyes so much. I finally asked or even begged to my pacer, Scott, for 10 minutes nap to just close my eyes. I laid down to the ground and closed my eyes. This was the best things I ever experienced. While closing my eyes, my body felt lighter than before, and I had very short dream that I was running in the forest in happy face. Then, the words brought me back to reality. "Okay, it's ten minutes. Time to go." I got up and continued walking. Before the race, my pacer was so concerned about dropping him alone from pacing duty because he thought he wasn't strong enough to keep up with me running. Well, I did not think that was a such issue anymore. My pacer was kicked my butt to moving forward, which was exactly what a pacer needed to do at that point. It was like a love and hate relationship. I admitted myself that I was way too whiny about my health conditions. I think that was something I should never do to my pacer. The worst thing about being whiny is that it makes also my pacer being helpless. There are nothing he could do to change my health problems, which were found out to be acute altitude sickness I got. That was sorely my responsibility to take this run to be more respectable at this elevation of running (8000 to 9000ft).
I must arrived at Hobart Aid Station (4th) around 4:20am. The aid station crews were all looked like bunches of drunker and pretty wasted. No body helped us for foods or drinks at this Tiki bar theme aid station. I just grabbed whatever edible for little more energy to continue the last 10 mile to the finish. Scott also grabbed me turkey cheese sandwich with coke. While I was munching it, a big dog just sat down in front of me begging for food. The owner of this dog was pretty wasted and said to me, "That's o.k. He's not gonna have your food." I replied to him, "Um, ah, your big dog is on my laps now." Scott finally pushed off the dog from my laps. I was tired but need to get myself out before whole a lot of troubles. 
I knew there was only one more push to reach the 9000+ft. The eastern sky started to get red-orange color, and night lights from Carson city and Reno still shined the valley of Nevada. The view was beautiful but cold wind picked up at meadow where we were already at above timber line. The meadow was actually very beautiful. There were many colorful wild flowers of yellow and blue, some stink cabbage patches that were tall enough to cover up my knee high. The continuous gradual uphill lasted about a mile, and I finally saw the big white tent that was the last aid station, Snow Valley Peak aid (2nd). I arrived this aid station around 5:25am, just past 24hour mark.
Wow dude, don't puke in the Tent!
I knew there were only 6.2 miles to go and drop down from 9000 to 7000ft. It should not be that difficult if your stomach is cooperate with shaking abdomen by downhill running. It rather turned out that it was most difficult section for me to continued more than 400 m jog at the time. I had to stop myself to recoup my breathing and stomach upset. What a whiny trail runner. Yes I was very whiny at that point and wanted to over with this so I can relive from the pain. Scott told me that "dude, you gonna continue moving now. After cross the finish line, you can forget all your pain faced on right now." "Okay, I feel I gonna puke but nothing came out from my stomach." This whiny dude some how continued to jog down for good two miles and let puke out for almost nothing. I continued to do this for another 2 more miles to reach the bottom of the downhill. There was only a 1.2 mile to go. there was only rolling ups and downs but mostly flat trail along the Spooner lake side. I must be half way crying for holding up another urge of puke. The last right turn for short single track to approach the white tent with big blue sign of Finish. This whiny dude kept whining "dude this is sucks, and I gonna puke!" for next 400m of single track. I made to cross the finish line and immediately went backside of the white tent and let all crap out to the grassy area.
Total time to finish 100 mile: 26:17:28.
I was sure my eye lids had little teardrops from puking earlier.
Collapsed. Zzzzzzz.
"Gees, this guy never learn himself to not drinking beer." "Hey, it is the best recovery drink, right?"
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