Volunteering with the Ultra Medical Team, SD100, June 6 2015

Last week from Memorial Day through Sunday  May 31, I ran 99 miles:  Long runs included  20 milers on Mt Wilson on Monday and Saturday followed by a Sunday 27 miler with the AC100 training group from Islip Saddle to Chilao.  It was a great running week and I was reminded just how ethereally beautiful is that stretch over Mt. Williamson through to Chilao.

After peaking up the mileage thus, this early in the season, it was time for a planned rest week.   Happily this coincided with the SD100  race weekend on June 6-7.  I had made plans to volunteer at SD100 as an Ultra Medical Team medic.  UMT Director Nick assigned me to Penny Pines 1 and 2 (mile 34.5 and mile 56 respectively).   I spent an extremely fun day helping out runners at these aid stations,  dealing with blisters and hot spots on feet, extreme bonk, nausea, and the various sorts of "-itis" that crop up in these races.  A very interesting "case"  involved a runner who came in at mile 34.5 with achilles pain.  After examining the runner's achilles and shoes I saw that the runner's shoe had a very stiff heel cup that was irritating the achilles tendon.  Based on my own experience with this situation, I made the recommendation that we try cutting the back of the shoe to take the pressure off the tendon;  after being reassured that the runner had a spare pair of shoes in case this didn't work out, we proceeded to cut vertical slits in the heel cup adjacent to the achilles tendon.  The runner went on and came through at mile 56 reporting that the fix had eliminated the tendon pain!

Nick as always was everywhere on course.  Here is photo of our Director heading off into the night on a trail bike to reverse sweep the course:

It was a fabulous day and great fun to part of the UMT and the SD100.

Here are some more adventures I have had with the UMT:

Volunteering with the UMT at the 2014 AC100:
http://fredippides.blogspot.com/2014/08/volunteering-at-2014-ac100-great.html

Race medic at Kodiak 100, Sept 2014

http://fredippides.blogspot.com/2014/09/Kodiak100