A perfect 100
Brian Harvey owns a certificate, one that his wife purchased
him, to go skydiving out of Hollister Municipal Airport.
But no, he says, that freaks him out.
A perfect 100
Brian Harvey owns a certificate, one that his wife purchased him, to go skydiving out of Hollister Municipal Airport.
But no, he says, that freaks him out.
Harvey, 32, recently returned from Southern California where he competed in the Angeles Crest 100-mile Endurance Run, an ultra marathon that began in Wrightwood and went non-stop to Pasadena.
Although the distance between the two towns is a mere 68 miles, the Angeles Crest 100 finds a way to reach the century mark, perhaps hitting every trail, alley way or side street along the route until it totals 1-0-0.
Of course, that doesn’t freak him out.
And yes, he finished.
“That was one of the craziest, well, it was definitely the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Harvey said. “It was awesome.”
Harvey, running beyond 68 miles for the first time, completed the epic race on Sunday afternoon – after starting the race at 5 a.m. on Saturday – in 32 hours, 12 minutes and 47 seconds.
And no, he’s not skydiving anytime soon.
“I’m still flying high,” said Harvey, whose ultimate goal was simply to finish.
Harvey did, though, suffer some injuries during the race. During mile 20, he said, Harvey planted his foot and the trail gave way from underneath, twisting his knee in the process. His altered gate supplied him with blisters he doesn’t normally get, meaning a few extra hours at the provided aid stations along the route.
Harvey estimated a total of three and a half hours at the aid stations, and he even flirted with the checkpoint times shortly after twisting his knee, which would have disqualified him from the race.
“I know if it wasn’t for my knee and my blisters, I know I could have done a lot better,” Harvey said. “But I’m not gonna take away from the fact that I finished.”
Harvey, who quickly realized he had 80 miles left in the race when he twisted his knee, a seemingly daunting task, broke the race down into “micro-steps” and set up small, manageable goals for himself – first just trying to make it to a certain geographical object on the course’s trail, then simply trying to make it to the next aid station.
“And that’s all I needed to do, just get to the next aid station,” he said. “If you put the whole 100 miles ahead of you, that’s pretty scary.”
Indeed.
Harvey got a mental pick-me-up at an aid station when his family – wife, daughters, cousin and mother-in-law – were there waiting for him. He said the echoes of his daughter screaming “I love you, daddy,” filled his head as he left, and perhaps provided a very much needed mental boost.
From there, he made up 30 minutes to the next aid station. Then an hour.
Giant blisters, chills, vomiting and lips so chapped they were bleeding filled the last half of his run, and while elevation climbs up to 9,200 feet were no picnic, the worst part was perhaps coming down, when Harvey had to sometimes walk due to the pressure on his knee.
“Where most people gain time on the downhills, I felt like I was losing time,” he said in an e-mail.
But the finish line was nearing at that point, and his daughter Kathryn paced him for the last 100 yards of the race.
“Once I knew I was gonna finish, it was such an emotional journey, an emotional rush,” Harvey said.
The race began with 135 starters and only 98 finished. Harvey placed 88th, which also matched his bib number (#88). For the numerology junkie, his daughter was recently born on 8/8/08 as well.
The top spot went to Hal Koerner of Ashland, Ore., whose time of 18:29.26 was nearly an hour better than second-place finisher Troy Howard of Walnut Creek (19:25.04).
As for Harvey, he had to purchase Crocs two sizes too big because his feet were swollen so much from the heavy pounding. Interestingly enough, though, he and his family after the race went to one of the few places where he’d fit in with oddly oversized feet: Disneyland.
Yep, after he completed 100 miles, Brian Harvey was at the happiest place on Earth.
