 posted Oct-08-2007 10:08 PM
  
Bizz Johnson & the Psycho Race Director
(long but with photos)Oct 6, 2007
****Warning****
This is a long one so grab a cup of coffee if you think you have the stamina to plow through this self indulgent race report. This is a two part story. The first part is about the actual race event and the last part is about our horrible experience with the RD. This is my therapy so please bear with… The Bizz Johnson event is in Susanville, CA which is 85 miles NW of Reno. We arrived in Reno on Thursday, gambled a little at Harrah’s, and then headed to Susanville Friday morning where we got into a bit of a blizzard. Nothing like leaving decent weather in Montana to find snow in California. Fun Stuff! [west of Susanville]
 [Westwood, Paul Bunyan Land]
 The Events
Bizz Johnson is a rails to trail course that has multiple events. An Express HM takes place on Saturday and is basically all downhill starting about 5000 ft in elevation. Sunday’s events include an out and back HM, full marathon, 10k out and back, and a 5k. The out and back events start at the finish line and run uphill before turning around at the halfway point. We registered for the Express HM and other Montana friends were participating in either the half or the full. Background and Goals
Mr C and I ran a HM 3 weeks ago in Montana and it was a big step for us to plan another one so soon afterwards. This would be my 5th HM in a hair over a year and his 3rd since he started running about August 2006. Our goals are always pretty simple. Have fun, not injure anything, and of course I always hope to beat Mr C to the finish. Three weeks ago I beat him by about 6 or 7 minutes. Unfortunately, he refuses to actually care whether I beat him or not which takes some of the fun out of it for me. We were also hoping for another Boomer meeting – this time with Divechief and Arf who were running the full marathon. Pre-Race: The Trouble Begins
While the area had received some decent snow in the higher elevations, the Susanville area was dry. We expected to have chilly starting temps but that’s just the way we like it. We picked up our race packets at the Train Depot which was a bit of a letdown but certainly no biggie. Unfortunately, there was very little information available and the one fellow we spoke to wasn’t very friendly. We received a white Hanes t-shirt with a nice logo – I was hoping for another tech shirt. Oh, and no expo – just a guy selling a few things out of a trailer. My friend had picked up their packets earlier in the day and she had a very upsetting conversation with the Race Director. In fact, she was actually quite furious with him. She said he nearly bit her head off when she tried to ask a couple of basic out-of-towner type questions. She left the packet pickup with her questions unanswered. She’s a very experienced racer doing everything from small town stuff to the Hawaii Ironman. From that point on she referred to him as the Nazi Race Director. Mr C and I are pretty easy going people and while we sympathized with our friend we also know that RD’s are extremely busy and stressed people. Without a doubt it is a tough job. In other words, we’d give him the benefit of the doubt. Fast forward to race day We arrive at the Depot Sat. morning for the pre-race meeting and the RD immediately starts hollering at people to get on the bus, saying it’s the LAST bus and it only holds 55 people (200 are registered). We scampered aboard and then sat for about 30 minutes or more wondering what the other people were going to do. At least it was warm inside. Finally the RD boarded the bus and explained that there were 7 other buses coming for the other runners. Whew! Now I don’t have to feel so guilty about taking a seat. He also informed us that the course will be re-routed because the road to the original start was too snowy and icy to drive the buses on. Can’t imagine this happening in Montana but whatever. You take what you get. So now instead of a downhill course, the new course will start near Mile 20 of the marathon and run about 3.5 miles uphill before turning around. The RD assured us they would try to make the new course as accurate as possible. Again, whatever… We are the kind of people who go with the flow. After all that rigmarole at the Depot, the race was only about 5 minutes late in starting. Not bad considering… [elevation profile]
 The temperature was perfect for running – probably 30ish. While many people wore long pants, I wore my black shorts, black long sleeved top under my green Va Beach Shamrock tech shirt. I also wore my black Shamrock hat and black mittens. I was dressed perfectly and the mittens didn’t stay on long. Mr C was in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. The first mile actually started on a narrow downhill before beginning a long, gradual climb. Our first mile was about 11:30 because it was single file and crowded. Yikes! Not a good start. As we were able to spread out and start working our way uphill to the turnaround, I realized this was the longest uphill segment I have ever run. It was a little weird watching the marathon mile markers get smaller instead of larger (19…..18.....17…). It was as if we were going back to the future. We were running easily at 10:30 pace and both felt good. Unfortunately, those first 3 miles were slower than what I needed for a PR. But some things are simply not worth stressing about so I decided to make this a sightseeing run with Mr C and forget worrying about a PR. In retrospect, I threw in the towel on the PR waaay too early. Our guy friend hit the turnaround ahead of us and we saw him head back down the hill. He was in 2nd place overall right behind a young gal. We cheered for him and snickered about him being behind a woman, knowing that would inspire him to work hard. Everything was going very well for me. I felt really good – no sign of stomach trouble like last time. My breathing felt easy despite the higher elevation and initial uphill. Mr C felt good too. The trail surface was nice with mostly hard packed dirt. However, there were sections with some chunky gravel that could turn ankles and some occasional patches of horse manure. There was no snow or ice and the trail was completely dry. Mr C stayed behind me single file fashion. I gave up a long time ago trying to get him to run next to me. He probably prefers to run behind me so he doesn’t have to make conversation. But one of these days he’s going to have to take his turn at leading and let me draft.  [wooden bridge]
 Our pace per mile dipped a little below 10:00 on the downhill and went as low as 9:30. A couple of times I started to get a bit ahead of him so slowed down a smidgeon. I need a rearview mirror to help keep track of him. The last part of the course is by far the prettiest. Some of the trees looked nearly neon yellow next to the dark pines. We ran over several wooden bridges and through two train tunnels that are 450 and 800 ft in length. The 2nd tunnel was very dark – so dark I could not see the trail surface so I just focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. Is this what a near-death experience feels like? Fortunately, the running surface was level but it still felt strange to run in the dark like that. [Note to Moderator Hup: No lanterns or cones in the tunnels]. [first tunnel]
 [fall colors]
 We hit Mile 10 and I realized I had slowed down when Mr C pulled up next to me looking really strong. I complimented him and said something about it not being a PR day for me but he said he still had hope. So I picked up the pace to stay with him. I was very pleased with how strong he looked as he typically crashes hard at Mile 10. We ran side by side until Mile 11 when my stomach started to act up. Cripes. I could not believe it was happening at this point in the race. I wished MrC good luck and dropped to a walk in hopes of getting past the stomach trouble. I walked/jogged the last bit to the finish. That really stunk as I had felt so good up to that point. I’m not sure what’s more aggravating: stomach problems at the beginning of a race or at the end. Details
Mr C got a PR by a minute or so. My finish time was my 4th slowest out of 5 HMs. I placed 10/22 in my division and 61/123 Gender. Mr C took 16/19 division and 57/82 Gender. Our friend ran a tight race with the girl until the end when he passed her for 1st OA. My Garmin measured the course at 13.4, MrC measured it at 13.35 and someone else measured it at 13.5. So I’m betting the course was a tad long.
Pasta Night
Saturday night we went to the pasta dinner at the Elks Lodge. Yeah, I know you are supposed to do that BEFORE you run – not afterwards. The RD spoke for about 15 minutes, mostly whining about how expensive guest speakers are to hire and that he had $7,000 in port-a-john expenses. I thought all the talk about race expenses was a bit tacky. As you can tell, I’m not overly impressed by the RD but not paying him much attention either. The speaker turned out to be a BLM person who had a significant role in converting the abandoned railway into the trail. He had a good slide show and lots of interesting historical info. The meal was decent too.
Boomer Meeting
Our Sunday plan was to watch our 3 lady friends finish the marathon and also catch Divechief and Arf before heading back to Reno to catch our flights. We went to Mile 21 where we saw 2 of our friends plus Divechief run by. I didn’t realize it was Divechief until he got right next to us but I still yelled at him as he flew past looking strong and determined. I didn’t know if he heard me or not but I did get this photo of him. [Divechief in red at Mile 21]
We then hurried off to the finish line. Speaking of the finish, the race is diverted from the main trail and goes down this little, narrow chicken trail to the finish area in Hobo Camp. It would be very hard to pass someone on that trail.
The Bizarre Part Because we were cutting it close, MrC decided to drop me off at the finish area so I could get some photos and then he’d go park the car. As we were starting down the road to the finish, the RD drove in front of us so we drove around him not thinking anything of it. I mean, we knew we weren’t supposed to park there; however, the sign at the entrance said “No parking – bus turnaround.” Well, we weren’t parking – just turning around. We figured the RD wouldn’t care once he saw I was just getting out of the car. Well, the RD followed Mr C back up to the parking lot and took his photo as he was getting out of the car and then disappeared. Mr C thought that was pretty strange but no words were exchanged between the men. MrC joined me at the finish where we watched our friends finish and also caught Divechief. Everything was going great. Our friends ended up placing 5th, 6th, and 38th OA Female and Divechief did great too. Everyone was happy and having fun. Unfortunately, we were going to miss Arf due to our flight schedule. Dave, it was nice to meet you in person even though our time was short. As we were about to leave, we heard the PA system announce, “Would the driver of the white, Sebring convertible please move your car as you are blocking traffic.” That was our rental car but we were not blocking traffic. He parked it in a legitimate parking spot. We had to leave for the airport and on the way back to our car when we were confronted by two police officers. They knew who we were because the RD had shown them the photo he had taken of MrC. Turns out the Psycho RD had called the cops and asked them to “remove this man from the premises.” They asked for MrC’s ID and said the RD told them he was driving erratically. Uh, not even close. We explained the order of events to the officers and they seemed rather put out to have even been called for this matter. In fact, they said they had better things to do with their time. However, they still needed to take down MrC’s name, yada, yada, yada. Honest folks, WE DID NOTHING WRONG! I don’t get angry easily but have gotten myself really worked up over this. It was probably a good thing we needed to scoot to the airport as Mr C would’ve confronted the RD about his accusations and behavior. However, we were too short of time. I have no idea why this guy took it to the extent he did. If he had a problem with Mr C driving through the turnaround, why didn’t he just say something to him instead going on this power trip of taking his photo and calling the cops. This is where I really must rant While the Bizz Johnson Trail is a lovely course, I would never in a million years participate in the event again nor any other event promoted by RD Eric Gould. We happily spent a fair amount of money to travel to California to participate in this race. The RD and his right hand man (whatever his name was) were inhospitable to us and our friends starting back at the packet pickup but we could’ve gotten past all that as everyone has bad days. We are nice, normal, law-abiding people and certainly did not deserve the humiliation of being confronted by police officers in a public area for no reason. So much for giving this RD the benefit of the doubt – this guy is downright strange. MrC is a regional sales manager of the largest geographic territory in a company that is 3rd largest in its industry. My husband lives, breathes and drinks customer service and was appalled at what transpired at this event. We are not needy customers nor hard to please. We went to Susanville looking for good times with friends, hoping to make new friends along the way while enjoying a mini vacation together. We were happy to spend our money supporting the local Susanville economy but sure never expected to be treated like we were. I am not the type of person to blow things out of proportion and it makes me sad that I have allowed this awful man to sour my long weekend with my husband. I’m sure most people thought the event went well and I really don’t understand why things turned out so badly for us. All that RD crap aside, the last couple of days have been a rather emotional roller coaster for me. In retrospect, I am upset with myself for how I handled my own race. Basically, as soon as the RD announced the change in the course, my thoughts were, “There goes a PR.” I certainly could’ve run that course faster considering how I felt for the first 11 miles. But rather than try pushing a little harder through the difficulties, I took the easy way out. Yes, the bright side is that I enjoyed most of the course with my DH. Yes, he beat me which is really not a big deal. He ran a smart race and I am happy for him. I simply feel like I need to start making some decisions regarding running. I have real life friends who are very serious about their racing and many people on CR are equally as serious if not more. I feel some self-induced pressure to start taking this more seriously but I’m not sure if that’s what I really want to do. I’m great at self protecting and not sure I want to get out of my comfort zone. In light of the problems at the Chicago Marathon, I feel rather trivial complaining about anything. However, I did want to share how it went for us. If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading this very long report and I hope you enjoyed the photos. If you are looking for a wonderful rails to trails course in the west with a highly professional Race Director, I strongly recommend the Deadwood-Michelson Trail over the Bizz Johnson. That’s my last HM for a while. Thanks for reading.
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choover
[This message has been edited by choover (edited Oct-08-2007).]
IP: Logged |
you certainly didn't waste anything; you've made lots of breakthroughs with your running, and you'll make more in the near future, i'm sure. you don't have to be a super-serious runner or do runs for fun; it's not an either/or situation, you can do both. embrace your yin and your yang, recover for a bit, and get back to enjoying running!
I'm very glad to hear that you made it though those tunnels upright 
One would think that a race this small would be more personable and friendly. I have to say I've had much better luck in the big races and I certainly won't be making any trips to Susanville in the near or distant future. Don't beat yourself up about the race. Chalk it up as another experience - one I'm sure you won't forget in a long time. I think you did great and look forward to reading your name in the newspaper and YRR newsletter in the future. Take care!
