Filming the World's Shortest Ultra

Last weekend I stepped up to the starting line of one of the oldest ultra trail races in Arizona and only of the only ones in southern Arizona.  The Old Pueblo 50 Mile Endurance Run has been around for years and is one of the most friendly staffed with the most beautiful scenery in my racing log.

After some changes in management this year, Bob Bachani took over as Race Director and he pulled off an impressive performance, given that he took the reins with not much time to reorganize.

Many in the Tucson Trail Running community came to his aid and the event was top notch all around. The Summit Hut Camping Store stepped up with major sponsorship at the last minute and provided nice etched beer glasses for the goody bag, among other things. Hammer Nutrition also played a big role in donating product and signage for the race.

My body was horribly undertrained for this race, but after 15 years of doing them this way, why break with tradition?

Rosemont Copper, a multi-national mining company from Canada has recently acquired mineral rights to portions of the course and promptly closed access roads near their property. This caused a major disruption to the existing course and specifically Gunsight Pass, the most notorious climb of the course. Instead, the course now does a 25 mile loop and then hits repeat.  While it does insert a new section of welcomed single track, it also makes for a significant head game at the end of your first lap. Welcome home. There's your car right there. We got burgers on the barbe. But first, why don't you go back out and run another marathon over the very course you just finished?

When I saw the double loop design, it didn't take long to convince myself the night before to just opt for the first loop.

Plus, I'm still recovering from some tendonitis, probably, right?

More than anything, I was looking forward to using the event to test out my new camera setup.  For several states I've been filming the run using my GoPro Hero 3 camera.  Sometimes I mount it to my chest harness, which results in my swinging hands being in the shot most of the time. I also have a selfie stick that I can mount it to. This works better but there's still a significant bobble while watching. Puke Cam, as it's been described.

This year I upped my game and acquired a gimbal. Small name, huge potential.  This is a camera mount that has batteries, 3 independent motors and a controller.  I mounted my GoPro in the gimbal. Then mounted the gimbal onto the end of my selfie stick and left it there the whole race. Rather than carry it in my hand the whole time, I found a way to attach it to my shoulder strap and could easily remove it for shots when needed.

I was very happy with the result. It's nothing less than stunning. If you compare it to some footage from my recent trips, the difference is night and day.  If I hadn't been there to see it in action, I would have thought it was a drone flying next to me. It's that steady.  But don't take my word for it - see for yourself!



Click the link below to see the short 7 minute recap!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYSfuieIWzs

Besides super smooth footage, the other good news?  The course was a little long. After I finished the first lap, I looked down at my watch. Total distance for first loop: 26.3 miles.  A marathon is 26.219 miles. An ultra, by definition, is anything longer than a marathon. BOOOOOM!

Vicious Circle: The 8 Hour Race That Took 15 Years

When I first moved to Tucson around 2000, I loved heading to any of the cardinal points to run trails in the four mountain ranges surrounding the city. They are the crown jewels of the city, to be sure. But an hour of driving each way made me grow tired of the commute just for some adventure and I began to wonder if there was a way to find the same thing within city limits.

At the time I worked at the Summit Hut, a locally owned camping store.  I would run a different route from my home to the store each day, get cleaned up in the bathroom and change into work clothes for the day.  I enjoyed my run commute. It was a great way to start the day and it proved equally effective at shaking off the day's stresses of working retail (not that selling gear in a camping store is especially stressful, it's not).


As the months and years went by I transitioned into teaching middle school in the Vail School District located in the extreme far south east of the city. The only problem was that I lived in West Tucson.  The distance from door to door was 32 miles. Wishing to avoid busy roads I researched other ways to get there on foot.  I developed a network of sidewalks, paths, frontage roads and the occasional tunnel to help me avoid traffic.  I made several of the running trips to school, leaving home at 2:30am in order to get to the school by 7:00 for the first bell.  "Kids, Mr. Stark is going to be at his desk today. Please work at your desk and if you need anything, come see me, over here."

I liked my new route across the city so much that I began to wonder if I could extend it to go around the entire city.  


 With limited time, I found myself occasionally looking at maps, going for a run in different parts of the city and slowly piecing a route together.  A few years ago two friends and I biked the entire route.  Unknown to me at the time, the county was also developing a pedestrian friendly route around the city and actually building paved bike paths, rest areas, and signage as well. They called this route, The Loop. When complete, it will span 131 miles which includes spurs to Marana and Oro Valley to the north and South Tucson to the.. well, south.


One version of The Loop is 55 miles and is designed for public use. That means there must be emergency access, minimum trail width, proper intersections and other safety considerations. I liked the thought of finding adventure inside the city and complying with so many safety criteria seemed to diminish the intent I was going after.


Looking back at my evolving route, I incorporated as many opportunities to avoid roads as possible. My route uses bike paths, as well as underpasses, washes, alleys, and even tunnels.  When I finally had it in working form, my route totaled 45 miles and only crossed 6 roads. Not bad for circling a city of a million people.

Here's the route, as captured on Matt's GPS watch. Notice the extra tunnels he squeezed through making sure he didn't                                             miss any! Thanks Matt! 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zt7aQYHhbSD4.ksrulPHA22D8&usp=sharing

I've run the entire thing in sections. I have biked it twice, but I hadn't run it all at once. But that didn't stop me from offering it as a group "race" with my local running group.  We get together most weekends during the school year to run in the mountains but this run would be different. We scheduled it for the last weekend in January and there was strong interest.  The usual amount of people wanted to make it but couldn't due to travel, work, or injury.  In the end, we had 12 people show up: 7 men and 5 women.

Route of the Vicious Circle

Running 45 miles can take awhile even when the route is easy. But this thing has you crouching through long tunnels, navigating the occasional weedy desert lot, and encountering who knows what all may be found in such places. I wasn't expecting particularly fast times.  In order to give everyone as much time as possible, I invited people to start at 5am or later. I didn't want anyone out in the dark after sunset in these remote areas so I set 6:30pm as the finisher cutoff.

In order to promote this event, I needed a good name for it.  Looking at a map of the route, it gently curves around the south side of the city but has a very sharp point in the north where it quickly passes under I-10 and then heads south again. To me, it looked like the upside down letters V and C.


Using those as a starting point, I wanted something that evoked some of the roughness of the city. These runners would be going through the bowels of the city, tunnels, homeless camps, trashy washes, vacant lots. This wasn't meant to be a red carpet event where the asphalt was fresh and the lines painted yellow and the name needed to indicate that. I finally settled on the Vicious Circle.



I had never been race director for an ultra before but had worked for several weeks to prepare for this. Each runner signed in on a liability disclaimer and picked up a custom made route map of the city with my route highlighted on it along with a printed copy of brief trail notes printed on glossy paper to help it hold up in the hands of sweaty runners all day long. I installed flagging tape along the first mile of the route to get them to the first bike path along the Santa Cruz River. Later, I realized they wouldn't see the flagging tape in the dark so I also installed glow sticks along the first mile at 3am the morning of the run.

The first to toe the line at 5:07am were Lorey and Ed. They ran for 2 hours before needing to head out to work.
Next, Elizabeth, Geoff and Jenny took off a few minutes later, hoping for a sizable chunk of the loop. Each of them had different goals. Geoff had planned to do the entire loop. Jenny was there to join him for "just 20-30 miles".  Elizabeth jumped aboard with the goal of "going until I can't go any more." I love that goal.

About an hour later the next wave of runners showed up. Brian E., a local engineer who is fairly new to ultra running but shows commanding aptitude shot off at the start at 6:10 along with Mike and Bob, an ultra runner from Flagstaff who just happened to be in town for a family gathering.

Matt arrived about 30 min later and headed out.

With the later start times, the sun was now fully up and Kristi and her friend Heather set out for a 10 mile morning walk.

Last to leave was Benedict, who had made the decision to start later so that he wouldn't need the aid of a flashlight.  Not present in the conversation was mention of the tunnels which don't seem to get any brighter with the sun.

Twenty-four soles of 12 brave individuals began the endless dance of left foot, right foot for somewhere near 68,000 times as they navigated the Vicious Circle.

I asked people to text or call me for two reasons: 1. If they changed course or were stopping and 2. when they crossed under the Interstate for the second time and were on their way back.

The first text came in at 7:13am.

"Brian, this is Jenny. Elizabeth and Geoff and I took a detour, back on track at Snake Bridge. Lots of adventure. Don't worry."

Enter submission for the most understated comment of the year. This trio had missed a critical turn on the route (mostly due to my inadequate directions). There is a railroad trestle crossing a wash and the notes said to turn right out of the wash at this point.  They approached it in the dark and only saw the legs of the trestle which happened to be metal. Only the top was wood which they couldn't see in the dark. So they continued straight when they should have turned. Shortly after the trestle, they came to a tunnel that I knew nothing about. It went for almost a MILE.  It was a labyrinth of side tunnels, forks and options. That's when Elizabeth noticed a message painted on the walls amidst the impressive spray-painted murals. "Snake Bridge this way". As they stood in the dark tunnel discussing the accuracy of a spray-painted message in a tunnel under the city, Elizabeth posed the now famous question, "Come on, when has graffiti ever led you astray?" She was right and they finally emerged in a cage of tall security fencing with pointed tips bent outward. Eager to avoid turning around, they opted to climb the fence and somehow made it over in tact.

Benedict, having started much later, was quite a bit behind them and though it was light out, he also missed the turn at the trestle and entered this much longer tunnel without the aid of a flashlight.  He may have taken a different fork in the tunnel. We're not sure what route he took underground as he claims he was feeling his way along the tunnel with his hands against the wall. When he emerged he was about a half mile east and a half mile north of the route.

Geoff posing at the Boneyard.

All of the others managed to navigate the course without difficulty and as the morning wore on, so did their weariness. Mike, who was facing a series of minor bodily setbacks made it to the east side before calling it in.  Impressively, he told me that when he started out with Brian and Bob, they went out at a blazing clip of sub 7 min miles, or maybe it was 8.. or Mach 2. All I know is it was fast and there was a lot of ground yet to cover at Mile Post 1.65.  I picked up Mike and he and I went looking for other runners. Without GPS tracking, I figured my chances of finding the remaining six runners were impossibly slim, especially if they're spending their morning underground blindly feeling their way along tunnel walls. Someone did show me where you can allow specific people to see your location through the text app on your phone.  I considered trying that for this run as it would have made finding and tracking people a snap, but I didn't want to be creepy about it early in the morning. Maybe for future years of this run I can offer it ahead of time for those that want to participate.

Bob from Flagstaff was the next to head home. He needed to get back north so he stopped on the east side, caught a bus and he got back to his car at the finish in a short time.

Matt emerges from a short tunnel near Davis Monthan Air Force Base

Mike and I drove further east and just caught Matt heading out of a short tunnel near Davis Monthan Air Force Base.  He was looking fresh and sharp and was likely looking forward to his wife who was about to bring him several aid stations worth of provisions as he neared his own neighborhood.

Geoff and Jenny share a laugh at Lakeside Park.

Driving a little further on, we arrived at one of my favorite parts of the course, Lakeside Park. It is a sizable body of water that offers boating, fishing and picnics.  There, we found Geoff and his friend Jenny who were the giggliest pair I've ever seen in an ultra at mile 18.

Matt was cruising up the Pantano tributary. 

Matt carefully navigates a field of ankle killer boulders after passing under another road at Stella and Pantano Rd.

Thinking we were lucky to have found those three, we started heading back to the finish line and luckily ran into Benedict as well. That's when he filled us in on his own tunnel adventure. 

The only ones still on the course that I hadn't checked in with were Brian E. and Elizabeth. I texted her and asked if she needed anything, trying to gently ask her if she wanted to quit. Her short response was a testament to this person's strong will. "I'm good. I think I saw you drive away from the Quik Mart." I didn't see her but she may have seen me. It must have been like being lost at sea and the giant cruise ship doesn't spot you and just plows on by. She was intent on fulfilling her goal of forward motion until there wasn't any!

Back at the Headquarters and finish line, I had been getting regular updates from our leader, Brian E.  He was making great time!  He finished in an impressive course record time of 8 hours, 11 minutes for a GPS distance of 45.66 miles.  

He was hungry when he returned and we fed him with tamales, kale salad, beverages and chile chocolate brownies. 

Next in was Benedict with a time of 8:31. Then Matt with 9:23. And finally Geoff and Jenny, the day's happy pair with 11:45.  

Everyone was eating, laughing and retelling stories from their amazing adventures of the day. During dinner, Elizabeth showed up. She had made it much further than she had initially theorized. She got all the way to the Rillito River before having her family pick her up.  The only reason she stopped was marble sized blisters on the toes of both feet. My camera didn't do it justice but let's just trust me on this one. 

What pleased me most though was how many of them commented that they run the mountain trails all the time on the weekends. They run the city streets on weekdays. They never knew of this other world that was literally, to use the tired phrase, in their own backyard.  That, for me, was the intent of the entire project. Sometimes you don't have to venture far into the wilderness to find adventure and achieve your goals. When we take the time to look hard enough, even if that means 15 years, we may just find what we were looking for beneath our feet.  

Perhaps Matt said it best in a farewell message later that evening, "Thanks again, Brian. I don't live for race day. I live for epic run day. Today was that day."