Ride the Pony - Sunup 2 Sundown Party 2022
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but some pictures might just leave one speechless. At least my pony picture left my wife nearly speechless. “I just can’t even…” was all she could mutter. Before I show you the picture, a little backstory…
Two weeks prior, I rolled my bad ankle once again, and was pretty sure I’d be a gimp for awhile. It didn’t last that long. I was able to train again by week’s end, and even got a “long” training run on Thursday, two days before the race. Seeing that everything was still in place after the run, my first thought was, “cool, I should be able to still do Michelle’s race”. My second thought was, “dang, I gotta figure out how to speed taper”. I’d neglected to train much for this event. I didn’t want to make it worse by neglecting to taper, too. Also, my wife wanted to take our son to the gym on Friday, so I went along and did some pull-ups, rows, etc. At least my legs were still tapering. Ultimately, all I did was to ensure that by Sunday after the race, my entire body would be sore. Balance.
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| Sandstone Peak photo: Michelle |
Race day, Saturday morning, I naturally woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:45 AM, filled up half of my Mini Cooper with aid station supplies and managed to hit the trail by 6:15. Michelle Evans, our race director, was at base camp setting up supplies. It’s a start-when-you-arrive type event, and five people were already on the trail. I eventually caught Jesse, and later the rest of the group taking their time going up. Kyle and I scrambled up the summit and jogged down the first lap.
This event naturally invites comparisons to THNGVBD, and statistically they are about the same per lap. The Sandstone Peak trail though is rougher and rockier compared to the groomed candy-ass fire road that is Dogmeat. Sandstone has a more steady gradient though so it doesn’t get overly steep. On the other hand, the last 100 ft of ascent on Sandstone is a legitimate class 3 scramble and the rocky, overgrown trails and LA crowds mean the downhills are relatively slower. That’s my excuse for being slower than at THNGVBD and I’m sticking to it.
Yours truly. photo: Michelle
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| Bobby's bunny lap. photo: Michelle |
Sometime on my third lap, I realized that this is not your normal fatass event. While the morning started off slow, a lot of late-comers were still showing up. And a lot of earlier runners were just chilling at the base camp. This crew is part of the “Born to Run” crew, and they prefer to party and sprinkle in a few runs here and there. No need to argue for mid-run naps with these people. More like, encourage them to do a mid-nap run now and then. Our RD’s partner-in-crime, Bobby, made one early summit to mark the summit with a pony. He wouldn’t run again for a couple of hours. I thought I was lazy. I gotta raise and/or lower my standards.
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| Spot our race director, Michelle |
Kyle announced early on that he would likely stop after 5 laps or less. My closest competitor would be my frenemy, Sydney, who showed up a lap and a half behind, caught up the half lap, but later succumbed to the party atmosphere at base camp. She did take a shot at the “fastest lap” award. Michelle provides this opportunity for anyone who wants to blow their quads on one lap. The contestant must wear pink bunny ears the whole lap. She doesn't make the rules - she just enforces them. Anyway, Sydney used up all her ammo and stopped at 6 laps.
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| Sydney's bunny lap. photo: Michelle |
For my 6th lap, I changed from my customary blue tank and orange shorts to pink - pink dolphin shorts, pink tank (my wife’s), pink armbands (my wife’s) and a pink tiara that Sylvie bestowed on me one year (long story, but I think not surprising to those who know me). Given my state of injuries, training and tapering, I didn’t think I had a chance at winning, but I thought I could at least get “pinkest lap”. That I did, by far, because no one else participated. The prize is called the Manley Award, because, surprise, it’s named after my friend, Manley. The acorn really does not fall far from all the other nuts in the forest.
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| Being manly and Manley |
On finishing my 8th lap, with over 8500 ft of vert at this point, I thought I was done. I already had a beer on the previous lap, and took a long break. Garmin was still on pause though and with a little encouragement from Michelle, that I was going to win longest distance but the prize was the pony at the summit, I trudged off for my 9th and final lap. 9 laps, 26 miles, and +9600 ft of vert in 8.5 hours. Oh, and I also got the Margaritaville award for being the first person to crack open a beer.
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| Winner winner, two of three chicken dinners |
What to take away from this event and how will it affect next year’s THNGVBD? Of the almost 20 people that showed up, only 4 of us got at least 5 laps in - what we call “just” the fun run on THNGVBD. There are some psychological principles at play that are often used in marketing. Primarily, setting one ridiculously higher price/lap count makes the middle value seem perfectly reasonable. THNGVBD offers 2, 5 and 10 laps - the majority do 5. As we didn’t have any quantitative anchoring values at Sandstone, the number of laps completed were all over the place. And without the risk of a DFL/DNF on your Ultrasignup, people were more free to take their time in between laps and stop whenever their inner monologues realized how ridiculous their outer monologues were for forcing them to go up and down a mountain all day.
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| Just horsing around (lap 2 or 3, I think) |
So what’s next for THNGVBD? Should we reset lap counts to 5, 10 and 20? Nah, I think we should heed the experience here and chill out. We don’t have to run all out. We don’t have to run non-stop. We can stop, eat, drink, rest and nap whenever and just enjoy the day out on the trails whether we’re running or not. And someone else needs to win the Manley award next year, before it becomes known as the Duke award.
Oh, lastly, the picture that's only worth about four words. I have no explanation - that's four words.
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