He’s looking good so far! Yeah Surf!
Youll have to let us know what you think of that race. Sounds like a fun environment.
Dude, it was insane. As a 5-loop race the only crew access is there at the start/finish, which they refer to as Javelina Jeadquarters. And that place is a combination of the biggest aid/crew station you've ever seen with a street fair, a campground, a tailgate, a Halloween party, and a rave.
Just before the start. Just some chick dancing with fire and your buddy Jimmy Dean Freeman shaking his bare ### (semi-NSFW)
And they're off
Sun rising over the campground
The desert has some amazing colors
Crew tents lined up like outside a college football stadium on a Saturday morning
Special IPA brew for the race
Patrick Reagan led almost the entire time. Far off of his 13:01 course record from last year, but still won by like 2 hours
Washing machine style course, alternating directions each loop
Dance party
She ran the entire 100 miles in this
The MC (and co-race director) Jubilee on top of the van.  She was on the mic for at least 15 hours on Saturday.  And the fire girl dancing with some lit-up wings
Jubilee and RD Jamil Coury, capturing more footage for his multiple YouTube channels
They had two night races as well, a one-looper and a two-looper.  Here's Tim Tollefson and a handful of costumed runners taking off on the one-looper
As for the race, like most 100 milers it was up and down for Surf. As I mentioned his goal was sub-23:00, and his plan was to go about 4 hours on the first 23-mile loop (an extra 4-mile section on that loop), keep it at 4 hours for the next 19-mile loop, and try not to let that slip much past 4:30 on subsequent loops. And it started really well as he came in from loop 1 in 3:48 and said it felt easy, and
he was feeling great. During the next loop the heat picked up and
he wasn't feeling nearly as good, but that loop was on track at 4:05. But on loop 3 it fell apart a bit. He apparently has been dealing with some chest pains the past few months, and has had all sorts of tests with the docs not able to find anything. And on loop 3 he started feeling pain in the chest. He walked for an hour to try and get it to calm down, and when he got to the aid station at mile 52 he talked to medical, and for obvious reasons they held him there for awhile. They advised him to drop and said they could take him back to the start, but he wasn't ready to do that. He spent a bunch of time icing himself, drinking cold water, etc, thinking maybe the overheating was contributing. After what he said was at least 45 minutes he decided to go on, and after signing a couple of additional waivers they let him do so. As he walked out he reached back into his pack to grab some ice to put into the front of his pack, and felt a sharp pain through his shoulder and down into his pec. He realized that he'd been doing that over and over for hours, and thought that maybe the "chest pains" were really more muscular or nerve, related to that repeated motion. And they went away, and didn't come back.
So loop 3 was 5:23, but he left on loop 4 feeling better as temps cooled. I got some food, watched the short races take off (the scene at sunset was totally crazy), took a quick 15-20 minute nap back in the tent and was back at the aid station waiting for him at about 11:00 PM. He rolled in a little after midnight after a 4:53 loop in 18:08 for 80.5 miles. As I said earlier when we headed out on that final loop he told me he was fine with sub-24, that the time lost on loop 3 wasn't going to let a PR happen, and that he was fine with a 5:30 loop to get that time. And we walked much of the first 10 miles as the course slowly gains about 700'. But we were moving pretty well, mixed in a little jogging here and there, and rolled into the mile 91 aid station in about 2:30. But he had told me that part of why he wanted to walk much of the ups was so he could run as much of the final 9 miles back down as possible, and we did. We went from 15/16/17 minute miles of mostly walking to 14:33, 14:02, 13:09, 13:23 splits of mostly shuffling along. That's when I dropped the comment about sub-23 still being possible, and he just started picking it up - 11:49, 11:16, 11:42. We blow through the last aid station with just a quick top-off of the bottles, and then it was 10:55, 11:04, and a hard finish of 10:27 in mile 100. You have to run through the aid station and around camp, probably about 2/10 of a mile to the finish, and I had a huge grin on my face knowing he had it.
I don't know if I'll ever run a sub-24:00 100 miler, but I've paced him for 40 miles to a 23:03 finish and 19 miles to a 22:54, and that's
almost as cool.
@SayWhat? to sum up my thoughts on the race, it's pretty much what I felt going in. Being a looped course and in the desert (not mountains), I haven't really ever wanted to run it. I'm a better hiker than a runner, and I like the woods/forest much more than the desert. Plus I just love the idea of covering 100 miles, not 20 miles 5 times (if that makes sense). But if you or anyone else wants a flatish, fast 100 miler that is super easy to crew, Javelina is perfect.
. 40 hours of darkness would be a long event indeed. Did someone say Tahoe 200 in 2019? 
