Thursday April 29, 2010 at 3 pm PST, I will start my solo 199 run in Callistoga. This year there will be 250 twelve-person teams. There will be three people running The 199 miles Solo. (As of right now myself and Dean Karnazas are the only ones who have finished it solo.) I will be the only one running the 199 miles solo and swimming the Golden Gate. The swim will come at the 100 mile mark in my run. My swim will start at 9 am Sat May 1 on the South Side of the Bridge. This will be during a slack tide.
Due to security concerns since 9/11 there is no access to get under the Bridge to start the swim. So I will be running to a Boat dock in Sausalito. Then I will be boated over to the bridge and after the swim I will be boated back to the same boat dock in Sausalito. I will then run the last 99 miles to Santa Cruz.
The swim Idea was my dad’s after we almost missed the 9pm pedestrian closing last time we crossed the bridge. He said “If we hadn’t been able to cross the bridge you would have had to swim it!!” Needless to say, that idea percolated so here we are!! Thanks DAD!!!
The Golden Gate swim is known for rough water and currents. I will have an escort boat with me. Good thing I will have run 100 miles and thru 2 nights, I should be good and warmed up! My friend said “Do you know why they put the swim at the beginning of the Triathlon? Because when it wasn’t they were rescuing too many people out of the water”. Who knew?
My training for the event included a big weekend that included an 8-hour pool swim on Saturday followed by a 24 mile run in the hills on Sunday.
I also had 4 Bay swims including one to get the lay of the land. A few weeks back I swam under the Bridge in 53F water with no wetsuit on a stormy day. This was the coldest water I have ever swam in. It was also the roughest water I had swam in other then the English Channel. During my swim in the race I will wear a farmer John wetsuit due to the depleted state I will be in.
I want to thank all my family and friends who will come out in force and again crew and pace me. I also want to thank Sara Heretick for again joining me to crew chief this event. Sara crew chiefed my solo RAAM last year and is excellent.
The Race is put on by OrgansRus. This is a great cause! I dedicated my race last time to Rudy Yu. I am encouraging anyone who has had an organ transplant to come join me during the race.
For those of you who may not know my friend Rudy received his Kidney and is doing Great!
We are still looking to for pacers to fill a few shifts. Thursday, April 29 from 7pm to 6am and Sunday, May 2 from 7pm to finish around 8am Monday morning. If you can do all or part of these shifts let Sara know 804 241-8425. We would love to have you on the team and all pacers and crew will receive a Show up and Suffer T shirt.
There will be several options to follow me:
1. I again will have my GPS with me. To access my GPS data during the race, click here.
2. I am encouraging people to sign up for the Free twitter service to get updates during the race. My updates will depend on the weather and reception! You should be able to really Experience This Epic Race!! This has been very popular I already have around 1500 people following me.( You can cancel twitter at any time)
This is the link:
3. I am also on Facebook which is linked to my twitter account.
Thanks For your Support!!!
Time to SHOW UP AND SUFFER!!!
Bill
