Stats.

The Hood 100 paperwork is cleaned up. We had 134 registered runner, 19 of whom Did Not Start.

Out of 115 starters, 85 finished under 30 hr cut off, and 2 more got the distance in some time over - while it will not qualify them officially for other races, they will be in our archives. Yet another person made it 100 miles (even if over time) and was carried last 3 miles by a paramedic and a pacer due to the knee problems (he was taken to a hospital and attended to there, and is recovering now). All said, we have 74% official finishing rate. Not bad for a first time.

I had contacted Stand Jensesn (the man behind run100s.com) and Greg Soderlund (WS100 RD) and confirmed that Hood 100, indeed, is a WS100 qualifier. We submitted the results to the Ultrarunning magazine, and they will be published in December issue. If you get in by lottery yet won't receive your UR magazine (or are not subscribed) - you can use results printed off our webpage. One more note - while this is a qualifier for WS100, it is NOT a qualifier for Hardrock 100. See HR100 webpage for details on which 100's are. We are not mountain enough (a.k.a. too flat), which we never claimed to be.

We are talking about two possibilities for the next year:
1. move the date a week earlier. This will be decided along with Waldo 100k RD's as we'd like to not interfere with Oregon Trail Series, and also give local runners ample time for recovery.
2. due to remoteness of our south-bound part of the course, difficulties (and often not availability) to access AS's and runners, we may reverse the direction - run first south-bound part of 70 miles, and end with north-bound part of 30M. This will give crews more access to their runners when they actually struggle the most, our AS can be re-supplied easier with necessities, and dropped-out runners would be evacuated easier and not waiting for hours on end for AS crew to wrap up. It's a thought. If we go with it, we'll see about responses and conveniences and then decide whether to stick with either course, or go Hardrock style - reverse directions every other year. All this is till in the works, feel free to offer your opinion.

Most importantly is to get that Forest Service Permit again. We had put PCT50 on this course with this forest people for 11 years, and this was the first time we had made our lady that unhappy. This has to be fixed within the next 2 weeks:)

As for me, after a "back-off" week (when I only did a 20 miler on Monday before flying to Portland, and a couple of runs there), I am back, and my 30M run smashed my previous fastest on this particular loopy course by 30 min. Was it rest, or inspiration by PNW trails? In either case, I am tired this week trying to ramp my miles back up, and also have some kind of chest congestion. 2 more weeks, and I can safely taper...I don't like the fact that Larry is sitting on his butt basking in glory of finishing a 100:)

For more stories and pictures from Hood 100 visit our webiste (link on the left column) - we are updating it twice a week with more to come.