Meet Allen Wolff!

Ever have the desire to run 100 miles through the forest? 83 people had just that desire this past weekend and so participated in The Angeles Crest 100 mile endurance run. The course, beginning in Wrightwood and ending at the Rose Bowl, traverses some of the most beautiful trails in the San Gabriel mountain backcountry.

While on one of our favorite 11 mile treks, Sharon and I had the pleasure of meeting a few of the volunteers who make the race possible. These extraordinary people were still supporting several of the final runners at the 75 mile mark of Chantry Flat, the race having been underway now for approximately 28 hours! We stopped for a few moments to talk with Allen Wolff, communications specialist. Allen brings his HAM radio expertise to the race as part of a coordinated safety measure.

Q: Hi Allen, it's nice to meet you and thank you for talking with us today! Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here and what part you play in making the race a success?

A: Sure and It's great to meet you too! We are happy to be able to provide safety communications for the runners in the race. The stations are located at 19 checkpoints for the 100 miles. People run through the woods for 100 miles. And there is a vertical gain and vertical loss of about 46,000 ft. They run up and down hills through the woods! They start in Wrightwood at 5:00 am on Saturday and they finish by 3:00 pm Sunday afternoon at the Rose Bowl. We work with the race people in an organizational structure. We support them by providing communications. You can't use celphones for the most part when you're deep in the woods so our database tracks the runners when they leave one checkpoint and come through our checkpoint and proceed to the next checkpoint. My world is these three checkpoints. From here I don't get the opportunity to see any of the runners but I know all the names and numbers because my database tracks them. The man who developed the database is very, very clever and the numbers change color on my screen if the person is on the trail to long. You see, they know the average time it takes to get to Newcomb from Chantry Flats, for example, and if the runner goes over that average time it goes yellow and if he goes way over it goes red and then we get concerned and then they can send some race people down the trail to look for the runner or if there is a report of a runner being injured we can get search and rescue out there. Two years ago, we had a woman who got dehydrated on the trail between us and Newcomb and needed support. Some runners had gone down to help her out and by the time she got out we had Sierra Madre Fire up here with a fire truck and ambulance to take her to the hospital. So we have Sierra Madre Search and Rescue available to us. We can get a helicopter here if necessary; it depends on what the situation is.


For lots more information on the race, log on to www.ac100.com.