When you have 96 hours to run 200 miles, you need a house on wheels to get you across the finish line. At least that’s what endurance race veteran Paul Geist concluded after completing the Tahoe 200 Endurance Run. He finished 27th in a field of over 200 athletes, so he must be on to something.
Geist has been running ultras since 2011 when his brother talked him into a 50K. “It was my first race since high school, and I couldn’t walk for about a week afterward,” he recalls. But the sense of community among long-distance runners kept him going. “People help each other out. If someone’s down, the next runner is going to help out.” He graduated to 100 milers, upping his distance for Tahoe where he added a support van to his race routine.
“The best thing about having the support van was that it gave me a place of comfort, where I could climb in and shut the doors and be away from the race,” says Geist..”If you didn’t have a van, you were sleeping in a chair in a ski resort with a million people making noise around you. It would be almost impossible to get any sleep.”
When you’re racing up to four days straight, going without sleep isn’t an option. The Tahoe 200 course has over 40,000 feet of elevation change, circling Lake Tahoe counterclockwise from Homewood Ski Resort north through Incline Village. Runners pick up the Flume Trail to Lake Spooner, then navigate a series of ridgeline-to-lake climbs and descents before returning to the finish line at Homewood. About 65 percent of the race runs along the Tahoe Rim Trail.
Almost two dozen aid stations spread out along the route provided runners with food, drinks, and medical attention. But for Geist, the most meaningful support came at the eight stations where he could meet up with his support van, crewed by four friends and fellow endurance athletes who were as committed as he was to complete the race.
“Because the aid stations are much more spread out on racecourses over 100 miles, runners really depend on the support van,” says crew member Amy Carver. “We had a palette with a sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and pillow in the back. It gave Paul a little bit of shelter.to get out of the elements.”
The crew would heat up the van, ice down drinks in coolers, and restock food before they reached the aid station. They stocked a medical kit with band-aids, eye drops for relief from the dry and dusty trail conditions, foot powder, moleskin to cover blisters, and plenty of ibuprofen.
“It was awesome to come in the aid station late at night, a little grumpy, and they’d get me something to eat,” says Geist. “I’d take my contacts out, lay down, and pass out for an hour. Then they’d wake me back up and say, ‘You gotta get out of here.’”
With lows at night around 20 degrees, the heated van was a life-saver. “I needed some sleep at one non-crew aid station and tried to lay down on a cot, but the tent window was open, and the door wouldn’t close,” says Geist. “It was freezing cold, so I only slept for about a half-hour.”
The crew would rotate in and out of the van in two-person shifts, dozing in the van between aid stations and, after mile 65, jumping out to join Geist on the racecourse as pacers. “A pacer gives the runner motivation to keep moving forward,” says Carver. “Most runners get a little dazed and confused with the sleep deprivation. A pacer is helpful in the latter part of the race to remind runners to rest, hydrate, get something to eat, and take care of their feet. We’d keep up the conversation to make sure Paul made it to the next aid station.”
Coming off his top 30 finish, Geist is already thinking about how to outfit his next support van. “This experience led to a conversation about how nice it would be to own a van and build it out the way we want,” he says. They’re eyeing Sprinter vans with space to walk around, dedicated sleeping quarters, and inside seating. Other mandatories are a refrigerator, cabinets with slide-out drawers to organize and store food, and a burner to make coffee. A tent or awning to get out of the wind and rain, plus an exterior shower hose for washing off-trail dirt and dust, are part of the plan too. “With all the traveling Amy and I do for races, it will be awesome to have a home base that we can travel with.”
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