Photo courtesy of John Kimura Computer science and
engineering student Jon Kimura doubles over after
completing the Angeles Crest 100 Miler. The race took him more than
a day to finish.
By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Light-headed, Jon Kimura walked up the trails of Mount
Wilson.
Almost there. Seventy-five miles down, 25 to go.
Kimura’s legs were wobbly, his back was aching. He was in
the dark. Only the lights attached to his forehead and wrists
provided lumination.
Screw it, just sit.
Barely aware of his surroundings, Kimura sat on a rock, his neck
and back smothered in poison oak. Earlier, he had ingested a salt
pill without taking in enough water, and now he was feeling
sick.
He looked down at the ground and threw up a clear liquid.
He took a quick breath and vomited again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Okay, done.
“I can’t even even describe the pain I was
feeling,” he later said. “Every step I took, I felt
pain.”
Kimura got up and continued to move. Several hours later, the
fourth-year UCLA computer science and engineering student completed
the 16th-annual Angeles Crest 100 Miler.
More than a day of running, jogging, walking and staggering was
over. He began the race ““ which only 55 of 147 competitors
finished ““ Saturday morning at 5 a.m. in Wrightwood, 60 miles
northeast of Pasadena. He was done the following day at 8:30 a.m.
His time: 27 hours, 25 minutes and 52 minutes.
When Kimura appeared in Pasadena’s Johnson’s Field,
where the finish line was located, his face was smeared with blood.
With less than 10 miles remaining, Kimura blew his nose too hard,
causing plasma to splatter all over him.
BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Fourth-year student
John Kimura ran three miles the day after
finishing the ultramarathon. After he crossed the line, Kimura
doubled over, half-jubilant, half-relieved.
Kimura looked up and saw his mother, Jeannie, who waited for him
at every aid station along the course, preparing to reload his
water and juice supplies.
“I was just so happy to see everyone,” Kimura said.
“I was so glad to see my mom, my friends.”
Kimura napped for an hour and a half, hung around for the awards
ceremony ““ he finished 25th overall ““ and went to go
sleep in his hotel room.
He woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning so he could limp to
class.
Kimura is still walking around campus with a slight limp, as his
hips are causing him a good deal of discomfort. Nonetheless, he
plans to put himself through the same torture next year.
“I love running, I love being in nature,” he
said.
He added that he prefers running to sex “any
day.”
Kimura’s been running ever since he could remember. He
tried other sports as a child ““ soccer, skiing, wrestling
among them ““ but running was the one that stuck. He was an
average prep athlete, lettering two years for Cupertino Monte Vista
High School’s cross country team, but never breaking 17
minutes in a three-mile race.
Since coming to UCLA, he’s rarely gone a day without a
jog. He ran his first long race, the Catalina Island 50K, last
February and followed it up with a 50-miler a month later. At 21,
he was a youngster in the small Southern California
ultra-marathoning community. Most of the competitors in these races
are former marathoners who are past their primes.
Kimura began training for Saturday’s ultra-marathon in
May. Jim O’Brien, Arcadia High School’s cross country
coach, who owns the Angeles Crest 100 course record (17 hours, 35
minutes and 48 seconds), gave Kimura a training schedule and
monitored his progress. Through the summer, Kimura averaged 80
miles per week.
Kimura did a three-mile jog/walk Tuesday and will do a
three-mile run on the Drake Stadium track today.
“Just to get blood flowing,” he said.
“It’s part of the healing process.”
Heal, only to be hurt again.
