I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. That, or His Dudeness … Duder … or El Duderino, if, you know, you’re not into the whole brevity thing. – The Big Lebowski

Not generally known for the whole brevity thing, the Dude aka the Backbone Buffoon, provides an uncharacteristically brief announcement of your Thursday night bowling assignments here. Directions to said event venue can be found here.

And not to worry, with the start of the games drawing near, you can be sure The Dude will regain his gift for gab. Stay tuned for lots more announcements soon.

The Big Cluck (aka Bruce Grant) setting up for an eggceptional roll.

Halllooo everybody, we’ve now finalized your start group assignments. Per the Head Buffoon, these ARE the assignments — if you don’t like where you are, tough noogies. You’ve had more than a month to make your case for a different pole position, and now we distribute these names across all the other record keeping lists necessary to stage the event and account for you on/off the Backbone Trail.

So, make new friends and enjoy the journey, whatever time that journey begins.

FINAL COYOTE BACKBONE TRAIL START GROUPS

Oh, and the final, full list of players is now posted here. See you sooooon!

Thanks to Xy Weiss of Dirty Girl gaiters, our latest sponsor, there may be a little extra wild life out on the Backbone Trail. Dirty girls – and boys – might want to finish up those limericks and haikus for a chance to win a pair of these sweet gaiters selected from a grab bag of naughty colors: pretty kitty, fetish, hot to trot, pain management, falling to pieces, or maybe giardia? Me-owwwww.

Hi All,

Our bad: the aid station-to-aid station driving directions we linked you to on our last message had a few errors. We’ve updated the web page with the corrected version, which you can find here.

Train on, players!

Not to be outdone by yesterday’s map porn, co-RD H’ard put together driving directions betwixt aid stations. Doesn’t this just make your beanie spin?

For your cartographic pleasure, Mike Epler has created the ultimate, Leatherman all-in-one, comprehensive guide to naviguessing the Coyote Backbone Trail Ultra. Thumbnail is below, but you really need to view full-size to appreciate it (and download the pdf.) Click here to go to our maps page. Nice, right?

Previous player-turned-mancake maker Luis Escobar displaying we-don’t-know-what

No surprise to Coyote veterans, Friday’s pre-game  dinner (latest details on time, location and directions here) ain’t just dinner; it’s a chance to display that hidden entertainer in you.  For those who need a nudge, we’ll at least give special recognition, Coyote-style (you don’t know what’s in the box til you open it), to those whose on-theme (trail running, this Coyote venue, or something just really special about YOU) limerick or haiku yields more than yawns from the fawning crowd of compatriots.

In other, fewer words: show up prepared with a limerick and/or haiku to be delivered open mic-style for a chance to spin the wheel for prizes. Ciao (or is it chow?) for now.

Pay your trail love forward by doing some trail maintenance on the Backbone on Saturday, March 2nd, sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Trail Council.  Running a race later in the year that requires trail work? Here is your chance.

Be sure to wear long pants and long sleeves, and bring gloves, lunch and water. SMMTC will provide tools, but please do RSVP to leader Barb Thomas at 805-492-0460 so they know how many loppers and McClouds to bring.

Check out the event page for more details.

We joke around a lot but we’re truly committed to leaving no trace of our fun on the Backbone Trail, and to reducing the amount of waste generated by the games. Towards that end, the Coyote Backbone Trail Ultra is happy to be going cupless.

Thanks to Krissy Moehl and UltrAspire, who provided us with a discounted price (retail is $6.00) and the initial inspiration (see Krissy’s cup-free announcement for her March 16th Chuckanut 50K trail race), we’ll be providing each of you with your own phthalate-, BPA- and PVC-free reusable cup. It folds easily (see pic below) so you can stash it in your pack between aid stations, where we’ll happily fill it – or your own handheld bottle or hydration pack – with your choice of beverages upon arrival. We’ll still have cups for hot soup, but other than that a cup request will likely result in the application of boner minutes to your official finish time.

As an example of the waste that is generated when using disposable cups, at a recent trail race a runner came upon the row of pre-filled cups of soda, electrolyte fluid, and water, and in a span of 30 seconds used four cups and moved on without a word. Over the course of a 68-mile romp such as ours, that can translate to over 4,000 cups being added to landfills. Multiply that by all of the road and trail events across the country and you begin to see the positive difference you can make by avoiding disposable cups, so we thank you in advance for taking one for the team.

More eco-friendliness: we will be recycling all of our plastic and cans at the event and collecting them in GREEN trash bags at the aid stations. PLEASE use these only for recyclable items!

Usage tip: we did a quick field test and found that if you slide your pinky finger under the bottom it stabilizes the contents. Just sayin’.

For any of you still working on recruiting new players to share the fun with you, this is a quick reminder that event registration closes at midnight this Sunday, February 17th.The deadline for cancelling entries has now passed. Sorry, but we cannot issue refunds to those players who must withdraw from the fun at this point, nor can we offer bib transfers. Those remaining in the game thank those who join the DL from here on  out for their generous contributions to their entertainment fund.

Also, there are two more chances to preview the game films: Sunday, March 3rd, and Saturday, March 16th. Check out the Training Run schedule here for details.