Tim Twietmeyer craved pancakes, eggs and bacon, with a milkshake on the side. Bill Finkbeiner looked forward to anything but more Gu and Clif bars. And Dean Karnazes dreamed of a hot tub and a beer.
Considering what they had just accomplished, how could anyone say no?
As dawn broke Sunday, they cruised down Maple Street in Auburn like three guys on a weekend run. But any notions these runners were doing something ordinary quickly vanished.
A small group of supporters cheered from a nearby parking lot as the trio ran up the steps of the Placer County Courthouse. They embraced at the top and turned to face a slice of the world they had just conquered.
The three ultramarathoners completed their winter crossing of the Sierra, covering an estimated 75-mile stretch from Squaw Valley to Auburn in approximately 26 hours, 38 minutes.
A fourth runner, Auburn's Jim Northey, guided the group through the treacherous high country before dropping out near the midway point.
Inspired by a letter written in 1858 about two men who crossed the Sierra on foot - Allan Grosh died and Maurice Bucke had his feet amputated - Twietmeyer and Karnazes had planned a winter crossing for the last two years.
But bad weather aborted their plans. This year, after one postponement, they found a perfect window of weather and departed Squaw Valley at about 5:10 a.m. Saturday.
"Overall, it was incredible," said San Francisco's Karnazes, a 38-year-old small business owner and veteran of more than 100 ultramarathons.
"It was worth the wait. (Sunday) was just the ideal day. You could not plan a better day."
The temperature was 18 degrees at the start but warmer along the way. The snow was firm and the skies clear.
"We wanted the avalanche danger low," said Auburn's Twietmeyer, a 45-year-old engineering project manager. "We wanted the weather to be nice, because anything can go wrong up there and then you might lose somebody.
"We finally got the perfect weekend. I can't imagine going out there on a bad day. We were just saying, 'Wow, we were lucky.' "
Their route roughly followed the course of the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run, with some deviations.
The adventurers followed the trail from Squaw Valley to Robinson Flat, then left the course to follow the road down toward Foresthill before veering back to the course on Deadwood Road near Devil's Thumb.
From there, they went through Michigan Bluff and Foresthill, then skipped the 16-mile California Loop because of difficulty getting aid in there. They followed Foresthill Road to Driver's Flat Road, picked up a bike trail near the American River, crossed the river at Highway 49 and then followed the Western States course over No Hands Bridge to Placer High School before heading for the courthouse.
Each runner carried 20 to 25 pounds of fluid, food and equipment, including avalanche probes and shovels. They spent 17 hours on shoeshoes before switching to lighter footwear for the run home.
"We'd done so little running, real running, for that first half, we just had a phenomenal run in," said Auburn's Finkbeiner, a 48-year-old landscaping contractor who has run about 150 ultras.
GPS technology made the journey easier, as did a support crew that included four people on snowmobiles.
"We couldn't have done it without the snowmobile guys," Twietmeyer said.
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