Runner vanished in the Bay area, no trace found. Update. He's been found. RIP: Philip Kreycik.

Can people just stop with the wild insinuations and speculation? He went down a game trail. It was not trailblazing. There's nothing at all surprising about this. It's a tragedy, and let's just leave it at that.

Earlier in this thread I noted tragic events like this usually involve someone travelling alone and making a routing error. That’s easy to do running , easier still on unfamiliar terrain, and more so if dehydrated or suffering heat stroke.

750 yards off trail doesn’t sound like much - in the Wild you can be hopelessly lost 50 yards off. (Or less)

He likely went off trail, couldn’t backtrack, then climbed up to try and gain a vantage point.

It was 250 yards. And I don't think that it was significantly uphill. I've followed this case closely from the beginning and haven't heard that it was up a meaningful hill.

You too. He had a medical episode (clearly heat related). Enough with this stupid "who knows" stuff.https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Philip-Kreycik-preliminary-autopsy-runner-berkeley-16370676.php

250 yards off trail wrote:

fnhriel wrote:

Remember Occams Razor.

The family may well choose to keep the cause of death determined by an autopsy as private. Occam may never know if he just got lost (250 yards away from the trail), of someone he ran into forced him to that remote location (foul play), or whether he decided to go to that point himself and just stop there.

WiTuLo wrote:

RIP, man. At least he was doing what he loved.

I hate when people say this. Did he love getting fatal heat stroke???

Thanks so much for the update, and great work on the search effort. What a tragedy. Now it makes sense - after 40 minutes in those conditions, he was probably suffering from heat exhaustion, if not bordering heat stroke, which would leave him little time to recover after getting lost.

The single biggest mistake (besides going out into a new area in those temps) IMO was not taking his phone. 16oz of water may have bought him a little extra time, same thing with a shirt/hat. Had he called for help and shared his location with GPS he could've been rescued in 15 minutes.

I really hate all the blowback I get when I tell people I always take my phone ,even when I'm running loops around my house. People on here cracking jokes saying "might as well pull an RV behind me" infuriate me when this could be a life or death matter.

Please people, take your phones!!!!! And RIP Philip.

stupid theories keep going... wrote:

Can people just stop with the wild insinuations and speculation? He went down a game trail. It was not trailblazing.

The correct term is animal trail. Animal trails are mostly narrow and low height clearance because the "game" that typically uses them is small. If an animal trail is wide then it may be one used by deer, coyotes or mountain lions, and such a trail are best avoided by adventurers.

That description isn’t a good one. I’ll give the more accurate and much sadder one.

Phil missed his turn to go back down Tehan Canyon Fireroad. He made the next turn about 100yds later onto what looks on maps to be a out of North Ridge Trail that ends after about a half mile.

In reality that spur reaches a gate where you enter landbank and the fireroad that is North Ridge Trail continues. At that point Phil would have been a half mile of downhill past his turn and would have just come down an incredibly steep portion. All of which was exposed. The decision is between going back and going forward, and it’s likely at this point that he realized he was off course, though tbh the sadder thought is that he may have still thought he was on the correct course, there’s a number of similarities other than the orientation being off.

He hopped the gate, continued straight about another half mile. Still downhill. The fireroad turned left, his car was to the right, he saw an under-construction illegal bike trail marked with flags in front of him continuing straight.

He might have thought it was the trail connector to Moller Ranch he’d come up on, or he may have realized that the left turn of the fireroad was headed away from his car, either way he chose the singletrack. He made it about 200’, the trail was starting to disappear, he’d gotten back into an exposed area after a short amount of shade on the fireroad. The singletrack and a game trail diverged for a few feet to pass a tree (they meet up on the other side). He chose the game trail, and lay down under the tree.

All told from the wrong turn he went 1.25 miles, downhill in a straight line. He likely passed before we started searching, but for a number of reasons we missed something easy to miss.

Take heat seriously. 10F above your usual running temps is enough to be problematic quickly, this was likely 50F above his.

runspired wrote:

Hi folks,

I’m the friend that organized the ground search.

... Some of these aren’t so much mistakes as simply things that marginally increase a Runner’s risk. And it’s not a combo that’s uncommon. We’ve all done these things and we’ve all told ourselves it was fine and that we’d only be out there a short time and could basically crawl for help if we had to. Turns out you can’t.

Thank you for the update and the words of wisdom. We are sorry for your loss.

+1! I'm an older runner, and when I run trails or a long run alone I always carry my phone, and I spent the major sum of 99 cents to buy a one-touch 911 app for my phone that sends GPS data to the 911 responder. I am ex-military with jungle warfare experience and I know how fast things can go wrong physiologically in hot and humid weather. There is nothing wimpy or non-serious runnerish about preparing for potential bad luck when you are going out alone into a situation with risk.

Every Garmin Forerunner I have had has a "back to start" function, the problem with it is quite obviously all it can do is direct you to exactly reverse your route. This I suppose is fine if you are lost in an unfamiliar city and are physically OK but in Philip's situation probably not going to help.

A very complete, thorough obituary on Phillip Kreycik:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/8/15/Philip-kreycik-obit/

stupid theories keep going... wrote:

You too. He had a medical episode (clearly heat related). Enough with this stupid "who knows" stuff.

So, you posted a "who knows" (clearly heat related) and demanded posters not be as stupid as you just were. Who knows what the medical event was? Your claim that it was "clearly" heat related is just a your /eot wildassguess.

He had a medical event AFTER wandering off trail and then sitting down in the shade. So he got lost 250 yards. And then sat down to rest. And then had a medical event. It is more likely that he was having the medical event before he wandered off trail.

[Medical events are not necessarily immediate. People can have heart palpitations which exercise in heat can trigger. Heart palpitations are usually not serious unless there is an underlying heart issue. (This is posted as information ONLY, not as "clearly" it was this like )]

AOL Lawyer wrote:

Every Garmin Forerunner I have had has a "back to start" function, the problem with it is quite obviously all it can do is direct you to exactly reverse your route. This I suppose is fine if you are lost in an unfamiliar city and are physically OK but in Philip's situation probably not going to help.

If someone is in medical distress they might not be able to think clearly at all. It wouldn't matter if they were lost or not.

Thank you for the clear and direct information, and I'm very sorry for your and his family's loss.

Final details as they close the case:

https://patch.com/california/pleasanton/pleasanton-police-close-philip-kreycik-case-new-details-surface

SF Chronicle has a more detailed article describing the data from Kreycik's GPS watch. The gist is this:

Temperature hit 106 that day.

No HR data.

Kreycik had told his wife he planned to run for an hour.

His run started at 10:49 AM.

In his first 30 minutes, his paces were sometimes dipping well below 6 minute pace.

After 5 miles, his pace slowed considerably.

Then his route on trails became erratic with zig zags and circles in a remote game area.

His pace slowed to only 1 to 2 km per hour.

Then he came to a full stop under an oak tree about 20 yards from the trail.

That's where his body was found a month later.

The erratic zig-zagging probably indicates delirium due to heat stroke.

His entire was 9.6 km.

His Suunto GPS watch kept running for 4.5 hours.

He had mapped out a loop on the Sinbad Creek Trail, but instead went in a different direction.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/GPS-data-is-revealing-new-details-about-16406992.php

wow that sucks, seems like heat stroke is the cause of death