Night(mare) Run

Last night Curt and I did our first night run together in preparation for Western States. As has been the case for the month of May all that could go wrong pretty much did, but I am alive to tell about it!! Wasn't so sure that would be the case a little over 12 hours ago.

Initially the plan was for several of us to run from late afternoon to midnight or so. As the weekend came to hand people dropped for various reasons and it might have been our first sign that we should re evaluate this run. My initial thought was to avoid the Canyons this weekend out of fear that they were taking more of a negative toll on my knees that a positive one for training. I had taken the week essentially off to rest the joints that seemed to struggle with some edema especially the left knee.

I started the run solo from Placer High school around 5pm and ran the finish of WS backwards to Cool along the Robie trail and had a miserable time. If I didn't know Curt would be waiting for me there around 6:30pm I would have bagged this run and really started stressing about my training and readiness for WS100. The rolling hills and moderate climb up to Cool for 3miles was a lesson in keeping my head in the game. Two months ago I would have charged this hill at a 9-10min pace the whole way and loved it. Today my HR was racing once again while I averaged an 11min pace with frequent walk breaks. I came into Cool hoping Curt would be in better spirits than me because I was done with only 7miles under my feet.

As we headed out to do the waterfall loop as part of the WTC course in reverse (19-20miles) I mentioned to Curt that both weather.com and accuweather had a 30% chance of showers listed for hours of our run and that the clouds looked sparse but dark to the north and west of us. He agreed with me that those odds seemed pretty favorable to us and a few drops wouldn't be a problem but within 4miles of our run on the other side of Hwy49 it did start to drizzle.

The further we went away from civilization the more showers seem to hit us but it wasn't til about 9pm when it got dark and the headlamps were being turned on did it really start to come down. Not only did the rain become more heavy but the temperatures dropped substantially and the trail became a creek of mud and puddles. Suffice to say that we were soaked to the bone by 9:15pm and all we had were our running shorts and dri fit long sleeve shirts on. It had now dropped into the 30s and my hands were numb. Shortly after the hands went numb the jaw started to chatter and we both started to get pretty quiet. When I did talk it was a struggle to get the words out of my tightened jaw. Every step we took was also a dance from the large puddles and slimy orange newts that were out to play. We did what we could to keep the mood light, but on more than one occasion serious discussions about hypothermia was talked about. Curt had already taken one nasty fall, lost his Garmin down the cliff side and I was just biting my lip out in front that I had not totally jeopardized not only my WS upcoming race with injury - but even worse put us in serious harms way.

With about 8miles left or a good hour and half or more out there Curt talked about maybe running out ahead in hopes that he might have a faster pace that could allow him to get to the car and meet me at the Hwy crossing. We both surmised we would address that idea when we got off the Quarry trail a few miles ahead. I wondered if any other kinds of obstacles lay across the next turn; the typical night time concerns of a mountain lion or other animal seemed to be at my forefront of thinking. Interesting, how the occasional mile marker with its reflective stripe seems to startle you when it looks like glowing eyes from a far. The lights were working satisfactorily even if it only gave us about 15ft of vision ahead.

When we finally came down the hill from ALT2 to Browns Bar onto the Quarry trail I think it was a bit of relief because at least now if we were caught stuck for the night they could find us by 4WD and not need to helicopter us out. Even at your worst you think about the financial aspects of your stupidity!!! Here with about 4miles left to finish and another hour of rain I was surprised that Curt looked as bad as he did. I think it was obvious to both of us that he was in no shape to try to run ahead and in fact his gait looked something like that of an 80 yo linebacker minus the obvious bulk his body lacks for that position. Both of our strides had shortened substantially do to the cold, even if my muscles felt rather good for all we had been through. The joints on the other hand were aware of the temperature and were locking up.

As we did come off the Quarry trail and make the long ascent back up to the Hwy crossing we felt safe enough for the first time to hike/walk because certainly doing this earlier would have dropped our body temperature to dangerously low levels. We must have known the safety of the car and civilization were close at hand because we spent the next couple miles chatting about our lives away from running and re connecting as the close friends we were.

By the time we arrived at the car it was 11:30pm. As Curt drove me to my car instead of us considering the last section to PHS my body was in complete convulsions from a constant and uncontrolled shiver! I was impressed that Curt's body seemed controlled enough to drive down Hwy 49 and all I could think about was some fast food that would fill my tummy and give me back some calories, salt and fat that all would have come in handy tonight!

All in all, looking back on last night it was not an experience I want to re-live but it was another Epic journey on the road to WSER100 and one that has for sure bonded Curt and I even more. He will be a rock out there for me in another month and I am sure I will lean on him heavily. Lets just hope it is a few degrees warmer that night; just a few though Ultra Gods - just a few!!!!!

Miwok 100K

Saturday May 1st I ran my first 100K (or at least that was the plan)in the Marin Headlands for the most competitive 100K in the Nation. Miwok was a lottery for the first time this year and I was as lucky to get into this race as I was all the lotteries this year. The weekend started with arriving at the Host Hotel around dinner time Friday evening in Mill Valley with my family to pick up my bib and check in. Nerves were completely in check until I look over and Anton Krupika and Hal Koerner were sitting patio side chatting together. This was a race for the Big Names and this was a distance I had never attempted on a rather challenging if not equally beautiful course!

After about 4hours of sleep I got up to meet with Amy and Tony Lafferty to carpool to the race start at Rodeo Beach/Lagoon for a 5:40am start. We arrived without issue and found Tony Overbay whose bib I had picked up and we had time to chill in the cars before marching out to the beach in the dark - only to realize we were the last to notice the race was about to start. Somehow in my apathetic approach about this very long training run I managed to forget the importance of stretching before a pre dawn run that would last half a day! Not too bright.....

Tony Overbay, Amy and I ligned up right behind the leaders by chance when arriving late and coming into the start from the wrong end. The whistle was blown before I had my ipod set or my Garmin checked. Soon we were marching through a moonlit beach for a hundred yards before hiking up a single track hill that would dictate the pace for the first couple miles. Tony and I settled into a casual running pace on the road up to the first climb and had planned to start the day off together until one felt like moving ahead. It was still a bit surreal running in the pre dawn hours knowing it was possible we could still be running as Dusk arrived at the end of the day. Not the kind of thoughts you want to perseverate on early in a 100K race.

After about 6miles and the first major climb out of the way Tony and I were still together and I started to notice the hamstring on my right leg was reminding me of some issues and I thought how nice a pre race stretch might have helped this issue. From this point forward I hoped and assumed this issue would eventually go away much like it did at AR50 a few weeks before, but I guess it is here that I should preface this report with a self proclaimed prediction/request I put out there for the Ultra Gods! I had been saying, maybe all too often, that I had almost wished for a bad day of training or racing to see how I might deal with adversity. Well, today would be that day as just about anything that could potentially go wrong did!

Watch what you ask for.....

I, for some reason did not spend much time reviewing the course description, altitude profile or details since what was important to me was getting more miles and hours on my feet than I have ever experienced. This too would prove to be a good test to my training even if it was not the wisest thing to omit in a race of this magnitude. It became apparent at this time that the hamstring was going to alter my game plan a bit as I found it necessary to power hike the Ups for fear of it pulling and an inability to push off with my right leg sufficiently without pain. I did not, however realize that the Ups in this race would be miles on end so although my cardio might have allowed me to run some of these my hamstring and my conservative WS training approach kept me hiking them all.

By mile 20 we had climbed to the top of one of the largest summits of the race to come to one of the Aid stations and I saw Tony entering as I was exiting and it was over the next several miles that we ran on the completely exposed and beautiful Bolinas Ridge with the Pacific Ocean thousands of feet below revealing itself with a 180 degree panoramic view. I found it a bit disconcerting that at the peak of the trails beauty and less than a third of the way through that I was not fully enjoying myself and in a blissful running state. Between the concern for the hamstring, the uncharted distance and a course that changed sufficiently enough to not get in a groove I found myself in a bit of a Low at this point struggling a bit with my state of mind and motivation. Some self doubt crept in as I ran the single tracks alone with runners ahead and behind - but just off in the distance.

It was about mile 24 on Bolinas Ridge that things got even more interesting. A relatively new running buddy Rick Gaston had told me previously during the day a bit about the course ahead and I had vaguely recalled him describing an area where runners miss a turn and get lost but I did not pay enough attention at the time and another one of my unspoken wishes revealed itself. Myself and the runner just ahead of me Kathleen Egan managed to miss a ribbon marker and had run approximately a mile down a steep trail directly heading to the beach when it became apparent to me that we had not seen any more ribbons or runners ahead or behind us! I called out ahead to her and told her of the concern and we both realized we must have missed a turn. I have said on so many occasions how deflating it must be to run an Ultra for so many hours, miss a turn and end up putting even more miles on one's tired legs.

Self fulfilling prophecy #2 had surfaced!

We hiked up the very steep mile trail and took the opportunity to get to know one another and keep each other motivated regardless of our mistake. As we got to the proper turn on the trail I could see Tony and other runners who I had a mile or so lead on a good ten minutes up the trail from us. We surmised we lost about 20minutes with this error but quickly got back to running the ridge line and picking off runners we should be ahead of. All in all I found it to be a little bit of a pleasant diversion in the middle of the run as it gave me that motivation and drive I was lacking to slowly make ground on some of these runners that were meant to be behind me.

The race was relatively uneventful for the next several miles coming through another Aid station until we started to see the lead runners coming back on the trail from the turn around at mile 35. At this point they had a handful of mile and over an hours lead on us but it was an adrenaline rush to see them flying back down the trail on their long way back home as we still were moving in the opposite direction. With about 2 miles from the turn around I had managed to catch up to Tony and called out "Overbay" from behind. I was the last person he expected to see since he was unaware of my wrong turn and assumed he would be seeing me shortly from the other direction. It proved to be another little boost for both of us as he was bit in the weeds himself at this point and running with me seemed to get his juices going again as we started picking off runners on the descent to the turn around aid station. After fueling up for a bit we began the very long 2mile climb out of the basin and now it was our turn to see familiar faces behind us greeting us as they approached their turn around. We tried to jog areas of the Ups that seemed reasonable but they were few and far between at this point in the race, but it started to become clear that I might have a little more in the tank than Tony at this point and although he was moving strong we started to separate a bit until I had actually looked back and unfortunately lost sight of him.

From this point forward I finally found my zone where I got into my normal "groove" and although I was still required to hike all the Ups due to the hamstring I was making ground on every runner on the flats and downs. I had roughly a marathon distance left ahead and although I was moving slowly it felt like I was flying! Amazing how your mind plays tricks on you in both directions. If you feel good and passing others you feel like you are flying! If you are feeling low and are getting passed occasionally, you feel terrible even if in both cases the pace maybe the same. Throughout the remainder of the day I managed to pass nearly 20 runners, some of which were familiar faces from before my wrong turn and others must have been runners who obviously over extended themselves early and were in the Weeds for the remainder of the day. Bolinas Ridge was much more beautiful on the return simply because of my state of mind.

Lesson learned!

It wasn't until about 8miles left in the race that self doubt started to creep in again when energy levels started to wain, Aid stations seemed further apart and miles seemed to dissolve at a slower rate. Thinking I had come into the last Aid station with about 4.5miles left to go I had asked what was left from the volunteers and found that I still had 7.5miles to go and another two very long climbs ahead. My first real disappointment that I had to manage late in a race but I persevered on climbing the long fire trails up and running the long steep downs on fatigued quads. When I arrived at the final aid station which was less than 4miles to the finish I was feeling spent but could taste the finish not far away. This accomplishment was somwhat tempered by one of the RDs John Medinger sitting in his chair at the aid station asking me for my bib number. I thought to myself, "is he just testing my mental aptitude late in the run" since it is quite obviously pinned to my left thigh or had I somehow lost it on the trails? The first was the correct answer because after I was able to with great effort pull out the comment #282 he said "Great! You look like shit number 282!" Another volunteer said "that wasn't nice" and I responded with "hey it is the first honest opinion I've heard all day!" and he agreed and said he was just trying to keep me going and it worked well!

There was now about a 2mile climb ahead that would be hiked and as one runner said we probably had another hour on our feet til the barn door would close! Some runners were stronger hikers than I here but I would make up the ground on the rare flats. As we finally peaked the summit it was an amazing view for two reasons: one the Pacific Ocean, the GG Bridge and SF were in clear view but even more beautiful was the parking lot of cars and the white tents representing the finish line below!!! It literally seemed like it was only 100yds below but in actuality it was two miles and several hundred feet below. I was running at a good clip with a runner Chris from Colorado when I asked what time of day was it and would we break 12hours at this point? He said "Yes Sir! at this pace anyway..."

The downhill next mile even with the heaviest headwinds of the day felt like 7min/miles but were likely closer to 9min/miles. We now had 1mile left to finish half the summit traversed down when Kathleen and her pacer came upon us to catch Chris and I. If it were any other runner I would have been bothered at being caught so close to the finish but we both agreed how bittersweet to be finishing the race with the person that I got lost with some 7hours earlier!!!

Lesson #3 just around the corner

Feeling the adrenaline of a Day nearly complete and in my case 64miles under my feet I was pacing all three runners at a good clip and knew it would be a strong finish by all of us together when I made the smart ass comment: "now would not be the time to take a fall!" as we quickly hopped down a brutal stair step of descent that reminded me of the back side of Half Dome. The very next step I missed my mark and felt my right calf lock and seize up into a ball! I immediately fell to the ground with a tremendous lightning bolt surge of pain like no other I have felt all the way up my leg to my rear end. I'm screaming out in pain as the other runners just miss falling over me looking back and asking if I'm OK? I said No! but Go - Go!!! They did as they should and I am looking down at my calf in a full cramp locked up unable to bear weight or release it. I can see the entire finish about three quarters of a mile below and knew I could make it and that I was just out of sight from my family who might have otherwise worried had they seen the event.

I managed to get up after a couple minutes, tried to stretch the calf, hopped down the remainder of the stairs and the adrenaline must have really kicked in because I was able run the last half mile of road and gravel into the finish and into the loving arms of my wife, girls and friends to the sounds of Cowbells and Cheers! Unfortunately the excitement was somewhat short lived as was the adrenaline because with my first step post race finish I could not even put weight on my foot or get my heel on the ground. I spent the next hour or so in my chair, ice on my calf, beers in my hand and ibuprofen in my stomach.

I sit here two days later, dozens of icings later, e-stim, compression sleeve and stretching every hour and I still can not walk correctly on my leg. All in all it was a perfect training day for all the potential adversity I can expect for Western States knowing that I can now endure every possible Down and persevere through. In the end I finished in 83rd place out of about 400 runners with a time of 11hrs50min. On a good day with rested legs and staying on the correct path I feel that a 10:30 is more to my fitness level but I am actually much more pleased with all the lessons that a sub 12 hour finish taught me about who I am and what I can do!!!

A true initiation in to becoming a seasoned Ultra Trail runner is to have a day like this and overcome the Odds. They say that if you double your Miwok time or triple your AR50 time you get an approximate guide to your abilities for WSER. Ironically in both cases that puts me just under the Silver belt buckle time of 24hours! Right on target!!!!!!