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!!!!!!