Running with a Fast Crowd

The 87th Dipsea

June 8, 1997

In some circles, "running with a fast crowd" means you are headed straight downhill. But from my point of view, it's the opposite - the best way to go UPhill. And that's my take-home lesson from Sunday's 87th Annual Dipsea Race.

Ancient History

I was on the bottom rung of my high school cross country team; strictly BOP. At my school you HAD to do sports, otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't have been on the team in the first place. Even back then, I remember I had a "thing" for hills. I couldn't beat the other guys on the team, but at least I could "beat" the hills. It was the one thing I could be proud of as a runner - hills didn't scare me like they did many of the other guys on the team.

One day we went to a meet somewhere in northern New Jersey (Montclair maybe?), and I noted that the course was once around the track, then straight up this monster (1/2 mile or so) steep hill. I vowed this was going to be my day, and when the race started I went hard up that hill. All of a sudden, for the first time all season, I wasn't running with the BOP'ers, but the MOP'ers. Knowing that the runners around me were faster than I, I formulated the strategy of hanging on to each guy as long as I could, then letting go, then hanging on to the next guy, and so on. By the end of the race, if memory is not playing tricks on me, I was fifth man on my team, my first and only time scoring for the team. The lesson was simple - run with a fast crowd, and you too can be fast, if only for a short while.

Modern Era

The Dipsea race was my major focus for the year. Last year I qualified for the first time, which meant that this year for the first time I'd be running in the "Invitational" section, which means: A) you're assured entry if you return your form promptly (no small benefit!); B) You have to get up earlier because you start 25 minutes earlier, and C) you have a chance to win. ;-) Actually it means two other things, at least for me. One was obvious. With my 5-minute handicap, several hundred people would be starting behind me, all of whom had previously qualified with times faster than mine (since I was, as usual, "on the edge"). This in turn means that several hundred people would be passing me during the race. If hundreds of people pass me in a road race, it means that I'm dying, and that can be psychologically devastating, but here, it just means that they're faster people who started behind me with a smaller handicap. So mentally, I have no problem. But physically, I am dreading this a bit, and worried that all this stepping aside is going to slow me down. As it turns out, the effect is quite the contrary (see ANCIENT HISTORY above). Running with the fast crowd ends up having a very beneficial effect on my race.

Preparation

This is, after all, what it's all about. Months and months of wonderful training runs in the Santa Cruz Mountains getting ready for the race. Some alone, some with friends. Some hard, some easy. An average of 20 mpw for the three months prior to the race, more like 30 mpw for the month prior. An average of 2100 feet of ascent/descent per week for three months, with more than 3500 feet for four straight weeks in May, but only the tiniest of doses in the two weeks preceding the race. Two good hard but short track workouts the week before the race. OK, I admit there should have been a lot more of those, and a lot sooner! I've even "preconditioned" my body by getting a healthy dose of poison oak. :-)

I recognize that the idea of focussing your season on a single race is dangerous. Anything can go wrong on one day. If you aim for a 10K, or a marathon, or a particular triathlon, you can always change your target race if you get sick or injured; if you have a bad race you can try to do better at another one. But there's only one Dipsea, and it only comes once a year. If you want to do well, you only get one shot. It's kind of like the Boston Marathon, only if the only race all year you could qualify for it was at Boston the previous year. Definitely puts the pressure on! But I feel like my preparation has gone well, and I'm arriving at race day ready, with one small problem - my right hamstring has been nagging at me for about a month now, complaining when I push too hard. I feel like my two final track workouts were a good thing, but they certainly didn't help the hamstring. The night before the race I apply some "external pain relief patches" (Salonpas), but they really have no effect.

Race Morning

We're off early on race morning, me with my race morning iced cafe mocha with mint (bought the night before) in hand to kick-start the metabolism. Debi, Lauren, and I arrive in Mill Valley an hour before race start, early enough to get a parking space just a block from the race start. Things are going well already. :-) Run into Brad, then later Kate and Dean, so things continue to go well. The warmup is another story. As I start some running my hamstring is crying out, and doubly so when I attempt to head up one of the steeper side streets in town. This is NOT good. I tell myself "it'll warm up" without really believing it; mostly I tell myself I'm going for it pain be damned. We shall see.

Watch the first groups go off with some of the most inspiring runners. Jack Kirk. By gum, the man is 90 that's NINETY years old running his 62nd consecutive Dipsea (first in 1930!!!; a few years were missed because of the war), and he sets off down the street damn near as fast as I will 17 minutes later. Unbelievable. Wearing, as ever, long pants and a dress shirt! A true legend. Last year he really struggled as I noted in my report , and I was truly worried it might be his last. Misplaced worry! Other older runners start off - Eve Pell, Shirley Matson, Sal Vasquez, Joe King, all national class runners and Dipsea legends 10-20 years older than me who could easily beat me (and most of the field) from scratch, but instead are starting 10 or 15 minutes ahead of me. I won't even see their dust! All the while I continue to jog easily.

I've run the race before with an Ultimate, but at the very last minute I decide that the overcast weather makes it unnecessary, so I take it off and hand it to Debi, along with my cap (just one more thing to worry about on the trail). It's a bit of a risk, it'll be nearly 50 minutes until I hit the one water stop, but I decide to chance it, for the very small amount of lessened weight and added freedom I'll gain. Debi tries to talk me out of making last minute changes, but I go ahead with it.

And Finally - The Race

Ready for the anticlimax? Here it comes. I had a great race! That's it! Everything went perfectly, nary a misstep. Hamstring never bothered me the entire race. 2:22 P.R. Totally jazzed. OK, perhaps a little bit of elaboration :-P

What a change it was running in the Invitational section. Right from the start it was different. Last year I was one of the few people in my age group who would qualify, so from the start I was near the front of my group. This year, I was one of the very slowest who had qualified; when my group (men age 48-49, boys 14) of about 25 set off down the street, I was nearly last almost from the start. But that was ok, I was prepared for that mentally, and ready to run my own race. When we hit the stairs, they were much more open and "runnable" than they were when I ran with the "unqualified" runners. This was good and bad - good because I COULD run, bad because when I ran out of steam and had to do some walking, I couldn't blame it on the crowds. The stairs are VERY tricky. If you take one at a time, you're taking really small, really fast steps, wasting a lot of energy, and probably not going much faster than walking. If you take two at a time, you're cruising, but it's hard to keep that up for an entire flight, at least it is for me. I tell myself that walking has the benefit that I can use my arms, pulling myself up by the railing, and save my legs for later. Probably a rationalization, but it was to prove true.

After the stairs you pass through two different streets where kids are giving out water from their driveway; I take cups from both and am grateful they're there. By the time I finish the first climb at Windy Gap, I'm 10 seconds behind last year despite the more open conditions, but I don't even really take note. Things are going well. I passed quite a few people on the stairs, not that many people passed me, and that's all that counts! Down the first short trail descent (Hauke Hollow) and then start a downhill sprint on the road. Amazingly enough, while I'm running as hard as I can, dozens of runners stream by me at this point, including Brad who started two minutes behind me. Go Brad! Just a few seconds later we start the drop into Muir Woods, and at the top of "Suicide" I pass the legend, Jack Kirk.

Now here's the amazing thing. Jack is ninety years old, and not only is he running this course, he's taking the shortcuts, including the incredibly steep dirt hillside known as Suicide! Wobbly, feeble old man, not steady on his feet? Not Jack! Truly amazing.

Down through Muir Woods and across Redwood Creek and I miss taking my usual split here, but I'm pretty much dead even with my performance of the last two years.

And then the miracle occurs. The hardest part of the course for me has always been the climb out of Muir Woods, known as "Dynamite." For starters, it's a place where you transition from a very steep downhill to a very steep uphill, and that's always tough anywhere it happens. Add to that the fact that this climb is challenging all by itself, and you have a sure-fire bet for intimidation. But this year, I was "running with a fast crowd." Instead of most people walking Dynamite, most people were running. This not only had a physical effect (opening up the trail a little more), but, more importantly, a mental effect. Last year, with most people walking, I could walk fast, or run just a little, and still pass people, and feel good about myself, even while I wasn't really pushing myself to my own limit. But this year, with most people running, I found it far easier to run and run harder up Dynamite.

And this continued, all the way across the gentler climb from the top of Dynamite to the high point on the course, Cardiac Hill. I raced that section, the section where "the race is won or lost," as never before. Some of the improvement was due to cooler temperatures, some perhaps due to better training (though my training was really quite similar this year to last; the only-and probably significant-difference was that last year my last long, hard run was just one week before the race; this year it was two). Some of the improvement is probably due to running this year in my new racing flats. But most of the difference, in my opinion, was just what I learned those many years ago that day in northern New Jersey - when you run with a fast crowd, you get faster.

I can't remember a more satisfying race. I just felt great the whole way, occasionally accelerating to sneak by someone, sometimes having to slow temporarily until a passing opportunity presented itself, but mostly just running solidly and strongly all the way. I did have a temporary bad patch when I got stuck for a half mile behind "stinky guy"; not that he was slowing me down but I couldn't breathe! I managed to pass him at one point; the instant I was in front of him the smell went away. Then a few minutes later he passed me again. Arggggh! FINALLY I managed to get by him for good. Whew! Ran steadily up Cardiac, the first time ever I can remember doing so. I was looking for a sub-49 to the top (last year 49:33); instead I made it there in 47:22, WAY ahead of my goal time and, I thought, an almost certain qualifying time/place.

But you can't let up! You can never let up! As I've said before, but it can't be emphasized enough, there is no qualifying time at the Dipsea, only a qualifying PLACE. When you're trying to qualify for Boston, you can get to mile 20, and do the calculations, and say to yourself "gee if I run x:xx/mile I'll qualify." At the Dipsea you can never say that! If you let up, someone may pass you, and push you one place back; enough of those, and you won't qualify, no matter what your time. Noting that you're ahead of last year's time isn't enough; cooler temperatures may mean that EVERYONE is ahead of last year's time (and that was, in fact, the case; Brad was to finish a minute faster, but in almost exactly the same place, as last year). But of course you have no way to know these things, so it's PUSH PUSH PUSH the whole time, all the while your brain is engaged, judging every single stride, where it will land, which path you'll take, etc. NO LET UP!

At the Cardiac aid station I make my one mistake of the race. Grabbing a cup of water, I drink a little, then go to dump the rest on my head. I do this all the time. But this time, I miss and the water gets all over my glasses. This is bad, because my vision is now obscured and the trail gets tricky in the following section, and even trickier after that when you hit Steep Ravine! Somehow I manage to survive, but a bit of luck is definitely involved. I race on. There's one small hill in this section, maybe a 20-30 foot climb, and I go as hard as I can up it and punch my arm in the air and say "Yes!" at the top and the guy next to me gives me a look. I'm having one of those races I visualize but never achieve, a race where I'm flying along and never get tired. I feel invincible.

Down the Swoop, down Steep Ravine, and then steadily (even hard at times) up the final hill, Insult. People are still passing me, I'm passing fewer, but neither of these things bother me; I just continue on. At the top of Insult a guy with a counter says "350 but take it with a grain of salt" - boy that's reassuring! I decide to just ignore it - my plan isn't going to change anyway - run as hard as I can to the finish. Down the road, through the first shortcut, road again, second shortcut, though the final wooded section, and onto the final road section to the finish. I crank up my pace to my 220 pace for the last half mile (it's downhill), and even at that I'm being passed. Can't do anything about that, just run as fast as I can, keep pumping the arms, vision starting to go as I'm pushing to the limit, finally the finish line comes and it's 1:10:30, 2:22 up on last year and with an extra minute handicap that's 3:22 improvement "clock time." Yessssssss!

Last year a 1:05:30 would have put me 280th which would be unbelievable, WAY ahead of expectations, but this year times were faster and, sadly as it is for the denouement of this story, as of this writing I HAVE NO IDEA where I finished! In a rare moment of stupidity I forgot to look for the results posted at the race, and now I have to wait until they go up on the Web site! The wait is killing me. I do pretty much believe I have to have qualified, and if I didn't it will be a major shock, but I guess whether I did or didn't I still pretty much had the race of my dreams. And then I got to top that off with getting to hang around after the race with Brad and his friend Sal Vasquez, Dipsea God who won for the seventh time running a 54-minute time at age 57. Only a handful of people have ever run their age in this race; Sal's done it several times.

The hamstring? Never bothered me once during the race. Ah, the salubrious effect of adrenaline. Today it's better than before the race. Go figure.

Brad's motto, expressed on his "Diablo Challenge" T-shirts, is "Set goals, not limits." This is a wonderful slogan, and it's hard to dispute it, but somewhere there are limits and I think in this race I was pretty close to mine. Not AT the limit, but close. And I'm very, very happy with that.

Now if I can run the same time 20 years from now, at age 68, I'll win one of the coveted black shirts (top 35). If I can run that time at age 70, I might have a shot at victory. The goal is set!

If I'm still ALIVE at Jack Kirk's age, I'll be happy with that.

Thanks for running along with me. It's all downhill from here. :-)


Steve "No black shirt, but big smile" Patt
in Cupertino, CA, site of many great Dipsea training runs
and Dead Runner encounters

"In the Dipsea you just go and go and go"