Last year, when I put on my Stevens Creek 50K, I wrote in the course description
"Course drains well and only minor mud should be encountered." Naturally
it rained heavily and day before and on race day and turned parts of the course to
slop.
A few days ago, RD John Medinger sent an email to Miwok 100K participants, which
read "The trails in Marin drain very well and mud should not be much of a factor
even if it does rain." Alas, John's tempting of fate fared equally well (or
poorly) as my own.
This was my first attempt at 100K and I was hoping not to fade too badly at the end,
as I often do and as I had done to my chagrin just last week at the Big Sur Marathon,
where the last 7 miles turned distinctly ugly, and humbled a self-professed hill
runner.
The race starts at first light, 5:40, and a light rain was coming down as it did.
The race starts with out with a bang, with a tenth of a mile of difficult running
on the beach, followed by an ultra-steep climb on an alleged trail that seemed more
of a runoff path to me. After a while you hit a road for some more steep climbing
up to the top of the Marin headlands, then back down to sea level and finally hit
the trails.
The mud didn't begin at once but pretty soon the rain was coming down fairly hard,
enough to warrant use of the hood on my rain jacket. By the time we reached the 11M
aid at Tennessee Valley, the rain had pretty much stopped, but what it left in its
wake was not pretty - a sea of thick mud between there and the 15M Muir Beach aid
station (and beyond). There were hills you had to "herringbone" up, and
hills you had to more or less ski down. It might sound like fun, and maybe it would
have been if you had skis, but to me at least, it wasn't all that pleasant. Fortunately,
though, the weather had turned absolutely spectacular, and was to remain that way
all day. Running over one after another hill between mile 11 and 15, I had remarked
to my temporary running companion - "I have a feeling the weather is going to
turn nice over the next hill." And by gum it did. Blue sky, great visibility,
light winds (until the end of the day), just a perfect day for running. From the
ankle up.
At PanToll (mile 21) I ditched my rain jacket and two layers of shirts (short sleeve
and long sleeve), put on my no-sleeve Stevens Creek trail shirt, and grabbed a windbreaker
for my waist. We would be running across open ridges, and I wanted to be prepared
in case it got windy or cold. Also replenished my stash of food, since the aid stations
are relatively far apart and self-supply was definitely in order.
From PanToll to the turnaround at Olema (mile 35) is gently downhill, but with plenty
of relatively gentle uphills thrown in for good measure. Although I had been taking
it easy to this point, walking pretty much all the uphills, over this section I decided
to push just a bit harder, and ran almost all the uphills, albeit at a pace which
didn't exactly ruffle the leaves as I ran by. The first part of this route, from
PanToll to Bolinas Ridge, was simply spectacular. We ran though the middle of several
huge fields of lupine, surrounded by the beautiful purple and white flowers on both
sides of the trail. And, far below us, the views of Stinson Beach and Bolinas Lagoon
were simply picture perfect. A real delight.
A hundred yards or so before I reach Bolinas Ridge (mile 27.7), here comes Scott
Jurek on the way back, looking amazing as usual. Of course he was running downhill
at the time. :-) Fortunately for my pride, even though I was on a fairly significant
uphill at the time, I happened to be running (smelling the barn of the aid station
just ahead), so I could hold my head up high. A quick calculation said he was 15
miles ahead of me, putting him maybe 22 miles ahead of me at the finish or about
5 hours, which seemed about right.
Past Bolinas Ridge the route passes through a relatively short chapparal section
and then follows a fireroad through deep woods for a long time until finally emerging
on some open hillsides above Olema. Quite a long time after passing (or being passed
by) Scott, I finally started seeing the pursuers, including my friend Brian Robinson
looking strong. The women were quite a ways back and finally there was the first
woman and it was Sophia Lewis, winner of the Stevens Creek 50K who went on the win
the race, making for an impressive 25% of all winners of the Stevens Creek 50K having
won Miwok! I was especially pleased because Sophia had fallen during my race and
developed sciatica problems which had interrupted her training for several weeks.
Before the race she told me she might end up hiking Miwok, and I was prepared to
feel extremely guilty even if I wasn't actually responsbile for her fall in my race.
But there was was, looking strong and well ahead of Emma Davies in second place (who
eventually dropped) and a group of three women including Jenny Capel following behind.
As for me, I pressed (or plodded, more accurately) on. We heard thunder at this point
and it rained lightly for a while, but I had my windbreaker so it wasn't too bad
and pretty quickly was done. The race description describes the 7.7 miles from Bolinas
Ridge to the turnaround as "seeming long" and indeed it seemed to stretch
on forever, but finally I started seeing people who had been in "my section"
of the pack early in the day and I knew I was close and FINALLY there it was. 35
miles down, 27 to go.
After walking the first part of the return, which is relatively steep, I picked it
up and again managed to "run" virtually all the uphills from that point
all the way back to PanToll. The biggest obstacle was the mud, which in this section
was not constant but consisted largely of huge puddles covering 95% and sometimes
100% of the trail, leaving me (and other "mud wimps") trying to pick my
way around the edges, pushing my way through the underbrush. Once I failed and went
in up to the top of my shoe in mud.
Back to PanToll and I considered another gear change to a heavy shirt, knowing it
would be getting cold when I finished, but it was still nice so I decided against
it and pressed on. There's a long downhill here as you descend the fireroad back
towards Highway 1, and I was suffering a bit from sore quads and wasn't able to push
it down the hill as much as I would have liked. At the bottom of the descent, there's
another long super-muddy section and finallya section which achieved the trifecta
- gooey mud, uphill, and loaded with poison oak. Lovely. Finally, after way too much
of that, it ended, and there we were on Highway 1, 7 miles from the finish.
After the highway you start to cross the first of two ridges on the way to the finish
line. The start was again something which seemed less like a trail and more like
just a runoff pathway, as nearly vertical as it gets. The woman I was running with
at the time said to me, "Ann Trason is the only person who runs this" which
was impressive since it was literally all I could do to make forwards (or upwards)
progress walking it. But eventually after a hundred or two yards, it became just
a "normal" uphill, and for whatever reason, I decided it was time to start
pushing. I quickly repassed the woman (who had managed a faster uphill walk than
I) shouting "Look out, Ann Trason coming through" and then several other
people as well, as I ran with amazing (ok, think relative) speed even up the steeper
sections of this ridge. From the top, I continued to pour it on downhill on the descent
back to Tennessee Valley.
It was during this section that I made a tactical error. Thinking I was "only"
5 or so miles from the finish, I more or less shut down on eating and even drinking.
Well, 5 miles at ultra pace with a major ridge in from of me was still well over
an hour to go, and that was simply too early. But at this point I was still going
strong, and finished my run to Tennessee Valley, blew right through the aid station
(since I had enough water to make the finish) and on up the next hill. Passed a couple
more people and at the top of one of the climbs (there are several) in this section
went by Catra and Ammon as well.
Here I made my second mistake. Catra has passed me in the finishing stages of a half-dozen
ultras, including 300 yards from the finish at Western States. So as I passed her,
I said "I can't believe it! I'm passing Catra!" Naturally she blamed this
state of affairs on Ammon, who was running his first ultra. In any case, I shouldn't
have tempted fate.
Because in the middle of the next uphill section, I suddenly went from being a running
demon to a stumbling, staggering walker in the space of literally seconds. Talk about
bonking - this was a "hard" bonk. All of a sudden, I was lighthead, doing
the "Everest walk" (one deliberate step at a time), thinking seriously
about just lying down on the side of the trail. Naturally while I was staggering
like this Catra re-passed me, as well as the two other people I had just passed.
It took me a while since I was mentally out of it, but finally I realized that the
solution was literally at hand. My Ultimate still had a good supply of Snickers "Popables"
which had been sustaining me all day. A gobbled down a half dozen and, almost miraculously,
they worked their magic almost instantly. I also put my windbreaker on, which also
helped. Even though the temperature was dropping, I had decided to try to gut out
the last couple miles so I could finish in my Stevens Creek shirt. That was another
mistake, but also easily rectified. Within minutes I was not only off and running,
but charging uphill after the four people in front of me, who I caught just at the
top. Shouting "Look out! Lazarus back from the dead!" I ran passed as they
all marvelled at my recovery. I literally flew down the last mile from there to the
finish. I spotted one more runner far ahead on the road, and took her as my target
to reel in before the finish. The last time I had descended this road, during Headlands
50K two years ago, I had been cramping and gingerly running down and had been passed
at about the same point; this was to be my redemption for that day! Amazingly, I
hadn't had a single twinge of cramping all day, which has often been my undoing.
But I passed the woman and sprinted all the way to the finish.
My time was far from impressive, but there's nothing like a good strong finish to
redeem an otherwise average race! I was extremely proud of myself for having paced
myself properly, so much so that I was able to run the last 7 miles more strongly
than I had run all day (the brief bonking interlude notwithstanding). I haven't seen
the results, but passing a dozen or more runners in the last 7 miles was a distinct
reversal of my usual pattern in ultras, and definitely one I'd like to repeat again.
[Postscript - Final position was 134/210 finishers, 246 starters. From the turnaround
at Olema to the finish, NOT including people who dropped, I passed 21 runners (and
only 3 passed me); 16 of those were from Highway 1 at 55 miles, where I "turned
it on", to the finish (with no one passing me in that stretch). So I wasn't
imagining things. :-) I really did have a good strong finish. Of course, everything's
relative. It took me 1:41 to run the final 7 miles; the winner, Scott Jurek, covered
the same distance in 1:06.]
After the race, some great rewards (a beautiful medallion, my second in two weeks),
a nice shirt, a bottle of custom beer, some good food, and the company of my wife
who had driven up late in the day to give me a ride home. All in all, a day to feel
very proud of what I had accomplished. I had done Western States last year, but even
though I covered 100 miles, an injury had forced me to walk the last 55 miles (see
http://alumni.caltech.edu/~slp/
racereports/westernstates02.html for details), so really the longest I had ever
run were several 50 miles races. But yesterday I managed to run (with judicious walking
on the steeper uphills, of course) 100K and feel strong at the end (and not too bad
today either). Definitely one for the books.
And, as always, thanks to the volunteers who did the usual outstanding job and of
course John Medinger the R.D. and the rest of the race staff for giving us the opportunity
to run this beautiful course.
Steve "14:18 and proud of it" Patt
in Cupertino, CA