EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Ran solidly on a tough course on a miserable day, but was "back in my place"
in the middle of the pack after last week's surprise win. Black tape over the watch
once again let me concentrate on racing up to my potential instead of worrying about
the time. Heat training postponed for another day.
The reward: a finisher's "trail post"
LONG-WINDED VERSION:
The Ohlone Wilderness 50K has changed routes over the years, but one thing has remained
the same - heat. Temperatures up to 100 have been common in the East Bay oven on
race day. In the past, I've avoided the race for precisely that reason - I'm not
a big fan of heat and not a great heat runner. But this year, training for Western
States where heat is a major part of the challenge, things are different. So when
my friend Andy Black wrote me and suggested I sign up for Ohlone for great heat training,
I took him up on it. A few days later, he pulled out of the race. :-)
Early in the week, reports were predicting a cooling toward the end of the week,
and by late in the week, were even predicting a rare rainstorm for Sunday night.
Still, it didn't seem like more than a long-sleeve shirt would be needed. Wrong.
Race day started badly enough with a 3:15 a.m. wake-up call. The race this year had
reverted to its original point-to-point route, starting in Fremont at the base of
Mission Peak (Stanford Lane), heading over Mission Peak to Sunol, and then out along
the Ohlone Wilderness Trail (for the most part) to its terminus at Lake Del Valle
in Livermore. For myself, and most participants, this meant getting to Livermore
by 6 a.m. to take a bus back to the start in Fremont, where the race actually started
at 8 a.m. So it was going to be a long day. It didn't help to get a warning from
Jim Winne the night before that the road I was going to be taking was closed overnight
for road work.
As it turned out Mapquest seriously overestimated the driving time, and combined with my desire to leave large margins of safety I managed to arrive at 5 a.m., the first person there. Oh well. Plenty of time to "get my act together" as well as to mellow out with some music while waiting for the buses. Eventuallly the buses leave, we get to the start, and there's plenty of time to chat with everyone I know and get ready to roll. The sun seems to be coming out, and it looks like the weather forecast may be proved wrong. I slather on the sunscreen, decide to leave the long-sleeve shirt in the bag, and line up at the start.
After a mile out and back on the road with a quick pivot around Barry Fischer at the end to make the race a "real" 50K, we start on our way up Mission Peak. The East Bay trails aren't my favorites, and the ones we'll be on today are mostly fireroads crossing open hillsides, not the wooded singletrack that I really prefer. They're also filled with cow droppings and the cattle that leave them. But on race day, none of that matters. I've come to test myself against whatever comes. If anything, the fact that conditions aren't my "ideal" just makes it a better test. And also a better training experience.
The route winds its way up the front side of Mission Peak, and, with a mixture of fast walking and running that will pretty much be the rule all day, I make it to the top. The wind is blowing, but nothing like the last time I was here and it still seems like it's going to be a nice day. After a horizontal traverse across the peak itself, and a quick glimpse to my left for a view of the Bay Area, there's a short, steep, rocky drop before a more gradual descent down the backside of Mission Peak begins. I pass a couple people here and pull away from a couple others; I seem to have a talent for the steep descents (at least compared to other mid-packers).
I've averaged a 12:12 (minutes/mile) pace to the first aid station a short way down the descent. From there it's 3.7M of straightforward gradual fireroad down into Sunol, and I accelerate to 8:59 without really straining (all times/paces were determined post-facto; during the run I had black tape over my watch to avoid obsessing about details like this). At the Sunol aid station Stan Jensen is photographing, Jim Winne is dishing out supplies, and Clement Choy is directing; if an ultrarunner isn't entered in a particular race, there's a reasonable chance you'll find them volunteering. At this point I'm feeling strong, the weather is perfect for running, but having just done a "Welsh walk" (a group walk involving Welsh Terriers and their owners) here a few weeks ago, I know I'm facing some very steep climbs ahead. The race is more than 1/3 over on the map, but not on the watch.
So its up the tough hills, walking hard with hands on quads in what continues to prove to be an effective style, then through some rolling sections, but always trending upwards. A brief descent into the "Backpack Area" where John Medinger is helping out, and then more hills follow. Suddenly, a minor disaster, as my foot catches a rock on one of the "easier" sections of trail, and I go down hard. After the adrenaline and the rapid breathing which follow the fall subside, I stand up and assess the damage. I've scraped my right elbow and torn a quarter-size piece of skin off the heel of my left hand. After washing off the blood with my water bottle, I can see that the left hand is losing blood badly.I have a Compeed in my waist pack, but no bandaid. Instead, I pull out a "Wash 'n' Dry", clean the wound, and then press it tight with my right hand to stop the bleeding, figuring to get a bandaid at the next aid station. I don't know the course, but I don't think it's too far. In the meantime I'll have no free hands, so I won't be able to drink, but that shouldn't be a problem for just a couple miles.
It's further than I expect (it always is!), but eventually the aid station arrives and, when I ask for a bandaid, the volunteer pulls out a large official First Aid Kit. Unfortunately, when he opens it, there isn't a single bandaid inside. :-( Note to R.D.'s (including self): CHECK THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST AID KID before the race! Finally he finds a piece of gauze, but no tape. He does have a roll of pink ribbon used to mark the course, so he ties the gauze on the wound with the pink ribbon. On my right elbow, a piece of paper towel and another length of pink ribbon does the same thing for that bleeding. I just hope no one follows me off course thinking I'm the course marker!
I push on, slowly and tentatively at first, trying to adjust my ribbons so they'll actually hold the gauze on. After a couple miles it becomes useless, there's no pressure being applied, so I remove them, but the bleeding seems to have stopped.Soon, however, I have a new problem. I start seeing black spots on the ground, and after a few minutes it dawns on me - it's raining! Great. Just what I need. Well, maybe it will wash the blood off. The rain worsens to a steady drizzle and, as we approach some of the higher ridges of the course, the winds starts blowing fiercely as well. Soon, my hands are starting to get really cold. It's more than 10 miles to the finish and the "h" word (hypothermia) definitely crosses my mind. But we're in the "wilderness", with no way out but forward, so forward it is (although at some point in here the R.D. (I think) passes me in a truck on his way to an aid station, so it's not THAT wild).
Well, I'm cold, but the mathematically obvious corollary is that the harder I go, the sooner I'll be finished, so I press on with everything I can muster. My whole body is stiffening up a bit in the cold, so I know I'm not going that fast (in fact I'm holding around a 12 mpm pace over this rolling section), but I'm going as fast as I can, and still working especially hard on the "walking uphills", passing a couple more people in the process. And passing people isn't that easy because they're really spread far apart; pass one and it's minutes before you even see another person.
Yet another problem arises - I can't see. I'm wearing glasses, but they're completely clouded with rain drops. So I do what I've had to do once or twice before, and remove the glasses (which fold perfectly around my waist belt). Now I'm a guy who can't read the "E" on line 1 of the eye chart, and I'm lucky to see the ground, but I really don't have much choice. It's all fireroad in this section, but there are ruts and rocks ready to trip you up. Somehow I manage. Several times I arrive at an intersection and have to stop dead until I can search around for the pink ribbons, which I'm sure I could have seen from a hundred yards away with my glasses on. I manage to stay on course, albeit with a few seconds lost.
Finally I hit the aid station at 26.4M. For the hundreds of thousands of people who do marathons this would be significant, but it doesn't mean a thing to me under the circumstances. What I am thinking about is that "it's all downhill from here" and that it's warmed up a bit now that we're off the high ridges (although it's raining just as hard) and that, at a time when those hundreds of thousands of marathoners would be done, I'm thinking about starting my 5M "kick" to the finish.
The course hits a bit of singletrack, and at first I'm so surprised I think I might be off course, having spent so many miles on fireroads, but finally I spot a pink ribbon which reassures me I haven't gone off course. This happens to be a very narrow, overgrown, rocky section of singletrack, and I'm not wearing glasses, but despite that I'm pushing hard, passing several more people. Suddenly we hit some serious uphill and I realize that the gods are punishing me for that "it's all downhill from here" thought but I take it in stride and use the opportunity to pass one or two more people. We hit the 29M aid station and I'm SURE it must really be all downhill from here, so, as I did last week, I pass up that final opportunity for aid and head down to the finish (the race actually had more aid stations that it really needed, at least today; perhaps on the hot days it's a different story).
It really is all downhill for the last 2M, steeply so, and I'm flying down, passing several more people and eliciting some "lookin' goods" and "way to go's" as I go by other, more tentative, runners. This is hard on the quads and most people's are probably pretty sore after all the climbing and descending we've been doing (7800' ascent/7440' descent) but mine seem to be made of steel. Plus I've worn my Nike's this week, the "good descending" shoes which I switched to for the last 19M of Quicksilver last week because they're easier on the toes. But here's the humbling thought. I am running this section as fast as I can, in fact it's my fastest section all day, with an average 8:23 pace. Last week, Ann Trason averaged better than that for the ENTIRE 50M at Quicksilver. It's a scary thought.
One final scare as I approach the finish line and my poor eyesight has me confused about where it is (no big "FINISH" sign in evidence), but finally I suss it out and finish in style. Peeling off the tape I find it's taken 6:28:15 (12:31/mile pace). Later, looking at the results, I find this was good for 10th (out of 24) in my age group (50-59) and 43rd (out of 99) overall. Well, that's more like it! That freak first place last week was starting to go to my head!
The Race T-Shirt
It might be possible to read this and get the wrong impression, since I talk a lot about passing people as if that were important. In terms of results, it isn't in the slightest. Whether I finished 43rd or 33rd or 53rd is of no importance whatsoever, and even I won't remember it one day after finishing this report. The reason passing people WAS important was because it reflected the fact that I was still going strong all the way to the finish; if anything I was getting stronger (at least relative to everyone else). And that IS important, because the whole reason I do this is to do MY best. Where that fits in relative to other people is of little consequence (unless I happen to come in first!). But on this day, I knew I did MY best, and so it was a very satisfying day, despite the rain and the blood.
Unlike last week, today my normal appetite was in evidence. After some stretching
and a quick change into dry clothes and a wind suit, I joined the other finishers
under a tent and scarfed down a hot dog and a hamburger and other goodies. The race
organizers did a great job putting together the post-race barbeque just as they did
with all other aspects of the race, despite the rain. And the volunteers were, needless
to say, heroic under the circumstances. Jon Easterbrook was even waiting on people
hand and foot at the finish, bringing me (and others) cokes or whatever we needed
so we didn't have to get up and walk the extra five feet. Nice touch. :-)
Steve "Tough Quads" Patt
in Cupertino, CA