Shortly after the start, easy rollers
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Ran the Quicksilver 50M race with black tape over my watch so I could "just
run" without obsessing over times (but still recording all my splits!). Ran
(and walked) strong all day, set a 19-minute PR and took first in age group. Training
pays off. Confidence for my upcoming first 100M race soars.
LONG-WINDED VERSION:
The first and only other time I raced 50 miles was last October at Firetrails. My
longest previous run had been 50K, and in the six weeks prior to the race my longest
run was 14M. It wasn't the greatest preparation. :-) I did manage to make it 40M
or so before the wheels started to come off; a blister didn't help. I finished in
10:22, and told the race director that 50M was too long to run and I thought I'd
stick to 50Ks.
A month after that, still thinking that I might never run another 50M race and therefore
might never again have the opportunity to enter the Western States 100 (which requires
a qualifying performance at 50M to apply), I sent in my application. I was assuming
that, following the laws of statistics, I wouldn't get in anyway (most applicants
don't get in). I was wrong. :-)
The day of the Western States lottery, everything changed. I was accepted, and now
my frame of mind became - this might well be the one and only time in my life I'll
attempt to run 100 miles, and I'm going to give it my best shot. That meant serious
preparation. Since the end of December that has meant 3 low-key 50K races, 3 additional
50K training runs, 2 40M training runs, and one low-key 50M "training race",
with an overall training volume of 50 miles/week (increased from my historical 25-30).
Saturday was my key preparation test, the Quicksilver 50M, held at Almaden Quicksilver
County Park in San Jose. Many local ultrarunners preparing for Western use the Miwok
100K the week before as their key pre-Western race, but I opted for Quicksilver because
it's a hotter location, and even as a shorter race I thought it would be better preparation
for Western.
My key innovation for this race was "flying blind." I tend to be a bit
obsessive about numbers, as befits someone who makes a living selling software that
helps runners keep track of numbers. As I run I'm constantly looking at my watch,
calculating splits, projecting times to the finish, getting depressed if a certain
section takes too long or worrying if I started out too fast, etc. Getting the Nike
SDM Triax which measures the distance of every run hasn't helped, although it wasn't
the cause of the problem. Anyway, this is all fine, and during training I think it's
been very useful, helping me to get a real feel for what I can and cannot do. But
during the race I wanted to avoid this, and "just run the way I feel."
Of course I wanted to have the numbers to obsess over AFTER the race, so instead
of dispensing with a watch altogether, I placed a piece of black electrical tape
over the face. Now I could time all the splits, including times in and out of all
the aid stations (because my last 50M race I had spent too long at aid stations,
and wanted to keep track of that), but during the race I would have absolutely no
idea how I was doing. It was a GREAT idea, as it turns out.
The day before the race I ate heavily, big lunch, three portions of pasta for dinner
plus ice cream and cookies. Don't want to run out of gas in the middle of the race!
After a relatively sleepless night, it was time to get up at 4 and head out to be
at the race site shortly after 5. Heck, if you have to get up early, might as well
get there a little earlier and not have to worry about rushing around before the
race. Although it was expected to be (and was) 80 degress by mid-afternoon, early
morning in these parts is in the 50's. I had a long sleeve shirt I was prepared to
discard at the 9M aid station, but by a few minutes before race start at 6 a.m. most
of the crowd was in short sleeves, so I figured I'd join the pack. Worked out just
fine.
Shortly after the start, easy rollers
Shortly after the start. I'm in the center, in the white shirt and blue bandanna, with the dark lenses removed from my glasses for better vision (they'll go in once the sun comes up). Waving to the photographer (husband Keven Smith) is Dead Runner Sally Smith, on the extreme left is famous ultrarunner Stan Jensen. In front of me, in the black shirt, is Diane Kato, who evidently spent the whole day not far from me (see end of story for more about Diane)
The race starts on a short rolling section and then fairly soon up one of the shorter,
easier hills in the race. My race day pattern was set early, as I held my own with
a calm pace on the rolling section, and then passed several people while walking
as fast as I could up the hill. I've been working hard on fast uphill walking for
months now, and it's really paying off. Then it's back down hill and along a 6-mile
singletrack, pretty much the only singletrack of the entire race. I was cruising
along, as I usually do on singletrack where I always feel energized, but then made
a conscious decision to step off the trail and let two women pass me so I could ease
off the pace. There is a not-so-hidden danger in this race, because about 2/3 of
the runners are only doing 50K, so if you're doing 50M you have to be careful not
to be sucked along too fast.
The sun starts to hit the trail
Views of Silicon Valley from the morning singletrack
Eventually we emerge from the woods and hit the fireroads on which we'll spend most of the day. A mile and a half later we're at the "Dam overlook" (more precisely, the Guadalupe Reservoir overlook) with the major aid station that we'll hit a total of three times. I've run with many of the people staffing the station, including Mark Williams who fills my water bottle, Susan Tamburro who helps me get food, and Doug White. Nevertheless I'm all business, save the schmoozing for some other time. At every aid station, the workers efficiently refill my two bottles, one with water, one with Cytomax, while I gulp down a cup of Coke and grab two potato pieces and three chocolate chip cookies "for the road." It gets monotonous, but it works. I'm in and out in just over a minute. There are 23 aid stations at Western States. Save a minute at each one and that's 23 minutes off the bottom line.
Check the definition on those quads!
The race continues back along a rolling path to the SE end of the park (which runs NW-SE), then makes a turn and heads up a long, steep hill. Here I'm "chasing" Charles Stevens, someone else I've run with. He's running, I'm racewalking, but keeping pace with him, and when the route levels out across the top and the highest point in the park, I start running and pass him. We start down again, heading for the reservoir overlook aid station for the second time, and just then the lead man comes by. I correctly guess that Ann Trason won't be far behind and I have a camera which I'm using to take pictures from time to time, and I figure that would be a good picture. Then I decide, maybe she'll be embarassed, a little too much hero-worship, not that she isn't a hero worth worshipping, but anyway I put the camera away. Just then I come around a bend and there she is, bending down to pick up a GU wrapper she just dropped. :-) Some picture that would have been! Well, I suppose it would have proved that she's human. Because if you only go by her finishing times, you might have some doubt about that.
The view of Almaden Reservoir and the Bay Area from about mile 17; the "Dam overlook" aid station is circled in black in the lower right
Anyway, down to the aid station, then a loop around the NW corner of the park
and 5 miles later you're back to the overlook aid station again. Tons of hikers are
starting to appear in the park as its getting to be a more "normal" time
of day. The day is warming up, still not a cloud in the sky, just a clear blue sky
everywhere you look. The park is dry, and the wildflowers aren't nearly as plentiful
as they have been in recent weeks elsewhere in the Bay Area. Once summer comes, the
trails at Quicksilver can get very dusty, but today they're just fine, and as good
as fireroads get (which doesn't compare to pine-needle and leaf-covered single-track,
but you take what you can get). The views are great, anyway. From the high points
in the park you can see east and north across the Bay Area; from the western side,
it's the tree-covered wilderness of Sierra Azul, marred only by the curious cube
atop Mt. Umhunhum. Although I chose this race for it's heat-training possibilities,
and it is 80 degrees, frequent cool breezes make the day simply delightful.
Somewhere in here my left hamstring starts seriously hurting. I went through about
a month with a fairly serious strain, but in recent weeks it seemed to have been
healed. All of a sudden it's back, so I pull a pack of Advil out of my race belt
and down the contents. Amazingly, it works, and pretty soon the pain is gone and
never returns.
The photographer gets photographed
Back to the overlook aid station for the third and final time, then a big loop around
the SE corner of the park, first gently uphill, then fairly sharply downhill. Then,
just as you approach the start/finish/31M aid station, a surprise to those of us
who are flying blind not just with our watches taped, but also to those of us who
aren't familiar with the course. Because just when you can smell the barn come what
Sally Smith terms the "hills from hell." Probably five or so hills, each
maybe 50-100 feet high, but VERY steep, the kind that you can literally slide down
the back side if you're not careful. I still have 20 miles to go, though, so I just
take them with the aggressive, hands-on-quads walk that I've been using for all the
longer, not quite so steep hills we've encountered. Andy Hergert passes me in here,
heading out for the final 19.
Finally the start/finish area comes into view. I'm hoping I won't catch sight of
the finish line clock, not that it would be that big a deal, but I really don't want
to know how I'm doing. Mentally and physically I'm doing just fine, that's really
all that matters.
I really focus when I race and it's only a few seconds before I hit the aid station
that I see Karen Wells, Rick Schaefer, and Karen's dog Jake standing there, waiting
to say hello. Always good to see a friendly face or two! We chat as I exchange my
wet headband for a dry one and change shoes. With the fairly steep downhills, my
toes have started to hurt, and the Asics I've been wearing seem to make that worse.
I change into a pair of Nike's, which are wider in the toe area and which are great
downhill shoes, but which gave me the heel blister at Firetrails so I'm leery of
wearing them for 50 miles. But 20 miles ought to be fine, and the benefit of being
able to push the downhills a little harder is worth the time. A quick goodbye to
Rick and Karen and I'm off, having spent only 4 minutes at the aid station, even
including the shoe change. Not too bad! Amazingly, the thought of stopping now that
I'm at the 50K finish never remotely entered my mind. It could be that switching
races is prohibited, so if I stop here I'm not a 50K finisher but a DNF, but actually
it's the fear of not being ready for Western States that pushes me on. Not to mention
that things are going well and I'm actually enjoying myself!
Heading back out for the final 19, the first mile rolls, but then there's a long,
3-mile hill. I'm not discouraged, though, because A) it's a good excuse to walk,
and you can never get too many of those :-) , and B) it's an opportunity to walk
fast. At the aid station at the top of the climb, my friend Doug Bailey is sitting
a chair, nursing wounds and trying to recover from stomach distress. Stuff happens.
From the 35M aid station, there's a short, pretty-single-track trail (Yellow Kid
Tunnel Tr.) and then a fireroad which doesn't appear to be on the park map, until
eventually you emerge at the very peak of Hicks Rd. Hicks Rd. has struck fear in
my heart for years, it's one of the few roads in the area of which I had serious
dread as a cyclist. It's VERY steep (13.4%), very exposed, and is literally a killer
climb on a bike. To the west, the direction we were headed, the terrain rises another
1000', and I was a bit worried about this. Needlessly as it turned out, however,
because as we entered Sierra Azul the trail actually descends for a while before
beginning a quite gradual ascent to the turnaround.
Heading toward Sierra Azul and Mt. Umhunhum with its curious cube
For the last mile or two I've been expecting to see the leaders coming back, and
decide that this time I WILL take a picture of Ann Trason. But I never see her. This
is strange as the people at the aid station told me that the 31-50M course is a straight
out-and-back. She couldn't have gotten lost, could she? The course is marked perfectly
at every intersection. Well, it turns out as I'll find out in a while the course
is NOT a straight out and back, and she was even further ahead of me than I thought
possible, and by the time I was here she was actually finished! Actually she was
finished well before I reached the 35M aid station. Sigh.
Anyway, as I cross into Sierra Azul I do start to see the human leaders coming back
from the 4.2M out-and-back (8.4M total). First Sophia Lewis, another occasional running
partner, who was to finish third overall, then a little while later Andy Hergert
who would finish fourth. All in all though, not that many people, and none who looks
to be in my age group (50-59). Suddenly, the thought of placing in or even winning
my age group becomes very real. I know Jim Magill is here, who is in my age group
and definitely faster than me. I had been assuming he was somewhere ahead of me,
but no, after I make the turnaround and start seeing people behind me, there he is,
maybe 2-3 miles behind. He says something about having been out of it for a while
(later, I find out he spent an hour at an aid station working out a calf cramp),
but he's looking good now, and he's passed me before late in a race. Doug Bailey
has also gotten "out of the chair" and recovered from his problems. So
that's at least two people in my age group chasing me.
A woman named Diane Kato (as I see from the results, I didn't know her at all) has
been running about 0.1M behind me for ages now. It's a good separation, just enough
so that I can get in and out of aid stations by myself without them having to deal
with two people at a time. All of a sudden, though, as we head downhill from the
turnaround, I hear serious footsteps. I'm weakening a little bit, and this woman
has suddenly decided to go for it. She flies by me. Now I have no reason to be competitive
with her, whether I finish plus or minus one place doesn't make the slightest difference,
but this is the perfect opportunity to use the "rubber-band" technique.
Just to pull myself along, I tell myself I've got to keep her "in reach",
and I manage to push just a little harder so I can do so.
Back across Hicks Rd. we re-enter Almaden Quicksilver and a gift awaits me. Since
I was under the impression we were doing an out and back, I assumed that there were
6M to go at this point. Now the aid station guys tell me it's only 4 (actually it's
4.4) to the finish, because we go a shorter, more direct route! Suddenly, I understand
how I could have missed Ann Trason, and I also realize that I've got to push. There
are pursuers behind me, who probably don't even know they're pursuers, but by God
I won't be passed within 4 miles of the finish! As we approach the final aid station
2.4M from the finish, Diane pulls in for a refill, but I keep on going. Nothing I
consume now is going to help me, and besides it's almost straight downhill to the
finish. Except for those hills. :-) I fly down, in what turns out to be my fastest
race segment (9:08 pace) of the entire day. The hills come and I'm not about to run
them, but I've still got an aggressive walk left, and soon enough the finish is in
sight. One last picture and I'm across the finish line.
The end nears!
Now it's time to pull off the tape! 10:03:31, a 19-minute PR for the distance
on a comparable course (8530' of climbing vs. 7820' at Firetrails). Very nice! Looking
through the splits I find I hit 50K in 5:53, which is an ok time for me, and not
shabby at all as part of a 50M effort.
My imaginary pursuers, it turns out, were not hot on my heels, however much they
helped to push me along those last few miles. Diane, who had been just ahead of me
with 2.4M to go, comes in 2 1/2 minutes later; then there's an 8-minute gap to the
next person and a full 24 minutes until the next person in my age group comes in.
But he served his purpose. :-)
I still didn't really know what had happened as far as the results, after all, I
hadn't even seen Ann Trason, who else did I miss? But, as I stood there stretching
and catching my breath, someone (I guess it was the R.D.) walks over and hands me
my finisher's plaque AND the plaque for 1st place male (50-59)! Totally unexpected
and totally awesome! I did "win" the Saratoga Fat Ass 50K at the end of
December overall, but there were only 9 people running and I don't think the other
eight were racing, so that didn't count for a whole lot. And, last summer, I was
2nd in my age group at the Tahoe Rim Trail 50K, which also took me quite by surprise.
But first! OK, two guys who are faster than me both had physical problems of one
sort or another, and some of the REALLY fast people in my age group, who could beat
me by an hour or two, chose to run Miwok last weekend, and others like Barry Fisher
did BOTH and were certainly not positioned for a peak effort Saturday (I wasn't tapered
either, but my last long run was two weeks ago, not one week ago). But, whatever
the reason, I came home with the plaque. :-)
Finishers Tile (left) and 1st Place plaque (right)
Before the race, I had posed the question "How can I think about doing a
100-mile race when every time I've finished a 50-mile race or even a 40-mile or 30-mile
training run, the thought of starting all over and doing it all over again was simply
preposterous?" One piece of advice I got, from Jim Winne, was to do a 50-mile
race and run so easily that when I finished I could feel like I COULD go out and
do it again. I chose to ignore that advice. What happened Saturday was better. Because,
even though I ran hard, essentially as hard as I could given the lack of a taper,
the fact that I was able to push the last 4 miles (even if it WAS downhill!) gave
me a tremendous shot of confidence. Because, unlike at Firetrails and at Jim's Mt
Diablo 50M in April, for once I was able to finish WITHOUT struggling. And that was
a TREMENDOUS psychological boost. Yes, 100M is a lot longer than 50M. But I think
I'm ready. Not that I'm starting my taper yet, although this was the longest run
I expect to do until Western. Physical training will continue. But mentally, I think
I'm ready.
After the race, there was all kinds of great food, but curiously, my appetite seemed
strangely depressed. After 50M of eating little bites of potato and cookie, I guess
my stomach couldn't take eating larger quantities of anything. I had a hamburger
which was delicious, but I think I took longer to eat that hamburger than any burger
in my entire life. One bite, chew, wait, rest, wait, another bite, etc. Then I went
for my absolute favorite desert, carrot cake, and after two bites I had to put it
down to take home. Curious! When I do training runs, I come home ravenous, and shove
the food down like there's no tomorrow. But after this race, it was quite the opposite.
Schmoozed for a while with Gary Wang, Kristina Irvin, and other folks, and finally
decided to head for home. It was a long day, but very satisfying.
Kudos to the race organizers for great organization, great support, great course
markings, great food, great awards, and kudos to nature for a beautiful day and a
beautiful place to run. It's not the MOST beautiful place in the area to run, but
Saturday it was the best place to be.
Steve "1000 words per mile" Patt
in Cupertino, CA, where I unwound Sunday with an easy 25M bike ride