Race report: Way Too Cool 50KM 2014

The middle of the pack: my first ultrarunning experience

My decision to run

Over the last few months I have run more than I ever have. When I got in the lottery for the Way too Cool 50KM race, I was stoked and scared. I had run 5 half marathons and capped off my summer last year by running a 35KM race. The 35KM race I ran was in the Sierra Foothills and overlapped with the Way Too Cool course for a few miles, so I had a general feel for the terrain and knew what I was getting into. I had told myself that I wanted to be less than 220 pounds before I signed up for an ultra-marathon race. I had lost weight during the summer while training (from 270ish down to 245). Even though I wasn’t there yet, I figured that may the next bout of training would help me shed the pounds.

Training

I started ramping up from the 20-25 miles per week of maintenance-mode running to 40+, hitting 46 and 47 miles in the weeks around Christmas and continuing on up from there, topping out at 56, including a 25 miler the last week of January. February offered a lot of challenges with my kids getting a stomach bug and multiple colds. These involved sleepless night in various chairs holding kids. Not the best situation – and we topped off the month with a trip to the hospital with one of our daughters and adding new preventative medicines for them. As for my weight, I dropped down to 230 during this ramp up. Not as much loss as I had wanted, but I felt a lot stronger and capable than I had been going into the other races I did.

Race week

Like every taper I have done for swimming or for running, all the little aches and pains started bugging me. I had a pretty intense week in the lab as well, doing a lot of experiments for my own projects and helping out with some other peoples’ projects as well.  As race day approached I got more and more nervous about how I was feeling and about whether I would finish or not. Thirty-one miles is not short and sweet. It isn’t long by some standards, but I had never run more than the two 25 milers I did in training, so 31 miles was uncharted territory for me.

My brother flew in from Seattle on Friday and the kids and I picked him up at the airport. We ran a bunch of errands, met my wife, April, for dinner and then we got on our way. My brother is a more experienced runner than I am having done a couple marathons and a 50KM last fall. He re-assured me that we would both finish, that I had done the training and now it was time to go enjoy the course and have a good time. This reassurance was nice and necessary – there is nobody like your brother and oldest friend to reassure you. We slept a sound night in a Roseville hotel the night before the race and were able to sleep in until 6am, which is late for us.

The race itself

I was issued a wave two start, meaning I would start 10 minutes behind my brother and what seemed the vast majority of runners. The first mile was on the road and then we hit the trail to go down the Olmstead loop trail to Knickerbocker Creek. Hitting the creek was the first stream crossing of 12 or so for the day. Instead of waiting for people to cross, I just ran right through the water knowing that there would be a ton of water and mud throughout the course. I tried to ease myself into a steady moderate pace that was comfortable and settled in with a couple other folks for the first (8 mile) loop back to the starting area while nursing down a Clif Gel. I hit the 8 mile mark in 1:20, which I knew was on the quick side for pacing for the day, but I was feeling good, so I picked up an S-cap and a gel and was on my way.

I knew the next bit of trail pretty well having run it during the 35KM race I did, but it was a muddy mess with several streams running through it unlike the dry dusty trail I experienced the previous fall. But the huge vertical drop was still the same. I rushed down as fast as I could without trashing my quads and hit the highway crossing while they were stopping traffic for the runners. I would later learn that my brother got held up for 4 minutes waiting to cross.

The trail along the river was beautiful and I could hear the water rushing below. Not long after crossing the highway, I saw my brother from behind. I knew I was going out too fast and he said he was going to take it easy for the first 20 miles, so I wasn’t too surprised, but I was thinking that I would catch him around 20 miles, not 13. I didn’t work to catch him, but, I saw him leaving the Maine Bar aid station at mile 16.7 and just said “hi” to him at that point, as he was leaving the aid station and I was just getting there. I wouldn’t see him again until the end, and his splits show to be much more even than mine were.

Me, on Quarry Road, about half done. Photo from ultrarunnerpodcast.com. 

Around mile 17 I heard a guy talking behind me saying he was from Point Reyes Station. I turned around and asked him if he was Josh who I had randomly followed on Strava. I randomly followed him because I like to look at the maps of West Marin and dream about running the trails out there. We stuck together chatting and running a solid pace until just after we left the Goat Hill aid station.

Somewhere around mile 23 or 24 I caught my toe on a rock and went down pretty hard cutting my finger. The worst part of it was actually getting the gel I was carrying all over my hand and shirt; that stuff is sticky. Falling does very little to raise your confidence, however, and I was being a little more timid with pacing after the fall. At mile 26 we started the most brutal ascent in the race, Goat Hill. This knocked me for a loop. Not that it was a huge climb, but it was a steep climb and also that it comes as you finish the marathon distance.  Getting to the top was a relief, but I was pretty well spent and ended up eating a bit too much at the aid station. At this point, Josh wanted to put some time on me and try to beat me since I started in wave 2, which was 10 minutes behind him.

With the combination of having fallen, climbing Goat Hill, having my new friend take off at a faster pace than I could stay with, and eating one too many Oreo cookies, my wheels sort of fell off. Over the last four miles, there was a big descent and then another climb to the finish. Thankfully there was another aid station right before the climb, where I filled my water bottles and got doused in cold water before heading up the hill to the finish line back near the Cool firehouse. The climb seemed to go on and on, though it was only a mile long. It was sure nice to see the top and know the finish line was in sight.

I tried to kick it up a notch at that point, with a half mile left, but I had very little left in my legs. I ran in through the mud splashing my way and enjoying the cheers and having my name read over the PA. As I got my medal and a water I saw my brother and Josh right there waiting, having finished not too long before me.

Post-race celebration

After chatting with Brett Rivers, who took 4^th place, for a minute or two, we headed over to the food. The race organizers had pizza and cupcakes, as well as fruit and soda. Thanks to Victor Ballesteros at Victory Sports design, we ended up getting a Hill 88 IPA from Headlands Brewing Company as well. We got a hat from Strava as well and chatting with some of my new Pamakid Runner teammates. We looked around the other vendors. We probably should have waited for a spot on the table at Monsters of Massage, but we opted to walk back to the car. This was the longest mile of the day. I took off the shoes and put them in a bag and then changed to flip-flops and cotton cloths for the drive home. The drive home was uneventful, thankfully, and I was even able to get out of the car unassisted afterwards.

When we got back to my house, April had fixed a wonderful recover meal of wind salmon, kale, asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes. It was awesome, considering the amount of sugar that I consumed during the run.  Sleeping was a bit more difficult and didn’t really come until I took some Advil at 3 AM. Nothing was sharply painful, but every part of my lower body was sore. Still is, really since it is only a few hours later.

Special thanks
To my wife, April for putting up with the extra hours of training, especially the sessions that went overnight. Thanks to my brother, Tom, who has been a life-long inspiration and a sort of mentor in this running thing. Thanks to my dad, for showing me what master's level athletics is all about through his life-long swimming activities, and to both of my parents for all of the help they provide in my day-to-day life. Thanks to Josh Luftig for helping me through those miles with good conversation. Thanks to Victor for the beers. And finally thanks to all the race volunteers for doing such a great job and to all the people out cheering on the runners.

My brother, Tom (right, in blue) and me after the finish.

This race on Strava:

Stay tuned for the next adventure. 

Re-starting from scratch, failing, and re-starting again

Re-starting my fitness
When I was in college, I used running as a way to cross train and keep my weight from getting out of control in the swimming off season. About 2 years ago, in July or August of 2011, I decided to start running again. This time, my goal was to go back to being fit as quickly as possible and with the least time investment. Getting to the gym or to a pool seemed like a tough way to work out, as you have to go somewhere first.  Running can start as soon as you are out the door (not to mention, it costs very little, relative to a gym membership or yoga classes).

Initial training (and failure)

When I started out running I never really went too far. I would go two or three miles and then call it done. I slowly built some mileage and started running 4 and 5 milers, eventually progressing to 6 and finally to 10 and 12 milers after about 6 months of running. Looking back, I think this conservative approach let me build a base without getting hurt.

Finish line, GGTR July 2012

During this time, my weight dropped from 265 to about 250. I ran my first half-marathon, the Coastal Trail Runs Golden Gate Trail Run (http://www.strava.com/activities/13688983), and I did it pretty fast for my first race of this distance and with those hills. My brother flew down from Seattle with his family and we ran this race. He is very fast, and inspired me to run hard that day.

While I was making progress on speed and distance, we undertook two drastic life changes: we moved 40 miles from San Francisco to purchase our first home and we had a second baby. The amount of sleep lost during the time that we had our first baby was pretty drastic. The amount of sleep lost with the second one can only be described as mind-bending. Stack that on top of an extra 2 hours per day of commuting, and it is a pretty toxic recipe. My running got reduced to around 2-4 miles once or twice a week with an occasional longer run. Some months got reduced to zero miles as my wife went back to work (for example, November 2012 had zero miles, October 2012 had 4 x 2 milers). My weight ballooned back to 268 by the holidays, and I wanted to gear up and do something about it.

Crossing the finish line of GG trail run, February 2013

Now, this is a typical story, I know. A beginner is inconsistent and then tries to be more consistent and then does, and grows as a result.  I ran the same trail half marathon February 2013. Granted, it was a warmer day, but it was brutal (http://www.strava.com/activities/40470035). I had just started training again and I had a cold.  Not a good combination, but certainly a wake-up call for me to get myself in gear.

Trying harder for consistency

If you talk to anyone who knows anything about fitness, they will tell you that the number one source of failure is lack of consistency. Starting earlier this year I really started running more. I bought more clothes to run in a new backpack to use for run-based commuting. This led me to doing 2-3 milers nearly every day that I worked. I also tried to make on of the days a longer run, trying for 5-10 miles as much as I could. Along with my brother-in-law, I ran the Inside Trail Racing 10K at China Camp in San Rafael, CA (http://www.strava.com/activities/56282898). While I performed OK, I knew that I wasn't where I needed to be. It hurt pretty bad to finish a race that was essentially half of a half marathon.

I signed up for and ran another half marathon with my brother, this time it was in Seattle. I had not achieved as much training as I had before my first half marathon, and we chose a trail run in Issaquah, WA, the Taylor Mountain trail half marathon. My performance was OK, but I was still under-trained and had not done enough long runs (http://www.strava.com/activities/63658698). There were several reasons why I had additional struggles during this race. First, I was not prepared for the vertical gain in the last few miles. I thought that most of the climbing was at the start and just fell apart when there was so much climbing to do at the end. Second, I was not prepared for the humidity at all and I was barely ready for the heat. The humidity was killer, and the temperatures, usually in the 70s in Seattle, soared into the 90s that day. It started raining in my last half mile or so, and I was happy to feel the rain. Third, the mud was killer. A few runners lost shoes to the mud holes on the course.  While I did not, running in all the mud was tougher than the dry, dusty hard-pan dirt of the Northern California coastal trails.

Not happy to be making so many excuses, I decided to turn that run into the first long training run leading me from being a lousy overweight half marathoner into a leaner, more consistent distance runner. Since this decision at the end of June, I logged 96 miles in July, including some long runs of 14 miles and 15 miles. I have also tried to get out and run 4-5 miles at least 4 times a week and to do a long run at least once a week. Some of these runs have been designated as "quality" sessions, with either tempo or interval work. Some of the runs have been hill work, working on both up and down speed and endurance.

So far, my plan has translated to weight loss down from 265 pounds in mid-June  to 247 pounds, and a decrease in body fat from 22.6% to 18.7%. While I am nowhere close to being where I need to be, the last six weeks feels like it has been a re-boot of my system, pointing me to where I need to keep going. I logged my 4th half marathon race yesterday.  This one was in Brazen Racing Bear Creek Trail race in Briones Park, which is across the street from my house. However, the terrain was almost all terrain that I had not run on, as it started and finished on the far side of the park from where I live (http://www.strava.com/activities/75433012). The heat was pretty strong, and I decided to run this without a hat to let my head vent.  I think this was a mistake. I also took on too much water at the final aid station. I got dizzy and had to sit down for about 5-10 minutes. As the clock was ticking, I thought I might need medical support and DNF the race. I took two Salt-Sticks capsules while I was sitting, and those took effect pretty fast, and my dizziness went away and I was able to finish under my own power in under 3 hours, but a bit slower than my goal.

I am happy to be alive after that effort and messing up my electrolyte balance so much. Every time I go out for a run it is an opportunity to learn: how far I can I go, how hard can I push myself, and and how can I do it in a smart way. I have several more reflections on how to be a novice runner and racer and will share these and in the next few weeks along with training reports as I log more miles.

First post

I claimed this blog name a while ago and have not done anything with it really because, well, I am busy.  However, writing things down may help me to understand trends in things that I wouldn't see otherwise. So this is how I will start: a promise to myself to write here more regularly. This will be about running, fitness, life, and family. Hopefully I can make it interesting.