Burning 50K on Stevens Creek Striders' Trail Half course

Let me start with an apology... No, not to Dean after my rant in last post, but to the readers of my post in our Pacific Association USATF Mountain, Ultra, Trail Grand Prix group on FaceBook. Indeed, 2 weeks ago, I posted an invitation to run our next scheduled event, the Stevens Creek Striders Reservoir Trail Half Marathon. A half marathon for a change, how could that be difficult after our previous 100-mile (Headlands), 50K (Skyline) or 100K (Quicksilver), right? So my invitation advertised a "very accessible" race. First, I meant geographically, Cupertino being quite accessible from the Bay Area. But this was rather insensitive to our members living in Reno or Auburn for instance, while this park is in my backyard. The thing is that, when designing our Grand Prix schedule, I pay a lot of attention to select events from most places across our wide Pacific Association which includes all North California and North Nevada, technically from San Luis Obispo on the South West to Reno on the North East. And, yet, most participants are still Bay Area-based...

My second thought regarding accessibility was the distance. Our MUT Grand Prix has been exclusively about ultra running for its first 20 years. When I took over, I made a point to expand the content to the two other sports/disciplines which MUT stands for: Mountain and Trail. Mountain being short but super steep races, Trail being sub-ultra races, on trails obviously.

With that, I was excited to preview the course and, since it's Labour Day weekend, typically a weekend I put into practice my concept that running requires a lot of work, in addition to the fun and pleasure, I decided to run the course twice. Plus a few miles to run from home to the Stevens Creek Park. Which is home to the Stevens Creek Striders, the first running club I joined 20 years when I wanted to explore something other than road marathons. It's from illustrious members that I heard about ultra running: Mark Williams who was the first to finish the infamous Barkley Marathons (that is an impossible 100-mile), Brian Robinson who was the first to complete the 3 cross-US trails within a year (hiking triple crown), and later would also be a Barkley Marathons finisher, and Charles Stevens, who gave me one of his Western States club entries when I didn't get picked in 2018.

The temperature was really nice when I left the house at 8 am in order to be at the reservoir for the club's business meeting and gathering. But we even got a heat wave alert at work so it was meant to be another deal later in the day. Although I'm not a member anymore after I joined Quicksilver's Ultra Running Team in 2008, I've run these trails for many years, much more than the Almaden Quicksilver's ones which I mostly hit for the Quicksilver races as I'd rather skip the 30-minute drive. Yet, there were some sections of next week's course which I didn't remember. Thankfully, Robert, the Race Director, was with us again this Saturday morning so I got a personal briefing, which proved valuable as I left the group after 3 miles at the end of REI/Tony Look Trail.

With the 4 miles from home to the Park it was now 8 miles when I hit the first serious climb of the course on Canyon Trail, toward Mt Eden. Short, 0.6 miles, but not sweet, at least in this weekend's heat wave, phew! Moreover, when you reach the top, you get good 0.6-mile downhill to the turnaround, only to have to climb it back. Seriously, who designed this course? Just kidding, welcome to trail running, the XL version of XC (cross-country)! The climb, from the top of Lookout Trail on the other side of the canyon:

Once you've retraced your steps down to Creek Trail, you get back on Tony Look Trail, this time continuing up on Lookout Trail which is narrow, has a good amount of poison oak, countless switch backs. On race day, you may not have much time to enjoy the views at the top, but you may gasp for air anyway and stop to catch your breath. From there you'll leave most of the woods shade, now finishing the climb up to Coyote Ridge Trail, using the Vista Loop and Fern Trails.

Views of the ugly quarry disfiguring the Cupertino hills:

A lonely horse rider on Coyote Ridge (heading back to the Garrod Farms).

On Coyote Ridge you then turn right on a steep descent into the Fremont Older Open Space Preserve for a loop on Seven Springs Trail. This one brought back great memories of club runs, I probably hadn't run it for at least 10 years though. The trail is quite smooth but don't get your mind lost in the great views of the valley, there are quite a few turns, you don't want to fall in the downhill under Hunter's Point. You'll finish the loop with a gradual climb, then the steep climb up to Coyote Ridge (more gasp!).

Finishing Coyote Ridge can get you some significant speed this time! It's so steep that there is warning sign for bikes at the top, although no speed limit! Hopefully we won't encounter bikes or horses on race day next Saturday. Once back at the Stevens Creek park headquarters, you finish on the only asphalt section with another short but good climb back up to the Villa Maria parking lot. Last gasp!

Overall, this course has all the best ingredients for some serious trail running: a mix of single and fire roads, only two road crossings albeit 4 passages, a mix of shaded and exposed sections, lot of dead leaves, some lose rocks, a few roots, a good amount of poison oak on the trail edges, two creek crossings albeit all dried up, a few wood bridges, amazing views of different angles on Silicon Valley's South Bay, a few water stops albeit the one on Canyon Road wasn't operational, and TON of elevation for such a short distance. 

For this 50K run, Garmin gave 5,850 feet of cumulative elevation versus 6,000 for Strava. Look at some classic 50K elevation in comparison: Way Too Cool: 4,830 ft; Skyline 50K: 4,770 fr; Quicksilver 50K: 6,000 ft; Ohlone 50K: 7,800 ft. And yet, I'm not proud of so much walking, explaining a time of 5:20 (not counting three bathroom stops to cool my head off in the sink). The top 3 times of the event (since 2019) break 2 hours and range from 1:43 to 1:52. While this sound slow for a half marathon distance, that's some serious good moving for such a hilly course! And Andrew Catanese just got in so that should be another fast year!

By the way, I still had 3.5 miles left to get back home but, between the heat and poor planning/estimation, I called Agnès for a pick-up. I had lost a lot of sweat and salt again, had taken only 4 S!Caps with me, one Snickers bar and 2 GU Energy gel. And no Vespa... Hopefully the heat wave will break sometime this week, all this makes me wonder about the future of trail running if average temperatures increase by so many degrees every year! And I'm one who tends to fare better in the heat, just saying... Actually, when I was finishing by second loop through Fremont, I didn't see one soul for almost an hour, that felt surreal. The temperature was above 90F and I thought that it would have been quite dangerous if I had gotten some heat stroke there. I did see a lone biker barely moving up in the climb toward Coyote Ridge, who ended up turning back before even reaching the top. Yes, the temperature made exercise rather grueling this weekend. Not Burning Man's naked 50K in the desert, but salty tee and shorts...

To conclude, here is a 3-minute video summary, enjoy the movies!

Hope to see many of you next week. If you had registered based on my previous invitation, you'll know how important pacing yourself at the start is going to be. If you haven't registered yet, I'm hoping my warning isn't deterring you, you can even register on race day!

PS: looking back at the course published on Garmin Connect after I posted this, just realizing that I did the Seven Springs loop in the wrong direction (clockwise instead of anti-clockwise).