Indeed, after Thursday's bad news that trails around Lake Chabot are still under water --not another April Fools' Day joke-- imposing a cancellation of our 4/13 PAUSATF MUT Grand Prix race, Coastal Trail Runs' owners, Wendell and Leng, were generous to offer a report of our entry to another of their events. Since I was looking for another challenging training run after last week's solo 50K on Black Mountain, I decided to drive to Oakland --with brand new tires!-- to see if I could still enter CTR's Redwood (Spring) 50K. It took Leng less than 2 minutes to process my race transfer and get my bib with a few efficient clicks! 7 am and I was in, for real, no joke!
As I mentioned at my last CTR trail race, this is such a community of its own, I barely know anyone until the event is also a Pacific Association race. With that, it was cool to see Christine Chapon and her hyper-engaged group of Running for a Better Oakland kids and parents (about 150 in all!), and Shiran Kochavi, another omnipresent racer in our local community, who just took over the captainship of the Pamakids MUT Team. (Photo credit: Shiran's son.)
With the joint start, half, 30K, marathon and 50K, not to mention the initial downhill of 5 miles, initial pacing was quite a challenge, as well as figuring out who was running what. I didn't push too hard at the beginning, there were probably 20 or 30 runners ahead already. A fast one passed me about 2 minutes in the race and I could see from his bib color that he was on the 50K, wow, that was going to be a fast edition!
In the technical and sometime muddy downhill, I settled behind a group of 3 runners who maintained a reasonable pace. They seemed like 3 friends running together and navigating the mud puddles rather well. I had checked the map the night before but couldn't visualize the course so I was happy to just follow. Very early on, I actually stopped when I saw a trail well marked with blue ribbons, while we had started on the pink loop. A few runners passed by while I was asking if we should take that trail, finally one shouted "Blue is bad!" Having missed Wendell's pre-race briefing, that's all I needed to know, thank you!
I passed the group of 3 and a couple of other runners as we hit the asphalt section between the initial downhill and the uphill to return to Sklyline, and kept hammering it down in the next 5 miles. With that effort, I was quite bummed to complete the first half marathon loop in close to 2 hours. With a course record of 3:47 I wasn't expecting to break 4 hours on that hilly and technical trail but, still, that was much slower than I was hoping for. With that, I didn't stop at the aid station and rushed back down the pink loop again, this time, running all alone, except for 2 runners I saw and passed in that 5-mile downhill section.
I also made a stop at the humid Fish Ladder aid station to refill my GU2O/Gu Energy Brew bottle. I had the pleasure to chat with another great volunteer there, Lynnard Phipps. Lynnard has just turned 80 and is looking forward to giving a try to breaking a few M80 records. I told him about the battle of the M80 giants we watched in Vegas at the 100-mile Nationals. Our local Bill Dodson used to be on his own in that age group 5-8 years ago, it's a crowded field now! Another proof if needed to explain to the French why it makes sense to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64...
Now, what I didn't particularly like in my chat with Lynnard was when he told me I was in third, about 20 minutes behind second place, and more than 30 minutes behind the leader. And we were only at mile 19, dang! On one hand, that kept me moving and pushing. On the other, that somehow trimmed my stamina and motivation. I know, a rather conflicting state.
A highlight of the way up to Skyline on East Ridge was to see Shae whom I met at Headlands Hundred last August when she covered 100 miles over 4 days while being pregnant (selfie in my race report), now hiking the half marathon with... Valerie in her arms! With a bunch of bags on her shoulders and back, I would call that ultra muling, and pushing ultra motherhood to the next level!
With her friend Jenna, they completed the loop in 5:29.
3 miles from the return to the start, that is around 23 miles, I got passed by the leader of the 50K, wow! That was a lead of almost 7 miles... I ran through the Skyline Gate aid station again without stopping and, a few hundreds yards later, crossed the second place in the 50K who was on his final 5-mile loop. That was another 3 to 4 mile-gap. One can say we were rather spread out.
To my surprise, Lynnard was now manning the aid station at the turn around at the marathon mark: omnipresent volunteer and a long shift of more than 4 hours!
I was still carrying enough fluid, I quickly got down that extra 5-mile loop. I cross a few other 50K runners then, at the exact same spot the winner had passed me, it was my turn to catch and lap Shiran. He lives down the hill so at least that wasn't too long of a drive for that one.
As I was chatting with Shiran, my phone rang: it was Agnès calling from Greece where she is chaperoning a group of students from her school. From my short breath, she quickly figured out I was still running. I called her back 30 minutes later from the finish. Shiran caught this cool slow-motion video:
I finished in 3rd overall in 4:40:11, an average 9 min/mile. I was rather disappointed by this time, this is certainly not an easy course. But still, 50 minutes behind the winner... Patrick Rabuzzi, 31, was 2 minutes behind the course record with a 7:20 min/mile average, phew! He is from Oakland, he must be quite familiar with these trails but that's still really fast. I suspect he must have average 6 min/mile in the technical downhills (I could barely break 8 minutes going down, yikes...). Second place was William Tholke, 22, who doesn't even have a result in UltraSignup yet. With a time of 4:22, that's a very promising start.
Apart from that, I chuckled when I realized the sum of their age was still below mine... And, yet, I'm still dreaming of getting back to more speed, more agility in the technical downhills, and even more importantly, more power in the uphills. At least this keeps me young at heart, and training harder!
I stayed for 2 hours at the finish, cheering the finishers, enjoying the sun and taking great pleasure of seeing the pure joy and excitement of those finishing their first trail race, or marathon or even ultra. With a Pacific Association community mostly composed of veterans of our sport, this was quire refreshing to see. I remain in awe of Wendell and Leng who offer such a large set of accessible and affordable opportunities for the CTR community to enjoy trail running, and gradually pick on longer distances.
Gorgeous day and location:
And everybody had their muddy marks at the finish, some real training running experience! (Great traction with the Brooks Mazama, an old model I got in 2017.)
Talking Pacific Association MUT things with Shiran:
No cramp, great fueling (GU Energy and Vespa Power, 4 Succeed S!Caps, only 3 GU gels), no soreness on Sunday (I ran a decent 15K as recovery run), I could and should have pushed more to maximize the training opportunity. But at least I didn't fall or hurt myself, which is super important too given my other goals for the year. To the next one then, one quarter done in 2023 already, and I've never logged so many miles in 3 months, averaging 80 miles per week so far. Some good volume to rebuild these glutes. And now some hilly terrain to work on the hamstrings and quads. One step and one race at a time...
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