Some background on the event first: this was supposed to be our 2x scoring event of our USATF Pacific Association Grand Prix season, the alternative being Cool Moon 100-mile this year. The Dean Karnazes Coyote snafu of last year really had consequences: after interrupting our 100-mile race last year, it led to the cancellation of a magical 100-mile run in the Headlands, harming PCTR (Pacific Coast Trail Runs) incidentally. Crissy Field being also managed by the same Rangers as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the permit to run overnight was cancelled less than 3 weeks priori to the event, after almost 2 decades of this format being held in San Francisco (2010 was my first time running a 12-hour event, which I won with 78.5 miles, 5 years before a 86-mile PR which still holds as the M50-54 American Record). With that cancellation we had revisit our Grand Prix schedule and opted out for the 12-hour format, not the 100K distance.
Now, after awful gusty winds last year (70 miles) and an exceptionally drenched edition on New Year's Eve 2022 (cry my an atmospheric river...), the big question was what the weather will be. While the temperatures were expected to be comfortable, between 56 and 65F, the wind would pick up during the afternoon, to an average of 13 mph and gusts of 24 mph. Meh, not insignificant.
My sister and her husband were visiting this month, we were just back on Wednesday from a 2,000-mile motorbike roadtrip around Oregon and up to the Washington State side of the Columbia Gorge: different type of activity and actually rather tiring with all the efforts engaged in keeping the 800 pounds straight up at stops. I still managed to run 73 miles during the first part of our 12-day loop, I have to say the whole endeavor wasn't the best physical preparation for racing a 12-hour. Busy and full life...!
With that, I had a part time crew for a change: to enjoy a day in San Francisco, they'd drop me at 8 and stop by every 3 hours to prepare some mashed potatoes and refill my bottles, then to the finish at 9. Great help and easy setup on a 1.0275-mile loop to avoid too many unnecessary and time-consuming stops.
We started counter-clockwise which isn't the way I've run most of my laps on this course. After 2 laps, I decided to change direction then but that messed-up my older Garmin (310XT) location-based lap counter (a very rare feature of GPS watches unfortunately). As a matter of facts I was wearing two watches: because it was supposed to be a 24-hour and in preparation to Spartathlon's 36-hour cut-off, I finally bought a COROS APEX 2, after being super faithful to Garmin for 17 years. Back to lap detection, I decided to reset my 310XT watch at the start of the 10th lap to get an easy to read count. With that, and crossing most of the field, I had hard time slowing down as much as I wanted: my goal was to run at 9 min/mile all day but I got stuck between 8:38-8:40 min/mile for most of the first 15 miles. With the wind picking up through the morning though, it became easier to get closer to 8:50 though, but at the expense of some physical fatigue.
I was aiming at 20 laps in 3 hours and 5 minutes but got there 3.5 minutes earlier. My first mile above 9 min/mile (9:01) was the 32nd, 4.5 hours in the run. While I was still ahead of plan by mid-race (3pm), the mind and the legs knew it was over as I couldn't even hold a 10 min/mile pace already. I was still in 2nd place, less than 2 laps behind Karl (Schnaitter). As I told my crew at the 3 pm mashed potatoes stop: "the beginning of the descent to hell..." As forecasted, the wind wasn't as bad as last year (35 mph gusts) but still annoying when running toward the Ocean.
With my wildest goal of running 79 miles gone, the last 6 hours got really painful. First, there was the minimum goal of scoring, when meant to at least complete 46 laps (75 kilometers). Then the goal of getting as many points in my age group in which were Shiran, Edmundo, Troy and James, all still running. Maybe keep my second place if I could preserve the 8-lap lead I had on Charles and Shiran. Maybe not loose too many ranking percentage points on UltraSignup if I could limit the gap with Karl. That last goal ended up being the one driving me to run until the end of the allotted time.
While I ran the 11th hour barely under 14 min/mile, I picked up the pace in order to log 5 miles in the last hour, completing my 67th lap with 1 minutes and 20 seconds to spare, phew! Indeed, partial laps aren't accounted for and that did cost 3rd place to Charles as he completed his 58th lap 60 seconds after Shiran while they were running in opposite directions, with Charles still trying to complete an additional lap before the 12-hour cut-off.
During this last hour it was also impressive to see another battle on the course, with Claudine Co outpacing Lindsay Fochler by 2 minutes and 42 seconds, for 2nd and 3rd. When every second in 12 hours count...
Upfront, Karl (Excelsior club) had killed the field with 76 laps (78.09 miles), and, at 40, made me miss my younger years... Outstanding regularity in these windy conditions! Also outstanding was Impala's Jackie Cooke who won with 74 laps (76.035 miles)!
Club wise, again a strong show from Pamakids with at least 9 entrants. If I'm not mistaken, Karl was the only one from Excelsior this time, then 2 from Impala and 2 from Lake Merritt Joggers & Striders. For Quicksilver we had 4 entrants in the 12-hour (Charles, Keith Stephen and I, with Dan on the 6-hour), and only Stephen missed the 75K cut-off despite a battle to the last minute. With Stephen and Keith before the start:
Overall, I was really disappointed with my performance, quite far from my hopes. Looking at my log though and comparing with the 5 other 12-hour races I've done, this isn't even my worse. But still... If needed, that left me with the realization that there was so much to rebuild, especially to prepare for Spartathlon in September. Both physically and mentally.
A special note on the social side of the race: with this loopy format, with dual directions, there was a ton of mutual support exchanged among us. I don't know if it was just a bound between the two of us but my top award would go to James (Marinas) who, despite his own suffering and struggles, returned smiles and words encouragements consistently for 12 hours! Carl was great too but I didn't see him as many times as he was running clockwise too and moving strong. Anyway, not a competition, was great to see everybody through out the day! And then there was Sam (Louie) and the aid station volunteers, providing their own shout outs every time I was flying by, well, at least passing by in slower motion in the latter part. In addition to setup and tear down, 15.5 straight hours of racing this Saturday, such long shifts for the volunteers and race directors, Wendell and Leng! Big and sincere thanks to all who enabled us to test out our limits again!
Last but not least, beyond the risk of windy conditions, this course is magical for the views of the City by the Bay: the Golden Gate of course, Marin Headlands when not hiding in the fog, Alcatraz, the City's skyline, the Presidio, the Palace of Fine Arts, ships and sails of all sizes and shapes on the Bay, the birds... Here are some views taken by my crew.
To conclude, I hope the Rangers will reconsider their decision to block overnight events at that location. Please... Next event on our Grand Prix calendar: the traditional Skyline 50K at the beginning of August, by Adam Ray and Scena Performance.
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