Laborious training on Labor Day weekend

I know, it’s shocking, I’ve been calling my running hobby, my second job. Short of family genes when it comes to sport, of training at altitude like the Kenyans, but not short of being… short, which might help when running hills but isn’t the best trait to go fast on roads, I’ve had to work hard to move up from the middle of the pack where I started in my first road races in France. I was barely training, swamped into the startup life, an amazing mix of excitement, passion and workaholism. I started running seriously upon moving to the Bay Area at the end of 1998. We were coming to spend 2 years in the US and I had set the goal of running a marathon, before our return to France. Then that turned to 27 marathons and 203 ultra races, and counting. Oops! Got addicted to the thrill of testing and pushing the envelope. I didn’t even know about Boston (the marathon) when I ran my first marathon in San Francisco. 3:30 after quite some… work already. Then San Jose in 3:25, albeit the additional work put into it. I was quite disappointed by the small increment but went on persevering. Working harder. Even starting speed work at the track (De Anza College) thanks to Don Murdoch’s motivating coaching. Will never forget, how that gave me the discipline to work harder and also be curious about running tips from the other members of the Stevens Creek Striders club. While I’ve been hard enough on myself not to need much additional help, I’m super grateful to that group which got me on the right (single) track. And foot. Plus the connection to Western States by becoming the aid station captain at Last Chance, for a few years. More fun. And more work too!

Fast forward 20 years and I need to work even harder to rebuild muscles and mind after two annoying injuries: a fissured tendon at the end of 2018 and torn meniscus in 2024, the latter leading to 7 months off running. Hard physically, and even harder mentally. To most watching, I’m back. Yes, mostly. But, and although not measured scientifically of course, my guess or estimate is that my shape is still 10% lower than where it could have been without these injuries. Speaking if science, maybe I should listen more to my Coros watch because it surely has A LOT to say, most notably that I rarely wait to fully recover between training days, and that some of these runs end up concluding in an Exhausted mode. Plus more than a dozen of metrics that I haven’t delved into. One is intriguing me the most since I resumed training a year ago, though: the predicted marathon time. In almost a year of, to continue on the theme of this post, rather hard word, I only shaved a few minutes off it and it’s now plateauing between 3:09 and 3:10. Not bad compared to the 3:45 Boston Qualifier time for my age group but 8 minutes off the law I had established in my early Masters years of running road marathons in 2 hours plus my age in minutes. Would now place me at 3:01… In optimal racing conditions that is. I’m thinking I should try again.

Writing this I reflect on the contrast there is between just working harder, versus with more discipline. And, yes, I tend to slide toward the former, just logging more miles and aiming at pushing the pace. I should do more cross-training, more speed work (scoop, Cupertino High School is refreshing their track of 20 years!) Meanwhile, it has been closed since June…), more strength training, more stretching. More…

Back to the title, how much labor did I put in this weekend? I had big plans, I wanted to at least do a 50-mile run to Fremont and back, like I did so many while (over)training for Spartathlon in 2023, with a couple of 200-mile weeks. On Saturday morning, we had a small backyard maintenance project, so it was already getting hot when I was ready to go, around 10:30. And rather late anyway for an 8 to 9-hour training run. I went on to run 25K along the Cupertino rail track, down to Campbell.

I was resolute to leave early on Sunday, to take advantage of a cool morning. Woke up at 5:30, got some breakfast and was ready to go by 7:15, loaded with a few GU Energy gels and chews, 8 S!Caps and my two Ultimate Direction bottles. But with a problem right off the bat: just before leaving, Agnès asking me “do you really need to do a 50-mile, why?” Ahh, the why which is questioning all that hard work and mining the mind and motivation. She was right, my next ultras will be in October and November so, why training hard now. Well, just because training for an ultra is a long game. Just because, you’d better do these long runs way ahead rather than showing up tired on race day (hence the tapering). But, again, it’s not science, or it is rocket science as a matter of fact. As we say in our ultra community, we are experiments of one.

The first mile was the toughest. First, nowadays with the additional years, and running almost every day, my body takes more time to get to a comfortable pace. On one end, it was 65F and it felt really nice for running, before the peak of 90F expected in the afternoon on the other side of the Bay. And I was happy with the minimal soreness after yesterday’s 15 miles. On the other, that “but why” resonating in my head… I settled in the next 10 miles for a pace of 8 minutes/mile, plus or minus 2 seconds. The streets were so quiet on this Sunday morning that I didn’t have to even stop my watch to cross De Anza boulevard, then Homestead or even Fremont. By mile 5.5 I was done with the street part of the course and on for 40 miles on the bike path to Fremont and back.

Because I didn’t have to stop my watch to cross the large arteries of Cupertino and Sunnyvale, I decided it was an opportunity to run to Fremont without any stop. I was on track until mile 10.5 when I got into this major trail closure at Shoreline. It’s unclear what they are working on except that they are moving mountains, literally. Between the creation of a new pond for wildlife, or expanding the marsh, they are also raising the levée along the sailing lake of Shoreline. There I was with my goal of not stopping my watch, I did press the button while find a forbidden way to go around... At least it was Sunday before Labor Day so there was no soul working on the pharaonic thing.

While running through the Palo Alto Baylands, I crossed path with good friends walking their dog. Another good stop to catch-up. And talk about the why again. At that point, it was around 9:30 am and the temperature had already risen significantly. I decided I was going to cut this training run short, to only 50K, by turning around at the defunct Palo Alto yacht club. I contemplated adding the loop around the airport but the why had killed me. Well, not just that, it was also getting harder to maintain the 8:00 pace. I refilled my bottles at the parking lot, at mile 16, and retraced my route back. With the heat, I lost quite some sodium --this royal blue enhance the trace of salt-- as well as a few pounds of (body) water. In the why registry, not sure I need heat training anymore for the rest of the season...

This Monday, aka Labor Day, I was flying to Italy in the afternoon, for a wedding there, plus a visit of the Vatican. I rounded up this training weekend with another 15.5 miles (25K) by running loops in the neighborhood. It felt a bit less laborious, but still quite some labor to finish with an average pace of 7:57. For a total of 100K over the 3 days, and a 91-mile week, for a big change. The left knee is a bit sensitive, just enough to remind me that I can’t log as much as I used to…

Finishing this post after a good 6-hour sleep on my flight to Rome, thanks to an upgrade in Business. During my Monday run, the street traffic was pretty much inexistant, the neighborhood looked dead, except for some an interesting distraction: with so many people out of town, the Cupertino Fire brigade was dispatched to test all the fire hydrants. I stopped at one to thank one of the firefighters and teased him that this was work, on a Labor Day! He replied that, since there were on duty anyway, they may do something useful! At least I wasn't the only one working on our streets on Labor Day!

And you, did you work this Monday? At work or on your running?

800 blog posts and counting: should I, should we?

I love the expression doing something, and counting! I like persistence and, to no surprise on this blog, endurance. I like to stick to it. I admit, border stubbornness at times... Hopefully not too much boringness though...

(Picture generated with Gemini 2.5 Flash)

When I started blogging in March 2007, I had no idea where that addition to my running journey, or addiction, would take me. Blogging was getting popular and shorten the delays of hearing about races in particular, compared to the monthly rhythm of UltraRunning Magazine for instance. It was also a great way to hear about tips and training techniques from some elite runners. I've fond memories of reading about the crazy mileage Anton Kupricka was putting into hilly training, in the 100-150 mile range, week after week. Anton also used Blogger and published 348 posts from 2007 to 2014 (Riding the wind), and a few beautiful stories recently on Substack. 

But we can't talk about blogging persistence without mentioning Scott Dunlap's A trail runner's blog. I counted 1,029 posts to date and that doesn't tell the full story as Scott has continued to be at the forefront of social media, jumping and embracing other platforms, including Substack too.

I'm not going to invest days in an exhaustive survey of the whole blogosphere, there are so many blogs out there, most not showing any activity for 5 or 10 years. And there are the outliers; what about Jon Teisher's Pitt Brownie blog which has been active for 20 straight years (2005-2025) and 6,945 posts (including a peak year at 941 in 2009)! That has to be a record for a personal blog, that is not counting ultra trail running news platform such as I Run Far.

Back to my Farther Faster mantra, and blog name; I had settled for an average of 1 post a week, a cadence which I held for 12 years (2007-2018) before falling off pace after my first major running injury, a fissure of my hamstring tendon. If there is one thing which I find hard about injury is not running of course. And, this blog being about my personal running journey, no running means not much to share.

In the age of social media and instant news publishing, even live webcast and running tracking at some events, there is an abundance of content. Once in a while, like that happened on the first climb at Tamalpa Headlands 50K 2 weeks ago, a runner would tell me that they enjoyed reading a race report, and that makes my day! Plus comfort me in the crazy idea of persevering, although the engagement isn't as strong as 10 or 15 years ago. Back then, Mom was my most ardent reader, leveraging her mastery of English she gained while working in London then serving as Executive Assistant to Christian Dior's leadership team. But then she got hit by one of the many forms of dementia and left us last year.

In addition to race reports, I used to travel a lot for work, around the world, and really enjoyed discovering cities on foot, then sharing tips for other visitors. These posts are typically tagged as "Running in..." the respective continent. See in the right margin. Another friend who left us since enjoyed this way to travel virtually around the world as she couldn't fly herself anymore.

At 52 posts a year, it was going to take 20 years to get to 1,000 articles. With another major injury last year (torn/fractured meniscus), I had to be off running for 7 months, and another big break for the blog. Incidentally, the pandemic had its own toll too.

Meanwhile, it's cool to see that the most used search keyword getting people to my blog isn't my name but Micah True! He left us way too soon... Blogger has changed its analytics platform along the way so I'm missing the stats of the early days. Also, not clear how many of these views are from humans or machines...

As for the country origins, I certainly posted a few articles about my runs in Singapore but is that really the reason for 3rd place?

So, what's ahead? I'd like to keep going if for only one thing: to keep running memories easily accessible and organized. For me but also to contribute to the journaling of our local ultra running community in particular. UltraSignup has ingested race results from many events pre dating this platform. Some would actually say that they stole them, a few other registration platforms having fought back and recovered their own results. But these logs only tell part of the story. What about the weather, what about course conditions and changes, what about the volunteers, what about the perks? Short of covering the whole field in my reports, I try to capture these elements at least. Not to mention adding pictures.

That's for the coverage of races. As my IT career is winding down and kept me in the Bay Area these past 2 years, I hope to visit many more countries and sharing about some cool places to run. I've visited 70 countries so far, almost 130 to go, stay tuned! And if 70 looks like a big number, my friend Chuck has passed 130. In ultra, there is always someone who has done something bigger and more extravagant, that emulation and inspiration keeps us on our toes to keep moving ahead!

I always much appreciate reading comments so, if you did read to that point, thank you for letting me know what you think, including what you'd like to see, between some innovation or the good ol' classic...

And now, cheers to many more miles together around the blogosphere then!

PS: never resisting to pinpoint the strengths and flaws of generative AI these days... Granted, I used the free Gemini 2.5 Flash LLM for these pictures, surely the pro and paid models can and would do better.

That was the last of 4 prompts and I thought that, finally, it captured the sequence correctly (mind you, I had to state the three numbers in my prompt). Yet, as a mechanical engineer, that type of rotating counter, with multiple windows, each with scrolling digits, doesn't make any sense. A proof, if needed, that there is no understanding of how things work, in an LLM, just a bunch of pixels arranged to hopefully make some sense. Yet, the rendering as a potential real picture remains quite amazing, especially in a few seconds. It would have probably taken hours if not days in some Adobe software for an artist to create something like this.

The interesting trick of this image is that this is the downloaded high resolution picture of the one I used at the top of the post, which I took straight from the screen. The difference shows a kind of movement, which is even better. Except that the simulated movement doesn't make much sense, mechanically speaking. It's also odd to have 778 before 799, isn't it? But, again, for something free and quick, amazingly good enough!

And now, the cherry on the cake, the real hallucination!

Tamalpa Headlands 50K Trail Nationals: shorter n' sweeter!

Not quite back to back racing yet since Skyline 50K was 13 days ago, run on a Sunday, but getting closer! And how exciting to get a USATF Nationals in our backyards again, such a treat! The backdrop to create a bunch of local National Champions in our Pacific Association.

Many don't realize the extra burden of running an event as a championship: some added complexity on the organizational side but mostly a financial hit. Indeed, the event has to offer prize money and that money doesn't come from USATF. That's why the sponsors of this race are so appreciated and hat off to Race Director, Victor Ballesteros, for working so hard on that long list.

In contrast to the UTMB money and marketing machine, we are on the other extreme of the spectrum here; not quite family-ran but close, thanks to the involvement of the Tamalpa running club, the assistance of the ultra-experienced BAUR (Bay Area Ultra Runners), and the local Marin Headlands running community manning the aid station and key volunteering spots, all forming Victor's extended family.

UltraSignup has the event running since 1998, with gaps in 2009 and 2010 then during the pandemic, 2020 and 2021. All in all, this year was the 23rd edition. And out of these, Steve Jaber was going for his 20th finish: this is history! The event has served as the 50K Trail Nationals in the late 2000s and again, last year. It's a challenging hilly course with more than 2,000 meters of cumulated elevation. I've run it 7 times and was never able to break 4, happy for breaking 4:30 5 times as a matter of fact. I missed last year's edition and return of the championship due to my meniscus tear/cut.

2007 (Nationals): 4:23 | 2008 (Champs cancelled at the last minute): 4:40 | 2013: 4:19 | 2014: 4:27 | 2015 (Nationals): 4:29 | 2016 (Nationals): 4:27 | 2023: 5:21.

I had quite a few goals for this run:

• First, of course, finish. That was my 203rd ultra race start and I DNFed 17 times so I still need a few finishes to reach 200. 83rd 50K race, my sweet spot, a distance I never DNFed.
• Score in our Pacific Association MUT Grand Prix. There were 13 of us in the M60-69 age group although only 6 registered with PA.
• Win the M60-64 age group. For the Nationals, age groups go 5-year deep. And you of course have to be a USATF member to be eligible. In our group, we were 4. Including Ian Schouten from Pennsylvania, showing with a higher ranking score in UltraSignup, so I had some competition, I will have to fight!
• We had 6 runners from our Quicksilver club at the start so finally an opportunity to score 2 teams, one in Men, one in Mixed. Everybody would just have to finish!
• Another goal was to break 5 again if possible. I had mixed feelings about that one. While I have rebuilt to some extend almost 12 months after I resumed running after the 7-month hiatus last year, I still feel like peaking at about 90% of what could have been my potential without that break. So, when I'm wearing the mask during races, it's because I'm still pushing and trying harder...
• Then, like at Sklyline 50K 2 weeks ago where I barely improved the event age group best of 21 years by a minute, I had my eyes on Mark Richtman's M60 course record of 4:47:35. I have so much respect for Mark's memory after a few good fights on these trails in particular, at that event or Miwok 100K, and still so sad and missing him after he mysteriously disappeared while kayaking along the shore. Note for my following race report: because Skyline's original record was 4:38, I ended up having 4:48 in mind for Mark's record all through my run, read on...
• Oh, and not injure myself, not break anything on this course which includes a few technical sections!

All these goals constituted quite an endeavor with potentially conflicting aspects: I will have to fight for a National title and take the risk to run hard and get exhausted, run fast and take risks on the technical downhills in particular, yet make sure not kill myself so I could finish. Ah, the trade-offs of the ultra racing game...

Just missing Sylvie on that team picture:

After this long introduction, let's get to the start! Victor pleaded we all car pool to the start to limit the number of cars in the Santos Meadow: Anil drove to my house and Stuart picked us in Cupertino, that made 3! We got rain while going through San Francisco then it turned to fog after the Golden Gate: so many micro climates around the Bay Area, I've heard about 16! We got parked by 6:10 am and volunteers were still hard at work despite the lack of daylight.

Victor delivered his briefing sparkled with emotion when remembering a few community members we lost these past years. And we were off promptly at 7:30 am. It was foggy but not drizzling at least. With all the youngsters and speedsters, I settled for a start in the middle of the pack, I'd say in 50th position by the first single track. I was running just behind Stuart whose strategy was to try sticking with me. We ran the first 4 miles trading places until I pushed down to Tennessee Valley.

I had tried to find Ian (Schouten) at the start but couldn't spot him. We've never ran together so I only knew his profile picture from Facebook. At least I couldn't see any M60-64 bib number on the back of runners in front of me at the start. With a large field like that though, above 200, you can't be 100% sure. With that, I decided it was better to be aggressive and potentially build a gap. There was a live tracking of the race with 6 intermediate splits, so I decided to run with my phone so I could potentially check on others' progress and gaps.

Besides the rather engaging ups and down of the first seven miles to Rodeo Beach, I have to say that the detour on the sandy beach itself was quite a workout; I couldn't believe how hard it was on the glutes, despite the flat terrain. Them, right after the beach, it was the turn of the hamstrings to burn on the steep Coastal Trail bump above the lagoon; a few signals I've yet to build more leg muscles, yikes!

Again, with all these speedsters motivated by both National fame and the prize money ($10K total purse), I knew I was way behind. Looking at the splits while I read this I see I indeed passed on the Rodeo Beach aid station timing mat in 52th place, I had estimated that pretty well. Carrying two bottles and a few gels, I didn't stop and it was game on for the climb on Miwok Trail, a section I passed a handful of runners. Then 4 more runners while flying down Tennessee Valley again. I knew it was aggressive but couldn't help pushing in the red zone. At some point, I passed 2 younger runners who were chatting, albeit a fast pace already. Right after I passed them, they sped up and followed-me, something which made me uncomfortable at the speed we were going, over the long stairs in particular. Eventually, they joked about getting passed by a M60 guy and backed off, phew!

Per the race rule, I walked through the stables area, then sprinted again through the aid station and passing a few runners who had stopped. Per the recorded split which I see after the fact, I was now in 37th position, 15 spots gained in one aid station! Picture from Shiran Kochavi:

I passed two more runners in the next climb then, about 2 miles after the Tennessee Valley, scrambled to check on Ian's position with my wet fingers and wet phone screen. It looked to me like the splits were actually not posted, dang! I was at mile 13.

After slowing down for that, I resumed pushing again in the uphill and caught up with a M40-45 runner, whom I passed at the Highway 1 crossing aid station as he stopped for a few seconds to get his flask refilled. Then another runner in the next uphill, I was still on fire. I really enjoyed the long and tricky downhill to Muir Woods Road, where I didn't stop either, jogging the first half mile of Cardiac. There I decided to check on the splits again and, to my surprise, saw that Ian was actually marked at DNS (Did Not Start), after all. After all this hard work and pushing in the red zone I was of course tired but, mentally, realizing that I was chasing a ghost or rather, that I had lost the rabbit in my head, kind of killed my mojo. These 2 miles up to the Cardia aid station on Deer Park are runnable since it's well-graded fire road, not to mention some shade, but no joke between mile 17 and 19. I alternated some walking and jogging, catching up a gal from Impala but ended up being passed my that M40-45 runner plus one of the runners I had passed on the way down to Tennessee Valley aid station, just before getting to Cardiac.

I finally reached Cardiac after 3hr10 of running at mile 19.5. I lost a bit more of my mojo again when I saw the lead two runners leaving the station as I was getting in. Oh my, I was way behind indeed! But, again, in a different league anyway, goal wise. It was my first aid station stop and it took a good minute to get some ice in my bottles and refill them. Gobbled a GU Energy gel and a piece of banana and off I was, toward the traditional Pantoll crossing. Only to get yelled at that I was supposed to go down on the Dipsea trail.

Wait, what are you saying? There was definitely a timing mat on the trail to Pantoll and, no, for a change, I had actually studied the course careful since Victor had insistently asked us in his pre-race emails, we were certainly not meant to go down on Dipsea Trail. I started argumenting but ended up complying... One hundred yards later, I crossed four runners going up to Cardiac, I was so confused. A few hundreds yards later, I cross a couple of hikers and ask them if they had seen other runners running down in the direction I was on and they acquiesced. At this point, I capitulated and went on as hard as I could, with my mental reservoir now leaking as I don't really like that section.

The only relief at the end of that section was to hear that we were turning around at the highway, not all the way down to Stinson Beach as we do during Quad Dipsea. While it boosted my mental to cross other runners, the way up on Dipsea was hard, physically. I clocked a couple of 15-minute miles and started to convince myself that, while I could break 5 hours, it was going to be really hard to get under Mark's mark of 4:48. Oh wait, since we saved more than a mile not going down Matt Davis, and saving about half a mile not going up on Steep Ravine, the course had to be shorter, right? Indeed, upon getting back to the Cardiac aid station, the volunteers indicated the course would be 1.7-mile short. That could help.

I still stopped at the aid station to get ice in my bottles as I knew the upcoming section to the finish was very exposed and, when the fog was clearing, felt hot. A M55-59 runner passed me before Cardiac, and a tall runner passed me right after. I was remembering how fast I had been on these last 3 miles in better days but wasn't able to push as hard anymore. Then I got into the final switchbacks above the Meadow. 4:36 and 3 more switchbacks. 4:38 and 3 more. 4:40 and 3 more, ... My watch showed 4:47 when I finally landed on the meadow and I sprinted to a 4:48:45 finish, phew! All the way down the switchbacks, I was thinking that it didn't matter much because, the course being shorter, it wasn't fait to Mark's record and I wouldn't want it. But, still, I felt it would be embarrassing not to try and not get close to it with a shorter course. As I wrote at the beginning, his record is actually 4:47, there you are!

Speaking of record, I was holding the M50 one at 4:27:28 since 2016 but I knew it was in serious danger not only with a Championships but also the presence of Jonah Backstrom plus two other M50 runners with higher scores than him on UltraSignup. Sure enough, Jonah had won his age group in a remarkable 4:02:26. But then, the revised course was definitely short, my Coros had 29.07 miles at the finish. Although I would disclose that I was in the classic Run mode, not Trail Running, which tends to be more accurate on hilly trail courses.

I have to give credit to Ian for setting me up on fire for the first 18 miles. And Mark for giving me another goal, time wise. I met most of my goals then. One which we missed as a club is scoring a Mixed team after Sylvie (Abel) turned around on Miwok trail, shortly after Rodeo Beach, what a disappointment, for her, and for us. Stuart finished in 5:01 and 44th overall. Hiro, who wasn't sure he could break 6 after a disappointing run last year, clocked 5:31 for 81st. Anil, 6:07, and Marco, 8:11. Steve got his 20th finish, in 9:11, respect! Anil's finish:

Stuart and Hiro with their USATF awards.

I ended up 38th overall, 27th Men, 6th Masters and 1st M60. 23rd age group national title, and counting, with quite a few handed over by my friend and USATF official and liaison, Lin Gentling.

Nutrition and hydration-wise, not much thanks to 3 pouches of Vespa Power (2 before the start, one concentrate at mile 19): 5 GU Energy gels, 2 bottles of GU Brew, 4 Succeed S!Caps, 1 piece of banana. No cramps, just some lost fire on the Dipsea trail, losing the drive to push harder. Barely any soreness on Sunday, that allowed me to run 10 miles at the track to shake off the legs. Not fast but still under 8 min/mile.

As for the winners? Oh, they were so fast, and young, and close! In the Men: Cole Campbell, 26, 3:31:45, Liam Merow, 29, 3:32:25, Spencer Ferguson-Dryden, 27, 3:32:29. For the Women: Tayler Tuttle, 29, 4:02, Caroline Alcorta, 29, 4:06, Ellaney Matarese, 22, 4:10. Phew!

Overall, an unusual high rate of DNS (Did Not Start), especially given Victor's diligence to ask runners who couldn't toe the start to leave room to clear the wait list, but a low rate of DNF for such a challenging and hilly 50K. Well done all, and special thoughts to those who couldn't make it especially because of injury (been there too much last year, this really hurts).

Great Moroccan food from the Casablanca Moroccan & Mediterranean food truck, not even having to wait in line! With Jena, grabbing a bite while managing the pick-ups of DNFs (fortunately, 

Great goodie bag, the hoodie for winning my age group.

So, what happened with that course change? Well... yet another crazy curved ball thrown to Race Directors and their team of volunteers. On Friday night, a car rolled over from the road at Pantoll. Miraculously, the women driving survived the many flips and was able to get extracted from her car, alive. But the car ended up on its roof, right in the middle of the trail we were supposed to use after Cardiac. The problem: nobody from the park service had communicated with Victor until about 8 am on Saturday, after the race started! Victor scrambled to assess the situation and make the decision that the only option was for us to go down to Stinson Beach on Dipsea, then, hence the out and back and shorter distance. At least that section was marked since we were already supposed to climb back to Cardiac on Dipsea after, a few days ago, a mud slide closed the standard return on Steep Ravine. Talking about a series of curved balls...

Note that, for Trail Nationals, the distance can't be certified since it typically includes single tracks, so the distance isn't as important, as long as everybody runs the same distance of course. By opposition to road races which have to be carefully measured and certified, so records can be established.

I skipped all the aid stations but Cardiac, but still much value the presence and encouragements of the volunteers at every aid station! This is a challenging course to mark given the multiple park management organizations and requirements, not to mention remote and hilly trails, and the many trail crossings. Much grateful to Course Director, Ken Michal, and all his volunteers, that was perfect!

Sorry for Ken who endured the last minute stress of course change at Cardiac. Not even granting him the luck of getting in the lottery of his favorite ultra, HURT (Hawaiian Ultra Running Team) 100, during the race. Fingers crossed as he got 2nd place on the Veterans' wait list.

Special thanks again to the generous sponsors:

• I believe Arc'teryx in particular provided most of the winners' purse.
• Katemi
• Skratch serving their chocolate-flavor recovery drink
• San Franciso Running Company
• Organic Jambar
• Tamalpa Runners
• Victory Sportdesign with the famous Victor-designed drop bags
• PondFarm Brewing Co.
• Mount Tam Sport & Spine
• UltraRunning Magazine
• East Peak
• Trekker Soap Co.
• Facchino Photography
• Art2Life
• bungalo munch
• Succeed
• thoroughbred studio
• AnimalRun
• Kahtoola
• Unalome Outfitters

Car pooling with Anil who was shooting for 6 hours, Stuart and I had some time to recover after the race and catch up with many from our local ultra running community. With all the fog still on the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco, traffic ended up being rather smooth on the way back.

That was my 8th finish and looking forward to next year's edition already!

PS: a few additional pictures.

Bib pickup, 6-6:45 am.

Sky clearing up between long foggy and cloudy episodes throughout the day.

With the legendary Errol "Rocket" Jones, winner of the M75 category in which he was the only finisher.

Another great show of the Pamakids, with Ken adding to his volunteering duties! ;-)

With Jena, pre-race.

And Lin.

Black Mountain: some grit, glutes and fire!

I like racing because it gives us an opportunity to run with more fire and train harder. I mean, racing provides great training. But racing also provides extra motivation to train harder, between races. It's no secret, I see opportunities to actually work on this hobby at every turn of the trail, to the first degree, up to calling it my second job!

So, one week after Skyline 50K and one week before the Tamalpa Headlands 50K Trail Nationals, I was up to Black Mountain to do a... 50K training run; told you!

It was my 5th trip up to Black Mountain this year, or since I came back from the meniscus tear for that matter. I used to run up there once or twice a month in the good ol’ days but, nowadays, it certainly is not as easy as it used to be. It’s the highest point I can easily run to from home so still a key objective for hill training. In these better days, I enjoyed flying down Montebello Road on the way back but, with the damaged knee, it’s now too much pounding. I adapted my route to run down along Stevens Creek, a direction where most of the downhill happens on the Stevens Creek Canyon Trail, limiting the asphalt section to a few flatter miles on Stevens Creek Canyon Road.

Now back to the Stevens Creek Reservoir at the end of the Canyon Road, I go up on the gnarly Lookout Trail then add a loop down Seven Springs in Fremont Older Park, before returning home along the track. Good for 35 miles. Or 31 this time as I called Agnès for a pickup at the track, feeling I had done enough between the Skyline and Tamalpa Headlands 50K races, not to mention my knees whispering they have had enough. Some good grit still in the uphills in particular, some good glutes work.

But, back to the title, not with as much fire as while racing but I still like pushing myself, just for the sake of it and to test my grit and work on my glutes. But, wait, what fire was that?

I just posted about another Black Mountain run in which I shared about this cool encounter with an olive tree I hadn't noticed for years. Well, poor tree; 2 weeks later, it got pretty hot and half burnt...

Hopefully my new olive tree friend hasn't burnt to its core and will survive this endeavor. But for this year's olive harvesting, that seems quite compromised... Just when I was asking for peace...

After 20 years of running these trails, it was the first time I saw traces of fire in the Black Mountain vicinity. As I was ironically on Waterwheel Creek Trail, a trail which very few people use, I was surprised to see quite a large area burnt, below the trail. The fire stopped right at/along the trail so certainly a managed fire but, still quite impressive and chilling to see; especially when imagining the risk of putting dry grass and bush on fire in the middle of the summer, and the skills it must take to contain such a danger of a fire spreading around!

There you are for a new episode of my Black Mountain Chronicle series! 

Not sure if it is Gold Mine or Waterwheel Creek flowing at the limit between Palo Alto and Cupertino, it is still flowing strong and provides a refreshing stop, short of being able to refill bottles.

Oh, can't resist sharing a picture of the newly renovated bathroom at the Sycamore Group Site: what a nice work, posting here to see how it evolves over the years. Right now, it's still in "Japanese subway cleanliness" state, hoping this holds for a a while!

It was another hot day on the trail when not in the shade and good training for the upcoming 50K race next week. Hopefully with the grit and glutes on fire then!

Black Mountain: an olive branch

Catching up while we carpool to the start of Tamalpa Headlands with Stuart at the wheel, with a short post about a training run on July 26.

Black Mountain trip number 5 this year, out of 134 lifetime ones, and still making a discovery: an olive tree! No, despite the timely coincidence with the recent events making the news this weekend, this post isn’t about solutions to the awful wars(*) in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Maghreb and Sahel, Ethiopia, but a lone olive tree I hadn’t noticed for more than 10 years; I know, Chuck, how embarrassing, not good for my docent application if I was to apply.

I’m not sure if I can claim the classic “to my defense” argument, I was going to say that this was on a section of Waterwheel Creek Trail which I’ve ran downhill recently, to add some mileage and hill training on my way up to Black Mountain. When I speed up, my eyes tend to be riveted on the ground to secure a good footing. But I’ve done it reverse too, so uphill, at a speed which allows to look around a bit more. What I believe happened is that this olive tree got quite healthy and vigorous with our wet Spring this year, so much that branches grew over the trail. Yes, great way to get some attention from runners and hikers, olive tree, well done! ;-)

The sweet part is that this tree is carrying quite a few olives. With the crazy cost of olive oil these days, I hesitated blogging about my encounter for the fear of revealing a golden treasure but, given the low usage of this trail and challenging accessibility (you need a special permit to park at the trail head), I think it’s pretty safe. At least that’s what I thought. Until I ran that trail 2 weeks later, as you'll read in an upcoming post, stay tuned!

Meanwhile, peace to all, please...

(*) So many fatalities from armed conflicts, tracked on that wikipedia page for instance. As I said, awful...

PS: to expand on my contributions to the Black Mountain Chronicle, a few other pictures from these July trips up to Black Mountain.

The waterwheel spring are is still a mess, under the fallen tree...

A brand new house dominating South Bay, on Montebello Road.

The climb on the dam is closed, can't wait to get an official trail here!

The Stevens Creek Reservoir, from Zinfandel.

The archery, from Lookout Trail.

Bench and view at the top of Lookout Trail.