SF One Day 12-hour: still so much work

This title refers to the continuous post-injury journey. Interesting how time flies: for the 4 years my hamstring attach bothered me (Nov 2018-2022), I was wondering if running was over. Now that the pain is gone, I'm missing my pre-injury and younger years. Assuredly, you lose some fitness, not just to aging, but a break in training intensity.

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.

CTR's SF New Year's One Day 12-hour: cry me an atmospheric river...

 

"Now you say you're lonely

You cry the whole night thorough

Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river

I cried a river over you"

wrote Arthur Hamilton in 1953, such a famous song now (and I really like Diana Krall's version of it, below).

Nope, I didn't actually cry yesterday but I certainly got my eyes very wet, still. And I was not the only one, it was quite a wet fest! For one thing, San Francisco experienced one of its wettest day on record; the jury is still out if that did beat the last records dating 1849 (yes, at the time of these crazy 49ers) or the 5.54" of 1994. At least it got third place! Here are a few pieces of news gleaned about yesterday's event:

1. "By the time the storm ended, San Francisco would receive 5.46 inches of rain over a 24-hour period."
2. "This makes it the second wettest day in the 170+ years of records at that site, just 0.08" less than 1st place (11/5/1994) with 5.54," the National Weather Service said. "This rainfall also made up 46.8% of San Francisco's December rainfall."
3. Or from @JohnSchrable on Twitter: "This is what 5.46 inches of rainfall in a day looks like in San Francisco. Just barely missing the all time record for wettest day, 5.54 set back in November of 1994. Have a safe New Years Eve everyone as there’s still plenty of standing water! #AtmosphericRiver" (with a picture of a flooded neighborhood).

I have to admit that, while I certainly welcome rain to fight our persisting drought, running in the rain isn't my cup of tea. Running in the mud is what got me to stop competing in middle school, and switch to soccer. I admire those having to brave the elements no the East Coast or the Mid West in particular, it certainly form the character more than our many sunny months in California! Once in a while is fine, I even wrote a few posts on the pleasure of running in the rain, including that ode, back in 2010... ;-)

 

Running in the rain

Fall, it is this time again

For running in the rain!

Nature has its bag of tricks

To fill up our nearby creeks…

With this effort, is it the sweat

Or the rain which gets me wet?

Miles pass but the rain won’t stop

And there is more than one drop

On and under my rain jacket

Oh, the fun is not over yet!

My eyes are well protected

Under the visor of my cap

And my mind not too affected

So let's go for another lap!

But for 6, 12 or 24 hours, that's a whole different game...

You got the idea, the main theme of the event this time, was water! Not just from the falling rain but from flooding of the nearby roads, and the course. I actually hesitated calling this post: "Brand new: An ultra steeplechase!" Indeed, we at least had to go though one river at every lap, right from the start but then, when Mason Street and the Sports Basement got flooded by noon, we had three more of these ankle deep water pools to go through, how fun!

The third lap, before the flooding of Mason Street and the Sports Basement parking lot in the background (photo credit: William Dai):

If you followed my 20+ running journey so far, you know I like and perform much better in dry heat. Well, it's not that it was cold this Saturday, in the mid to high 50s during the day, but the Ocean breeze and wet cold feet got the best out of me. 

First was the epic ride to the start. I tried to remain as relaxed as possible because that was important from a driving standpoint in slippery conditions but losing control of the steering wheel on highway 280 more than 20 times took its toll. I saw 2 accidents on the way up, and we saw 2 on the way down. At times, it was like car from the other side of the highway were throwing us buckets of water. I had left Cupertino past 7 am and was concerned that holding 50 miles an hour was already crazy dangerous. Besides, given these circumstances, I really messed up with my choice of car, picking our Elantra instead of Outback. The fact is that the rain was so light all Friday, I got convinced it would be the same on Saturday. Despite some explicit warning that an atmospheric river was upon North California in particular.

If only it would make the drought disappear. But it's likely way too much water at once, not given enough time to the soil to absorb it, and not replenishing the underground reservoirs. I'll wait to hear what our local meteorologist guru, Leor, have to say on this. Yet, better get some water in winter, short of getting much in the Fall these past years.

Back to our little New Year's Eve running party. For those who read about my adventure in Guatemala last week, you'll remember I fell on my back going down one of the volcanos, El Fuego, and I was still in pain when writing my blog post a week later, that is this Thursday. I went on a 5K test run on Friday and every step was painful. Between the stress of the ride up to Crissy Field, plus that pain, plus the rain and chill factor, my body was far from relaxed. As well as my mind. Not so good.

While it wasn't one of our Pacific Association Grand Prix races, I still had key goals:

1. First and foremost, after running only 70 miles in June, battling wind gusts for hours, I wanted to give another try to the 78.7-mile M55-59 American 12-hour Road record. I still hold the M50-54 one at 85 miles (2015) and I've been injured for almost 4 years since I turned 55, time is running out. That meant running at least 77 laps.
2. Given the weather forecast though, I knew it was going to be a challenge. At a very minimum, I wanted to run at least 110 km to round up my 2022 stats right on an average of 90 km/week. For the years leading to the injury I had average 100 km/week, which isn't insane compared to others, but at quite some intensity though. Since ultra running is known for being an experiment of one, that is yourself, I figured out that it might no be wised to get back to that benchmark while rebuilding, post injury. In 2019, I got down to 39 km/week, then 66 in 2020 and 56 in 2021, in pain for more than 3 years. This year, I was still at 82 km/week by the end of June and ramped up through the Summer and Fall to above 90 before the trip to Guatemala and a week of tapering before this 12-hour race.
3. Of course, my third goal was to perform well to not loose too much on my Ultrasignup rating which keeps going down as they don't take the age as a factor, at least in the raw/absolute rate (same with ITRA).
4. With all that, having fun as Agnès keeps remind me, wasn't granted...

While I have had quite a few runs on this course, I've always had hard time with the pacing at this event. The lap is about a mile, just above at 1.0275. Although 3% doesn't appear like much of a difference, let's do the maths. For 80 miles, it's rather simple, you need to run at 9 min/mile flat, that is every 10 miles in 1.5 hours. You may then think about running every lap in 9 minutes, which was my strategy for yesterday, but that's a 8:46 min/mile pace then. While that seems to give some slack for stopping from time to time, that's still a notable difference when you run for hours. Besides, there are some sharp turns on the course, and curves, so you are never on the most optimal trajectory, not to mention when passing or crossing others --some change direction once in a while, I don't on that course-- or stopping at the aid station or for a bio break. And, this time, there was the slalom through the puddles, at least those we could avoid. With that, my GPS got slightly off and, although I closed on lap 10 right after 90 minutes of running and lap 20 right at noon, it was showing a pace of 8:34 min/mile with a distance of 21 miles instead of 20.5.

Another shot from William, while I was avoiding one of the large puddles near the start/finish area:

It had poured so much in these first three hour that the 10-meter poodle we had to cross at the other end of the loop on the first lap at extended to 20 meters, not to mention the now submerged cycle path along Mason Street in 3 places (some cars looked to enjoy the natural car wash going through at least a foot high of water across the street). At least, as opposed to last July, we weren't bother by bike traffic on that section, or pedestrian traffic along the Ocean for that matter; one benefit of that storm, phew!

That river to cross when getting at the Eastern Mason Street corner, getting longer and longer through the day:

Running these first 20 miles at 8:30-8:40 should have felt easy, but my body was still way too tense to enjoy. I assessed that, while being super well protected from the rain with my Ultimate Direction jacket and pants, I got too wet underneath with the sweat, and decided to make a break to change at 1pm. I had considered setting up a canopy but I don't have a folding one and didn't feel like I would have time to mount the convoluted ones I have at home. Instead, I went with the easy solution, the beach umbrella. Getting to the parking lot at 8:15 after the stressful and slippery ride, I started working on consolidating my setup against the gusty winds forecasted for the late afternoon, after the rain, and it was 8:40 when I started really preparing for the start. Way too rushed while being screwed --that is without a crew-- although this is a lame excuse: one of the runners on the 24-hour was logging laps like a machine; she only had a large plastic bag which, as I was changing right after noon, she asked to place under my table. I happened later it was Akaro Murai, from Japan, and she ended up winning the 24-hour race outright with 116 miles. In these terrible conditions... She was even wearing glasses, covered with water. Some people surely didn't get derailed by the elements!

My frail rainy beach installation which didn't protect my bag against the water... but hold at least, while a few canopies got topped off in the afternoon:

Between the folks changing directions, the multiple events at once --6, 12, 24 hours and 100 miles-- and the bibs covered by our rain protection layers for most, including me, I had no idea about what was going on in terms of rankings but I couldn't care less with my own distance goals and my own struggles maintaining the pace. After holding the pace for 20 miles, I remember being happy to even clock 11 minutes per lap for the following 5. After losing 5 to 10 minutes changing in the rain, that didn't help much. I had left my bag under the umbrella but the rain hadn't fallen vertically! It was soaking in water and the layers I put on were already wet, ouch! The master and most supportive entertainer, Janeth Siva, stopped by to see what was going on and your make sure I was tucking these extra layers back under my pants... , right Janet? ;-)

After that failed attempt to get dryer, I got really cold, to the point that my adductors --a word many people don't seem to know, unless it was my pronunciation, as a few folks were checking on me and couldn't get what I was saying-- froze. Cramping might be a more appropriate medical or physiological term but the feeling was more that they turned to a tight state which made even walking excruciating. Every 10 painful and short steps, I had to stop to attempt stretching them, making my progression really slow. So much that I decided to stop at the car. All my other layers were in the soaked bag so I just laid down for 30 minutes on the driver seat with the seat heating feature on max, as well as the car heating. I felt slightly better, except for my average pace now above 11 minute/mile as I had just passed the marathon mark before stopping.

With that, it was past 2:30 pm and Max was supposed to stopped by so I had better get back on the course. Sure enough he was waiting at my table, and already getting wet himself. I asked him to prepare some mashed potato as I attempted to walk another lap. While the first steps were ok, with the body heat gained in the car, I lost almost of it going against the breeze along the Ocean, to the point that I had trouble finishing that loop. But the warm mashed potato was such a treat, I went on another loop, after saying by to Max who had to keep going.

I hobbled a few more laps, shivering and keeping stopping to stretch these blocked/tighten adductors, each was now taking 20 minutes. One of the highlights was to catch Tony Nguyen and share a few hundreds yards, Tony's enthusiasm is so uplifting!

After visiting the Ramses expo at the De Young, Agnès arrived at the finish at 3:50 pm. Worried of not seeing me passing by the station, she went on the course, clockwise, that is the same direction I was running. When she hit the river, she backtracked and took the shortcut on the bridge. Long story short, she missed me and was even more worried. Meanwhile, I was painfully finishing a 42-minute 31st lap in order to hit the 50K mark at least, and was going to call it a day. Actually, as I told Wendell I was quitting, my adductors were so painful I couldn't move at all. It took me more than 10 minutes to reach the car on the nearby parking lot, so embarrassing and pitiful.

The rain finally eased up as we were leaving, with the views of the Golden Gate and the City clearing up. Still, the drive back to South Bay was epic and stressful again, and we saw two major accidents on the way.

Bonus: Agnès got a helper to untie the ropes of my installation; but who was he, does anyone know?

Anyway, I was so disappointed and upset with the outcome of my race. Even more so after running 15 miles at 8 min/mile this Sunday, without any pain, like nothing happened yesterday! Darn inability to control and hold my body temperature in this humidity, so frustrating. And even more frustrated as this memory showed up first thing this morning on my Facebook stream, a photo taken by Carlos Lopez on New Year's Eve, 6 years ago, when I ran 46.9 miles in 6 hours: for anyone who doesn't believe we could have had perfect running conditions in December...

Either with PCTR (Pacific Coast Trail Runs) or CTR (Coastal Trail Runs), it hasn't been a smooth ride on this course, but a few hits and misses:

1. 2010: 78.6 miles in 12 hours (October)
2. 2015: 129.4 miles in 24 hours (June)
3. 2016: 46.9 miles in 6 hours (December)
4. 2017: 21.4 miles in 3 hours
5. 2018: 100 miles in 24 hours, albeit calling it off at 19:52 (June)
6. 2022: 69.6 miles in 12 hours (July, gusty winds)
7. 2022: 31.8 miles in 12 hours...

With that, Wendell and his wisdom of a number cruncher, said that I had to come back...

To make my Ultrasignup situation worse, James Scanlan had a great run with 72 miles and 70 laps. That's going to get me a 44% score, far eclipsing 3 100% scores this year, which are so hard to get at 58... I know, I shouldn't even pay attention, but I can't help...

It wasn't my day, it was tough for everybody, many didn't even show up and some did great; I was particularly impressed with Todd Glieden who got his 100K buckle in the 24-hour, consistently shuffling despite not wearing much rain gear: way to tough it out, Todd! For the time events, everybody completing at least a lap got a finisher medal, kudos to all then! Oh, and these volunteers giving us so many hours of their time on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, in this terrible conditions: huge THANKS for assisting us. While I typically don't stop at aid stations, through my low points yesterday, I really appreciated the two cups of hot soup, and the few slices of quesadillas and pizzas, they felt so good!

As for Wendell operating his timing data center up through this deluge, that's hyper professional! While the rest of the state was shutting down with highway closures, countless car accidents and millions of dollars of damage due to the sudden flooding, Wendell made it look like a normal day in the office. Ultra resilience!

While I'm really upset by closing 2022 with such counter-performance, I'm also very grateful for having finally gotten rid of this hamstring tendon injury after 4 years. And feeling so grateful for safely reaching the start in this horrid driving conditions in the morning, when so many other people got into trouble with this weekend's flood. Nothing to complain about when we could still enjoy doing what we love, that is running or walking laps around the Criss Field Marsh!

Have a great 2023, all! I ran the first 3 miles of the year with Agnès and she broke her PR on that 5K loop, good omen! In the eye of the cyclone, more rain expected again the coming 10 days!

Coastal Trail Runs San Francisco One (Half) Day 2022: back to the good mill!

As I start writing this post a week has passed, I keep feeling bad about being so behind in blogging compared to my original weekly pace which I kept from 2007 to 2018. Another victim of running injury as well as the pandemic. Of course, aiming at a same-day race report for a 12 hour is really challenging. I still had to drive back home after running from 9 am to 9 pm. I made it back just before 11 pm after waking up at 5 am, that wasn't leaving much time. Then I had to spend most of my Sunday to prepare for a remote workshop with a client in South Africa at 6 am on Monday. And a busy week, then a busy family weekend with the rare opportunity to have the three boys in town! And there you are, 2 weeks later!

All that doesn't leave much time to go into details, not that I expect too many people eagerly waiting for my report, with such a low participation and the lack of excitement of a 1-mile flat course. Not to mention that results have been published on the website and many pictures on Facebook or Instagram already. Clearly, there was much more excitement following Bad Water 135-mile from Monday to Wednesday, Hard Rock 100 on Friday-Saturday and Tahoe Rim Trail 100 this Saturday-Sunday. Just to name 3 key events from this peak of the ultra season.

The effort to get back to blogging regularly and timely pairs with the big effort of coming back from injury. Everything seems much harder, hopefully just an uphill ride back to a better plateau. To keep testing where I stand, I registered for the 12-hour one week before. This event wasn't part of our Grand Prix which I've been focusing again this year, running 4 of the 5 events in the first 6 months. It felt good not to have much pressure and just see what I could do again against the clock in a timed event for a change. My main goal was to see how long I could run at 9 min/mile, toward a bolder goal of logging 80 miles. This pace should feel sustainable by now and correspond to easy maths: 10 miles every 90 minutes, 20 miles every 3 hours, 40 miles for 6, etc.

I liked the fact that all events, 24, 12 and 6-hour, started at 9 am. That allowed to see a few familiar faces before the start, like George Rehmet, current President of the National RRCA (Road Running Clubs of America), and Todd Glieden stopped by. George was on the 6-hour and Todd on the 24-hour. Two other representatives from our Quicksilver Ultra Racing Team: Jim Magill, 75, on the 12 and Dan Aspromonte, 66, on the 24. With me, spreading over three age groups, albeit mature ones as we say, we'd welcome new and younger blood! ;-) Selfies by Todd and George respectively:

To my surprise for such an event, there were two youths toeing the line at the front, one teen and one much younger. As usual, they crushed it right off the bat so I settled behind, trying hard not to go faster than 8 min/mile. For some reason, the first half mile felt really easy, almost like we were flying at time. Oops, I realized what was going on after the 3rd turn getting us on the other side of the loop back toward the Presidio and Golden Gate: some serious wind coming from the Pacific! While it didn't feel too hard in the first loops, running against the wind quickly felt like a good half-mile steady climb. Quite an important change with regard to hitting my aggressive 80-mile goal, but I decided to forge ahead, actually logging many sub-9-minute miles. For one thing, I'm back to running many more training miles in the 7 to 7:30 minutes range, and a few sub 7 occasionally. Still far from the 6-minute mark but some progress nevertheless. Then I felt like my Garmin GPS was off. I had in mind 1.02 mile for the certified course lap but it felt like I was logging more on every lap. Of course, with others on the course, you can't optimize every turn, especially when some run in the opposite direction. Only after the race did I realize that the official distance was 1.0275, closer to 1.03. The difference of 1% represents only 5 seconds for a 9 min/mile pace, but they had up. Anyway, by the 10th lap, I was 3 minute below my 90-minute goal, assuming 1 mile/lap. So it was more like 4 minutes under plan. And that was in wind gusts reported to peak 35 mph throughout the day!

I still felt good and strong I'd say until 4 hours but, except for 2 bathroom stops at the somehow off course/remote porta-potty, I kept running under 9 min/mile pace until mile 38 and that got me to 40 laps in 6 hours. At this point, you may think, all good then, right? Well, not so fast (pun intended), I knew that this wasn't sustainable given all the circumstances, both physically and mentally. 80 miles was out of question, what was important was now to keep moving forward.

Still in reasonably high spirit in the early afternoon as I even attempted the famous Shiran Kochavi jump! ;-) (Photo credit, purchased, from Foggy Bay Photos). Let's be put on the record that this is an extremely rare event for me...

A highlight after this somber realization of goal miss was to see my son Greg at the corner near the start, who had stopped on his bike ride to Marin Headlands. It was 3:30 pm, 6.5 hours in the race. I waived back and passed him thinking that he will be there at the next lap and counting on him to prepare me a bowl of (instant hot water) mashed potatoes. But, 1 mile later, quite a disappointment not to see him... oops! In addition to a Vespa CV-25 pouch every 3 hours (plus 2 before the start), I had taken 3 GUs and a couple of mini can of Cokes for the first 40 miles, and was eager to get some solid food for a change but didn't want to stop for several minutes to prepare it myself.

Thankfully, I've 3 boys and Max stopped by on his bike as well. Max crewed me for (way too) many hours at the 100-mile Nationals in February and, this time, I made an explicit wish for that bowl. Which Max had ready for me on the next lap. I ate the bowl while running, pushed by the wind, that gave me a boost, and like my struggles, both physically and mentally at once! It was 5 pm, 8 hours in, mile 52.

Back from his long ride, Greg checked on me, this time at 6:30 pm (9.5 hours in, mile 60), just in time to prepare a second bowl of mashed potatoes. A bit of a boost but, with 2.5 hours left, and now way off the 9 min/mile goal with 11 or 12-minute miles, I wasn't sure what I was still fighting for. 

After the 6-hour runners had left the scene and 10 hours in the race, it seemed like the field had considerably shrank on the course, but for a few stud. Here is an update, 8 hours in:

Among them was Melissa Guillen, 38, who lapped me on my 62nd lap, looking really strong. I
complimented her for her pace and form and asked her which lap she was on; she replied 63, encouraged me to keep up with her but I thanked him and told her she could have the win. With 90 minutes to go, I had lost the stamina. Yet, I kept moving and jogging except on lap 65 where I walked 300 yards along Jim on his own shuffling. When I grow up, I want to shuffle that consistently and that long! At 75, Jim would end up taking 3rd Men and 6th overall with 42 laps (41.1 miles). Respect!

The last hour --for us at least, the others had 13 to go!-- was filled with gorgeous views of the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge and the City by the Bay (I missed the best shots before grabbing my phone for the last lap).

At that point I wasn't even pushing, just logging lap after lap to kill the time if I may say, albeit a very bad thought on a timed event. After eventually picking up the pace in the last 30 minutes, I closed lap 68 with 5 minutes to spare so not enough for an extra one. At 1.0275 mile per lap, not quite 70 miles but pretty close (69.87). And 70.96 miles on my GPS, a 1.5% variance.

A few minutes later, just before Race Director, Wendell, called the 12 hours, Melissa finished one more lap, her... 69th! Since she had lapped me a couple more times after my 62nd lap, she must have not been on her 63rd. Anyway it was cool to hear from her that I had motivated her to push the envelope, sane competition!

Now, one thing that I omitted to say is that one driving force keeping me moving through the afternoon and evening was the competition with Yaz Saito who remained a few laps behind me during the whole 12 hours. At 55, he finished with 64 laps (65.8 miles), there was some competition in the M50-59 age group! Speaking of age, if the event had been sanctioned, Shirley Fee would have set an impressive W80-84 American record with her 41.1 miles, especially in such windy conditions (there isn't even one W80+ record in the National database yet; and note that the database is in kilometers, not miles).

Short of more competition and meeting my aggressive goals of both distance and pace consistency, it felt good to take the overall win. Here is a podium picture with Yaz and Melissa.

Overall, it's a 12.5% miss on the most optimistic objective. Although not proud about it, I'd attribute at least 5% to the windy conditions. Still a few percentage points to regain on the conditioning side but going in the right direction of recovery and rebuilding. Finally, yet so much to work on, especially on the leg muscles but probably on the breathing too after 1 or 2 COVID episodes (February 2020 maybe and June 2022 assuredly) and certainly on the mental/mind side too.

Hydration wise, I'm super pleased with my consistent intake, almost back to the old days with one Ultimate Direction bottle of GU2O (aka GU Energy Brew) and one bottle of water every 15 miles, complemented with one S!Caps per hour. Nutrition wise, I might have pushed the OFM (Optimized Fat Metabolism) a bit on the high side by taking only 4 GUs, 2 cups of mashed potatoes, a few pieces of watermelon and 3 mini Cokes (cute cans!). About 1,000-1,200 calories intake for a 7,000 effort, thankfully the Vespa maths filled the rest of the equation! (2 pouches before the start then 1 every 3 hours.)

Special thanks to the small but efficient group of volunteers manning the aid station throughout the day and the night, and Wendell and Leng for consistently keeping track of our laps despite the wind gusts. This place is really exposed when the wind kicks in, loved how they tilted the tents to resist the wind. Here is a video of Wendell at the (windy) office (hint: nope, this isn't on a boat! ;-) ). Not a dull life!!

That was my 179th ultra race but only 4th 12-hour (other timed events: 1 6-hour and 8 24-hour). This is really a different type of ultra running, this sport has so many variations! Not counting the twists thrown at us by the weather elements... I look forward to keeping learning on these formats... time permitting!

The most boring Relive movie I ever produced (click on the image below, or this link)!

And, to conclude, a few more pictures from Foggy Bay Photos, just to prove that I wasn't jumping at every lap otherwise... ;-). Foggy Bay has been the appropriate name for most of the run this time!

Bye and see you on the trails again soon all!