American River 50: never give up!

Ouch, right when I thought I was healed from exercised-induced asthma... I was going to wait until Miwok next month before claiming victory, but there is actually no victory, unfortunately. As you might have read in my Way Too Cool post last month, I had finally a great race there after two tough years, with my lungs functioning perfectly this time, which I attributed to stopping taking Echinacea supplement after Miwok '07 which was then the last race I suffered from asthma.

A long day

The day was perfect for a great race. Cool, mostly sunny with just a few clouds during the day, great competition, dry trail. With such a good setting plus the great form and training of these past months, I had told Agnès I was shooting around 6:45 for my first edition of this legendary race (29th year!). 2 years ago I was barely on the ultra circuit as I had ran my first 50K at Way Too Cool. Then, last year, I had to pass, because the race was the same weekend as the Boston Marathon (which I have ran every other year for the past 8 years). I gave her provisional splits from Keith's great online tool. We decided that there would be too much people at Beals Point (with potential pacers waiting) and agreed she will rather come with Greg at Negro Bar (mile 23.5), depending on the time they will take before leaving the hotel.

We stayed at the Larkspur Landing hotel, which is really convenient, just 1 mile away from the start. So convenient that I jogged 3 miles before the race, making a round trip to pick my bib then enjoying the comfort of the room to get prepared. Arrived just in time though, and got stuck in the pack trying to get on the tiny bridge we were starting on before taking the bike path (there must me an historical reason for such a setting, because this is really not the most convenient way to handle a pack of 500 runners...).
The start was given right at 6am and, in a short initial loop, we were first going down the river, for about 1.5 miles, before going up the American River for the remaining 48.5 miles, hence the name of the event. It was much darker than I thought and, as I was navigating between the runners to reach the head of the race, I paid extra attention not tripping on the side of the bike path. Steve (Bremner) recognized me as I was passing him. Steve is from Colorado and ran the Coastal Challenge with me this year. He followed me and I introduced him to Mark (Tanaka) and Michael (Kanning) who were chatting and had apparently decided to run together today. Steve and I went on, despite Mark's warning that the pace was fast enough. Steve followed then decided to slow down, wishing me a good race and that I won't see him again before the finish! As it turned out, I did see him indeed, and Steve had a great race, taking first place in his M50-54 age group in 7:13.

The first loop got us back at the start line where spectators were waiting for us. I had finally settle for a 6:35 minute/mile pace, seeing the flashing light of the lead bike 4 to 500 yards ahead. I was running on my own when I passed Agnès, 22 minutes in the race.
To the second, I kept this same exact pace for 10 miles, keeping an eye on the lead group in which Anton Krupicka had already taken his singlet off. I was running really smooth and well when, all of a sun, I felt this known inflammation in my lungs. Mark (Lantz) and Kenny (Brown) were with me at this point and I had to let them go to slow down. The start of a very very long slow down throughout the day... I was still running up to the Nimbus Overlook (photo credit: Peter Zinsli) and in the top 15, but that was the last piece of uphill I was going to run today:

After Negro Bar, I started getting passed by runners. First, Mark and Michael, still running together. Mark ended up in 15th position this year, 6:42, against 6th overall last year and 6:52 in a much more difficult rainy weather and muddy course. Good for 3rd of my age group, M40-44, behind Jorge Pacheco (6:20) and Mark Lantz (6:23). As for Michael, he easily won his age group (M1-17!), finishing in 7:47 and 40th overall. Way to go, guys!

With my breathing difficulty, I was hoping to see my crew, Agnès and Greg, at Negro Bar (mile 23.5), with my inhaler. No sign of them so I kept cruising as we were still in a relatively flat section of the course. Same at Beals Point although we had said it might be a too busy place to meet (actually this station has a huge parking lot, so it would have been a good option). Steve (Bremner) passed me right after Beals, then Jenn Shelton, from Bend, Oegon, who ended up winning the women division in 7:02 and 20th overall (Jenny Capel taking 2nd in 7:13). In his usual focused and steady way, Tim Twietmeyer passed me at mile 31, just before Granite Bay. With the fast start and the cruising, I passed the half-way mark in 3:05 and the first marathon in 3:16. For what it was worth, another Boston qualifier...

I was finally much relieved to find Agnès at Granite Bay (mile 31.5). She handed me my inhaler from which I could barely take a puff as inhaling and breathing was making me cough. Enjoyed the station for a couple of minutes, told my crew I was sorry for them because that was going to be a long day, as I didn't want to give up and preferred walking the rest of the course. It was 10:15am and, with my inability to run the up hills, still quite a few hours ahead of us. Agnès said she will be at the next station then, but I didn't see her before Rattlesnake Bar, 8.4 miles, 3 aid stations and... 2h15 later... In the meantime I kept being passed by nice folks who almost asked me if I was ok while I was stopping on the side of the single track to clear the path, while paying attention to the abundant poison oaks (yikes, I got badly hit again on Mount Diablo last week, clearing the path for the runners of the Mount Diablo 50-mile race, next week). Among them I met Ted (Nunes) from the Runner's World forum, and Eric (Schranz) another member of the Brooks ID (Inspire Daily) team. Several runners actually proposed me an inhaler, I never realized so many run with one on them.

Rattlesnake is where Kermit (Cuff) passed me. And Ken (Gregorich) who told me he was like me, having a very bad day. Kermit, though, was all smile. I told you about him in my previous post, after meeting him at our trail maintenance work on Mount Diablo, and the connection I established through Sarah (PCTR) with Vincent Toumazou, who will pace Kermit at this July Badwater. This picture of me getting in Rattlesnake Bar shows that even the down hills were difficult today, usually one of my specialties.

Discussing race strategy with Greg!
With the "never give up" spirit of the 49'ers (the pioneers of the West and founders of all these trails), and the moral support of my crew and friends, I went on for more miles up to the next and last "bar", Manhattan Bar (for sure, the Pioneers had a hard life, but many bars along the trail to get some carb along the way!).

In many stations I was welcomed by people who recognized me, like Burton from the trail running community on the Runner's World forum, at Horseshoe Bar. This time it was Jerry (Hill), one of the founders of our Cupertino running club, the Stevens Creek Striders, and long time Friend of the Western States Trail.

As my average pace was increasing inexorably and now up to 10:15 min/mile, with 7 miles to go, I was wondering if I would break 9 hours or not, especially with the last 3 steep miles up to the finish line. It really forced me to dig as deep into my lungs as possible to walk and jog the last miles to finally finish, with Greg on my side, in 8:53. A lesson of perseverance and courage, for me. And stubbornness too. Not my first one, quite similar to my 2002 Desert Classic Marathon adventure in Phoenix, Arizona, where I was in top position at mile 8 and had to walk the remaining 18 flat miles at 15 min per mile to be sent to the hospital at the finish where I stayed for half an hour before seeing anyone and deciding to leave.

So, yes, asthma is a serious handicap when it kicks in. And when it does, it makes me appreciate even more my past performances, when it does not... One thing is sure though: despite what some people think, it is not because I started fast that it kicked in this weekend. I was in great shape and it was my pace. Although I am keeping a detailed running log, there does not seem to be a single triggering factor among pollen, cool temperature, stress, dry air, speed, nutrition. I was hoping Echinacea was THE thing, but this weekend's experience contradicts this hypothesis. Unfortunately. So I will continue the experiments and, again, enjoy the races where I have my full lung and 80-VO2-max capacity! After 10 minutes sitting in the shade of the finish line tent, the pain of the end was quickly surpassed by the great feeling of accomplishment (I surely take the ability to run an ultra too much for granted) and the joy of getting to the finish line, overcoming the challenges and... meeting with exceptional people such as Anton Krupicka, finally!

Overall this day provided me with an opportunity to see more runners than usual although, despite the slow second half, I did see only the first 25% of the field (finishing 111 overall among 466 finishers). A big thank you for the support of the ones who passed me, and the gentle pressure of the ones who did not and helped me moving forward. I never thought as much of you as this Saturday, these many hours that you spent after we had finish our run. I cannot mention everyone of you of course, but what about Gloria Takagishi who did not miss any of the 29 editions of this race and finished this year again in 12:41!

More than usual, and same for Agnès and Greg, I enjoyed the views of the places we went through. Flowers, rocky sections, the never ending Folsom Lake, canyons, wild turkeys, jack rabbits, this is just one of the pictures taken by Agnès, of the local California Poppies, the State flower symbol:

Last but not least, more time to enjoy the volunteers, providing the same personal and outstanding service and support to every runner, from the elite to the slower ones, and over so many hours in the day. And let's not forget the usual flawless, yet remarkable, organization of Greg Soderlund and his team.

The Kanning-Pommier Challenge

Before closing this post, a short additional story about this week. On Thursday, the Cupertino High School, Max and Alex' school, was visiting Homestead High School, of Cupertino, for a Track and Field dual meet. The Pioneers (Tino) against the Mustangs (Homestead). Interestingly, Homestead is the track where Bob and I do our speed work sessions, twice a week, the best track in the area. I was alerted not by Max, but by Michael (Kanning), the same Michael I mentioned above and also a Brooks ID'er (i.e. Inspire Daily team member). Michael was only going to run the mile, since it was just 2 days before AR. Max was up for the mile and 3,200m (2 miles), despite his lack of training as he focused much more on drama and the Seussical musical lately.

Michael's PR on the mile was 4:59, at 16. Max is 15 and is PR from last year was 5:04. A perfect setting for a match. I told Max not to think of the follow-up 2-mile race. He gave everything he had left after 6 tiring weeks (the musical), ran a great race, passing Michael in the last turn, with 200 yards to go. Michael fought back to the end and passed Max just before the finish line, right on 4:59. With Max setting a new PR at 5:00!

Although the meet turned to Tino's advantage, overall, with my poor performance at American River, Michael won the Kanning-Pommier Challenge 2-0. Way to go, Michael, just by yourself!

I will see some of you at Ruth Anderson in two weeks. Happy miles in the meantime!

Mount Diablo trail maintenance: ultra gardening

That was a special weekend: after a good week of training for American River, I spent more time than a long run on Saturday, not running but working on the trail. It was also a special weekend because the Barkley 100-mile has been on and Flyin' Brian Robinson is still not done as I started writing this (more on this at the end of this post).

Service requirement

Here is a precision for the non ultra insiders: in addition to registration fees and potential qualifying standards, several 100-mile races require that every participant provides some service back to the running community. The two acceptable forms are: volunteering at an ultra or trail race (setting it up or helping out at one of the aid stations) or doing some trail maintenance. Typically 8 hours of your time.

Last year I didn't do the trail maintenance but provided these hours by serving as Captain of the Last Chance aid station (mile 43 on the Western States course), for the fourth year. This year, I'm co-captaining again, with Robin (Bob and Marsha left the Bay Area and moved East last year). Robin has just retired from Adobe and takes a lot on his shoulder. So much that it provides me with the opportunity to do trail maintenance. After all these years enjoying the trail, it is time I get involved in their maintenance (other than removing branches when I lead the way of our Saturday morning runs in Woodside for instance...).

400 runners x 8 hours, that 3,200 hours of service or about 2 full-time equivalent person working for a year. You would think that the Park Rangers would be thrilled by such a help, and that it would be easy to give a hand. Well, not really. These trail maintenance operations have to be organized and there are not that many despite the many trails we have around.

Thankfully, I received an invitation from PCTR (Pacific Coast Trail Runs) who had put on their busy calendar two opportunities: one on Mount Diablo in April, and one at Big Basin later this spring. Agnès wanted to drive back to Mount Diablo, remembering good times we had with the boys running on the slopes, in the grass and the colorful poppies. Unfortunately, the boys have grown up a lot and have busy scheduled of their own, so Agnès had to stay, in particular to drive Greg to the Fencing Academy in the morning.

For the ones who do not know yet, PCTR has been created by Sarah and Wendell, two local ultra runners. Their venture is so successful that they both left their job for this running "company." And they even recently offered a permanent position to Marissa, so ultra is creating jobs, a sign of maturity for this young and increasingly popular sport. A story similar to Philippe's one in France who left his job to manage the ultrafondus magazine, full time. Kudos guys and gals!

We were about 20 to gather this Saturday morning. About half had similar service requirement sheet to fill in, either for Western States or Angeles Crest. The others where genuine volunteers, or maybe interested in getting the trail in good shape for their coming Mount Diablo 50 run (in 2 weeks).
Some familiar faces such as Chihping, the Ultrailrunning Family Man and blogger, and Kermit. Kermit surprised me by announcing that he accepted that Vincent paces him for his Badwater run this summer. I had posted messages in different forums on Vincent's behalf, to advertise Vincent's pacing offer. Vincent plans on running the 2010 edition of Badwater and got a sponsor who pays for airfare for him to come and pace this year. Vincent was thrilled with the news. Sarah, too, for having helped making the connection, following my post. And, last but not least, Kermit for getting someone as competent and experienced as Vincent as fourth pacer to complete his crew. Yet another happy outcome of my efforts in connecting the dots between the American and French ultra communities!
The ones who had planned to work for the entire day were sent to the end of the trail (by car). I stayed with Tom (Kaisersatt), an active member of my club, The Stevens Creeks Striders, and our friend club, San Jose Fit.
We worked on the loop close to the Rock City/Living Oak parking area and campground. I'm not sure if we even covered one mile in more than 4 hours, but we certainly did a meticulous job. Hundreds of poison oak branches, which was the main task assigned to us. But, because or thanks to the tools which we got, Tom started to transform some sections from single track to double track.
Sarah had told us to think of horse riders and also tall runners like Scott Jurek to make sure we were cutting not only the low branches along the trail. And also to go quite deep on each side to make the exercise worth and lasting for 5 years.
Not sure about 5 years, but the runners coming on this trail in two weeks should definitely appreciate this section! I wish the same is done to the Miwok trail before May... Where I got badly hit with poison oak last year.

Here is a very particular rock formation which the Diablo 50 runners will notice while running "our" manicured section:
A very green Mount Diablo in the foreground, and foggy Bay Area in the background:
American River training

After the great run at Way Too Cool, I'm excited to race again this weekend. Running American River 50-mile (AR50), between Sacramento, the California capital and Auburn, the worldwide capital of endurance.

This is a particular race, half road, half trail. Sometimes with mud and rain, but it should be dry and warm this weekend. Put quite a few miles in these past weeks, yet nothing compared to what Anton Kupricka is putting (180 to 200 miles per week, when I ran a total of 277 miles for the long month of March). I am so excited he is coming to run AR, this will be the first time I have a chance to see him in person! If you remember my tagging questions from Mark Tanaka, I hesitated between Anton and Karl Metzler for the person I wanted to meet on the trail and picked Karl. Maybe I will see both of them this year actually!

Driving all the way up to Mount Diablo (60 miles, not so good from a sustainability standpoint...) I had planned to run after our trail work. But, between the overcast weather, the fatigue and the fact that Agnès could not joined, I decided to drive back home instead. It is one of the running paradox: I am less tired running 6 hours straight than spending 2 hours in a museum, walking and stopping at each painting. Same this Saturday with these hours of "ultra gardening." I'm just not trained and used to it...

After my PR on 5K at Big Bunny Fun Run last Sunday, I set a PR on my course from home up to Black Mountain (I even saw Pierre-Yves and David at the top). The training week then included a 2:29 800m (the last of a series of 6 with 1 minute rests) on Thursday, and a fast 9.3-mile loop at Rancho on Friday. I thought I had also PR'ed on this loop and checked my running log: that was only the 8th time out of 72 runs of this loop since 2000. Close, still. On the way down, on PG&E, my Garmin 205 GPS marked 4:23 min/mile, and my legs had difficulty coping with the speed and gravity. But I really enjoyed the speed!

On Sunday I went back up to Black Mountain plus a 4-mile loop on the other side of the mountain (Bella Vista Trail), back trough Rancho San Antonio and Cupertino, working on speed and mental. Thinking of Brian on the Barkley course helped me a lot and I barely stopped during the 29-mile/4-hour run, even in the steep uphills.

Let us see how all this will pay off on Saturday!

The Barkley weekend

It should be worth at least one single post, but I was not there to take pictures or get the details of this incredible race. Or is it really a race, or more an ultra hike?

The so-called Barkley marathons started in 1986 but it is only in 1996 that Mark Williams was the first to complete the 100 miles within the alloted time of...60 hours! We are so proud to have Mark in our Stevens Creek Striders running club in Cupertino, and I'm grateful to him for having provided my with strong ultra foundations. Since Mark's achievement, 6 people have repeated this fate, with Brian being the last one, this weekend, setting a "course" record of 55 hours and 47 minutes. To give an indication of the difficulty of this run, most of the 35 participants have trouble completing even one 20-mile loop under the time limit of 12 hours, despite their ultra experience. 7 runners completed the so-called "fun run" of 3 loops (100K).

To learn more about Brian, see the end of my February 29 post. There are also a few pictures of his last step to the finish "line" on Monday, here. Needless to say, the American ultra community is in awe seeing such a fate. Even the French are speaking of this on the UltraFondus' forum.

And since so many things are connected within this ultra running community, Sarah's significant other and PCTR partner, Wendell, was also running Barkley this weekend. He did not make the cut-off time of the second loop unfortunately. Here are some of his words after his attempt:

I did most of loop 2. I actually felt pretty good until I hit the greasy mud wall going up Testicle Spectacle. It was hands, knees, and a stick trying to get up. I was totally spent when I got to the top. I continued for another couple hours until I hit Rat Jaw that had more of the same. I knew my Fun Run goal "slipped" away and I decided to head back to camp.

We're looking forward to seeing Brian come in. We're all amazed at what he's doing.

Despite the toughness, Wendell is already a candidate for next year. But this time, Sarah and Aaron will make the trip, with some vacation time in Tennessee.

During the weekend, the Greek "god" of ultra running (insider comment), Yiannis Kouros, was making an attempt to take back the indoor 48-hr world record to a Japanese, at the BRNO 48-hr indoor even in Czech Republic. From what I could find on the web, he missed the record, yet won the event (of course!) and ran 408 km (254 miles).

254 miles in 48 hours on a track, indoor. 100 miles in 56 hours on the Barkley course. And some want to compare ultra running (as a whole) to marathon, from an effort or performance standpoint (see the controversial post of Lance, the Harlem runner)... These are both amazing fates, but they just cannot be compared. Period.

A busy running week, time to tapper for AR...

See you there!

PS: oh, by the way, everything in this post is deemed true, despite the special post date. At least to the best of my knowledge! ;-)