2015 week 2: two ultras already, yeah!

1. Back to Black Mountain

Upon landing from Europe at SFO last Saturday and getting back home, I rushed outside to run 15K in the neighborhood, fast. I had run a few times in France but had not brought a pair of running shoes in Prague (sorry, no "Running in Prague" post for that matter...). While it felt good to have more time to spend with the family and friends to visit this amazing city and celebrate the crossing of the years, I was anxious to get back into some training as the 2015 is now on.

The following Sunday, last week, I woke up at 5 am thanks to some jet lag but it was freezing outside (literally) so I waited until sunrise before getting on a long run, happy to get back on Black Mountain after a 5-month hiatus! The good news? The reservoir has filled up significantly. The bad news? We are still pretty far from normal, it's not even winter yet, we need so many more rain storms to hit California and the Bay Area!

Another impact of the lack of rain, beyond the drought, is the poor air quality. Another reason it felt good that morning to run above the smog...

I passed one bike on the way up Montebello and it felt good too to get some hill training after the hundreds of flat miles of these past months. I didn't see a single soul for the next 10 miles, up to Black Mountain first, then down Bella Vista trail, then up to Black Mountain again where I finally saw two mountain bikers and two hikers enjoying the magnificent view over the hills like Mount Umunum and up to the Ocean.

Here I am at the top of deserted Black Mountain, with some of my Ultimate Direction gear: my usual hand bottles and the super convenient Scott Jurek's Essentials belt.

That was a great long run overall, technically an ultra, albeit a short one barely fitting Andy Jones-Wilkins' requirement or label. 28 miles at 8:05 min/mile with +/- 4,000 feet of cumulative elevation, a good start for 2015.

2. Steatopygous Quinquamilla or the first/original Saratoga Fat Ass

Fast forwarding one week and 39 flat miles at the track with Jeremy and Bob or in the neighborhood during the week, and it was time for another edition of one of our oldest local Fat Ass, the Steatopygous Quinquamilla. I thought that was my first ultra ever back in 2005 but, thanks to my 3,000-line running log, it was actually my second (I had run the Stevens Creek 28-mile Clambake in August 2004). Anyway, that was then my second ultra run out of a series of 242 so far, so much experience gained in 10 years!

I hav run this Fat Ass 6th times now; in 2005 (5:56), 2007 (6:10 in freezing conditions), 2009 (5:47), 2012 (5:22 with Toshi and Sean), 2013 (6:22, solo) and now 2015.

There were about 20 confirmed runners on Facebook and another dozen of maybe's but only 7 started, between 7 and 8 am (not counting Doc Mark who ran his personal edition yesterday). With the lack of winter, the conditions were gorgeous today: sunny, temperatures in the low 60s, soft trails, low creeks, only a few trees down.

This year, I ran with Jeremy (my track buddy) and James (who is joining our Club, from Brazil). It was a perfect group for a good workout and nice chats, in particular about their hiking and back packing experiences and projects (see for instance Jeremy's account of their epic Euchre Bar Massacre!).

We passed Chau Pham and Mylinh Nguyen, then Keith Lubliner around mile 8

We then saw Keith Blom again at mile 12. Here is James and Jeremy approaching the Butano Trail intersection.

Huge thanks and kudos to Keith B for organizing this unofficial run, being at the start to welcome us, setting up an amazing aid station at mile 15 (China Grade) and monitoring the course at that intersection: a perfect Race Director!

Here is Keith's China Grade aid station:

More gorgeous views from Basin Trail:

And a photo fight between bloggers! ;-) (See Jeremy's blog)

After a slow start, we eventually picked up the pace on the Skyline to the Sea trail along Highway 236 when we ran into Kristina Irvin, our Quicksilver Club aid station queen (and/or bitch as she adds herself to her business card! ;-). More chats about this course and other epic ultras of hers, and we were flying again toward Waterman Gap.

I finished the last 6-mile climb alone, running all the way, but waited for Jeremy and James at the parking lot for 25 minutes. I had so much work to do this weekend, including this blog post but much more professionally, that I finally left before seeing them finishing. Maybe they ran a few additional miles to make it a 50K as the standard course is notably shorter per our GPS devices (mine gave 28.3). I completed the loop in 5:06 (elapsed time), including 4:22 of actual running time according to Strava (minus some of the stops, I had 4:33:40 on my watch at the end).

Superb conditions to be running and enjoying our wonderful hills and trails, I do hope you managed to get out there too these first 10 days of 2015! If not, then it's still (and always!) time for good resolutions! ;-) In my next post, I'll share my 2015 running resolutions then... In the meantime, run happy!

2014 in review: another amazingly productive year!

In wine making you cannot have so many outstanding years back to back as they are too many stars from Mother Nature to perfectly align. When you think of all the variables getting into play in ultra running, there is a parallel to be drawn. Weather conditions at races, injuries, motivation, lack of luck in lotteries, race cancellation, recovery, stiff competition, impact of the other sides or priorities of your life such as family, work or other hobbies, there are many excuses to miss a year. That makes me feel even luckier and appreciative that I was able to miss the bad odds for another amazing running year as the numbers below show in a Fitbit-inspired design:

And with the 2013format:

I'm particularly grateful to the Ultra Running magazine voting board for noticing 5 of my performances in the age group category and felt very honored to even receive 2 votes in the very elitist Runner of the Year category (ok, 2 points versus 447 for Rob Krar which is of course well deserved but still making a list of 36 runners! ;-). And I got listed 6 times in the top performance listings: #11 24-hr at the North Coast Nationals, #17 24-hr at San Francisco Summer Solstice (my 100th ultra race!), #38 50K at Jed Smith, #85 50K at the Caumsett Nationals, #46 50-miles at Ruth Anderson, #55 100K at the hilly Miwok). It feels good to see that these results got noticed! ;-) Make sure to read other great articles in this January-February issue or, better, to subscribe if not already!

Overall, I ran less than in 2013 but that was actually a goal and I must admit that I still got caught up into trying to log 100K a week which I would have if not for missing 5 weeks of training in February and March because of a minor and not elucidated injury. In particular, I raced more but I ran less "training ultras" (a total of 32 ultras versus 37 in 2013). While I've read a few articles about the benefits of quality over quantity especially for Masters, I still think it's important to run ultras as part of your training program if you can, to keep building more endurance.

Do I have regrets? Sure! Like my disappointing Way Too Cool (again...), getting enough injured in February to derail my training for the 50K and 100K Nationals, my DNF half way into TRT 100, peeing what looked like blood at the North Coast 24-hour Nationals and getting a 52% UltraSignup grade at the Desert Solstice 24-hour which wiped out all the 2013 and 2014 gains in one single race, all this despite setting two noticeable records. Oh well, some failure is part of the big experiment that ultra running is about and showing that you try to push the envelope...

Looking back to 2014 (50 blog posts help my memory! ;-), I think the main keys to success are sustainable volume and variety. Both in training and racing. For instance, I had a disappointing Way Too Cool (finishing 5th in my brand new age group!) and Tahoe Rim Trail (DNF, dropping at 50 of 100 miles) but I was able to rebound in many other events. And while it becomes really hard to set new PRs on "shorter" distances, the faster of my motto and blog title, I can now explore longer formats and set personal bests on new distances or timed events. I also discovered the excitement of chasing age group records, leveraging the fact that there are so many records out there for each of our 5-year age groups.

All in all I know this isn't just about numbers, but that's one aspect I personally like about running as my main hobby and way to juggle a balance in life. The fact that I can measure things and see the results working and "playing" hard: this keeps me moving... farther and faster! Beyond these numbers, there has been amazing human experiences like meeting new people at races, training with teammates and club mates from QuickSilver and Stevens Creek Striders or even competing in a friendly atmosphere against other teams in our North California Grand Prix.

What about you? Did you manage to go any farther and/or faster this past year too?