Skyline 50K 2022: the come-back continues

With this title, I'm not actually referring that this was my 14th run of this iconic race in the Bay Area. I'm so grateful to Adam, Race Director and Scena Performance owner, for keeping this tradition running so strongly.

Before I dive in the usual race report, I want to acknowledge those who still read these posts. Well, that would be all of you, then! That's #696 so it does take some endurance, not to mention some of these post are long, and poorly written compared to John Trent's outstanding prose, just to name a master published in UltraRunning Magazine. Among you there are those leaving a comment on Blogspot or Facebook, thank you for that! And then there are those mentioning the blog at races. This Sunday it was Jason while we were in line at the restrooms before the start, then Angelo, on the course. Mom used to be a great fan of my blog but, at 88 and without my dad who passed away last year, she can't manage to get to it on her computer anymore. No obligation of course, but hearing that some of you find some motivation or tips in these posts always makes my day! ;-)

I digress, let's get back to Skyline. While UltraSignup has become the Amazon of the ultra running community, in particular by mining years of records from other smaller sites (the mom shops), and killing some in the process (e.g. Gary Wang's amazing UltraEndurance.com), I still go to Stan Jensen's run100s.com website to check on the roots of our sport, in California in particular. For the personal anecdote, I still consider myself a newbie, having joined that special community only in 2006. Back then, I remember seeing on Stan's website the number of 100-mile races exploding from 30 to 60. And stunned to see that it is now at 209! Especially impressive given the negative impact of the pandemic. Check the site out, and please consider donating. In addition to spending days saving see lions at the Marine Mammal Center in Marin Headlands, 600 blood donations over 38 years, Stan gives our community most of his weekends, volunteering from dawn to dusk. This Sunday, if he needed any introduction with 4.4K Facebook friends, he was the one checking you in at the last aid station. Donation page.

Oops, did I digress again? But that was for such a great cause. Per Stan's then, that was Skyline's 41st edition. Last year, Adam had invested in medals to celebrate such a special milestone. Now the bar has been raised, he included that perk in this year's edition as well. Adam also maintains a Hall of Legends page which gives even more sense to that long-running tradition. At the top of the list of number of finishes is Joe Swenson with 21 (Joe served this year as the aid station captain at Bort Meadows) and Barbara Elia who has an mind boggling 321 races on UltraSignup, but whom we haven't seen for a while on the ultra circuit (she is 77). The rest of the page has age group records which are now much harder to improve with the recent course change. Speaking of tradition, Adam has great designs for each of his race yet I'm grateful he accepted to revert to the original Skyline 50K logo, it makes the t-shirt collection more homogeneous! ;-)

Ok, back at Skyline 50K for goo this time. And, after starting this post on Sunday afternoon, now rushing on Friday night before going to bed with a 2:30 wake up call for Headlands Hundred... Fueled and power by Vespa of course! (Photo credit: Shiran Kochavi)

I arrived just in time to take a few pictures of the early start at 6am.

Then it was our turn with full daylight this time, albeit the traditional overcast, at 7am. There were a lot of laughters with so many participants reconnecting, some after several years with the pandemic. Then the fast guys stormed the start, that was super impressive. And a bit if regret for me as I used to be part of the lead pack, just a few years ago. You see, I really don't want to accept my age... ;-) 

Look at this picture from Bryan Walker Ting Photography, Chikara looks like racing a 5K!

I had a chuckle seeing Chikara rushing to the checkin at 6:45, it's certainly not the first time this happens, especially at this race. At least it's good to see him back after the same hamstring tendon injury I had. Chikara went for the PRP injections, I didn't. Took me 3+ years to come back, half a year for him. Granted, he is 18 years younger and that helps a lot with faster healing.

Despite a first mile at 7:22, I lost sight of maybe 15 of the front runners by the first half mile, that was going to be a fast day for some! It was warmer than usual and I got a good sweat especially in the first hill. I caught-up with Jason Reed at the end of the second mile this time, this is part of our local ultra and trail running tradition! ;-) I was pleased to still run the first 3 miles under 8 min/mile. Photo credit Bryan Walker Ting for Scena Performance:

In the 4th mile, I did pass a runner in the downhill, then celebrated clocking 6:52 for that mile.

Photos from Joe Swenson, Bort Meadow aid station captain this year:

I didn't stop at the second aid station, Bort Meadow, yet slowed down to a 9:27 minute-mile on the subsequent uphill. First surprise of the day was to find pink ribbons getting us off the fire road on that climb, on a parallel single track.

I kept a much better pace than last year in the first half and thought I was going to pay for it in the second half. But it felt so much better than last year, no leg pain except for the good pain of the glutes working much harder again. On Stream Trail, one my favorite sections in the redwoods, I saw Matt Ward a few hundreds yards, coming back on the trail, I supposed from a pit stop. I passed him on the way up to Skyline Gate and he yelled "it's great to see you back, Jean!" In the dead silence of the woods, it could have been embarrassing but there wasn't any other soul around. Nice of you, Matt!

Agnès and our visitors from France, Eric and Sylvie, were supposed to be at the aid station. At 16.5 miles from the start, I had told Agnès there was no way I'd be there by 9. I ran all the steep uphill and was quite pleased to reach Skyline Gate after 2:20 of quite a sustained effort. Incidentally, my Garmin mileage was closer to 17 miles, hence an average pace just above 8 min/mile. Very unusual for me, I had forgotten my recharge of Gu2O (GU Energy Brew), I was super relieved to see Agnès, who also helped me refill that bottle. The Aid Station Captain, Shiran Koshavi, who was supposed to run but is unfortunately injured, took a few great shots. It was also great to see the local legend, Carol Laplant.

A few cool shots from Shiran:

And from Vivy:

A quick stop allowed me to leave before Matt and Joseph reached the station:

And down on French Trail I was. On the other side of the canyon, I asked the 2nd Ham Radio volunteer which place I might be in. He estimated, 11 or 12. Given the competitive field this year, the prospect of finishing in the top 10 gave me a mental boost. A couple of miles later in the final wall on that section, and after passing 2 runners, I asked another volunteer: he said he wasn't at his post when the first runners went through so he estimated between 15 and 20. So long for the boost...

Photo from Todd Glieden, shortly after my second passage through Big Bear/Mac Donald. Notice like I appear scare like I had just seen a... Big Bear chasing me! ;-)

I kept moving nevertheless, stopped for a few seconds at MacDonald Staging to grab a GU then jogged most of MacDonald Grade, power walking some for the first time. I saw two runners as I approached the top, including a gal. I ran down to Bort Meadow on Jeremy Notch's heels and we went on that parallel single track again, losing a few seconds compared to the fire road. After 3 miles North of 10 min/mile in the middle section, now 3 miles under 8. Jeremy stopped at Bort Meadow, I didn't.

To perpetuate the whole tradition, ultra volunteer Stan Jensen welcomed me at Clyde Woolridge, mile 27. While I had the crazy goal or hope to break 4 hours, my GPS had 4:02, oops! Photo credit Bryan Walker Ting for Scena Performance:

I wanted to let Stan know that I had caught a man removing a ribbon at the previous turn (I was able to find the ribbon in the grass and put it back), Stan pressured me to remain focus on my race. While I was at it, I asked for some ice in my water bottle. I had drunk my GU2O consistently (1 bottle every 15 miles) but not much water. And I Americanized on that one, I prefer my water iced! ;-)

With 4 miles to go, it was going to be hard to even break 4:30. But I tried anyway. And failed eventually, crossing the finish line in 4:34:55.

As we share the finish with the half marathon which starts 90 minutes after us, the end is quite confusing. I discovered in the results that I finished 5 seconds behind 12th place overall, Ben Petroski, and 44 seconds behind the female winner, Kristina Randrup, from Seattle, WA. That reminded me of the 2014 finish when I took 2nd in 3:52 (still the M50 course record), passing YiOu Wang in the very last half mile. Different times, different course too. In addition to my lack of conditioning, a tougher course in my opinion. Which makes Chikara's win in 3:36 even more impressive!

The female podium, including Verity Breen, taking 3rd overall at 55 (5:15:46)!

Another perfect execution from Scena Performance, Adam, his amazing crew of volunteers, from check-in, the professionally manned aid stations, course marking, sweeps, the Ham Radios, the cooks, award and goodies handlers!

Nice t-shirt and medals joining the collection, too. 

Oh, and we got some dust as souvenir too, it's really dry out there! (Brooks Racer ST, racing flat on such smooth trails.)

Race #341 in my running log (since I settled here in 1998), ultra race #180, 72nd 50K race and 14th Skyline 50K, time flies... And I can't wait to go my 15th. Well, on for 100 miles in a few hours before... See many of your on the trails. Like Matt said, it feels so good to rebuild after these past 3 years of penitence!

PS: Pre-race shots, including Quicksilver club teammates (Keith, Jim, Steve, Charles)

A few of the leaders at Skyline Gate (Agnès missed Chikara and a few others, they went way too fast!)

A short ultra for breakfast. And a Stevens Creek Striders promo.

I so used to run (short) ultras for breakfast a lot, I mean for training, early on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Including the real ultra races, I averaged 33 ultra runs a year for 11 years in a row, from my second year in that sport, in 2008 until I fissured one of my hamstring attach tendons in November 2018. Healing has been so much longer than both hoped and expected, I'm now only getting back in the groove after 3.5 years. In 2019, I had to ease off and logged only 15 ultra runs, then 12 in 2020. How do I keep track of all these stats? I still do Excel, not as old school as Camille Herron's handwritten log book, but sill odd in the age of GPS-fueled social platforms). And it's good to keep a running log because, although I felt terribly out of shape last year, I just realized I actually managed to have 35 ultra runs in 2021. And 16 so far.

Again, that includes some short ones. Although I go by the 26.2+ miles definition, Andy Wilkins-Jones has often questioned if 50K should even be considered as an ultra. At least in his golden years (multiple top 10 Western States finishes), maybe he'll become more inclusive with age... ;-)

I confess that, between that injury, the pandemic struggle and other sources of life unbalance, I lost the appetite, will or eagerness for waking up early on weekends in order to squeeze in long runs. But, for a change, that's what I managed to do this Saturday, phew! I made the deliberate decision to stop working on a client project at 10:30 pm on Friday, set my clock to 6:45 am in order to start my run with a stop at the 8:30 am Saturday club meeting of the Stevens Creek Striders, 4 miles from my house. At the Stevens Creek Reservoir which is on Stevens Creek (upstream through the Stevens Creek Canyon and downstream, toward Moffett and Shoreline).

This Club is where I got acquainted with trail running (2003), then ultra marathon (2006), before I joined the highly competitive team Adam Blum and his company, RhoMobile, sponsored within the Quicksilver Running Club of San Jose (2007). I stayed with the Striders for a few years during which I even served as Captain of the Last Chance aid station at Western States.

This Saturday's meeting was chaired by Robert Luemers who is also the Race Director of the Club's Stevens Creek Striders Reservoir Runs, including a trail half marathon which is part of our Mountain, Ultra, Trail Grand Prix for the second year. Two heads-up:

1. First, a price increase coming up next weekend. The event has been up since last December, time to signup!
2. Second, for those competing in the Grand Prix and not familiar with the fine prints: if one of your scores isn't for a Trail event (sub ultra trail), you'll lose one of your scores. This is the last opportunity of 2022 to get such a score in the Trail category (Excelsior's Star City Half could have been one but, with their move to later in October, it won't be part of the Grand Prix this year).

In any event, join us for this very accessible run in Cupertino's foothills and meet other members of our local trail running community!

At mile 3 of the group run, 7 miles for me, before I continued on Stevens Creek Canyon road:

The informal setting of a running club meeting:

On this last weekend of July, I was pleased to see a bit of water flowing through rocks at the bottom of the canyon. But the farther I was going up that road, the less flow I could hear until there was no more water at all in the bed of the creek.

May 28

2 months later...

In other news, I'm afraid we have just lost high-speed Internet access at the top of Black Mountain! Just kidding, this is old-time telephony, I wonder who all these cables were meant to provide phone signal at the park entrance at the end of Stevens Creek Canyon road.

Actually, teasing apart, I need to check if the public phone booth at the camp ground still works, who knows. Although it's more likely for that spot to be served by a line along Montebello Road instead.

I occasionally walked on the way up to Bella Vista trail but not too much, this is encouraging, both from a physical and mental standpoint. I did cross a few cyclists, on the road of course but, less common, on the trail itself, and saw quite a few deers. If we apply Machine Learning to this data, you could infer that deers get excited by a lot of Tour de France watching as well! :-)

As I turned on Bella Vista, up toward Black Mountain, I first saw a red ribbon on the side of the trail, potentially marking some erosion or ground slide. Shoot, how shocking to see a truck on its top, which flipped off this single (duh!) track!

At least you can say that they got lucky the truck fell into a ditch, not too deep, wide enough to allow the truck to stabilize flat and narrow enough that it stopped the vehicle from rolling more. 20 yards more and they were good for quite a scary series of lateral or back flops...

I've launched a FaceBook investigation. It doesn't seem the trucks is from the rangers, phew! Someone proposed the hypothesis of a contractor working on a communication or power maintenance job. In any event, huge navigation mistake, instead of getting on Montebello Road to drive to the submit.

To spice my run even more, a few hundreds yards later, I almost got hit by a bike. The guy hammered on the break but the back wheel blocked immediately. I didn't even have time to yell anything, I just jumped on the right edge of the trail and bended over the void of a steep slope. One of these closed encounters which could get one more trail closed to bikes...

With that, it was hot but a cloud layer brought some welcomed shade and relief. No campers at the campground, where I refilled both bottles. A few pictures at the top (mile 17) then it was time for the 12-mile downhill.

To add some mileage and elevation, I went on my favorite Waterwheel Trail, stopping for a few minutes at the refreshing, albeit weakening, spring.

Back on Montebello Road, I hammered it down, finally clocking a few sub-7 miles and not stopping for 10 miles. For a total of 29.5 miles at 8:28 min/mile. Elevation wise? Maybe something between Garmin's always optimistic guess of 4,293 ft, or Strava's more reasonable and plausible 3,760. In any event, a good last long training run before now tapering for Skyline 50K this Sunday then Headlands Hundred (hilly miles...) 6 days later. Even more time to work more... until I see some of you these next two weekends to play again on the trails!

Relive.cc flyover (this link or click on the following picture):

PS: and since I'm looking at my stats, lifetime ultra run #461.

A few Striders on the move!