In the ultra world, we have the famous JFK 50-mile, an event which has run for more than 50 years. But, this Saturday, the deal was about getting the support our local high schools need to stay afloat with an increasing inflow of students. Specifically the measures J&K on our Fall election ballot.
Oddly enough, the impact and strain that building hundreds of new condominiums has on our local school system cannot be discussed at the city councils which approve these housing extensions. Really, what is this urban planning about? All that because the school district has to operate independently, although it has to provide mandatory free education. And since it isn't even provided with enough funding, it has to turn to the tax payers. Who, hopefully, will realize how much the value of their Cupertino house actually comes from the quality of our local school system and therefore support these much needed and sustainable measures...

If the city welcomes hundreds of new families, a great idea by essence, it is particularly annoying and hypocrite that it isn't more concern about the number of students this will inject in our school system. Classrooms are already overcrowded at near 40 students per classes, not to mention the burden on teachers, who remain incredibly dedicated and loyal despite this overwork.
Anyway, volunteers were called this Saturday to go door to door and leave a flier at the door of a selected number of houses throughout the district. Agnès and I teamed up in a bike-run duo. Agnès was carrying the fliers and the list of houses, me running like a dog from door to door. We took 3 neighborhoods and I ended up covering more than a half marathon distance, all made of short sprints and stops. We started at 8 and were done by 11:30 when the temperature was getting again into the 90s. I feel like I ran in circles but when I think that postmen go door to door each and every day, I'm not sure that's a job for me...
A big thank to all who make time to support these measures to ensure quality education for our children!

This Sunday I went for my last long run before next week's Dick Collins Firetrails 50-mile, 30.5 miles from Cupertino to Palo Alto, mostly on the Stevens Creek Trail. It has been a few years since I was able to participate to what has been by first 50-mile, and I look forward to running this challenging course for a 5th time (I wasn't blogging yet when I ran in 2006 and got the rookie win; 3rd overall again in 2008; an ultra-digiton in 2010; and my 2011 Personal Best and 3rd overall again!).

See some of you on the trails next week, then! And, for those of you who are voting in Cupertino, indeed, please say "Yes on J&K" on your ballot!

Yes, this is an ambiguous title, isn't it? Please read on... and down to the end of the post... ;-)

This was my first 50-miler 8 years ago and I was excited to be back on this "Fall Classic" course and event as new Race Director and NorCal Ultras owner calls it. Back in October 2006 I had only raced in one ultra, Way Too Cool, so I was completely unknown on our local scene (and I wasn't even blogging and... bragging about my running yet! ;-). Here is my finish with my pace and track workout buddy, Bob, and Greg:
It was an amazing experience to meet ultra legends and then Race Directors, Ann Trason and Carl Andersen, and receive from them my Rookie award (an autographed bottle of wine which is now empty but a precious souvenir!).


That year I took 3rd overall to Chikara Omine and Rob Evans, Rob who would pace me the following year for my first and best Western States. In 2008, 3rd overall again to Dave Mackey and Victor Ballesteros. In 2010, I was just recovering from a 100-mile so I took it easy, taking about 350 pictures of runners during the race; 8th overall. In 2011, I ran with Quicksilver teammate Chris Calzetta and, while far behind Dave Mackey again who clocked the then 5th fastest time since 1983 (6:34:26), we set a new PR in 7:02:55, phew!

As you see, I skipped quite a few years, mostly because of business travel conflicts. Being in a new age group, my main goal for this Saturday was to improve the M50-59 course record. According to Gary Wang's RealEndurance.com FT50 page that time was last improved by Frank Bozanich, 12 years ago (2002). And, while he was 58, not 50, you should know that Frank has been inducted in the coveted Ultra Running Hall of Fame last year! Among a myriad of other feats Frank is a 2:25 marathoner and sub-30 10K. Bottom line, this course record was set to 7:48:49.

Now, looking at the registrants, I saw international elite Jorge Marvilla and I told to myself "Shoot, that's not going to be good fr my ultrasignup ranking!" I know I need to let go of this obsession, it's not healthy... ;-) What is it about? For each race, Ultrasignup.com computes a rank defined as "For each race, we take the gender specific best time(winner) and divide that time by each participant's time. The result is a value less than 100% with winners receiving the full 100%." And you get an average for all the races that ultrasignup has in its database. As a matter of fact, while searching to write on this, I just found that Ultrasignup Founder and Owner, Mark Gilligan, added labels to categorize the rank values, with his usual sense of humor:

1. 95-100% Super Human
2. 90-94% Elite
3. 85-89% Regional Hero
4. 80-84% Solid Athlete

Sincerely, when I started running ultras, I couldn't care less. Like any "ultra mortal", my main goal was to just finish. As a matter of fact, with several occurrences of exercise-induced asthma before I found my remedy in Singulair, I had horrible races in which I barely made it to the finish, walking and crawling to the end. So, not only was I starting running ultras in my forties, but I made a point to finish, no matter what happened. For these reasons, I had quite a few races below 80%. But, as I was learning more about ultra, getting more hands-on experience (or is it rather "feet-on"? ;-), training harder and harder, and getting my asthma under control, I got a few good scores and slowly made it to close to 90%. For the past 2 years, I've been stuck around 89.75%, like 90% was my asymptotic barrier. And, of course, it's not getting easier as I turned 50... Better get used and satisfied with "regional hero" after all... ;-)

With that long introduction, you can tell that, between Frank's amazing reputation but a doable course record time based on my previous 4 Firetrails, and Jorge's excellent form this year, I was torn but knew I had to push either way.

Well, the day started with a little surprise. While it was still pitch dark, at the starting line, Karl Schnaitter asked me if I had seen Jorge. Since I had made it to the line with only 2 minutes to spare, I said no but that he shouldn't be far and he'll catch-up even if he gets a late start. But Jorge was not to be seen around Lake Chabot this Saturday. Speaking of start line, I arrived at Lake Chabot just in time to see the early starters go at 5:30 am (our start was at 6:30).

As we were sent off the trails, Jonathan Gunderson took off with a runner that I didn't know. Karl settled in third, with a runner with a black top. Not far behind, I was chatting with Eric Wilson (with Eric doing most of the talking as I'm typically not very talkative in races, primarily to save my lungs and breath).

Daylight came as we were climbing up to Marciel Road, the first aid station at mile 3, but we were still under the fog. I could spot the first two runners with a 1 minute and 30 seconds lead, that was 30 second per mile faster, quite an aggressive start! Karl was now running alone so I figured the guy who was running with him in the first miles had pushed the pace and I was now in 5th. I caught up with Karl on the flat section leading to Bort Meadow, our second aid station at mile 8. I passed Karl as he made a quick stop to get his water bottle refilled but he stayed close behind as we were climbing the MacDonald Trail, now passing quite a few of the early starters. It was still overcast but, with the climbing effort, I was already sweating a lot. I had my average pace down to 7:52 before the climb, reaching 8 at the top of the ridge then down again as I flew down to the Big Bear aid station (mile 10.5), still going through without stopping as I had enough fluids for 15 miles.

This section felt really familiar as we ran it a couple of months ago for Skyline 50K. And, without much rain which we miss so much of, the trail was in perfect condition. After Big Bear, we went on Stream Trail, my favorite section, in the shade of huge redwoods. Unlike 2011 though, the course wasn't using the fire road but a rolling trail on the side. Nothing dramatic but going up a few dozens feet here and there is certainly worth a few minutes on your overall time as this section was used to be so flat and one in which you could make up some time.

I pushed the pace a little in the climb up to Skyline Gate (3rd aid station at mile 15), mostly to keep the average pace as closely to 8 as possible. My GPS indicated 8:10 min/mile when I reached the station, 8:12 when I left after getting my Gu2O bottle refilled (with one of the pouches I was carrying with me). I was surprised to see Karl getting in the aid station as I was leaving, although he has been very consistently running at my pace this year. I figured out he was taking it easy and will wait for the turnaround to pass me. At 32, he can only improve and get faster while I should be on the other side of the bell curve, I expect he'll be consistently ahead of me in the coming years... ;-)

We were still passing a few early starters, now on Skyline Trail, a very narrow and winding single track, but everybody was very nice to step aside and exchange words of encouragements. This is also a great section, running along the San Leandro Creek and in the shade of many trees. However, it ends with a steep climb to the 4th aid station, Sibley Preserve, so steep that I almost trip over a rocky boulder and decided to walk a little. That's when I discovered that I was now followed by Travis Weller, a runner I met at Tamalpa Headlands 50K for the first time and who beat me by 7 minutes. Also 32 like Karl, Travis looks like Tony Krupicka, it's almost intimidating! ;-) Of course, my pace was slowing with the climb, but I didn't feel I was that slow, ah, it's not getting easier as years pass... Anyway, with 2 runners on my heels, I decided not to stop at Sibley Preserve and I thought I'd give another shot at pushing the pace to see if they'd follow, just worried that I may blow a fuse in the second section.

I lost sight of both of them in this tricky section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail but, after the crossing of Fish Ranch Road, saw Travis a few seconds behind and Karl a minute or so below us as we were now climbing up to Steam Train. I was the first to reach the aid station but, as I was looking for some Vaseline to of some chaffing again (that's killing me!), Trevis didn't stop, I was now in 3rd as we had passed Jonathan a mile ago and the runner in black with Karl at the start was probably not racing.

On our way down to the Lone Oak Picnic area, the turnaround of the 50-mile, we were now crossing the runners of the Golden Hills Marathon. Receiving encouragements from them gave me a thrill and helped me keeping Trevis in sight. The last runner was actually Catra Corbett who is not known to run marathons but 4, 6 or 8 at a time! I was surprised to see her in that race but she told me she was sweeping for the marathon, that explained.

We crossed the lead runner who, I found out later, was Ryan Neely, about 1.5 miles from the turnaround. That's the place where I saw Chikara in 2010 and I was taking it easy, while Chikara was pushing hard to stay close behind Dave when he set the course record. Ryan was definitely on a fast pace if he could hold it all the way.

I reached the turnaround after 3 hours and 30 minutes of running and left 2 minutes later, closely behind Trevis. To my second surprise, Karl wasn't the first runner we crossed on our way up, but another runner I didn't know, John Loftus. When I was Karl, not far behind, he was followed by the lead woman, Kimberly O'Donnel. I told Karl: "don't even think about getting chicked!" but he didn't seem to appreciate so much as he was probably feeling the pressure.

I closed on Trevis in the climb back to Steam Trains, and passed him before the top but he hopped on the bandwagon and we reached the aid station together. Teammates Shir Kochavi and John Burton were at the station, the former to take pictures but the second had dropped, still recovering from his amazing achievement at the Tahoe 200 (yes, 200 miles!), taking 3rd overall after 63 hours of running. Photo credit, Shir Kochavi:

I left first, but Trevis was just behind and that kept me on my toes as we say, going at a pace which wasn't comfortable but that's why racing provides great training opportunities to push the envelope! Here we are, at mile 31, while the other runners climb toward Steam Trains at mile 21, photo credit I-Tao Tsai from Taiwan:
I finally lost Trevis while keeping pushing the pace on the way up to Sibley Preserve, mile 33.6. I got more iced water there and kept going, started thinking how could it would be to place 2nd, after taking 3rd overall 3 times at this race. More importantly, going back to my long intro, I was worried about losing a lot of "ultrasignup points", being already 25 minutes behind the lead runner at the point I last saw him.

So, despite some tiredness in my legs and feel rather hot with the rising temperatures, I kept going, now passing the back of the marathon runners pack. At least, I could spot anyone behind so I relaxed a bit after Skyline Gate, now running Stream Trail downhill. With all the climbing of the last 10 miles, my average pace now up to 8:40 min/mile and it was hard to gain much on that section, as opposed to when I was running with Chris in 2011.

In my dismay, just before Big Bear, with 8.5 miles to go, I saw John Lofthus coming from behind. We stopped at the aid station together but he left first, me being helped by volunteers, he by his crew, and we climbed back up the ridge together, although he left me in the dust at the top, feeling so much fresher than me. So long for top 2, at least John was 37, so I was still in the Masters lead as a consolation... And way ahead of my age group course record if I could hold the pace.

I asked for more ice at the next aid station, Bort Meadows, mile 44, and started looking behind more frequently to see who could be next to catch-up with me... Pressure, pressure... In 2006 I was so tired that I hated the roller coaster of the last miles along Chabot Lake. This year, I was probably not less tired but much more prepared mentally, so I ran all the way, shaving a few second of my average pace. I passed Christine Chapon who was on the marathon and we joked --in French in the text!-- how we were running uphill after all these miles. With less than a mile to go, I realized I was really going to get close to 7:12 which I had in mind as my PR (only to discover while writing this blog that it was 7:02). Anyway, that wasn't the goal for today, I was so ecstatic to cross the line in 7:14:27, my second best time on this course. And to take an overall podium at 50, something to appreciate.

Victor Ballesteros and John were at the finish. They congratulated me with "way to show the youngsters how it is done!" then asked how I felt... I think I replied with an "outstanding!", not speaking of how I felt, but how I was pleased by my performance. Well, with all the marathon runners going through, they had missed the first two 50-mile runners and thought I had won the race. John Lofthus finished 8 minutes ahead of me (1 minute/mile faster after Big Bear!) and Ryan took first with the 7th fastest time in the 32-year race history with a blazing 6:35:02! Ryan won 5 of his 8 ultra races so far, that's quite a stellar start!

Although I couldn't maintain the pace in the last miles, I was actually pleased with my split, 3:32 and 3:44, knowing that it's harder to get back to Steam Train than it is to fly down the turn around. Regarding the famous Ultrasignup rank --which I know I should forget about-- that gave me 90.93% so I actually didn't lose on the average but gained one 1/100th at 89.78, phew! Mark was actually running the course to mark it and we had a chat about some age-graded ranking, he is going to think about it... just for those obsessed with rankings... We also joked about that with fellow Stevens Creek Strider Alison Boudreau who was running the marathon to celebrate her birthday, and "just" enjoying it so much. I admitted that it has been a while since I did a race just for the fun of running (but let me add that I do enjoy running while racing or training!).

So, back to the title, I feel that I run much faster than I wanted to just slightly improve the course record and have a chance to do it again next year, in case I need the extra points (for the non insiders, we get bonus points for new records). 34 minutes and 22 seconds off the previous record, that's more than what I was aiming at, oops! That may stand for a few years, it will take 6 more years for Dave Mackey to turn 50! Yet, I ran slower than 3 years ago and was definitely quite far from the winner so, to some measure, too slow, right? An unsolvable equation or dilemma anyway... ;-) As for being stuck with 3rd place overall (4 times!), that's going to be a challenging tradition to keep up with...

Karl came in 4th in 7:27, followed by Trevis, 2 minutes later. Both were not chicked, as Kimberly O'Donnell crossed the finish line in 7:31:47 for 7th overall. And, to put things into perspective, this is the second fastest time in the race history, only 23 seconds (!) behind Ann Trason's course record of 1987 when she was 26. And Kimberly is 24, looking forward to seeing what this leads to... Starting maybe with a wedding of speedsters as I discovered that Ryan and Kimberly were together!
On top of the most professional racing organization, Julie had put together an amazing team to keep up with the high expectations of this event's finish line Café. After giving so much during the race, it took me a while to regroup and get my body temperature under control but I really enjoyed get a freshly cooked burger, as well as this great scoop of sorbet!



By the way, speaking of food, I had 2 Vespa pouches before the start (-45 minutes and -5 minutes), then a concentrate at 2.5 and 5 hours. That allowed me to run on 4 GUs (strategically taken before the big hills), 2 pieces of banana, 3.5 bottles of Gu2O and a few mini cups of Coke. Less than 700 calories intake for more than 5,000 spent, all the difference coming from my body fat!

For those who have read that far, or that down the page, especially volunteers, let me say it was super cool to be called by name at every aid station along the way. What a change from 2006, I know so many people on our local circuit. Thank you so much to all, that gave me a great boost especially when I'm without a crew.

And, speaking about volunteers, a special shout out to those who did this amazing marking. I read on Noé Castañón's update on Facebook that he had to spend 9 hours remarking a few sections in which some people (called bandits or vandals indeed, for the danger that represents to us, runners) had altered.

A few people were actually here to work. First, the Monsters of Massage, Ve Loyce and his team, drained my tired calves and quads and that was perfect so I could run a 10K this Sunday!

Also working hard while having fun, here is the Ballesteros family, Victor, Jena and Lucy, so supportive of our ultra community, associating Victor's passion and gift for ultra running with the design of running equipment, Victory Sportdesign!
It was also a great gathering for our Quicksilver team. Although we had 18 registered, we had a few DNS for various injuries, that late in the season, but we had a very strong show on the men side with 4 women finishing which will get us to score in the three divisions (Men, Women, Mixed). Not to improve our ranking, but for the sake of the Club spirit and running together!


While I'm done with our local USATF Grand Prix for 2014 (what a year again!), I still have three races scheduled this year. I'll run the invitational Desert Solstice 24-hour in December --more on this in a few weeks-- and our traditional Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10K on Thanksgiving morning, an event which IBM is sponsoring for the 3rd year.

Last, but very much not least, I'll run the Marine Corps Marathon in 2 weeks (crazy me...)! Agnès and I are stopping by DC on our way back from Belize and, being in town and Alex running MCM for the second time, I didn't want to stay on the side line... Thankfully, I was able to get in at the last minute through a fundraising organization, thanks to Michael Wardian's local connections. Although I did support quite a few of these running-related fund raising campaigns, I wasn't sure I'd ever do it myself. Well, that's happening, and I'm very glad to be running for a cause supporting at-risk kids getting an earlier education and programs to exercise, specifically in the Alexandria, VA, area. Incidentally, this is fully in line with the mission of our local Quicksilver Running Club. And with that, I'm calling on your generosity to help us build one more playground in Alexandria. I was going to suggest that even a dollar or two would help but the minimum is $10, I guess micro-credit isn't for the US... ;-) If you are so incline to it, please click on that fund raising page, and thank you very much on behalf of Running Brooke's organization (oh, by the way, nothing to see with Brooks Running, my favorite running shoe brand!). Again, please consider clicking on the images below and donating to: Running Brooke, thank you so much for her and these kids in advance!

I'm going to make an exception and hiatus in my "Running in..." series; I discovered a new country with Agnès, but didn't run at all! 8 full days of tapering, I have not done such tapering in a long time, even before one of my 13 ultra races so far this year, and I'm "only" running a marathon this Sunday (the Marine Corps Marathon in DC, Alex' 2nd consecutive MCM)! We'll see if it pays off, very soon...

From a running perspective, I'm not sure Belize is the best place anyway but I'm all to hear otherwise (please leave a comment if you did find good spots). We first stayed inland, about 20 miles west of Belize City and the jungle is already pretty close. I'd say the safest is probably to run on one of the three main highways, knowing these highways are barely a strip of asphalt, about 3-lane wide but no road marking. We then spent 4 days in Caye Caulker (pronounce key like in Florida's Keys), which, referring to my thirst for long runs, Agnès initially introduced me as follows: "Will you be able to survive on a 5 by 1 mile island?" Well, Caye Caulker was actually split into two islands by a major hurricane back in 1961, and the inhabited part is barely 1 mile long and has 3 main streets. Dirt and many potholes for some good trail running, there isn't an ounce of asphalt on the whole island, golf carts are the only allowed vehicles on Caye Caulker, this adds to the very relaxing atmosphere.

So, what do you do in Belize when you are not running? Here are a few things we did...

Snorkeling. First and foremost, you have to love getting in the water when visiting Belize. Belize has the longest corral reef in the Northern hemisphere, only second in the world to Australia. With that, Belize is a paradise for divers and snorkelers alike. Like many other countries (including France!), tourism is the largest "industry" in Belize and many tours and activities are offered. The best snorkeling is actually near the reef which is about a mile away from Caye Caulker's shores. The best spots are actually North East, in front of San Pedro, a much larger and developed island. We were recommended two operators, Carlo's and Mario's and picked the latter just because it was the one open when we stopped by. We had a wonderful day (10:30a-3:30p), with another couple from Georgia, staying at the same resort as ours. We made four stops, looking for manatees at the last one but not seeing any. We snorkeled at Hol Chan, the Sharks Alley and the Coral Garden. Swimming with turtles, sharks and stingrays was an unforgettable experience, even more memorable as I captured with the GoPro the boys offered to me last year for Father's Day, the perfect opportunity to put to use.

Visiting, sightseeing and exploring. No, we didn't venture deep in the jungle, there is much much more to explore than what we did during the 22 hours we spent inland. But, 2 hours after landing, we were already at the Community Baboon Sanctuary, home of thousands of howler monkeys who, yes, howl, wow!
It was another incredible experience to have a monkey on our shoulders! We stayed at the Black Orchid Resort which we highly recommend. Very kind and helpful staff, superb room, good food and right on the Belize River. Although we didn't see any crocodile (like black bears or mountain lions in California, better miss getting face to face), the iguanas were quite impressive. And it was cool to also see families of monkeys playing and eating at the top of the trees. The next morning, our driver and guide, Richard, walked us through one of the 16 imposing Maya sites, Altun Ha. It was Sunday and the end of the low season, so we had the whole site for ourselves, an extra bonus! (Cruise ships stop in Belize City on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they bring boatloads of tourists on the 14-mile bumpy road leading to the site.)
We ended the morning by a tour of Belize City, which is still the most populated town in the country but not the capital anymore (now Belmopan, further inland and not subject to hurricanes and tornadoes as Belize City is). One of the oldest and original houses of Belize City:
And the oldest Catholic church in the Caribbeans:
By the way, here are a few facts about this small country which many people don't know much about: Belize became independent in 1981, after being a British colony known as British Honduras. Because of territory disputes Guatemala only recognized Belize in 1992. It is on the east side of Central America sharing a border with Mexico in the north, and a long one with Guatemala on the west and south. The population is around 300,000 people with a median age around 20. And, while English is the official language which is a great asset from a tourism standpoint, they also speak Spanish and a local form for Creole. After this quick tour of the city, we embarked on the water taxi for a 50-minute "ride" to Caye Caulker.

What else did we "do" to taper,  rest and... do nothing...? Some easy biking, blending in the local population zigzagging between potholes and puddles. More swimming and snorkeling at the end of the deck of our resort. Hanging out at the Split, the place where the island broke. Eating local food at a few of the 30 restaurants on Caye Caulker. Walking, photographing, videotaping, some bird watching (pelicans, seagulls, egrets, cormorants, ...), kayaking, sleeping a lot (quite some sleep catching!), and also some "hammocking", if we can make it a verb!

Here are a few recommendations on Caye Caulker:

Colinda Cabanas. You'll get a genuine local experience in these wood cabanas with just enough of our western comfort. The place is owned and managed by Colin and Linda who came here from Canada 4 years ago. We missed Colin who was out of the country but Linda was very welcoming and helpful with her recommendations. The place is kept very neat, which is a challenge in those humid conditions. We much appreciated the amenities such as bikes, kayaks, beach towels, fans, a small fridge and a strong and stable wifi access.
Pizza Caulker. Meet Greg, also from Canada, and his local family, serving delicious thin crust pizzas made with whole wheat. And that was our best rum punch too!
La Cubana. The best fresh fruit juices we had, for only $4BEZ ($2US)! And good local Caribbean food too. Right at the water taxi dock, near the small police station (or sub-formation as they call it).

Mendy's. Very simple and local family cooking.

Mario's snorkeling. Friendly instructor, good boat. $100-130BEZ ($50-65US) for the whole day, depending on the number of stops and the size of the group. (Trip Advisor, Facebook)

Iceland Ice Cream. Delicious homemade creamy ice creams with a great variety of flavors (Trip Advisor).

We also heard great comments about Coconut Reef and especially the homemade pastas from this other Canadian owner, but haven't tried it.

And, on the mainland:

Black Orchid Resort. See my comments above, and their website.

Richard Lord. Our taxi driver and accredited guide (tel: 664-6279).

I do feel rested for sure, almost too much so I'm looking forward to see how all this tapering and resting plays for the marathon this Sunday. There are many more stars to align for a great performance but proper tapering is definitely one which I took good care of this week! ;-)

Have a good weekend all! And see a few thousands of you, MCM runners, on Sunday!

Marathon running... that's how it all started back in 1998! We had just moved from Paris to the Bay Area and it was initially for 2 years so I set a goal to run a marathon before moving back. Indeed, back then, I thought everybody was running in California and, while it's fair to say the state is on the healthier side overall, not every Californian has run a marathon yet... Anyway, I did run the San Francisco marathon in 1999 and barely broke 3:30 despite quite a strict training regimen. Hoping it was just because of the hilly course, I ran the Silicon Valley Marathon a few months later, a very flat course this time, but only shaved 5 minutes of my time. My third marathon was in Phoenix, AZ in February 2000 and my first major exercise-induced asthma, forcing me to walk or crawl the second part of the marathon for a very disappointing 5:05 time.

Our appointment in California got extended another year then we decided to call Cupertino, CA, our new home, even being granted the US citizenship a few years later. With that, from just finishing, the goal evolved toward qualifying for Boston first, then breaking 3 hours, then getting faster and eventually to placing... And eventually blogging about this "Farther Faster" quest, one which got no limit when I added the ultra marathon dimension to it, oops!

I eventually qualified for Boston in my 4th attempt with 3:04 at the Silicon Valley Marathon in October 2000. I'm not going to go through the list of the next 17 marathons but I did run Boston 4 times even getting on the podium as Top 10 Masters in 2005 and broke 3 hours 11 times out of these 21 marathons with a PR of 2:37 at Chicago in 2003 at 39.

Today was my 22nd marathon then, not counting the 105 ultra races I ran since I switched to ultra-running back in 2006. And when Max, who made us the surprise by boarding on our flight in Houston on Friday morning, asked me when was my last marathon, I realized that I didn't even remember (with 17 to 18 races a year, that's where my detailed running log and blog come handy! ;-). It was actually more than 3 years ago at the World Masters Athletics championships in Sacramento in July 2011. Quite a while from a race count perspective, 57 races ago!

I didn't even have the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) on my calendar this year but, Alex running it for the second consecutive time, we decided to stop by DC on our way back from a very relaxing week in Belize. As I said in my previous post on Friday, the only thing I really did well to prepare for MCM was to taper for 8 days, which I don't even do before my ultra races now. With that, I was really anxious to see how my legs felt after such a break and which speed/pace I could maintain for 26 miles. I didn't do much speed work and was only glad to see I could still run a 10K at 5:45 min/mile, in September, 1 week after running 133 miles and taking 3rd at the US Nationals of 24 hours. And you could say I was grossly over-trained in terms of long runs with 13 ultra races and 17 ultra runs for training...

Back to the title, here are a few goals I had for this Sunday:

1. Running the MCM while I was in DC this weekend. That was a challenging one actually. I was hoping to leverage my connection with Brooks, the main sponsor of this event, and local Michael Wardian, both a very fast runner and racer "stud", racing almost every other week when not back to back weekends. Michael connected me to Running Brooke and that's how I managed to get in.
2. Raising money for Running Brooke. Brooke has run numerous marathons and races, creating an organization to raise money to help at-risk kids in Virginia through exercise and education programs. Specifically, for the MCM, we are raising money to build a playground in Alexandria, VA.
3. Running a marathon with my son Alex. 
4. Running another marathon in 2 hours + * minutes. trying to defy the age, I determined a few years ago that I'll try to establish "my" law (yes, referring to Moore's Law). I've been tracking this linear chart for more than 10 years now, +/- 1 minutes, I'm still hoping this will work for a while although statistics shows times increasing exponentially after 50.
5. Breaking 3 hours. I managed to do it 11 times out of 21 marathons, that's never a given.
6. Getting another Boston qualifier. In case I want to run in 2016. Or for New York maybe if I can figure how the lottery works (I entered last year but never heard back). The standard for M50-54 is 3:30, so that's easier as a goal.
7. Winning my age group, or at least placing (that is in the top 3). I had checked the winning times for the past 10 years and they were all between 2:50 and 3:00.
8. And, of course, enjoying running again after this 8-day break!

In my previous post, I retraced my marathon running history which started in 1998. Back then, I religiously followed the advice of my best doctor, my sister Marie: "no more than 2 marathons a year, tapering before a race and at least a week without running afterward to rest and recover." For sure, Kenyans and Ethiopians have figured out that they can't race more than once or twice a year if they want to win the extremely competitive and very remunerative top international marathons. Fortunately for me, I call running my second job and I've a great primary job to pay the bills (and send the kids to the best schools in the US...).

No, I didn't go back to Malta this weekend! This is just an old draft I have meant to come back to for a while but had other things to discuss about on my blog.

As I mentioned in my other post about the other island of the Maltese archipelago, Gozo, Malta's main island is much more crowded than it's little sister. Yet, I was surprised by how much country side you can find once you leave the capital, Valetta, the tourist areas such as St Paul's Bay, or the busy bus routes and car traffic on the main roads.

There is actually one very particular place where you won't see any vehicle, that is on the trail along the impressive Victoria Lines, a China wall-type of project aiming at protecting Valetta from invaders, but a huge civil engineering endeavor which proved useless at the end of the nineteen century and was abandoned a few years only after being completed. I don't know if that's one of the human artifacts that you can see from space but, several miles long, that may be. As long as astronauts know where to look at to find Malta in the Mediterranean Sea...! ;-)
Now, it has been so forgotten or abandoned that some sections of the wall have fallen since and the trail is barely practicable in places. Here is a great website with great detailed instructions and pictures which will help you find your way would you be visiting Malta and up for such a hike. I couldn't print them out before my run but I had read them enough to get the principle which is to follow the natural fault line the wall was built along. Sounds like pretty simple instructions, but Mother Nature has put some obstacles in the way to make the run, or hike, more interesting.

Before reaching the west end of the Victoria Lines, my loop started in Bugibha. I first ran through Burmarrad and stopped first in Mosta to have a quick look at the very impressive Domo.
I could feel I wasn't welcome to get inside in shorts, so I just had a peek from the entrance of the church:
Then a few more miles up to the spectacular Medna, an ancient fortified city which is worth a day to visit and appreciate. Here are a few pictures but see more in my Picasa album:





Agnès had found a flier describing a hike from Medna to the cliffs of Dingli. This is part of a program promoting "Malta going rural" so I was hoping for some trails. It was all asphalt instead but on a much quieter road at least.




The cliffs weren't as impressive as the ones I saw on the North and West sides of Gozo but still worth it if you can only visit the main island.

I wanted to continue along the coast but a local dissuaded me, claiming that I will have to go across private fields, something I didn't find appropriate from what I read on a few websites and guides. Needless to say, I didn't see any other runner on my long runs, so there is still much to do for Malta to promote "going rural" to tourists...

From Dingli I ran on the road to Rabbat then West again toward Bahrija. It took me a few failed attempts, field crossings and bush wacking to find the Victoria Lines and I was relieved when I spotted the first major landmark, Fort Bingemma (which is actually inhabited, albeit without the canons nowadays!). A superb 360-degree view position above the whole island, the English had found the perfect spot to defend the island!


Going though rocky or overgrown sections, I slowly made my way back toward Mosta.


On the other hand, I was very impressed by the great conditions of the Dwejra Lines, a double wall blocking a narrow valley which invaders would have had to go through.




With the high temperature and slow progression due to the terrain and photo opportunity stops, I did sweat a lot and didn't follow the Lines beyond Mosta as they continue all the way down to the Sea on the East Coast of the island.

Instead, I came back to my starting point in Bugibha for a 27.8-mile loop (Garmin Connect activity):

Long enough run 5 days before my 100th ultra race which I completed on the following Saturday, the PCTR Summer Solstice in San Francisco. It was my first 24-hour format ultra and, back in June, I was quite excited to figure out how far/long I'll be able to go in a day (I ran 10 100-milers, finishing 7 of them, but never ran for more than 21 hours).

Anyway, based on this week spent on Gozo and Malta, I strongly recommend a visit to these amazing islands, if not for the limited trail running opportunities, at least for its unique and amazingly rich history heritage!

Sorry for all the acronyms in the title, let me expand for the non insiders: PA stands for Pacific Association (North California and Nevada), USA you probably know(!), TF for Track & Field and XC for Cross-Country. In other words, it was the 29th championships or finals of our local cross-country grand prix. And, although I didn't compete in the cross-country season, having enough in my plate focusing on (and winning for the 8th time) the ultra running grand prix (running 12 of the 15 events so far), I thought I'd give a second try at this regional championship.

Indeed, I ran it a while back, 11 years ago to be exact. I was then 39 and it was one of the most humiliating experience as I was the oldest and finished after the middle of the pack in the open division, way behind the leaders. The course was measured at 5.80 miles and the race was won by David Cullum of the famous Nike Farm Team in 28:32. I placed 118th out of 161 in 33:37. A few #tbt (Throw-Back Thursday) type of pictures from this pre-blogging times ;-)

I had promised myself I'll never come back, that cross-country wasn't meant for me, but such foolish wows are meant to be broken, especially as you move up "the age group chain..."

I arrived at the Polo Field of the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to pick my bib and settle just before the women (open + masters) race started right on schedule at 9 am. (See more pictures at the bottom of this post.)
Our race started at 9:45 on the longer, 10K course. The start line reminded me of the times Max and Alex were running cross-country in high school. There were quite a few large teams, wearing their own tops, that made for a colorful field. The only representative of my Quicksilver team, I got teased --very friendly--, by a few members of Tamalpa which we compete with in the ultra grand prix (white tops). I squeezed between Tamalpa and the intimidating Aggies, one of the fastest teams in the region, from Davis. There was also a large contingent of red uniforms, the Rebels from Sacramento.

Like in other official and national championships, we were all wearing a bib with our age group on our back so we could see who was in which. We crossed the green meadow of the start area as a large pack and reached the polo field track after about 400 yards. The start was so fast (about 5:15 min/mile pace) that the pack quickly stretched. The course can actually accommodate large fields as we only hit the single track around mile 2.

Unlike my ultra rhythm, I had to push hard right off the start in order to just keep visual contact with the leaders. Despite this insane pace, I could see about 3 or 4 runners from my 50-59 age group ahead and thought to myself "you see, cross-country is still way too fast for you..." By the end of the first mile, my GPS still indicated an average pace of 5:25 and I was close to the red zone if not in the middle of it, yikes! I think I let 1 or 2 "younger" Masters go ahead but, when another M50 passed me, I decided to keep pushing. After all, we only had 4.5 miles to go, just a long sprint compared to an ultra... ;-)

Every runner I was with got encouragements from spectators since they were from one of the "big" teams. I got a boost when another team member, Kat, surprised me with a "go Quicksilver" and a few other kicks when speedster Alex Varner called my name as we passed by him 4 times (Alex is back from New York where he ran a 2:25 marathon and he also owns many course records in Marin County in particular, starting with the famous Dipsea).

I kept pushing hard, then, thinking that, at the very least, this would provide some good speed work training before the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10K (please consider joining the flock - Representing IBM, one of the sponsors, I'm part of the Steering Committee and we hope to get a record 28,000 registrations and raise up to $1M!).

While my average pace was now down to 5:40 by mile 3, I wasn't loosing too much ground and could still see the leaders and estimated that I was in 13 or 14th. I slowly caught up with another M50 runner (white top) and had another one in sight (red top). In the 5th mile, I passed 2 M40 runners then, with less than a mile to go, finally caught up with that other M50 runner who seemed to be out of gas as we were climbing back onto the polo field track (it's just a 10 yard "hill", or rather a bump, but that surely kills your speed!).

With half a mile to go, I hesitated passing him but went ahead anyway. Much taller than me and with longer legs, I got convinced that I made the wrong choice and that he'd counter on the final flat section. I kept pushing and that was good enough to hold on and even made the top 10 of the Masters race quite a good outcome. For a few seconds, I even thought that I had won our age group, only to discover Rich Hanna a few steps ahead in the finish chute, dang! Actually, it was better that I didn't know Rich was running as he is so fast so I probably wouldn't have pushed that much. His marathon PR of 2:17 is 20 minutes faster than mine, so I'm not sand bagging, he is super fast! You can read about Rich from our last encounter at the Jed Smith 50K last February when he ran an astonishing 3:13 a few months from turning 50 (he is going to destroy the US age group record next year!).

I crossed the finish line 30 seconds behind Rich (8th) and 1:59 behind winner Jaime Heilpern form the Asics Aggie. What I didn't realize is that I had passed Iain Mickle, 53, River City Rebels, who I learned afterwards, had not lost a single race this year. At least, as a consolation, the only cash award for our group ($25...) was won by one of his teammate. Here we are, Rich (center), Iain and I, the M50-59 podium.
I was impressed how quickly the results were posted after the race, despite the organizers not using a chip timing system (sorry Rich! *). For $19.99, you had an unlimited access to the posting of the results (just kidding, but couldn't resist noting on this picture ;-):

I left after the start of the Open Men race, very glad that I came back to compete in a race with a pace more suited to my "old" age! ;-) Seriously, these young guys are so so fast, it's amazing to watch, from the side line!

It was great to experience another type of running. I'm actually glad that the Championship is run on a longer course, that suits me better than 5 or even 8K (slightly more time to get the engine running... ;-). In addition to the short(er) distance, the mix of running in uneven grass, on soft dirt trails, under a tree (twice), over or down a couple of small bumps, some winding single track with sharp turns. Oh, we just missed the mud this year (yes, still a severe drought out here). But, this running variety is what keeps me motivated and... running! It was actually great to see a few (very few) familiar faces from our ultra running community and family. For instance:

George Rehmet and the ultra dude and ultra volunteer, Noe Castanon, among an amazing representation of their local club, Pamakids:

And also, Bill Dodson, Co-Chair of our Ultra Running PAUSATF committee who, at 79, is going to be happy to move up a less competitive age group!
A big thank to the many volunteers (registration, timing, finish chute, course marking, course monitoring, water station, tshirt distribution, ...) and special mention to Race Director, Tim Wason, for organizing an event of that scale with great participation from across our Pacific Association area!

And, now, the scoop: I knew it, there was a catch, it was only a training run!! No, seriously, the big deal is going to happen next year with both the 30th anniversary of this regional championship as well as the National (!) XC Team Championship. A few more check boxes to... cross, keep training! ;-)

See you again on the trails, or the road, or the track then, keep enjoying the variety that our sport offers, it's good to remain motivated and keep the injuries away!

(*) Rich Hanna is the Founder and CEO of a chip timing company, Capitol Road Race Management.

Short of having a crew or even teammate covering my race, here are a few random pictures from the other 2 races:

The running season is never really over, there are so many race opportunities in our country and in California in particular, we can race all year round nowadays!

I used to take December off but, based on the small issues I encountered upon resuming training, I may just keep running, starting with chasing many birds this week! First will be the Cupertino High School Turkey Trot this Tuesday (2 miles), aka Tino Turkey Trot. Then the most populous Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10K on Thanksgiving morning this Thursday. Finally, and this is a scoop, the infamous and quads trasher Quad Dipsea on Saturday! I wasn't really looking forward to that additional ultra but the team called for our last club battle of this year's ultra running Grand Prix and I couldn't resist. After all, that is one of the mythical local ultras.

IBM being one of the sponsors of our local Turkey Trot, I sit on the Steering Committee of this event put together by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group led by his CEO, Carl Guardino. It's hard to imagine the extent of the work that it takes behind the scene to organize an event gathering 25,000 participants, 75 elite 5K runners including 4 Olympians, 2,000 volunteers and, most importantly, aiming at raising $1 million just this year! This is the 10th anniversary and the event has already raised $4M for local charities. This is a wonderful family event and it is still time to register, we'll have room for everybody! Besides, the weather forecast gives us a bright sun on Thursday. As much as we need rain to reverse the effect of the extreme drought, a sunny morning is much better to handle such a joyful crowd.

If you haven't, please consider joining us and registering at: http://svturkeytrot.com !

It will be my 6th consecutive SV Turkey Trot: chasing the chicks in 2013, 2012, back to speed work after breaking 15 hours on 100 miles in 2011, outpacing the turkey in 2010, my first CHS/SV back to back turkey trots in 2009 followed by a fall at the Quad Dipsea 2 days later...).

Here we are at our last steering committee last week, looking at the great technical Ts and the finisher medal.



Big thanks to Sports Basement for hosting the Splunk Expo and offering 6 days to pick our shirts and bibs while providing more opportunities to raise money and drop canned food.
Between last week's cross-country championships 10K and this week's 3 races, I had to get my legs moving and keep training for the upcoming Desert Solstice 24-hour in 3 weeks so I hit the track on Saturday for 80 laps. Not quite the average pace given by my Garmin below (the distance gets slightly off with 160 turns...) but I was happy to be able to maintain a very stable pace under 6:30 min/mile for 20 miles. And, for those who wonder how boring this can be to run in circles this way, let me add that it was very distracting to watch the soccer practice of the high school's team for 90 minutes.
With that, I hope to see many of you this week then, to chase the trotting turkeys around the Bay, in Cupertino, San Jose or Mill Valley! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

It was my 6th consecutive Silicon Valley Turkey Trot while this year marked the 10th anniversary of this tradition established by Carl Guardino, the CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in 2005. IBM has been one of the corporate sponsors these past three years which gave me the privilege to volunteer on the Steering Committee of the event and get an insider view on what it takes to organize such a large event gathering 25,000 or so participants and raising close to $1 million this year! (Including 1,100 kids running the Kids Run, the San Jose Mercury News reported today that we set a new record with more than 26,000 entrants!)

At 7:30 am, just between the start of the Elite women and men 5K races (4 Olympians lined up!), I went on stage to say a few words. I highlighted that IBM has been in the Silicon Valley for 71 years and invited all participants to join us in the Festival area after their race for some stretching and quiz.
At 7:50, it was our time to go on the 10K course.
As opposed to Tuesday's Tino (Cupertino High School) 1.4-mile Turkey Trot which we started at 5:05 min/mile pace (!), I made sure to get caught in the super fast start and settled for a 5:35 min/mile pace. Knowing that I will run the grueling Quad Dipsea this Saturday (yes, tomorrow!), I didn't want to give it all anyway and was ok with being passed by a couple of younger guys by mile 3.

Such a fast and flat race doesn't bring much material for a long race report, I don't even know the runners I was running with... Like last year however, I managed to pass the lead woman, Heather Tanner, albeit earlier this year, before the 5-mile mark. I kept pushing and finished in 35:41, better than last year (35:05 in 2010, 35:20 in 2011, 35:06 in 2012 and 36:09 last year). As of this Friday evening, I believe the results still need a few fixes, like dropping a few runners who had registered on the 10K but ran the 5K instead. Short of making the top 10 this year most likely though, I still hope to have made the top 20, and 3rd Masters... Like me, Casey Strange from Campbell turned 50 this year and he clocked a 35:01 so I even missed the win in my age group, yikes! He is probably not going to run Quad Dipsea tomorrow morning though... ;-)

After collecting the very nice finisher medal (see my previous post), I went to the main stage of the Festival area to setup our IBM stretching routine and quiz game. Before we could get on stage, Mark Winitz who had successfully signed 75 world class runners up on the elite 5K invited the top 3 to get on stage for a well-deserved recognition:

On a new course this year,he women race was won by Buze Diriba in 15:33 and the men one by Garett Heath in 13:52, a 4:28 min/mile pace!

Following this award ceremony, Sheila led our stretching exercises and here she is between Agnès and I:





Also from IBM, Scott had prepared great questions about the Bay Area, the event, Thanksgiving and running in general and close to 40 candidates came on stage to play and win prizes, bringing additional fun to this family event!


We had about 130 participants signed up as IBM but, between the crowd and these activities, it was challenging to all gather for a group picture. Here are three of us, representing three of our San Jose sites: David from Almaden Research Center, Shawn from Silicon Valley Lab on Bailey Avenue and I, from our North San Jose site in Alviso (Sheila being from our bay Area Lab in Foster City, for those wondering where the several thousands of IBMers hide throughout the Bay Area... ;-) ):
After meeting a few other colleagues from the IBM "flock" supporting this event, it was time to return to our families and friends to keep "thanksgiving" on this very special and beautiful day.

See you all next year then for the 11th edition!

I didn't really want to run the grueling Quad Dispsea this year, I was good with the 13 ultra races I ran so far this year (with one more to go in December), including 12 out of the 17 events which make our California Grand Prix. And what seems to be an all-time record of 554 points in our Grand Prix history! But, after taking the team wins for Women, Mixed and Overall, our Quicksilver running club still had a slim chance to also get the Men win, so I answered the team call. To win though, we had to beat both Tamalpa in their backyard and the current leader, Excelsior; really not a small feat especially when the Tamalpa crew included Dave Mackey, the current Quad Dipsea course record holder, Victor Ballesteros (3 times 2nd place out of 5 participations) and Mark Richtman to just name three of their very talented runners.

I'm running the Desert Solstice invitational mid December (24 hours on a track!) so the last thing I needed was hill training, especially on a strenuous and muddy course! My training have been more like 80-lap tempo runs at the local track lately... My main goal today, beyond battling for the team, was really to avoid a bad fall and break something. And the rain of the night made that an interesting challenge between slippery rocks and wooden stairs and other muddy patches.

Our Club President, Greg Lanctot, picked me at 5:30 to carpool to the start in Mill Valley. We arrived early and he got a good parking spot. I must say that it was a bit difficult to wake up at 4:30 am and get going while we were under pouring rain in San Jose. Thankfully though, it seemed that, for once, we were getting more rain than Marin County, phew! Indeed, when we arrived in San Francisco, the rain had stopped and it would not rain the whole race which made the day much easier.

There was a lot of "ultra power" behind the registration table with omnipresent volunteer, Stan Jensen, an ultra running legend, Ann Trason, John Medinger who has directed this race for 30 years among many other ultra accomplishments, and his wife Lisa Henson who has been a long time ultra runner and supporter of our sport and the General Manager of UltraRunning Magazine for many years and still writes a column in this monthly magazine (now led by Karl Hogland who was running today).

Race Director, John Catts, sent us off at 8 am, after reminding and warning us not to go too fast in the fist fly of stairs (the race starts with 700 stairs up!).

Dave Mackey was still in Colorado yesterday but had flown in just in time to be at the start. To my surprise, Excelsior, which was surprised if not mad to see me toeing the line, got Chikara Omine in. Victor didn't show up (business obligation) but Mark Ritchman, as well as a other younger fast dudes and quite a few others that I didn't know. On the Quicksilver side, John Burton was just back from Hawaii and was feeling finally recovered from this September's exhausting Tahoe 200-mile. But we also had a big contingent signed up (bib # in parenthesis): Clare Abram (43) -- 6 Quad Dipsea Top-10 finishes, Andy Benkert (97), Donnie Blameuser (102), Guy Herr (182), Bill Holmes (188), Nickolas Kunder (207), Scott Laberge (57), Greg Lanctot (46), Loren Lewis (214), Jim Magill (220), Betsy Nye (50), Kat Powell (270), Corina Rahmig (277) , Troy Rahmig (278), David Roberts (284), Rickey Russell (4), Martin Sengo (296), Stephen Strauss (314), Stuart Taylor (320).

Despite John Catt's advice, we did rush up the stairs and I actually enjoyed the opportunity to start walking as my calves were still stiff from my Thursday's 35:41 10K Turkey Trot and I didn't want to trash my quads right off the bat. I settled behind John and Mark in the first series of stairs, then passed both of them in the third one, thinking that I'll likely regret my move later... ;-) There were about a dozen or so runners ahead, led by Dave and Chikara.

To my surprise, we did not go on Muir Wood road as for the three editions I previously ran (2009, 2008 and, before my blogging times, 2006), but on the trail across longing the road underneath. I knew that was the old course and that this trail had been washed out about 10 years ago, but I didn't know it had been restored and the race had been back to the original course these past 2-3 years. Needless to say, it added a few minutes each way (that is 4 times), especially in this humid weather.

At this point (mile 1.5) I was trying to keep Karl (Schnaitter, Excelsior) in sight which his bright yellow shirt made easier in the cloudy fog. I even managed to close some of the gap in the next technical section (and, no, we didn't take the Suicide Dipsea shortcut! ;-). I followed him and 2 other runners in the slippery Dynamite climb before we got in a thick cloud as we approached the Cardiac aid station. At the exit of the station, the visibility was so low that I missed the pink ribbons and inadvertently took left, and I'm glad a couple of volunteers noticed, yelled at me to steer me back on the trail, phew!

Although it wasn't raining per se, we were drenched with the droplets from the cloud and those falling from the trees and I felt chilly as I passed the ridge and hit the sea breeze. It was way too early to get cold in this race (mile 4) so I decided to keep pushing the pace and stick with Karl. We were really flying down the switchbacks and stairs of Steep Ravine and eventually passed a runner who was a better climber than descender. And I kept thinking "Be careful, don't trip, don't fall..." but it felt too good to run fast in this section and make up for the slow pace from the 700 stairs out of Mill Valley.

As we went under the cloud we got an amazing view over Stinson Beach, one that only a picture would make enough justice. I could see a couple of runners half a mile ahead but couldn't clearly spot Dave or Chikara. I crossed them, Dave first and Chikara on his heels, as they were already up the stairs on their way back, 3-4 minutes ahead. I reached the turn around at mile 7 in 1:04, oops that was a heck of a start. Actually, pretty close to what I was doing back then when I was running 4:19 and 4:20 except that it was a few years ago and I had no specific preparation this time. Carrying 2 bottles and taking Vespa, I didn't stop at the aid station. Mark was about 3 minutes behind so, despite what I thought was a crazy fast start, there was not time to waste or take it easier. Besides, he was followed by another member of our competitive M50-59 age group, David Smith. There is never an opportunity to rest in this sport...! ;-)

The return to Mill Valley is special in the sense that we cross so many runners. While I didn't have enough breath to return all the encouragement that they gave me, many using my name to make it personal which is really cool, I think I did explicitly thank all those who did stop on the side of the single trail. The toughest section is definitely going up the uneven stairs of Steep Ravine, with high stairs being so hard on the quads (especially for my short legs!). I was still following Karl whom I passed at mile 10 as he made a very quick stop at the Cardiac aid station. We literally flew down the next 2 miles, including over the trick roots in Cardiac and I was going so fast that I even created some gap in Dynamite which I was able to maintain down to Mill Valley. I'm sure there will more pictures popping up on Facebook but here is the only one I got of me, "in the misty cloud", credit to Kyria Wilson:
I climbed the 700 stairs down with caution and was quite pleased by my time of 2:10 at the second turnaround. It took me a few seconds to open the zip-lock bag I was carrying with my Gu2O powder and Ann Trason teased me with a "keep cool!" As I was rushing out of the aid station, John Catts teased me too: "You easily have your age group!" To which I reply: "Actually, Mark is not far behind...!" Indeed, I saw him as I was climbing the seconds flight of stairs, I had increased the lead to about 5-6 minutes which isn't a lot with on more Double Dipsea to go...

Similarly to the first turn around, we keep crossing runners albeit at a lower frequency as the pack keeps getting longer or thinner throughout the day. Again, big thanks to all of you who stopped on the side of the single trail to give us the right of way, it is so much appreciated! I tried to keep a good pace but certainly walked more than our first leg, especially on Dynamite and Cardiac. On my 2nd way down to Steep Ravine I was flying again and felt so happy to have avoided any fall so far. I reached the 3rd turnaround at Stinson Beach in 1:10 for the third leg, that is 3:30 total. On my way down to the beach I had pointed Chikara in the lead, 20 seconds ahead of Dave and 1.6 miles ahead of me. They were not going to break 4 hours this year but it was interesting to see the two of them battling in these conditions.

At this point, I knew I wasn't going to pull a 1:10 for the last leg, that I didn't have it in me to break the age group record which I thought was 4:30 from what I had seen on Gary Wang's RealEndurance website (and, my bad, it's just me who did read correctly, Gary is right of course!). I'm glad I didn't even killed myself trying because the records is actually 4:28 according to the Quad Dipsea website (Alfred Bogenhuber, 1991, and he also owns the M60-69 and M70-79 ones, what a Quad Dipsea guru! The M50-59 seems solid, especially with the race back on the original course, but I think Mark has a good shot at the M60-69 next year!).

Yikes, it has been a while since I felt so sore after a race. You could think that the Dick Collins FireTrails 50-mile was much harder than the 28 miles of Quad Dipsea but my legs definitely thought otherwise. Granted, I didn't stretch after the race (my bad!) and we stopped by two places in the afternoon to meet with friends before driving back home at 9 pm when I could finally take a well deserved shower and rest... Bottom line, it took me 2 days to stop limping while walking or going down the stairs. And a week for the elbow and hand wounds to heal, that's how you create memories I assume...

My first post-race run was on Tuesday, a painful 15K at 7:50 min/mile but it felt good to get the blood flowing in my legs. I took Wednesday off to rest more (well, sort of resting as I squeezed in a 1-day round trip to Minneapolis, MN, for a client meeting there); and I ran my 15K course again on Thursday and Friday, both at 7:07 min/mile.

While a super competitive field was fighting over muddy trails at The North Face 50 in Marin County and others were gathered in Auburn to watch the Western States lottery leaving thousands of applicants in the disappointment of not being picked, I went for 19 miles at 7 min/mile on Saturday and 80 more laps on the track this Sunday, even slightly faster (6:45 min/mile). I initially wanted to go for 120 laps but that will have to do for the Invitational Desert Solstice next Saturday; yes, it's time to taper again or finish this post-Quad Dipsea recovery...

By the way, on Friday, I got a very impressive award in the mail, for my "Senior" win at the Marine Corps Marathon, look at that!
Did I say Senior? Ouch, time flies...

And Agnès said that I could put this trophy with the others at my office... ;-)

If you can and want to chip in for the project I ran for there, there is still room and the fund raising page is still up!


Thank you in advance for that, and more news from the track next week then!

Have a good week all, even with some rain as we feel lucky to to finally have some rain here in the California. Still a long way to go to make up for 3 years of drought, but we'll take it!

This has been an amazing experience, there is so much to tell about that I'm going to split my "race report" into 2 parts for once. Indeed, there are a few important facts to establish so you can better understand and appreciate the performances set that weekend, 2 weeks ago.

First, the Desert Solstice Invitational has been set up 4 years ago with the sole goal of creating an environment propitious to setting national and world records. For that, the founders of Aravaipa and race directors, the Coury Brothers, Nick and Jamil, first set an official 20-hour even on a track, a format which isn't commonly found especially in North America. They they reach out to potential record setters and hand pick them to create a field limited to 30, a good balance between emulation and not getting the track too crowded which would mean a lot of passing in lane 2. With that, 26 US records and 6 World records have been set at this event in only 4 years, these numbers say a lot on the impact that the Courys have on our sport! Now, as we'll see later, there are many potential records which can be set so, beyond calling upon the usual suspects which for instance make the US Team for 100K or 24-hour (2 handfuls at max), the Courys can't know or call every candidate in each age group. To address this, they set up a process where you apply to the consideration of being invited based on having met certain minimums and your genuine will to go after an existing record. And that's how, after running my 2nd 24-hour event this year at the US Nationals in September, I applied and got... "invited."

Now let's talk about the records. When you think about records in running area, the first coming to mind is usually Usain Bolt's one on 100 meters dash. With the Olympics especially, this is one of the most watched event in Track and Field, short enough to not be interrupted with ads even in the US! If you pay attention, you will notice that the screen may actually display Olympic Records, in case the World Record has not been set during one of the Olympiads. You already have two records for the same distance, and same setup! From 100 meters, there is a bunch of other distances, like 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, mile, 5,000m, 10,000m and you go on and on. So much that, at some point, you'll have to leave the stadium and introduce another family of records, the road ones. Starting introducing some variability in the terrain and even the cumulated elevation if the event isn't in super flat Netherlands. It is particularly true for the marathon were there isn't enough consistency between the different courses (e.g. New York, Boston, London, Paris, Berlin) to agree on the concept of a record, In this case, we talk about best performance. To recognize that another factor can also play a role and that not all the tracks are alike, there are Indoor and Outdoor Track records. And the Road ones. Since 10,000 meters are part of the Olympics, it's very unlikely that someone would come to such a 24-hour event to try to improve it. But anything beyond that makes sense (e.g. 10 miles, 20K, 20 miles, 50K, 50 miles, 100K, 100 miles, 200K).

We talked about the distance, but there is another dimension used to categorize records, time. We have the records for the most kilometers (or miles...) ran in 1 hour, 2 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours and, yes, so on... There are commonly 48-hour, 3-day and 6-day events every year, both on tracks or not (mix of road and trail). Of course, you then have the gender x2 multiplier but more importantly, the number of age groups: Junior, Open (19-34) then 5-year age groups starting with 35-39 and typically up to 80-85 if not more!

Overall, for a 24-hour event, we are talking about at least 12 age group records times 5 time-based and 8-distance-based records, times 2 genders: 312! And that's just for outdoor track, otherwise you are talking 936! And then you multiply by every nation (~200), and that is 187,200!! Any taker? ;-) Bottom line, there is a lot of potential and actually way too much for the super elite in our sport to chase them all, leaving room for opportunity for those who are interested and willing to fit that into their calendar. And until all these records are set by the best of the best.

To give you an illustration, in my age group, which is still quite competitive in the long distance running field, here are the current national records for 50K and 50 miles (from USATF road records and track records):
- 50K road: 3:19:33John L Sullivan (53)Washington, DC1982-Mar-13
- 50K outdoor track: 3:47:09Walter Connolly (54)Rochester, NY1984-Nov-04
- 50 miles road: 5:35:03Ted Corbitt (50)New York, NY1970-Oct-18
- 50 miles outdoor track: 6:33:58Jay Aldous (50)Phoenix, AZ2018-Dec-11

As you can see, there is quite discrepancy between these performances, it all comes down to who seriously chased the record at a particular distance or terrain. For instance, in the case of Jay, he "just" set this 50-mile as well as the 100K record and 12-hour on his way to set a world record for our age group for 100 miles on an outdoor track!

There are so many records to track, even at the world level that the IAAF delegates the task to another association, the IAU (International Association of Ultrarunning).

At the US level, the task is owned by the USAT&F who not only distinguishes ultra and non ultra, but also listings for Master age groups versus Open and Junior. More people to contact, with different convoluted processes and processing speeds. Bottom line, it may take 1, 2 or even 3 years for records to be ratified! And one more opportunity to thank Nick Coury for his passion and support of our community in this record setting area! Bottom line, with all this paperwork, you may well be chasing a record which has always been improved by someone else...

Enough on the record topic or "theory", let me switch to another subject before I lose you with this long introduction to my race report...

This event is put by Araipava, and more precisely by their founders, owners and race directors (and brothers!), Nick and Jamil Coury. Araipava is a Phoenix-based business which puts 21 major running races up each year, including the famous Javelina Jundred (or should I say infamous as many get tricked by the apparent easiness of this 100-miler and its loop format). Another race which they organize is Across The Years, or ATY, which consists in a multi-day event. They started with up to 72 hours but are extending to 6 days this year. The Desert Solstice invitational was created as a by product of ATY to focus on "shorter" times and distances record settings as well as provide a late season opportunity for some to make Team USA. From the fastest runners, the Courys do also an amazing job to get new comers into trail and ultra running, creating a very close and friendly community in Arizona which felt family to me as soon as landed in Phoenix and throughout the weekend!

Let's now talk about a few other specifics of this track event/format:

1. Track length. Most of the tracks have 8 lanes and a standard length of 400 meters in lane 1. One mile is 1.6093 kilometer so slightly more than 4 laps. (See a discussion about the differences of lengths of each lane which I included in one of my September posts.)
2. Track surface. As I mentioned before, the rubberized surface of such tracks makes sprinting super efficient by preventing any slipping between the running shoes and the track. While this is good for a few minutes of hard racing, this is particularly unforgiving when running for hours: if you don't have a perfect stride and footing, every defect will be amplified as your shoe can't self-adjust when on the ground. See for instance the blister I got after a 70-lap training run on the track in August.
3. Track facilities. When I first heard about Jon Olsen running more than 150 miles on a track, I was imagining that he was going in and out the track to go to the stadium's restrooms . But that would lead to losing many precious minutes and I read the advice that other Team USA members gave him to get his "own facility" to discreetly pee without having to leave the track. At least, at Desert Solstice, we had two porta-potties on the track, in lane 4 in order to minimize the distance and time for our pit stops, very convenient and efficient!
4. Lap direction. Mind you, although we don't go that fast in a 24-hour event that centripetal or centrifugal forces are much of an issue in the curve of the track, getting into a turn every 100 meters creates quite an unbalance effort on the body and particularly the legs and its numerous joints. For this reason, the race directors got us to change direction every 4 hours, providing a good relief as well as some variety in the otherwise and overall boring scenery.
5. Crews. For the non insiders, crews are the people who assist you in ultras, an essential help and component of success for many (when you don't get such support we talk about being "uncrewed" or even screwed!). In remote and mountainous races, some aid stations are not accessible to crews so you may not meet your team for 20 miles or a few hours. On a track, you see your crew every 2 to 3 minutes which means that they have to be constantly alert and available. I was amazed for instance to see our Bay Area ultra volunteer Dave Combs helping three runners (I learned later that he had come to just spectate the event but offered to help these three runners who, like me, didn't have a crew). Refilling a bottle, handing out a Gu or a S!Cap, some food, grabbing an extra layer, this can be an extremely busy job with the hundreds of laps!
6. Stadium. Running on a stadium track, you may think that there is a crowd watching. There wasn't actually anyone at the track except for the crews, volunteers and organizers at Desert Solstice. Our ultra running sport isn't that popular and, to be honest, it would be quite boring to watch 2 dozen of runners do laps for 24 hours! ;-)
7. Pacing. As I found out in my first 2 24-hour races this year (June and September), it is key to start really slow if you want to run for so many hours. The track format helps monitoring your cadence as it provides you with a split every 1/4 mile, not to mention the perfectly smooth and flat surface.

As I mentioned in my previous post, that was my first time racing for so long on a track. Last time was for the World Masters 10K in 2011, only 25 laps!

After a busy November month, including adding Quad Dipsea at the last minute, I was very unclear on my goals for this event, even on race morning which wasn't so good from an mental preparation standpoint, oops!

A couple of weeks before the race, I wasn't even aware that there were three series of records: road, indoor and outdoor track. Thankfully, Nick Coury prepped me, please make sure to read the preamble of this post for more details about this very special race format.

Looking at the outdoor track records, the 50K and 50-mile records seemed at reach except that they meant a "too fast" starting pace to hold on for 24 hours. That was a serious dilemma as I was tempted by these records, yet wanted to also improve my 24-hour personal best (127 miles in June and 133 miles in September). I went to bed on Friday evening thinking that I would not chase the 50K record, but would go after the 50-mile and 100K ones, then see what happens, hoping to at least reach 100 miles and call it a day. In other words, not really racing for my best 24-hour as this meant starting faster than what was sustainable for 24 hours. I even created an Excel spreadsheet to map the records with average speed.
A few weeks before the race Nick connected me with a local ultra runner, Rich, who hosted me for the weekend, an amazing perk of this invitational. Moreover, I was sleeping in Rich's son's bed in which elite and former record setters Jon Olsen and Zach Bitter stayed in, the pressure was on!

After picking me at the airport, Rich drove me to the local ultra running store, iRun, where I met James Bonnett whom I got to know when we both ran Western States in 2007:
Here we are at the pre-race dinner, Jamil Coury and Sabrina Redden, and Erin and Rich:
Rich picked another participant on Saturday morning and dropped us at the track at 7:30. I was rushing to get ready when Eric Clifton told me I seemed a little too stressed... The wisdom of the experience... (For the non insiders, Eric is a living legend in our sport, he even has a Hoka shoe named after him. I met him for the first time at this year's Ruth Anderson in April). Anyway, I was barely ready and missed the pre-race briefing, thinking that at least, there was little chance I was going to get lost on this ultra simple course! ;-)

Right off the bat, we could tell that there were several races going on. At the pre-race dinner I heard that Kevin Grabowski's goal was to crush the 100K hoping to qualify for and make the 100K Team USA. At a sub 7 min/mile pace, Kevin kept lapping us. Mike Bialick had another goal, breaking 13 hours for 100 miles, and he was therefore running in second position. I settled for 3rd and here we went for many and more laps, the whole group at different paces.

Kevin was of course the first to reach the 50K mark (125 laps) in 3:36. Unfortunately, at that point, he had already started to slow down from his initial pace and, unable to reach his 100K goal, dropped 10 laps later. With great sportsmanship tough, he came back to the track after changing to take great pictures of all of us which he posted on Facebook. For instance, he captured great shots from the highlight of the afternoon when we were running under two magnificent rainbows after a light rain shower.
Mike was still running 1:48 laps like a metronome and lapping me every 12 laps or so. I was myself running laps at 1:53 +/- 3 seconds with the exception of my fastest lap in 1:47 (lap 65) and a 2:15 one (lap 67) for my first pit stop. I was even glad to pass the 50K mark in 3 hours and 56 minutes, 9 minutes slower than our age group American record, as this corresponded to my plan. Just before 2 pm, I saw Nick coming on the other side of the track with a flag marker and I was wondering which record someone else might be about to get. To my greatest surprise, it was for me, the most kilometers ran in 6 hours on an outdoor track in our M50-54 age group, and a World record! 75,203 meters. Oh well, I already ran 80 km in 5:43 on a rolling road course a few years ago, again, World bests or records on track are not always such a big deal.

I remained focused on my initial goals, starting with the American record for 50 miles, which I indeed improved by 7 minutes (6:26). For this other milestone, no time to stop to celebrate, I just kept running toward the next goal, that is the 100K one at 8:16:51 for our age group (also one of the 4 that Jay Aldous set on that track in 2011).
Here I am, still going strong after 6 hours and 40 minutes (lap 207), photo credit Andy Noise:
Unfortunately, after the 50-mile mark, I started having trouble clocking sub 2-minute laps. By the 232nd lap, I "only" had to run 18 laps in 40 minutes, that is 2:13 per lap, but I wasn't even capable of that anymore so I decided to stop and rest. The volunteers and my improvised crew were super helpful, providing me with a cot and sleeping bag as well as getting me to eat and drink.
After a 50-minute break, it was hard to run again but I was super glad to manage to run 70 more laps under 3 minutes which got me to the 75-mile mark. By lap 312 though, I decided to stop again and, this time, laying down for 24 minutes was not enough to get me re-energized. As much as I wanted to reach 100 miles in order to save my UltraSignup score, it wasn't worth enough to spend the night walking on the track. I called it a day, or rather a night, at 9:10 pm after completing my 327th lap (130.8 km or 81.2 miles).

It was a strange mixed feeling between the disappointment of having run so few miles in a 24-hour event and the joy and satisfaction of having set two new age group records, including a World best. But I left the track in high mood, thanking the Courys for the amazing experience and opportunity, my host, Rich, the volunteers who kept cheering us through their 6 or 8-hour shifts, and the super spontaneous crew which assisted me for 14 hours!

Rich, Nick Coury, I and Jamil Coury:
My "adopted" crew, Donna Riopel and Eric Clifton's wife:
Donna, and Emily:
Before leaving, I also saluted a few of the runners who were still going so strong and had 10 more hours in their 24-hour quest. It was an honor to run with so many of the big names in our sport. It had been a few years since I had seen Dave James whom I first met in Costa Rica at the Coastal Challenge in 2008. Unfortunately, he had a bad day and leg issues before the 50K mark. Jay Aldous had slipped on a patch of ice a few days before the race on his knee which was still bothering him. He still managed to run 444 laps (110 miles) in 18 hours but missed our age group 24-hour record.

Eric Clifton improved the M55-59 world record for 6 hours, missed the American 50-mile one but improved the American 100K record.
For his 38th 100-miler in 2014, Ed Ettinghausen, aka The Jester, was running smart and logged 115 miles (Ed is going to complete 40 100-milers this year, improving the previous Guinness Record which was 36). Here he is, chatting with Traci Falbo, with Kevin on their right.
On the women side, Katalin Nagy had a phenomenal race, logging 151.44 miles in one day! World record holder for 48 hours, Traci Falbo finished 5th overall with 147.68 miles, another very impressive performance.

I went for a 10K run on Sunday morning before flying back to the Bay Area on Sunday evening but took the entire week off (running) before flying to Europe for the Holidays. Again, this has been a very special opportunity to try something new in ultra running. I hope to be back as I certainly learned a lot, some knowledge I look forward to reusing in future races. My only regret is that, with a rank of 52.60%, this appears as a major counter-performance in UltraSignup (the insiders will relate... ;-). But even Zach Bitter got a 68% at Desert Solstice last year although he had set a new American record for 100-mile in a blazing 11 hours and 47 minutes, so who am I to complain... ;-)

That was a great way to wrap-up a long and rich 2014 season, looking forward to a great 2015 and wishing you all the same!

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?

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.

I was reading an excellent piece from our National Jester (aka Ed Ettinghausen) in his own Run Jester Run Friends group page on Facebook (3,700 members!) about social runs and how to welcome (or not...) others in our runs. Not sure if you can all access it, or if you need to be a member of this group, but very much worth the read, a great reminder that our individual sport doesn't have to be anti-social!

We have many group runs here in the Bay Area, but, through injuries or changing life priorities, it's not always easy to maintain all traditions. Last week, I told you about the Saratoga Fat Ass that Keith Blom had revived, but that's one a year. We do have a few other of these annual Fat Ass runs around the Bay (e.g. Saratoga #2, Los Gatos Overgrown, Fremont).

More regularly, we have club runs. I did learn so much about trail and ultra running when I joined the Stevens Creek Striders in Cupertino, during our Saturday Morning club runs at Stevens Creek Reservoir. Especially tips from Mark Williams (the first man to finish the grueling Barkley Marathons 100-mile) and Charles Stevens (6 Western States finishes among many other ultras).

From there, when the 6-mile run was becoming too short, Charles invited me to join another Saturday morning ultra trail training running group on the Peninsula. I was so intimidated by this group of super experienced ultra runners who were doing for 20 miles every weekend! But I gave it a try and the pace happened to be just what I needed to teach me not to start too fast at a time I was still mostly interested in speed on the marathon distance and shorter races. Brian Robinson (the first man to get a super crown for having hiked the three cross-USA trails in one year, and also a finisher and course record setter at the Barkley marathon), his wife Sophia Lewis (Top 7 at Western States in 2003), Mike Topper (5 consecutive Western States finishes including 4 in the top 10!), Pierre Tardif (2 WS finishes, both in the top 10), Craig Heinselman, Chris Garcia, Eric Klein, ... I learned so much about ultra running from you guys! Before he moved up to Marin County, speesdster Gary Gellin was even part of this group these past years.

These Saturday morning runs rotate across 4 locations in the Peninsula: Woodside School, Wunderlich,  Windy Hill and Rhus Ridge. Rhus Ridge is the one I prefer because it is the closest and I only need to drive to Rancho San Antonio to get on the course. With the experience and need for even longer long runs, I actually made my own tradition to start from the main parking lot at 6:30 instead of the small and overfilling parking lot of Rhus Ridge at 7 am. I get to the top of the intersection of Chamise and Rhus Ridge trails around 7:05 and either wait for the rest of the group at the top, or plunge on the steep downhill or Rhus Ridge to see who had made it that morning.

Well, and it isn't the first time, nobody was to be seen from the group this weekend so I ended up doing the group run on my own... I certainly have been faster this way but I wouldn't have minded some account of each others' holidays. Unfortunately, beyond the races which may get in the way from time to time, this group has been decimated by many life events, mostly moves/relocation and injuries.

I've done this run more than 20 times now and already wrote several times about this course (e.g. 2009, another one in October 2009, and 2011, 2011 anti-clockwise, 2013 with my GoPro ), yet this is such a wonderful course and the light was so amazing this Saturday morning, I have to post a few pictures, cannot keep all this beauty to myself! ;-) Short of being social during the run, at least I can share something with you on line! So, here we are, not describing the loop again (in case you are interested or visiting, I even posted the route on Strava and Garmin Connect), just posting a few snapshots. Well, quite a few actually --I couldn't stop...-- but it shouldn't take you the 4 hours and 11 minutes which it took me to run these 29.5 moderately hilly miles (~5,400 ft +/- gain)!

Sister moon before sunrise, from Chamise Trail:

 7:30 am, the sun finally shows up!
 Light bouncing everywhere, on the fog, the trees, the trail...


 Fog over San Jose.
 Distant Mt Diablo floating over the Bay Area fog.

In the background and from the top of Black Mountain, Mt Umunum and my QuickSilver Club home base, Almaden Quick Silver Park.

View of the Pacific Ocean from the top of Black Mountain (2,800 ft)
 The white rocks of Black Mountain, don't ask why this place used to be called Black Mountain Farm...
 Reaching the Black Moutain dry camp ground, with company
 I wish my legs were that long, could be handy in races... ;-)
View from Bella Vista Trail toward San Francisco (yes, a nice view indeed!)
Aging tree still holding up on Bella Vista Trail
Switching from Montebello Open Space Preserve to Foothills Park (the rest of the run on the Palo Alto side was mostly in the fog)

I particularly like this picture, below because I was starting to think I had stopped enough for taking pictures when, after the next turn, I get in this amazing light rays at the edge of the cloud and I caught myself saying "shoot, I need to stop again!" ;-) And, of course, the picture doesn't make justice to the beauty of this sun light, nor does it show the droplets which were slowly moving up in the air. Priceless experience as we say...
The place of the traditional group picture, at the split between the shorter and longer course

Los Trancos Creek. At least there is some water flowing, but we need much more than that in winter!

 Looking for who Lynn Torin might be, I found this Memorial, actually from last month. RIP, Lynn...


 Farther on Los Trancos trail...

 Boronda Lake in Foothills Park (car access to Palo Alto residents only)

 Last but not least, the pond at Rancho San Antonio has filled up (almost)!
Here you are, a quick walk-thru of this Rhus Ridge loop course.


Sunday was more social, at least family-oriented, as Agnès, Greg and I went to Coyote Hills Regional Park on the other side of the Bay to look at the course of Greg's first half marathon next Saturday. Well, Greg and I covered the whole 13.1 miles (two loops), so that will be his first half marathon race then next week. I'm delighted to see the running bug spreading in the family (Alex ran the Marine Corps Marathon twice already and Max is training for the Austin Marathon in February)!

Following the Jester's wisdom, I'm giving you all a hug, runners and non runners alike! Have a great week and, if you are experiencing bad weather, please make sure to send some of it our way so we get more water in California. Will you, please...?

As I wrote at the bottom of my long post last week, Greg was running his first half-marathon race this Saturday in Fremont, on the other side of the Bay. As I'll be traveling to New York city and Austin next week and tapering before Rocky Racoon 100-mile (scoop, I'm going to run this US National Championship indeed!), I looked at what it would take to run to that park from Cupertino. While Google Maps didn't come up with the greenest route, I tweaked it a bit to go through Mountain View's Shoreline Park and the Palo Alto Baylands and that made a route of about 27 miles, exactly what I was looking for for a long run!
It was still quite dark when I left home at 6:25 am but the sky was "insanely" clear (no cloud to be seen in January so far unfortunately, meaning no rain either...) and the light quickly raised. I started with a conservative pace to avoid tripping in the dark but, as soon as it was safer, I pushed with a few sub-7-minute miles. The Stevens Creek Trail was actually busy especially going through Shoreline. The bad news is that I've never see the Stevens Creek so low: while the tide was low near the Bay, the creek is actually completely dry in the Mountain View section. What a drought...
I've ran this trail so often, including as far as the Palo Alto Airport and Golf, the first 16 miles felt very familiar. After that, it was a first, starting with going through East Palo Alto

 I had the pleasure to see that the Sobrato Family is helping that challenged community with a wonderful project.

I didn't have a map with me so I got on University Avenue as directly as possible. Since this was the least fun section because of the traffic, I would go through the neighborhood streets instead next time. Anyway, it wasn't too long before I reached an even busiest artery, Highway 84, with a great perspective of the bridge.

On 84, and its long bridge, you run on the bike path, really close to huge trucks going 60 mph but at least there is a fence of concrete blocks to protect you. While the height of the bridge is rather impressive in the distance, it is actually not that bad, very gradual, and I even lowered my average pace on the uphill from 7:58 to 7:57, then shaving two more seconds on the way down. Here is a view of the parallel rail track from the top of the bridge.

It was great to have a goal to run after or against: I really wanted to see Greg at the overpass turnaround so I pushed a bit and clocked a 6:24, 6:32 and 6:31 respectively for miles 22, 23 and 24. While the first runners had already gone through the aid station, I was able to see Greg not too far behind, flying and smiling!
I then saw Agnès at the next intersection where ultra runner Will Gotthardt was volunteering and directing the traffic through this confusing 3-way junction.
Not counting 15 minutes of picture taking or bottle refill, my Garmin was giving 2:59:53 for 26.2 miles, good long tempo run!

We waited for Greg to cover this first out-and-back, then I ran the first loop against the traffic which was now quite heavy with all the half-marathon, 10K and 5K runners on the course!
I saw Greg at the Bay View Trail aid station and advised him to take a Gu, if not the taste, at least for the extra calorie boost.
I then ran to the park headquarters, stopped to chat with Maggie, Michael's wife, who had ran the 5K, then climbed the Quail Trail to meet with Greg at the end of his second out-and-back then run together to the finish. 1:42:56 for 13.1 miles for him, 40th overall. I thought he'd won his age group but, poor guy, he just turned 18 and they had him in the odd 18-24 age group. It doesn't seem so fair to me to mix high schoolers and with potential college or older "kids". Anyway, the finisher medals from Brazen Racing are really awesome!
As for me, with all the stop-and-gos in the park, I managed to log 31.8 miles this morning, with 3:38:58 of running time. Good enough for my 4th ultra run in the first 4 weeks of 2015!

At the finish, I saw two other ultra runners. Kowsik Guruswamy whose 2015 resolution is a pledge to get "Farther, Faster" on his blog, referring to my blog mantra, and Lon Freeman who won the Ohlone 50K race which I missed last year, and was volunteering today. I saw a few other known faces but, overall, and not surprisingly, this is quite a different from my usual ultra trail running community. But I was amazed to see the perfect organization of Brazen Racing and the great participation, across all ages, of runners taking advantage of this opportunity to race in this beautiful and very accessible park.
Talk to you from Texas next week then and Run Happy in the meantime!!

PS: a couple of bonus pictures from Agnès:

Rocky Racoon is a race put by the Tejas Trails organization, in winter, 2 weeks after their other popular race, and also a USATF Nationals event, Bandera 100K. I had heard that it was a flat and fast course but, with that name, I was fearing a few rocky sections. Well, you may consider a few blocks of broken asphalt at the corner of the Park at mile 14 of the 20-mile loop, but that's basically it. So, apart form the fact that this isn't a word in the dictionary, I wonder why this wasn't called... Rooty Racoon instead! ;-) Indeed, as the short description of the course in the manuals says, it is "covered" with roots. Which makes it tricky at night, otherwise very runnable in daylight.

Beyond my focus on our North California Ultra and Mountain Running Grand Prix for the 9th consecutive year, I wanted to spice this year's schedule up with a few additional US Nationals (I did two last year, 50K road and 24-hour road). It was a bit aggressive, or others would say inconsiderate, but, liking speed, I was drawn by this fast course and registed mid January. The other reason is that it was in Texas and Max was available to host and drive me from Austin (the race is in Huntsville, TX, 60 miles North of Houston and 160 miles East of Austin).

With that, we drove on Friday evening and I got my bib on race morning, before the start at 6 am. I ran a 100-miler just under 15 hours, on asphalt, 3 years ago (Run d'Amore 2012, 14:54) and, based on other performances, I was hoping, or planning actually, to do it again, on a trail course this time. Again, without knowing much about the course since I never ran in this area before. And I was of course hoping to win our M50-54 age group, a small 5-runner contingent.

Before leaving Austin, I realized that I had forgotten to bring my headlamp which looked like a big rookie mistake for a race in the middle of winter! We stopped by REI in Red Rock and I chose a Black Diamond once again, despite not being satisfied with the one I bought last year (Storm), so I picked the most expensive model (Revolt) hoping that will do it this time (and I'm still not convinced at all unfortunately, need to find a better one, welcome any suggestion if you can leave a comment).
Indeed, with a start at 6am and all the roots on the trails, I was surely glad to have some light, that's really mandatory.
Most of the 20-mile loop, and certainly all the single track sections, are covered by either pine needles or dead leaves, like all the ground under the trees, it was hard to even see where the trail was in the dark. Daylight came around 7 am and, in the first hour, I twisted/rolled my ankles more than a dozen times, including 3 really bad ones. Fortunately I have very flexible and resilient ankles but, the third big twist, I swore and thought it was the end of my run. The fact is that I wasn't even trying to keep up with the leaders, but stuck in a group of runners which I don't like, preferring to go at my own pace. The pace was around 8:15 which was about what I was looking for. Once the light came up, we collectively picked the pace as we could now see all the roots much better. As usual, it seemed easy, so much that, although I knew that wasn't reasonable and sustainable, my average pace went down to 8:01 min/mile at which time I decided to slow down to not go under 8. Well, so much for a good decision because the mileage of my GPS was off by 0.7 mile at the end of the first loop which I completed in 2:37, that is a 7:51 min/mile pace, ouch, way too much excitement and impatience already!

Well, despite being too fast for me for a trail 100-miler, I wasn't even in the top 10! 23-year old David Kilgore, from Florida, was leading with a blazing pace. Before I had even finished the first loop, I pointed him in the out-and-back, 3.3 miles ahead of me! And, course record holder, Ian Sharman, wasn't even in the top 5. Assuredly, I wasn't the only one to have aggressive aspirations or needles in the legs this Saturday morning... ;-)

I was back on the course, and about 0.4 miles from the start when I crossed Scott (Dunlap) who took a GoPro video of our encounter (with all the runners we were either passing or crossing on this convoluted loop, he must have gotten a lot of footage!). I was still feeling good but took the time to stop more at the aid stations to refuel a little, and complement my taking of Vespa (2 before the start and one every 3 hours or so, that is at each lap here). But I wasn't much inspired by the buffet selection, I was carving for potato chips, rather than the artificial gold fish, on the salty side. Took a few Oreo cookies which don't seem more natural/organic to me... And I used my GU gels too of course (one every hour).

The second loop was basically the same, pace wise, especially as it was all ran in daylight this time. Around mile 27 miles I caught up with Matt whom I passed after a quick chat. I completed the 2nd loop in a more reasonable 2:45 (8:15 min/mile pace), still feeling good albeit some signs of short breath/asthma. On the third loop, my stops were longer at the aid stations and my average pace got down (or up) to 8:16 by mile 50, right on 7 hours. But, by that time, I had already started walking the uphills and was loosing ground and time. Matt was the first to pass me and, after checking on how I felt, left me in the dust. And I got passed by two other runners before the Dam Road aid station at mile 52. These last 10 miles of this third loop were really a struggle, alternating walking and jogging and that's when I decided that... I had enough of it, there was no way I would rebound fast enough to meet my goals, especially on the short breath side.

It took me 3 hour and 30 minutes to complete the third loop, now talking of a 10:30 pace, even including a good portion of running in the first 10 miles of that loop. I didn't want to spend the night crawling at 15 min/mile, that wasn't the intent. I stopped my watch after crossing the finish line, explained how I felt to my Bay Area ultra buddies, Victor and Noe, and returned my timing chip.
I even went on (UltraSportsLive) TV with today's host, Victor, my drop/DNF got quite some publicity! Well, likely not tomorrow's Super Bowl audience, but it's really cool to have such races getting this air coverage for those who can't be present.
Scott arrived a few minutes later and took a short break to refuel before getting on his 4th loop, quite excited about it and in good spirits. As I write this blog, back in Austin, I see he even finished the 4th lap in 12:39. He may not break the 15 hours, running the 5th lap at night and, I assume, in the rain, but he should be close!
At the top of the race, it wasn't pretty either. I first passed David James who dropped in the second loop, on major back issues. As I was struggling in my third loop, I also passed David Kilgore around mile 54. He was walking but had the guts to finish the third loop in 9:14. I'm sure he'll rebound quickly and, with such a speed, we'll see his back again! Marco Bonfiglio from Italy took the lead and finished the 4th lap in 10:37, followed by Ian Sharman 4 minutes later, Sam Skills 6 minutes behind and Paul Terranova, first Master (M40), 2 minutes after! I don't think anyone will break Ian's record this time, but there is going to be quite some action in the 5th loop for sure!

Wow, a new refresh of the page and here you are: Ian won in 13:32. (Post scriptum and correction: writing this post at the end of a very long day, I had initially thought he had improved his previous record of 13:44, but it was actually 12:44. Hard to comprehend with all these roots!) What a smart race from him, letting others go out too fast and closing with a 5th lap in 2:51 despite running in the night. Marco took second place in 13:57, Paul 3rd in 14:05, Sam Skeels 4th in 14:11, then Ronnie Delzer 4 minutes behind, then in 6th overall, Nicole Studer who also shattered Traci Falbo's course record by 23 minutes (14:22). What amazing performances at the front! By the way, Ian and Marco not being US citizens (from UK and Italy respectively), Paul not only won the Masters title but also the overall Championship/open division (I assume he will double dip the awards, respectively $200 and $1,000). Quite another coup!

Regarding our M50-54 age group championship, the jury is still out, no runner has completed his 4th lap yet as I type this blog post.

For one thing, the weather was perfect, not too cold, some sun but mostly overcast. Actually, some complained that it was hot, probably those used to train in freezing temperatures in January. The course was also in perfect conditions, and there was good competition, maybe too much for those who got caught into too fast pace in the first loop (yes, that would start with me...). As for me, as I just mentioned, my main mistake was to go out too fast. I also didn't drink as much water as usual, very little in the first lap actually, and slightly less GU2O than usual too. And I didn't quite adapt to the type of food at the aid stations, my bad for the lack of flexibility. I also didn't have a strong reason to finish just for sake of it, having run a dozen of 100s and even longer distances in 24-hour events last year. That certainly counted a lot in my decision. Plus too much bad stress at work...

I would also add that arriving just before the start and leaving before the race ended, didn't allow me to connect much with the local ultra community, I'll have to come back... But in the meantime, let me thank Joe and Joyce Prusaitis and all their team for putting up such a professional and popular event! And all the very helpful volunteers at the 4 aid stations, in particular Damnation which sees 400 runners for potentially up to 10 times (yes, not counting the DNFs, that would be 4,000 customers to attend to!!). I certainly highly recommend this race, for itself but also because it provides qualifying criteria and points for Western States and UTMB, while not being as challenging as a mountain hundred.

I will be running Jed Smith 50K next week, that should be much easier! Indeed, I still have the speed, and certainly some endurance, but I'm struggling at the 100-mile distance. And, to circle back with the title of this post, I would admit that I didn't pay enough respect to that distance, it's still quite a beast. Like people commented on Facebook, there will be other opportunities. To apply the lessons hopefully, and to learn others. Ultra running is a big and life-long experiment...

After last week's DNF at Rocky Raccoon, I was hoping for a redemption run this Saturday. And for that, I was resolute to be more reasonable from a goal and pace standpoint, no matter what the competition was going to be. From the UltraSignup ranking, the favorite was Chad Ricklefs from Colorado, with a very impressive 97.45% rank. He was followed by our own speedster Chikara Omine, then Michael Fink and myself. Karl Schnaitter was only in 7th position in the list but, at 32, he keeps improving and moving up!

My teammate Jeremy joined me for a car pool to the start and we left Cupertino at 5:05 am. We got quite some rain on Highway 680, but the sky cleared up on 80 and it seemed like it was finally going to be a perfect weather for the day, not the pouring rain which was announced, phew! How lucky for us runners, still how bad for the drought... Fortunately, rain should be back this Sunday, and we hope for more in February after a completely rain-free January.

We arrived to the Park around 7:15 am, just in time to see the start of the 50-mile race at 7:30. Here is Bev Anderson-Abbs at the start, working on another qualifier for Team Canada:
Bev will eventually win the race overall again this year, in 6:18:
Our 50K race started at 8:30 with more than 100 participants this year. There was a slight change of course with a detour around the second mile of the loop, but it was pretty much the same as usual, with a mix of asphalt on the bike path and levée, and a 2-mile gravel trail section. A pretty much flat course if not for a few changes of elevation when going on or under the bridges above American River.
Chikara took off like I did last year, probably at a 6 or 6:10 min/mile pace. I had shared with Jeremy that my plan was to not go out faster than 6:30 min/mile. After Rocky Racoon, Max and I went for a slow recovery 10K on Sunday. I then ran 10K on Wednesday, and again on Thursday evening but with a 5K at the track at 5:55 min/mile to see/check if the lungs had recovered from the bit of asthma I experienced in Texas. The test was conclusive so I was optimistic about that 6:30 pace. Last year, I had focused on the 50K distance so much that I had run mostly flat and fast miles all January, only to break just after Jed Smith and have to take 3 weeks off before the Nationals. This year, I didn't have that speed training, but much more variety, hoping this will avoid the issue. But as a consequence, I was surely not ready to go out at 6:15 as Rich Hanna and I did last year.

Speaking of Rich, he has to be the fastest 50-year old guy in the country now. Last year he ran Jed Smith in a blazing 3:13 when the current American M50-54 record has been set at 3:19:33 more than 30 years ago! But Rich wasn't quite 50 last year. With the short detour, the course didn't get the USATF certification and I thought Rich would therefore not go after the record since it couldn't have been validated. As a matter of fact, Rich is the Founder and President of the company doing the chip timing of the event, and many other races, Capital Road Race Management (CRRM). That keeps him too busy on weekends to race much, but he did jump in (and crashed our race! ;-) last year. Not this year fortunately for me, at least that was clearing up the M50-59 age group for me... Here is Rich, completing a loop for fun:
As we were running the first leg of the initial out-and-back, I could feel some soreness in my legs and butt, and thought it was going to be a tough day as we were only half mile in a 31-mile race... Fortunately, that dissipated quickly and I managed to get to my targeted pace, which meant that I was now settling in 3rd, right behind Karl (and very far behind Chikara who was already out of sight after just 2 miles of running!).

Actually, Karl's pace was rather 6:26 according to my GPS, even flirting with 6:25, so I decided to take some distance on the asphalt section. But, by the end of the first loop, I had caught up with him again in the trail section and we were right on 6:26. I was concerned that 4 seconds per mile could make a big difference at the end, but, as usual, it felt good that early in the race. At least, I was pleased that I was able to back off every time I was seeing Karl getting to 6:25, glad that last week's failure gave me some pacing wisdom at least.

The second loop was pretty much the same, keeping this very stable pace, and running smoothly and easy. And exactly the same in loop 3, getting us know to 17 miles. I picked my second bottle of GU2O and one pouch of Vespa and here we were again together on loop 4, still on what now felt like an optimal pace, 6:26. We kept passing other runners, from the 50-mile, 50K or now the 30K race as well, and I was giving encouragements especially to those runners wearing Brooks shoes (sorry, can't help myself... ;-). That made me relax and not think about some fatigue as we were not approaching the 20-mile wall. In the short uphills, I could feel that Karl was struggling, but he was then accelerating in the downhills and still running very strong on the flat sections. While we started the 4th lap side by side, he was still slightly ahead for most of this loop, still flirting with the 6:25 pace which I didn't want to get into.

He must have made a quick stop at the aid station at the end of the 4th lap, so I kept going, not accelerating but forming a small gap. In these last 3 laps we were successively crossing Greg Soderlund and Gary Towle, walking the course in the opposite direction. It was great to see Greg again. Greg has been the Race Director of Western States 100 for the past 2 decades and had to step down to fight kidney cancer. Without any kidney, he was still able to run a half-marathon last year and, being cancer-free for 2 years, he should receive a new kidney soon, what a combat and victory! Gary has been on the Western States Board too, for 35 years and serve as their Treasurer. Anyway, as I was half way in this 5th lap, Gary says that Chikara was just around the corner which I couldn't believe. For one thing, I wasn't getting faster, still right on that 6:26 pace. As I completed the lap, Rich Hanna was on the mic and told me that I was catching up indeed. That surely gave me a boost and, that time, I decided that I could take the risk to run slightly faster. I got the pace down to 6:25 min/mile in the next 2 miles but, at the turn around, with 2.5 miles to go, I started feeling some cramps and, not seeing Karl behind, I had to pull off the gas pedal. As I was going over the last bridge, with half a mile to go, I saw Karl closing on me so I pushed hard again.

I did cross the finish line just under 3:22, 2 minutes behind Chikara, and 30 seconds before Karl, close call! Excelsior took 1st, 3rd and 4th, easily winning the Men team competition again today. And they even formed a Women team, so they certainly have bigger ambitions in the Grand Prix than our Quicksilver Club has (or has not, with many members racing outside of the Grand Prix now). I got my 3rd Jed Smith beannie for winning my age group, as well as a nice and funny certificate for winning the Masters division:

In case you can't read form the picture, here is the inscription:

Let all who read this know: you've still got it!
While most of your peers have begun to grieve for their misspent youth, you are still reaching for the stars! Despite the iffy February weather, obnoxious cyclists, nausea, dehydration, nervous wildlife, failing eyesight, chronic training injuries, and the nagging effect of all those years of running, you ran as far as anyone, and faster than everyone over 40 on this day.

A good reminder that we do that for fun, thank you John...! ;-)

What I was the most pleased with today wasn't to be so close to the American Record (well, 2 minutes are still a big deal), but to have had the wisdom to get on such an even pace. Here were my splits on my Garmin:

1. Out-and-back: 1.66 miles 10:41
2. Lap 1: 4.94 miles 31:55
3. Lap 2: 4.94 miles 31:47
4. Lap 3: 4.94 miles 31:48
5. Lap 4: 4.94 miles 31:38
6. Lap 5: 4.94 miles 31:52
7. Lap 6: 4.94 miles 32:16

Strava is also stating that I ran 30K just under 2 hours (1:59:42) and a marathon in 2:48:29, great day!
By the way, that was my 49th 50K race, maybe I'm getting it finally! Oh no, I know, every ultra race is different...

And it was my 7th consecutive Jed Smith (2009-2015), the second fastest (3:19:09 in 2012) and slightly faster than last year (3:25:19).

I didn't stop to any aid station but thank anyway to the volunteers who had accepted to potentially spend the day out there in the rain. It drizzled for 10-15 minutes, we were exceptionally lucky. I even teased Race Directors, John Blue and Dennis Scott, as well as volunteer and eminent ultra runner, Mark Lantz, asking them how much it did cost to their Club, the Buffalo Chips, to pay for such a perfect weather. A big thank to them for setting up such a professional event to kick off our Grand Prix season, year after year.

All the results are already posted as of this Saturday evening on the CCRM website.

I ran the whole race on 2 GUs, 2 20-oz bottles of GU2O and 3 Vespa pouches, that's it! Although it worked out very well form a nutrition and hydration standpoint, I must admit that I was starving when we finally stopped by In-and-Out Burger at Vacaville on the way back, around 3 pm. In the meantime, Jeremy had 2 beers to recover, and we had great time socializing with the Excelsior and Quicksilver teams, while encouraging the other runners on the course.
On our team, small contingent today: Marc finished 3rd, then Stephen Strauss and Keith Lubliner. No women team, not even a mixed, that's a slow start for us, especially given the overwhelming representation of the Pamakids Club of San Francisco, Excelsior and the local Buffalo Chips. 16 events to go in 2015...

Respectively, Jeremy, Marc, Stephen and Keith:




That was a great redemption run indeed, erasing the disappointment of last week's counter-performance. And, after these back to back races, 3 weeks until the 50K Road Nationals at Caumsett Park on Long Island, NY. With more training in perspective in the meantime...

Keep running happy and strong, all!

------------
A few additional pictures...

Karl assisting his Team Captain, Nakia on the 50-miler:
 Michael Fink's finish (Michael used to beat me at this race):
 Julie Fingar's finish for the Women win in the 50K:
 Our bike leads (Co-Race Director Dennis Scott in blue):

A barely took a break in December, just a few days while traveling through France and the Czech Republic over the Holidays, my ass didn't really have the time to put some fat on. Since the beginning of the year, short of eating an apple a day, I've been running at least an ultra a week, hoping that keeps the doctor away...

Agnès being in Austin, TX, this weekend with Max who is going to run his first marathon tomorrow, I was out of a Valentine today, a good excuse to spend a few hours on the trails on this Valentine's Day! After the first and original one, Keith Blom is also perpetuating that second Saratoga Fat Ass tradition and today was the day!

I thought I'd focus on speed at the track this weekend but my strategy this year to avoid last year's minor injury, is to ensure some variety in my training. After the fast Jed Smith 50K of last weekend, I ran 50 miles on concrete this week so it was time to hit the trails again.

Mark Tanaka had run the course yesterday (he was on E.R. duty today) and Chihping Fu will run tomorrow. Here is the group for the 8 am start:
The weather was gorgeous, actually even on the hot side for a winter run. And the trails were in perfect conditions, just soft enough from last week's rain, with a few branches and down trees here and there to make the run more interesting.

In these conditions, and profiting from the fact that Leor Pantilat never ran this fat ass, I was going after Pierre-Yves Couteau's "course record" of 4:42. After making sure everybody else had the course instructions (me included!) I took off in the lead and alone. The first loop is really trick when we get down over the huge boulders at the end of Ridge Trail as well as on Saratoga Gap Trail. Despite some pushing, my average pace was around 10:30 min/mile, from which I shaved a few seconds on the way up to Highway 35 on Loghry Woods Trail, then on Skyline Trail, back to the start.
I got back to the car with my GPS indicating 10.5 miles and 1:45 of running. A quick stop to refill my GU2O bottle, eat 1/2 banana and it was time to hammer down the second loop. I saw Keith 3.5 miles in that second loop as he was hiking it in reverse direction with a heavy back pack, training for the John Muir Trail (JMT) in June.
Everything was going fine, including the cruising on my favorite trail in this area, Travertine Springs Trail. While a few creeks were flowing, I was alarmed by how dry the area of the spring is this year. I've had my feet and legs really wet a few year ago in this area, not today! At the end of Travertine Springs Trail, I found the new bridge and I was actually so hot that I took the time to go down to the creek, under the bridge, to cool off my legs and head. A first in winter!

I felt refreshed and pumped up to hammer the way back up to Hwy 35, so much that I went 1.5 miles off course, all the way up to Indian Rock road, almost back to the Saratoga Gap parking area. Since I was going after a record, and like any good ultra runner would do anyway, I decided to go down to find where I went off course. If you see these signs, then you know you went way off course too!

I found another service road but it didn't seem right to run beyond these signs, would you agree?
Anyway, that seemed the only option so 1/2 mile up I went again, to end up in a private dead end, fortunately without any dog, phew! I retraced my path back and was pleased to find the rest of the group, as lost as I was the first time at this intersection. At least, my experience saved them the 4 miles I had run left and right and up and down on that road!

I led the group down to the sharp U-turn we had missed on Travertine Springs, after the new bridge. There was really no sign to be found, making it a very non intuitive turn. As I'd find out later, even Keith missed the turn but he thought it was just because he was doing the course in reverse direction.

With so many extra miles (4.4 miles exactly), worth 51 minutes including the discussions, plus the fact that I was now missing salt (I had lost 1 of my 4 S!Caps), I decided to just finish this loop, do a few more miles to Charcoal, to still make it an ultra.

Kevin Moore followed me on the way up from Travertine Springs and I gave him the water I had left as he was running with a 4-oz bottle only! I left him at Charcoal, then ran back to the start/finish. On my way back, I cross teammate Andy Benkert, from Santa Cruz, and Rida Chow (in Brooks!) who looked great. I was back to the car with my GPS indicating 28.55 miles, 4:52:22 and +/- 5,950 feet of cumulative elevation. Here is the course, including the section not to go on:
It was the year for a PR, but I felt like a dumb ass for having ran more than 4 miles off course on such trails, with the map in my hands...! Yet, it was a perfect opportunity to get some hill training which may get handy when pushing the pace again at the 50K Road Nationals in 2 weeks on Long Island. We'll see... At least I'm happy that I was careful enough on the first loop to avoid any injury. A bad fall would have been even dumber in retrospect.

A big thank to Keith for organizing this unorganized (has to be from a permit standpoint) and unofficial run. I'm glad I could run it for the 4th time (2011, 2012, 2013), and look forward to another opportunity to clock a good time, although I'm not going to wish we have such a summer weather next year. The worst drought in 1,000 years is the new headline, this is scary...