“Do you still believe in all the things that you stood by before – Are you out there on the front lines, or at home keeping score? Do you care to be the layer of the bricks that seal your fate? Or would you rather be the architect of what we might create?”
- Rise Against, “Architects” (video after post)
The first time I came to Miwok, I was building up to my maiden 100-mile race, and hadn’t quite fully wrapped my head around the huge numbers involved beyond the realm of the 50-milers I was familiar with. I believed that getting to 100 miles was possible, but aside from that, I didn't have any tangible experience to base that confidence upon.
It was only during that initial 100K that I got my first taste of what the 100-miler might have in store – in both good ways and bad. So with another 100-miler on my schedule this summer, one of my top priorities was to make it to Miwok again, to see if I still had that same belief in myself, and to hopefully get a glimpse of what kind of experience I might be able to create later this year.
With a few more races under my belt now – and for another reason I’ll describe shortly - I’m a different runner than I was the first time here. As it turns out, Miwok was a little different as well; this year’s course included some new trails and a couple of route changes, but still packed about 10,000’ of climbing into some of the most scenic trails in Northern California. The day promised a lot of great things to see – and with that, we’ll start the report.
(As usual, click any of these photos to enlarge ...)
You’ll be forgiven for thinking this is the start line: a bunch of people standing around, chatting the time away, making nervous jokes to take their mind off the situation at hand. Unfortunately, when I took this photo, the race was more than 5 minutes old; after a scramble across the sand of Rodeo Beach, the route immediately narrows to a single-track climb where people in back of the crowd are forced to stop in their tracks for at least a few more minutes before slowly proceeding up the hill. Since it’s the first half-mile of a 62-mile race, and since none of the people in the group around me were exactly charging for a podium finish, nobody really seemed to mind the brief delay.
Once you make it up the first trail, you hit a paved road where you can look back at the start area behind you …
… which is a lot more attractive than the long grind up Conzelman Road ahead.
The reward for climbing up Conzelman is pretty sweet: a killer vantage point of the Golden Gate Bridge emerging from the morning fog.
After seeing the bridge, the trail winds its way gently downhill again …
… until you reach a “Wait – weren’t we just here?” moment in returning to the Rodeo Beach aid station at mile 7. The good news is that you don’t have to wait five minutes to cross the beach a second time. The bad news is, you have to cross the beach a second time.
Leaving Rodeo Beach (for good this time), this year’s route generally took us in reverse through the final section of the traditional race. In my previous Miwok report, I griped about having to go down this large stone staircase at mile 61; this year, we went up them instead. Don’t be shocked when I say this … but it turns out that up is harder.
Climbing the first ridge gives you a glimpse of Tennessee Valley, and you get to enjoy another long downhill to the aid station there. By this point of the race, your legs and mind may as well get used to the pattern: long grinding uphills, followed by long steady downhills – because that’s pretty much what you spend the day doing out here.
After Tennessee Valley comes the longest section of the race without aid; an 8.9-mile up and down stretch including wide ridgeline fire roads …
… and twisty-turny singletrack …
… and some sweet forest trails with foliage overhead and wildflowers underfoot. Believe it or not, you haven’t even reached the prettiest sections of the course yet.
That starts shortly after leaving the Pan Toll aid station at mile 20, where you see the first of two landscapes that Miwok is famous for: plush shady trails meandering through giant redwood forests.
Here’s the second landscape that defines Miwok: grassy single-track on the high slopes of Marin County, with a beautiful seascape in the distance below. You can’t gaze at the sea for too long, however …
… because long portions of this section include what locals call “half-track” trail, which because of its narrowness and slope has been known to roll more than a few ankles over the years.
Each time I’ve done Miwok, the hardest section mentally is the long out and back from the Bolinas Ridge aid station at mile 27 to the turnaround point of the course at mile 34. Fortunately, I didn’t have any thoughts of quitting the race here – because as this sign (click to enlarge photo) outside the aid station says, I would have ended up with a wrinkled soul. Nobody needs that.
The forest somehow vanishes about 500’ from the Randall Trail turnaround point, which at Miwok signals the bonus good news that you’ve actually done more than half the distance. For some reason, that knowledge is always very reassuring.
Remember how I mentioned I was a different runner now? That wasn’t just because I’m a couple of years older and have a few more races on my resume. I was also doing the race in Soft Star RunAmocs, for which I’ve made no secret of my affection over the past year. This spring I had an idea to spread the love a little more publicly than my little hole-in-the-Internet-wall, and the elves at Soft Star were completely on board, sending me a race shirt and setting me up with fresh mocs shortly before race day.
Knowing that this is probably the closest I’ll ever come to actually being a sponsored runner, I figured I’d start calling myself Team Soft Star, since “that crazy guy in the moccasins” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. At Miwok, I was the poster boy for RunAmocs – and honestly, I had a ton of discussions about them on the trail. For the most part, the ultrarunning community has been incredibly curious and open-minded about the whole minimalist thing, and my reception at Miwok was wonderful, for two primary reasons:
1) More than virtually anyone else, ultrarunners can certainly identify with hearing people tell them that something they want to do is crazy, impossible, or potentially harmful – and then going ahead and doing it anyway. Also …
2) Recall that I started at the very back of the pack, which means that I passed a lot of people throughout the day. I imagine that it’s hard to question whether something is effective when the guy doing it is pulling away from you.
So there you have it: Team Soft Star, coming to a trail near you someday. Meanwhile, back at the race …
Even though you’ve turned the corner towards home, returning from Randall Trail is still a fairly significant challenge, as you climb two solid miles through the redwoods before finishing the “more up than down” roller coaster route back to Bolinas Ridge at mile 41.
While the out and back is the toughest mental section for me, the mostly uphill 6-mile return through the half-track and single-track toward Pan Toll was without a doubt the toughest physical section. The incline is just steep enough to grind you down, but just gentle enough that you feel guilty for walking it. This is where I struggled the most, and where I ultimately resorted to gameplay with the two runners in this picture.
They passed me while I was taking a photo, and I made a concerted effort to catch back up and settle in behind them. The girl was running the whole race, but the guy was her pacer, so he had fresh legs and great energy and kept a steady pace while engaging her in conversation the whole way. I asked if I could tag along, and mentally latched onto them like the caboose of a train; my only goal through the whole section was to stay close enough for them to pull me. This was a significant turning point for me; if I had fallen back, the race very likely could have turned ugly, but by making the extra effort to stay close, I made it through my roughest patch of the course without slowing down at all. For that, I was grateful, and I made sure to thank them both afterward.
Leaving the Pan Toll aid station at mile 48, you’re welcomed with a 2-mile downhill stretch …
… followed by a pretty section of flat single track on your way to Muir Beach. This was one of the only level sections on the course, with a nice smooth trail, and when I passed through the wind began swirling at my back, with cloud cover briefly gaining the upper hand over the sun. It was like the ultra gods were smiling on me …
… and when I got to Muir Beach at mile 54, the aid station people were cheering for me. I mean … how much better can an ultra get?
Since the course had changed this year, Miwok’s homestretch featured a gauntlet of major climbs, beginning with this one right after the aid station …
… where you start with a nice view of Muir Beach below, and then head higher up the hill …
… to get your first view of Pirates Cove, one of the prettiest sections of coastline in Marin County. It’s best to keep your gaze fixed on the shore, though …
… because if it drifts inland a bit, you might feel a stomach punch sensation after seeing the climb out of Pirates Cove that awaits you another mile or two ahead.
The good part of the Pirates Cove climb is that every now and then you can look over your shoulder and enjoy the view below …
… because keeping your eyes fixed uphill might get discouraging.
Once you’ve finally climbed out of Pirates Cove, you’ve got less than 10K left to go – and when you see the mile 58 Tennessee Valley aid station down below, you can begin to smell the barn.
I mean that literally, because Tennessee Valley has a lot of barns. And horses. Horses that smell. It’s also home to some wild critters …
… such as this kitty who didn’t seem too bothered by a moccasin-clad runner trudging up behind him. Then again, I can’t imagine why he would be.
Predictably, there’s another long climb out of Tennessee Valley …
… followed by another long descent to sea level. On the original course, once you reach sea level here, you’re done – but this year the finish wasn’t at Rodeo Beach – it was at the local YMCA …
… which was up and over these hills in the Point Bonita area. I generally love exploring new trails – but when I’m looking for the finish line after running 60 miles and all the new trails seem to lead uphill, my enthusiasm tends to wane just a little bit.
The reward for your final climb is one last view of the Golden Gate …
… and a downward sloping road to Point Bonita just ahead.
Considering that this is a world-famous race, the finish line at Miwok is quite unpretentious: there’s a clock, a line drawn on the ground, and a few people standing around clapping. I crossed the line 11 hours and 35 minutes after starting, giving me a nearly 15-minute improvement over the previous time I was here, which felt pretty nice …
… but not nearly as nice as the hot showers that were available after the race. Before showering, though, I had to take a couple more pictures …
… like this one of Team Soft Star at the finish line. I won’t claim that it was easy to run this course in moccasins – but I can definitely say that my feet didn’t hurt any more than the rest of me. I had some soreness through my ankles and on the bottom of my feet, but it was generally the same kind of muscle soreness that you get after any super-long workout.
What I didn’t have were blisters or any major hot spots, and my Drymax socks did a perfect job of protecting me from dust and grit coming through the perforated leather. (I’m not talented enough to be on Team Drymax, though – they have plenty of real ultrarunners onboard.) The mocs were more than up to the task of getting me through 62 miles of hilly, occasionally rocky and technical terrain – I couldn’t really ask for more.
I’ll have a follow-up post or two in the near future about where the whole RunAmoc thing goes from here. In some ways, it ties back into the same notion I started this report with: testing the limits of what’s possible, and gradually converting belief into tangible accomplishment one mile at a time. I hadn’t officially wrapped my head around the idea of doing 100 miles in moccasins prior to this race, but Miwok clearly gave me the confidence to at least consider it. Between now and July, perhaps it’s time for me to be an architect who dreams of something remarkable that I just might be able to create in the mountains above Lake Tahoe.
* “We still believe in all the things that we stood by before – And after everything we've seen here maybe even more.”
Rise Against, "Architects" (click to play; lyrics advisory):
Admin note: this started as a series of random bullets to introduce my tri vs ultra post. Then the items started to take on a life of their own, and – except for the final one – shared a similar theme, so I’m taking a shortcut and letting this post stand alone, and we’ll get back to the other topic next week – I promise.
* At long last, I’ve put the video on my sidebar that I’ve waited months for: "Troublemaker", by Weezer. It was far and away my favorite song of the summer, and the video generated a lot of buzz before it was even filmed.
A few months ago, Weezer announced an open casting call for the video shoot, with the opportunity to participate in several world record-breaking events. The finished product features the world’s Largest Game of Dodgeball, the Most People in a Custard Pie Fight, Most People Riding on a Skateboard, the Largest Air Guitar Ensemble, and Longest Guitar Hero World Tour Marathon. (Yes, Guinness actually keeps records of these things.)
So whether or not you’re a Weezer fan (and you should be), when you watch the video, you have to agree on one thing: those guys definitely know how to have fun.
* The new Rise Against album that I was promoting a couple of weeks ago was released last week … and at first I was a little disappointed. I always dread listening to new recordings from a band whose previous album (in this case, The Sufferer and the Witness) was an absolute masterpiece. My expectation is that all of the new stuff will be just as good, even though that may be somewhat unrealistic. It feels sort of like the unveiling of whatever Van Gogh painted immediately after Starry Night – something that was probably very beautiful, but doesn’t stand out as an instant classic like its predecessor.
I’m aware that I just compared Rise Against to Van Gogh; trust me - in my mind, it makes perfect sense. Anyway, after listening to the new album a few times, I’ve decided that there are at least 7 songs I’ll keep in heavy rotation for a long time – and in the age of single-song downloads, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
* David Archuleta (of American Idol fame) has a new video on VH1. It’s basically what you’d expect: soft-pop hooks, lyrics full of teen angst, lots of glamour shots of the kid strumming his guitar or playing the piano on the dock of a lake. The only thing that’s missing is him staring into the camera afterwards, holding his hands to his chest and saying, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe you liked it so much! Thank you! Oh my gosh!!” with an incredulous look on his face. And no, I’m not linking to the video; this blog has some standards to maintain.
* However, this item deserves some links: this week, Craig e-mailed to ask if I’d do a follow-up post on the apparent comeback of one Britney Jean Spears, fulfilling a wish/prophecy that I offered here almost two years ago. (The inquiry is twice as funny when you remember that the person asking this is a pastor).
Here was my response, as well as a link to Exhibit A in the debate over Britney’s current “Hot or Not” status:
Was I right about Britney? I’m not quite ready to claim victory on that one. She reminds me of an alcoholic uncle who shows up at Thanksgiving one year clean and sober, looking great and talking about turning things around. You hope it’s all true, but you certainly won’t be shocked if three months from now he’s unemployed and back on the bottle. Yes, Brit’s last appearance (at the VMAs, right? Very hip for you to know that) was impressive, but at this point I need a long period of consistency before I’m fully convinced – and even then it will be a nervous optimism at best.
That about sums my feelings up … but you’re welcome to weigh in either way on this.
* And finally … something completely different. A training partner of mine is a transplant from Philadelphia, so after the Phillies earned a trip to the World Series this week, I attached this photo to an e-mail reminder for Friday morning’s run:
Later, it triggered the following exchange between another friend and me:
Friend: What is that?
Me (shocked): It’s the Philly Phanatic! The mascot for the Phillies. He’s awesome.
Friend: Never heard of him.
Me: You should. If there were a Mount Rushmore for sports mascots, the Phanatic would be on it. He’d be up there with the San Diego Chicken, the Stanford Tree, and …
Friend: And who?
That’s where I drew a blank, and that’s where the audience participation portion of this post begins. There are so many options to choose from – which one should get the honor? I have a West Coast bias, so I thought of Phoenix's Dunking Gorilla, or – based on his dance skills alone – Stomper from the Oakland A’s. I also like those sausage guys that race around in Milwaukee, but are they official mascots? Maybe someone in the Midwest can clarify this. And Mister Met is always good for a few laughs.
It’s way too much for me to contemplate today, and I’ve given you lots of links already. Check them out, then feel free to cast a vote below.
“Life for you has been less than kind - So take a number, stand in line. We've all been sorry, we've all been hurt - But how we survive is what makes us who we are.” - Rise Against, “Survive”
Normally I’d tell you to click and play to hear these lyrics by my current favorite rock band … but it’s a pretty rowdy song, complete with a few big fat F-bombs for good measure. If you’re OK with that, then by all means – please click and enjoy after the post.
Or maybe you’d rather think it over for a bit – which is OK, since this is such a long report. You'll have your chance later - but for now, let’s get down to business.
* * First things first: I’m not going to bother apologizing for the length of this post. You know how these race reports go nowadays - and it’s only going to get worse after Western States in June. So I’ve just decided not to worry about it anymore.
Truthfully, “no worries” turned out to be a pretty good theme for the day. I encountered some difficulty along the trail, but nothing that ever seriously threatened my ability to finish. I’ll explain this in more detail later – but for now, I’ll just say hakuna matata, and start telling (and showing) you the whole story.
The day started early – and cold. When you’re standing outside at 5:15AM, dressed in running clothes and shivering, there’s not much else to do but look around at the other runners huddled around you and try to guess who’s who. At ultras, this is especially fun, because in the pre-dawn darkness, the world-class folks aren’t always easily distinguishable from regular chumps like me in the crowd. For example, my friend and I had the following exchange:
Me: Hey, that’s Scott Jurek over there.
Him (squinting): I can’t tell … are you sure that’s him?
It was him. And this is how you get your picture taken with Scott Jurek if you’re too bashful to actually approach the guy and ask properly. This is also what your shirt looks like when you forget your bodyglide and have to use Vaseline on your chest instead. All things considered, this photo isn’t exactly one of my proudest moments.
Race Director Tia Bodington addressing the group just before the race. As the girl in the hat and blanket will tell you, it was still pretty cold out.
Just before the start – a glimpse of the deep talent pool who showed up for this race. My goal was to take this picture, then quickly move off to the side so I wouldn’t get trampled.
The first quarter mile is a dash across Rodeo Beach, before coming to a dead stop as the field gets bottlenecked at the start of a singletrack trail. So … why were we running so hard on the beach again? Amazingly, the leaders were already out of sight by the time I finally made my way up the trail.
Climbing the first hill, we enjoyed some stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. Unfortunately, this was about the same time that I realized I hadn’t replaced the batteries in my camera. The “low battery” warning came on, and I couldn’t take any photos that required a long exposure.
I couldn’t even get a good picture of Olga, despite a few attempts. I feel really bad about this, because it was great to see her early in the race. Predictably, one of the very first things she said was, “Why are you so afraid of Western States?” before chastising me - in a friendly way, of course - about worrying too much. (By the way, if you didn’t see her comment after my previous post, go back and give it a look – it’s classic Olga.)
I wanted to spend more time chatting, but she had some other concerns bothering her (that’s her story), and I was stupidly preoccupied with fixing my camera. By the time we reached the Bunker Road aid station at mile 6, we had each diverted into our own race, and I reluctantly stuffed the camera back into my pocket.
At the top of the next climb, I pulled off the trail and stubbornly tried to get some life out of my Nikon. After adjusting the settings a bit, I found that I could get 10-20 seconds of function out of it, if the battery had enough time to rest in between pictures. It reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine was forced to consider whether or not a guy was spongeworthy before using items of hers that were a limited commodity. There were a lot of scenic views out there – now I just had to determine which ones were cameraworthy enough to drain the remainder of my batteries.
Here was an obvious choice: the view looking north from the top of Tennessee Valley, before heading down to Muir Beach. I was still being pretty choosy about my pictures, though – because I knew there was still a lot of race to go. However …
THIS sure seemed interesting: the wreckage of a truck, halfway down the slope in the middle of nowhere. From what I can tell, there’s not a road within about 5 miles of this spot. Somebody must have a fantastic story to tell about this – and if any of you Bay Area runners know it, I’d love to hear from you.
Looking north to Point Reyes. As the morning got warmer and the views got nicer, my camera seemed to gain some energy. Unfortunately for me, I was having the opposite sensation. In fact …
A girl named Leslie took this picture for me, and I managed to smile, but it was right about here that I was beginning to struggle (and that was before I saw that my shorts were pulled up like an old man’s trousers. So far I’m 2-for-2 in the embarrassing self-photo department). Not long after this, she pulled away from me – and she wasn’t the only one …
You have to click to enlarge … but there's a guy in a light colored shirt on the distant hillside. He’s my pacer for Western States, running at least a mile ahead of me. It occurred to me at this point that he and I might need to have a talk about the role of the pacer on race day.
Shortly after the Pan Toll station (Mile 21), I started having all kinds of stomach discomfort, which became so severe that I had difficulty running downhill because of the increased jostling and cramping. I spent most of this section walking alone, with only the occasional brief companionship of runners approaching from behind to pass me.
It continued like this all the way along the 7-mile out and back on this tree-lined fire road. I rallied briefly after the turnaround point at Randall Trail (mile 35), but it was very short lived. The nausea during miles 37-41 was so persistent that I figured it was only a matter of time before I’d be emptying my stomach contents at the side of the road.
The only problem was, it never happened. The only constant was extreme discomfort – so I decided to take matters into my own, um … fingers. I considered it a preemptive strike – and don’t worry, I wasn’t taking pictures at that point.
Once I got my bearings, that little bulimic episode turned out to be the smartest decision I made all day. It only took a few minutes before I could jog again, and when I reached the Bolinas aid station at mile 42, I was able to start over with my hydration and food intake – and my stomach didn’t really protest. However, I grabbed a few Tums on my way out just to be sure.
I picked up the pace on the long, gradual climb back to the Pan Toll station, and runners started coming back to me in droves. For example …
The guy in the gray shirt is my WS pacer. To his credit, he made it more than 40 miles before slipping back through the field, and he’s only on the hook to do 38 with me at Western States. So I guess I’m in pretty capable company with him … but we still might have that little chat I mentioned earlier.
Passing a large number of people during this stretch did wonders for my self-esteem. It took more than eight hours into the race, but it finally seemed like things were falling into place.
This part actually seemed too good to be true: at the Pan Toll station (mile 49), they were giving out ice cream sandwiches. If I thought about it for a while, I might be able to come up with some things that sound better after running 50 miles on hot, hilly trails than an ice cream sandwich … but it would be a pretty short list. Needless to say, it tasted delicious.
I ran with a group of other runners through this stretch of single track on the way out, but at mile 52 on the return, I was on my own. I kept expecting to run into Jacob's cabin or to encounter a black smoke monster, but luckily, neither of those things happened.
Miles 50 to 60 featured an incredible amount of climbing, but I stayed strong and jogged all but the steepest inclines. I was feeling awesome – and the song that introduced this post was rocking in my head the whole time. Here’s why …
(Warning: philosophical tangent ahead!)
I’ve done enough of these ultra races to realize that tough times are pretty much part of the deal – and that’s probably the biggest difference between ultras and my other passion of triathlon.
In triathlon, at any distance – up to and including the ironman – there’s reason to believe that with proper preparation and execution, everything will happen the way you want it to on race day. In fact, there are all kinds of strategies and articles out there dedicated to the goal of having the perfect race.
In ultras, there’s no sense in even hoping for such a thing.
It’s practically impossible to cover 50 to 100 miles of trail without something going wrong. Nobody will have the perfect race. We’ve all been sorry, we’ve all been hurt. What distinguishes ultrarunners is their ability to accept physical or psychological distress as part of the objective, without getting discouraged away from their overall goal. How we survive those stretches is what makes us who we are. Difficulty is inevitable; misery is optional.
(Come to think of it … that’s a pretty good 6-word memoir! Does that get me off the hook for that tag now?)
So it was with that mindset that I completed the final climb at mile 60, and soon spotted the finish area off in the distance below. I honestly felt like I did my strongest running in the last 15 miles of the race, like I could have kept rolling up and down these hills well into the night.
But that’s a race for another day. For today, I was happy to cross the finish line at 11 hours, 48 minutes and head to the food tent. They were out of hamburgers when I got there, which was a bummer, but guess what else they had?
Yahoo! I must have stood by this strawberry bowl for a good 20 minutes or so while runners lingered around swapping stories of their day on the trails. It was a classic ultra scene: the top finishers and midpack clowns like me hanging out together, with easy conversation and no pretense whatsoever.
In particular, I spent several minutes talking to some guy from the Pacific Northwest who acknowledged the difficulty of the course, and was happy have set a small PR. He was amazingly friendly, and I eventually got up the nerve to ask for a picture:
Let’s just say I’m much happier with this photo of Scott Jurek than the one taken 12 hours earlier. It feels a lot better to do things the right way, even if you have to work through a little discomfort to do it.
Of course, the same thing could be said about ultrarunning – as I’m learning better with each passing race.
** “All smiles and sunshine … a perfect world on a perfect day. Everything always works out … I have never felt so great.” - Rise Against, “Survive”
