Post by athleticman on Aug 14, 2007 17:46:16 GMT -5
It's hard to capture the scope of my weekend in San Francisco's Marin County Headlands in words or even pictures, but my race report will explain some of the things I saw and experienced while running the Headlands 50 mile Endurance Run on Saturday, August 11th.
Background, about 3 months ago I read an article about the Western States 100 mile Endurance Run (WS100) which is held in Northern CA and run across the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain range from Squaw Valley to Auburn, CA. It's the ultimate endurance event. Therefore, I looked into this UltraMarathon running thing and having done over 30 marathons and 4 IM triathlons, I figured, what the heck, how hard can it be.....
WS100 requires a qualifying race to be run prior to entry submission and accepts entries on a lottery basis. I mentioned this Ultra thing to a couple of my good friends and they were suckers enough to consider doing it with me. Our first step was to qualify, so we looked for a 50 mile race to run which was hopefully similar to WS and we had to finish in under 11 hours to qualify. One of my friends, Claude has run a couple of 50 milers locally and finished in 8:30ish times, so we thought it was not going to be too hard to do. In our search we all 3 agreed on the Headlands Hundred, an inaugural run with a 50 mile option. That was held just outside SF in the Marin Headlands, which did'nt really mean anything to me since I'd never been to SF or anywhere on the West Coast for that matter. All I thought was that it was going to sort of hilly, no big deal we have hills here in Florida too.
Now just needed to train for this qualifier that's 3 months out, I had not been running too much but figured a quick ramp up and I'd be able to finish but not race it, and based on Claude's past 50 mile runs, 11 hours would be doable. Claude (CW) and I arranged some weekend runs that started around 20 miles in the hills of Clermont, and moved up to 32 miles, 3 weeks before the run. All was going well until the last of those and my achiles tendon started hurting so bad I could not walk much less run. So it was a forced taper for the next 3 weeks which worked out ok, since I was in NYC one of the weekends and Cancun the last weekend before the run....and probably ran only 3 miles total since the injury. But I found some 800mg Ibuprofen in Mexico that seemed to flush out the inflammation enough that the pain went away for good, and race day I was not in pain at all, but slightly under trained so to speak....Claude's training went well the entire time except for losing a couple of big toenails and getting one of those infected, but got treatment before it caused problems.
As for John (our other friend that agreed to run) we're not sure how he was training, he joined us for one of our 30 mile runs and quit after 18 miles only to say his quads were blown on the flat sections in the Wekiva Forest....hummmmmm
Skip to Friday the 10th, the 3 of us fly to SF and drive our rental to the hotel in Mill Valley and then head over to the race start location at Rodeo Beach. Rodeo Beach is a nice secluded area with maybe a half mile of soft deep sandy beach with a large lagoon on the other side of the beach, steep hills surround the beach and the hills now look more like mountains.... ut oh....We ran a 1/4 mile section of the course and then drove to the first aid station and did the same. I could tell it was going to be a tough run, on mostly single track rocky trails that would be test our running skills as much as our endurance. The boys got tired so I dropped them off to nap and I drove up to the last aid station to see what the high part of the course was like... well let me tell you...The roads here are insane. it has a long stint on Panoramic Highway, which is aptly named for the spectacular views, but should really be called You Could Easily Die Here. The good thing is that the twisting and hilly roads induce severe nausea and the heights and sheer cliff drops induce severe terror, so people generally drive sensibly. Back down the crazy road and picked up the boys for a good dinner in Sausalito before an early bed time.
Race day arrives we all load up our stuff early and head over to Rodeo Beach, we arrive around 6am for the 7am start, theres probably 75 of the 150 runners there already and it's cold as heck, probably 40 degrees with a stiff 16+mph wind. Much different than the 95 degree heat we've been training in. Glad I brought a light jacket! (Thanks Tina)
About 7am the RD announces to line up on the road next to the beach, we all just stand around without any real moves to the front, he announces some things and then say ok, GO!
We all start sort of easy and then cross a bridge which takes you over to the soft sanded beach to run across for about a half mile, deep soft sand... ugh...then hit the single track which is not too bad but seems like it is since we have not seen anything yet! Up the trails we went onto a road for a short distance to get views of the Golden Gate (good but not great as the fog was in) and on the way a large deer prances off the hills, onto the road and down the other side... are we in Disney? Was that real?
Back on to the trails, with CW and I running together and John up in front of us. John waits at the aid stations until we arrive and then we all start over again with more ups and downs on the headlands trails. Did I say that the hills are steep? Both the ups and downs are steep and painful, nothing on this course is easy. Mentally you have to watch every step or you'll trip. The aid stations were filled with the greatest people on earth, they spend the day helping support the race, I thanked everyone I saw. The aid tables were like a buffet, even some homemade energy stuff that tasted and worked great. A new thing for me was the cut up potatoes that were boiled and chopped into little squares, you'd grab one dip it in the salt powder and eat it, a great way to carb up and keep up on your salt needs.
The views were outstanding all day, almost like a postcard everywhere you looked. The climbs were steep and brutal, everyone walked up them as it was practically impossible to do anything more. Around 25 miles your running on trails that are about 8 inches wide and are steeply cambered down the mountain, so it's hard to get footing and run fast, and if you fall you'll be in serious trouble (dead?). I looked up once and tripped on a rock, fell staying on the trail, cut up my knee and broke my pinkie finger around mile 26, shook it off and kept running to the turnaround at mile 28. Saw the boys and we headed back out to finish this biotch...
At the mile 41 aid station some guy said he'd heard about us Florida boys coming to town and wanted to tell us the next 5 mile section would seem long and hard, he said it was the Florida boys section! That worried me as it should, that 5 miles was hard! Up, up , up, and it never stopped (pirates cove is beautiful, but dang....), then down switchback after switchback all the way back down to the last aid station. The poison oak was everywhere on this section and I'm lucky to have avoided it.
The last 4 miles seemed ok until we realized there was a mountain range between us and Rodeo Beach, that meant up, up, up again! 3 giant climbs later, we crested and could see the parking lot way down below us, so our quads were not in pain enough, the downs were again, steep and painful all the way to the bottom.
It was nice to finish in 12 hours and 18 min, not a qualifying time, but I'm as happy as I've been at finishing any thing I've ever done. It was truly the hardest thing I've done so far. CW was 51st place and I was 54th, John had some issues with the last 9 miles, but until that time he was running great. I'll let him elaborate on his day.
Aftermath, I'm still very sore 3 days later, my finger is whacked, but I'll see a doctor next week. Today CW and I have picked our first 100 mile race to be run on April 5th.... And we're planning on a 70 mile run in January.... Now to start training again....
Here's the link to the pictures: sports.webshots.com/album/560286797boyWaG?vhost=sports
Spencer
Background, about 3 months ago I read an article about the Western States 100 mile Endurance Run (WS100) which is held in Northern CA and run across the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain range from Squaw Valley to Auburn, CA. It's the ultimate endurance event. Therefore, I looked into this UltraMarathon running thing and having done over 30 marathons and 4 IM triathlons, I figured, what the heck, how hard can it be.....
WS100 requires a qualifying race to be run prior to entry submission and accepts entries on a lottery basis. I mentioned this Ultra thing to a couple of my good friends and they were suckers enough to consider doing it with me. Our first step was to qualify, so we looked for a 50 mile race to run which was hopefully similar to WS and we had to finish in under 11 hours to qualify. One of my friends, Claude has run a couple of 50 milers locally and finished in 8:30ish times, so we thought it was not going to be too hard to do. In our search we all 3 agreed on the Headlands Hundred, an inaugural run with a 50 mile option. That was held just outside SF in the Marin Headlands, which did'nt really mean anything to me since I'd never been to SF or anywhere on the West Coast for that matter. All I thought was that it was going to sort of hilly, no big deal we have hills here in Florida too.
Now just needed to train for this qualifier that's 3 months out, I had not been running too much but figured a quick ramp up and I'd be able to finish but not race it, and based on Claude's past 50 mile runs, 11 hours would be doable. Claude (CW) and I arranged some weekend runs that started around 20 miles in the hills of Clermont, and moved up to 32 miles, 3 weeks before the run. All was going well until the last of those and my achiles tendon started hurting so bad I could not walk much less run. So it was a forced taper for the next 3 weeks which worked out ok, since I was in NYC one of the weekends and Cancun the last weekend before the run....and probably ran only 3 miles total since the injury. But I found some 800mg Ibuprofen in Mexico that seemed to flush out the inflammation enough that the pain went away for good, and race day I was not in pain at all, but slightly under trained so to speak....Claude's training went well the entire time except for losing a couple of big toenails and getting one of those infected, but got treatment before it caused problems.
As for John (our other friend that agreed to run) we're not sure how he was training, he joined us for one of our 30 mile runs and quit after 18 miles only to say his quads were blown on the flat sections in the Wekiva Forest....hummmmmm
Skip to Friday the 10th, the 3 of us fly to SF and drive our rental to the hotel in Mill Valley and then head over to the race start location at Rodeo Beach. Rodeo Beach is a nice secluded area with maybe a half mile of soft deep sandy beach with a large lagoon on the other side of the beach, steep hills surround the beach and the hills now look more like mountains.... ut oh....We ran a 1/4 mile section of the course and then drove to the first aid station and did the same. I could tell it was going to be a tough run, on mostly single track rocky trails that would be test our running skills as much as our endurance. The boys got tired so I dropped them off to nap and I drove up to the last aid station to see what the high part of the course was like... well let me tell you...The roads here are insane. it has a long stint on Panoramic Highway, which is aptly named for the spectacular views, but should really be called You Could Easily Die Here. The good thing is that the twisting and hilly roads induce severe nausea and the heights and sheer cliff drops induce severe terror, so people generally drive sensibly. Back down the crazy road and picked up the boys for a good dinner in Sausalito before an early bed time.
Race day arrives we all load up our stuff early and head over to Rodeo Beach, we arrive around 6am for the 7am start, theres probably 75 of the 150 runners there already and it's cold as heck, probably 40 degrees with a stiff 16+mph wind. Much different than the 95 degree heat we've been training in. Glad I brought a light jacket! (Thanks Tina)
About 7am the RD announces to line up on the road next to the beach, we all just stand around without any real moves to the front, he announces some things and then say ok, GO!
We all start sort of easy and then cross a bridge which takes you over to the soft sanded beach to run across for about a half mile, deep soft sand... ugh...then hit the single track which is not too bad but seems like it is since we have not seen anything yet! Up the trails we went onto a road for a short distance to get views of the Golden Gate (good but not great as the fog was in) and on the way a large deer prances off the hills, onto the road and down the other side... are we in Disney? Was that real?
Back on to the trails, with CW and I running together and John up in front of us. John waits at the aid stations until we arrive and then we all start over again with more ups and downs on the headlands trails. Did I say that the hills are steep? Both the ups and downs are steep and painful, nothing on this course is easy. Mentally you have to watch every step or you'll trip. The aid stations were filled with the greatest people on earth, they spend the day helping support the race, I thanked everyone I saw. The aid tables were like a buffet, even some homemade energy stuff that tasted and worked great. A new thing for me was the cut up potatoes that were boiled and chopped into little squares, you'd grab one dip it in the salt powder and eat it, a great way to carb up and keep up on your salt needs.
The views were outstanding all day, almost like a postcard everywhere you looked. The climbs were steep and brutal, everyone walked up them as it was practically impossible to do anything more. Around 25 miles your running on trails that are about 8 inches wide and are steeply cambered down the mountain, so it's hard to get footing and run fast, and if you fall you'll be in serious trouble (dead?). I looked up once and tripped on a rock, fell staying on the trail, cut up my knee and broke my pinkie finger around mile 26, shook it off and kept running to the turnaround at mile 28. Saw the boys and we headed back out to finish this biotch...
At the mile 41 aid station some guy said he'd heard about us Florida boys coming to town and wanted to tell us the next 5 mile section would seem long and hard, he said it was the Florida boys section! That worried me as it should, that 5 miles was hard! Up, up , up, and it never stopped (pirates cove is beautiful, but dang....), then down switchback after switchback all the way back down to the last aid station. The poison oak was everywhere on this section and I'm lucky to have avoided it.
The last 4 miles seemed ok until we realized there was a mountain range between us and Rodeo Beach, that meant up, up, up again! 3 giant climbs later, we crested and could see the parking lot way down below us, so our quads were not in pain enough, the downs were again, steep and painful all the way to the bottom.
It was nice to finish in 12 hours and 18 min, not a qualifying time, but I'm as happy as I've been at finishing any thing I've ever done. It was truly the hardest thing I've done so far. CW was 51st place and I was 54th, John had some issues with the last 9 miles, but until that time he was running great. I'll let him elaborate on his day.
Aftermath, I'm still very sore 3 days later, my finger is whacked, but I'll see a doctor next week. Today CW and I have picked our first 100 mile race to be run on April 5th.... And we're planning on a 70 mile run in January.... Now to start training again....
Here's the link to the pictures: sports.webshots.com/album/560286797boyWaG?vhost=sports
Spencer
