Pier to Peak 2008 Race Report

13.1 miles, 4000' climb. Fun times.

This course is where it all started for me, back in 2006, it was the first 'distance' race I ran and trained for. Last time, I ran it in 2:57 - hit my sub 3 hour goal. This time with a few more runs (including the below marathon) under my belt, I wanted to better my time, looking for something between 2:30 and 2:57.

I signed up / decided to run this in early August after running the Angel Island 25K. I knew it did not give me much of a training period, but I figured I'd be OK, since I had just run a 25K trail run. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a 50K trail race or another 'ultrarun' at some point, so in those terms I could treat it as just another long run in the training for a longer run (heh, yah right).

I also asked my neighbor David to join in the race with me, he had not run the course before and also did not have much training, but he's a really good athlete and has a "I will finish it, no matter what" attitude! The last race we ran together was the SB Wine Country Half Marathon in 2007 and he crushed that with a sub 1:30 time. It would be cool to at least _start_ with someone I knew, he bolted from the starting line and I did not seem him again until the finish line!

There was an early start this year, 6:30AM and it sure was hard to sleep the night before! Equipment was the usual, with one addition: nuun tablets for my water bottle. These are electrolytes w/o carbs (sugar). The main reason I brought them was to try to avoid cramping. I had pretty bad cramping on my last P2P race, so I wanted to try something to try to avoid that.

The weather was great, overcast, but not too chilly. We ran through clouds / mist for a majority of the bottom of the course.

We ran quickly up State street from the start at the Pier, with David bounding out quickly at around a 7:00 minute pace. Too fast for me, so I setttled into a roughly 8:00 minute pace. I also saw another guy I knew Geoff, he had talked about running this for the first time back in the summer and it was great to see him going for it.

The run felt good up to the Mission (mile 3), looked for the family cheering section, but they were not there yet, I knew it was pretty early and we hit the Mission at a quick pace, so I was not worried, I was sure that I would see them further on up the course, since they would also drive the same course to the top of the mountain.

After the Mission hit some of the hills as a warm up and held my own on those, but then got the real gut check at Sheffield reservoir where the real hills start and go on and on and on... I felt good at the start and wasn't very hot, decent pace and cranking along. Saw my neighbors family on this part of the course and then saw my great family cheering section on the side of the road, taking pictures, that was great, a good boost to see the kids and Mrs. Mopsothoth.

Good running up the rest of the course, broke through the clouds, one runner pointed out the blue sky above and the mountains rising out of the mist. I said 'cool', but a runner behind me with a desperate edge in his voice said 'Don't look up, don't look up!' - I guess he didn't want to see how far up we still had to go :) I saw the family a few more times as they drove up and stopped a few times on the course which was really cool. Usually there is minimal cheering section due to the nature of the course, but it's nice to have a mobile cheering section!

There was an additional 0.4 miles added to the course, because in the past it was a little short of the full 13.1. This was up around mile 10-11 and was actually pretty nice, because it added some more up and then a nice downhill. I decided to try to run this faster and it felt good to cruise the downhill, but whoops, wham! Got a cramp! I was really hoping this wasn't going to be like last time where I had to walk a a bit, I rubbed the muscle, slowed the pace a little and then starting running again - no problems, whew!