I had a great time running the American River 50 mile Trail Race. This is my longest race that I have ever done, both in terms of distance and time. I toed the line with over 800 other runners and we ran from Sacramento to Auburn along the American River. It is also a qualifier for entering the Western States 100 mile race lottery - if you can finish in less than 11 hours.
Training
I signed up for the AR50 as my goal race for 2013. I wanted to get away from the road and track where I was pushing hard paces. I also wanted to look for a new challenge. Doing the 50 mile distance seemed pretty daunting, but doable if I was a bit conservative with my pace. The altitude gain for the race was not bad at all for a 50 miler, a 3500' ascent, although the bulk of it came at the end in the last few miles.
I did a pretty low mileage training plan, but I made sure that I kept the long weekend miles going, mainly running with my sister Jenny. I was also nursing shin splints and possible stress fracture in my left tibia. I found that if I controlled my pace and didn't push too far below 9 min/mile on the long runs it was ok. Every now and then I would get a twinge and think oops this is it, can't do the AR 50, but then it would go away and I would happily continue my training.
The longest run I did was a flat 28 miler where I did a run/walk plan (walk 2 min, run 10 min). On that run, I of course also lost my car key due to it falling out of a new gear pack that Jenny gave me. I think it was about 3 miles back from where I ended, but I was not ready to run another 6 miles to find it! I had to wait in this isolated place in a rough area of East Palo Alto waiting for Celine to rescue me, luckily there was a 4 cop car lunch group hanging out to protect this lonely tired runner. I also enjoyed doing some of my long runs with the ARM running team on Saturdays at Sawyer Camp Trail. I would typically go out early and run 10-12 then join the group to finish up with another 10-12, it's always nice to run with other folks.
After training with my light mileage (30-40 miles / week), I had two goals: 1st: finish without blowing up, 2nd: finish with crawling to the end and a distant 3rd: finish in a WS100 qualifying time.
Race
We stayed overnight on Friday in Sacramento, we did a little scramble for hotels, because Mom and Dad thought they may not be able to drive Jenny up on race day to join me at mile 27 as we originally planned. After dodging getting a fleabag motel room for Jenny (who was flying in with our boys from vacation in Hawaii at the Four Seasons and it would have been quite a system shock to stay at another nearby ratty motel), we were able to get enough beds set up in our hotel. I ate dinner with my pal Drew and then tried to get some sleep after laying out my running gear. The family was going to join later w/ Jenny (and our new rollout bed in the hotel room). So, I got an hour of sleep, then was gently woken up again when the family arrived, but overall got a few solid hours of sleep.
With Drew before the start
I woke around 5:00AM and Drew was kind enough to come by the hotel and drive me to the start line, which was a great help. He had run some of the trails before and really knew the area well. He was able to hang out with me right at the start where it was a loose mix of runners and family and friends. It was pretty dark, but no need for a light, so that was nice. I planned for a 10 min / 2 min run / walk so that I would be ok for the full 50 miles. With the crush of folks, I didn't start with that for the first 10-20 min, but got back in the groove when the people spread out and other folks started the run/walk plan too. I found that I was yo-yoing with a few groups who were running steady at a slower pace and I had to watch myself for always trying to catch up with them when I fell back from walking. I wanted my running pace to be around 9:30 min/mile, but regularly dipped below that. I hope that wasn't going to be trouble later.
First 25 miles:
The first 25 miles was relatively flat, very nice scenery along the river, many groups of runners. I did some chatting along the way, there were definitely a number of n00bs likes myself. It was a bike trail for most of the way, but I typically ran on the dirt on the side for the extra cushion. It felt really nice, with almost perfect weather at that point. There were a couple of spots where there were big hills and people walked them, but I pushed pretty strongly. I was tweeting a couple pics along the way too, so Celine, the boys and Jenny would know where I was at on the course. My legs felt good, I did regular fueling of 1 Roctance / 30 min. I tried to not drink too much water (because I just heard a podcast on being 'Waterlogged' and I thought I probably did drink too much on races). I did a couple bathroom pit stops and my stomach which was aching the night before really calmed down and felt fine again. A nice bonus of running the bike trail was very civilized toilets, which I appreciated!
I tweeted a few pics during this portion of the race, it was a pain to take out my phone, but I was fresh enough to do it. Later in the race past mile 30, I could not be bothered with something as annoying as that!
Tweeting away on the bike path
Picking up my pacer at Beal's point (Around mile 27):
There were some good ups just before Beal's point, a nice climb up a dam towards Folsom lake. Before that point I hit the 26.2 mile marker which had balloons, etc. one of the guys I was running with said that he just hit his marathon PR. This sounded like a really bad idea to me, to PR for your marathon pace when we still had 24 miles to go. He did fall off pretty hard later, but I bet he still made the distance. I crossed 26.2 in 4:38, my marathon PR is 3:34, so I was going at a nice relaxed pace (including my walk/run, averaged out to a 10:00 pace, which sounded good to me for completing another 23 miles).
About a mile before Beal's it got pretty tough mentally, I couldn't believe I had to run another 23+ miles. Running 27 by itself was pretty tough and I knew the next part was harder, single track with more and much steeper hills. I had already run for 4+ hours and knew I had around 6 more hours to go. How is that possible! What would it feel like to drop out, that would suck. I tried to get the 'Relentless Forward Progress' mindset on and kept up pace, thinking that I could reevaluate at Beal's point at mile 27, the first time you can pick up a pacer and where I'd see Celine and the boys and Jenny.
I hit Beal's point and it was a huge party! There were a ton of spectators and pacers hanging out cheering everyone on. Right away I saw Celine and the boys which made me so happy! They were bright and encouraging and excited. I was also wonderfully shocked to see that my parents had made it up in time to meet me at Beal's also, that was a nice boost, especially seeing Mom. Dad said some nice words and was taking great pix. Jenny was there too, looking ready to go. Initially I just stopped and chatted walking forwards while everyone was being really nice and encouraging. First I did not want to change my shirt, I was tired and did not want to deal with it. Later after some rest, I decided to change my shirt to my short sleeve ARM shirt as it was starting to get a little warmer. Celine was nice enough to help me re-pin my race bib, since that seemed like a tough task to me at the time. Jenny went off to use the bathroom as I changed.
Somehow, being surrounded by all my wonderful family, just stopping for a bit and changing my shirt, I felt like - hey this is still possible, I can do this, time to get running again. I looked for Jenny, but she was still hanging out by bathroom. I waved her over to get going, but she stayed over by the bathroom. I felt like I had a narrow window open up where I was ready to run, but my pacer was just hanging out, I was starting to get mad! Celine shouted over that I was ready to go and Jenny finally came over and we started running. Later in the run we laughed both because I was getting mad and because she got trapped by the bathroom by another pacer who asked her to be a lookout for the other pacer's runner while the pacer was in the bathroom!
Somehow, being surrounded by all my wonderful family, just stopping for a bit and changing my shirt, I felt like - hey this is still possible, I can do this, time to get running again. I looked for Jenny, but she was still hanging out by bathroom. I waved her over to get going, but she stayed over by the bathroom. I felt like I had a narrow window open up where I was ready to run, but my pacer was just hanging out, I was starting to get mad! Celine shouted over that I was ready to go and Jenny finally came over and we started running. Later in the run we laughed both because I was getting mad and because she got trapped by the bathroom by another pacer who asked her to be a lookout for the other pacer's runner while the pacer was in the bathroom!
And the pacing begins
I told Jenny a couple of things while we were running like I'm doing a gu every 1/2 hour, salt tab every hour and she really helped me track that when I could not remember what I had done and all the gu'ing up had become a blur. Overall my lesson for myself was to tell my pacer more about my condition / thoughts, e.g. my leg conditions, how my walk / run plan was going. I think it would help them help me more, or even just talking about any bad conditions out loud would help me think about them and how to address them immediately or later in the race.
With Jenny pacing me in for the 2nd half
Note what Jenny is carrying in her left hand!
Lake Folsom (longest lake in the world - to me at this time!)
Around mile 35, my right calf became pretty tight and it slowed me down a little bit. If I stumbled, it would go to the edge of cramping. That became my one worry, since my shins splints and what I thought was a stress fracture were doing fine with the pace I was going. I thought this might be the one thing to take me out - if got a big calf strain or tear, that would probably be it for me. I didn't want to limp to the finish for 15 miles. I kept up my salt and Gu intake and hoped for the best.
Running the single track was nice, through woods, by the lake then later along the American River above the lake had spectacular scenery. My run/walk 10/2 changed to become very natural, I would run what was runnable in my current state and walk the hills that were tougher.
One of my mantras was not to waste time at the aid stations. There were 11 aid stations, so stopping for a few minutes in each one can add up to 30min+ easily. It's easy to get distracted there also, as they have a great spread of a lot of different foods (sandwiches, fruit, potatoes, soup!), gu's, different liquids and general supplies (vaseline, sun block, salt tabs). So, if you don't have a plan going in, you can just stand in front of the table in a daze (or worse, sit down in one of the inviting chairs nearby). On the other hand, the aid stations were also a big lift, because I saw Celine and the boys a bunch of different times along the route as they followed our progress up the river after mile 27. At the aid stations, they shouted and waved and I loved it.
For about 30 minutes of the race, I hit a nice Ultra pure moment. We were running with a small pack of runners on single track along the river at a nice cruising pace, in a good rhythm, not talking much, just eating up the miles with a smooth gait. No thoughts of run walking. The pace smoothly increased on the flat and slight downs and we kept running even as the trail rolled up hill at times. It was a moment in time, but I felt like this was my existence for a while and I could keep doing it for a long time. It was my mission for the day and I would continue going until I did not need to anymore. It felt good. This was the best part of the race for me, something I had not felt before even in other long Ultras. Something clicked.
The good times could not last forever though and we hit the last few miles where the trail abruptly climbed up the Overlook Dam into Auburn and changed into a wide paved road. It was now time to go into low gear and chug on up to the top and the finish. This is where we saw a little bit of carnage. One woman was throwing up on the side of the road, her pacer holding her hair back. She seemed to rebound from it well though and joined the group running up. There started to be open discussion about us all making the 11 hour cutoff for the WS100 lottery and I was now determined to make it happen too. Another woman cramped up badly, folks gave her salt tabs and she was shouting that she never had a cramp before, now she knew how bad it could feel. She also recovered and started running up the hill on top of that. Jenny reminded me to eat Gu's. I was pretty forgetful about when I last had a Gu at this point, so it was a real help to be reminded, so I didn't bonk or also have cramps.
Power hiking on the last mile
We came up to one of the final aid stations and this super fit shirtless runner volunteers would run down the hill to grab your water bottle, run up the hill to fill it and then run back to give it you, it was great. Of course, when they ran up to Jenny and I they grabbed my bottle, looked at Jenny and said 'Pacer? You can get your own.' Ouch!
We hit the one mile mark and the end felt close. I started running a little bit. Jenny liked my comment at this point, that whenever the terrain leveled out a little bit I would say 'seems runnable' and we'd go at a jog until the road got steep again. Very close to the end we could start to hear the cheering from the finish line and we knew it was close to over. I also saw one of my pals from work as he walked in from the finish. He did very well, finishing earlier in the day in around 8 hours. I got a high five and a 'WS100 qualifier!' and I ran up a little final hill to the finish.
Finish
I saw my family cheering me on near the finish chute and my boys ran along with me for a little while too. I passed through the finish with Jenny in 10:37 and was greeted by my wonderful wife Celine, my great boys, Drew and his son, and Mom and Dad. I was so happy to finish and do it in WS100 qualifying time! That's a very genuine smile below.
Finished!
I had to keep walking for a while, so I didn't pass out. It was good to be done. We went back to Drew's house, had some good Chinese food and got some cool trophies from Dad and Mom. Mine was a miner panning for gold (the same as a statue in Auburn) and Jenny got one of a female runner, 'based on my physique' she quipped.
Trophies from Dad and Mom at Drew's house
I had great support from my lovely wife Celine, and my family throughout both my training and the race itself. Jenny did great pacing in the race and also in training, I could not have done it without her. I like this distance, it feels good and right for a long race. I'm not sure I need to go further (100K or 100 miler), but time will tell.
For now, I feel like a very legit Ultra runner having moved on from the 50Ks and conquering my first 50 miler!
