I have been neglecting this space. Not only am I behind by four race reports heading into the Stockholm Marathon, all four are big deal races. There was Quicksilver 50M, my club's race on my birthday shared with me by many friends. There was the epic, yet moderately irresponsible, Silver State 50M and Ohlone 50K double. And Nanny Goat -- a two-day road trip complete with camping that is an "A" event to Elisa and a lot of my new running friends. These are all worthy of fresh and detailed reports. Well, sorry.
QUICKSILVER 50M
My club's race happened to be on my birthday, so I had an easier than usual time convincing friends to run it. Sopheak and Amy did the 25K. Elisa did the 50K. Jill, Sophia, and Paul did the 50M. Coach Erich paced me. And a bunch of other club members ran too. Chikara was there and won. Stan came out to see me finish and hang with the crew. The post-race BBQ was awesome. My post-race appetite has about a six to twelve-hour delay, but by all accounts the food was out of this world. Elisa loved the snow cones, and Sopheak apparently loved it all. But how about the race itself?
This was my second fifty-miler, and I knew it was going to be much, much tougher than AR50. Highs were forecasted to be close to 90. And although it was tempting to try to come out fast and beat the heat, I knew from training on the course that the late climbs deserved respect. So I chugged up a lot of the hills, even some of the more significant ones on New Almaden and the long grind up to Mine Hill from McAbee. That turned out to be wise, since I needed just about all of that saved energy for the Hacienda portion of the course into Mockingbird (the 50K finish) and back out of the park to Sierra Azul. It had heated up by then, and that part of the course is gnarly.
Erich was waiting for me at Mockingbird and paced me out to Sierra Azul and back. I had warned him that it may not be much of an ultrarunning experience and more of a hike with aid stations, and I was right. By the time we were heading back to the big finish from Sierra Azul, I was so tired as to even forget to run the flats and downhills. Having him as a pacer really paid off then, because he would remind and encourage me to speed up when it was practical.
I finished in 9:44 and was even more proud of that than my 9:03 at AR50. The BBQ after was super fun, even though I hardly ate. I met Danni and Ryan, who I really had a chance to bond with at Nanny Goat. It was an awesome day. I had never shared a race with so many pals. Happy birthday to me!
SILVER STATE 50M
The Quicksilver team only had two dudes running this race, and needed three to score team points. And they really needed that, since we did not score team points in the 50M and 100K distances at RA. The emails trying to recruit another guy for SS were getting more frequent and urgent. I was already signed up for Ohlone, but so was Toshi (one of the two, along with Greg, running SS). So that was out as an excuse. I badly wanted to prove myself to the fellas after RA, so I signed up.
Greg and I got into town late, checked into a room across the street from the start for a little rest, and were up bright and early for the start. The race was in the mountains. Not the hills, but the friggin mountains. Starting well over 4,000' and climbing to almost 8,000'...twice. Chris was there, also doing the double along with Toshi and me. Chikara was there again (and won again). He was wearing the exact same shoes as the ones in which he won Quicksilver, complete with a huge rip in the side of one. There were actually quite a few familiar faces there, considering the race was in Reno and the day before Ohlone. It turns out that the New Balance Excelsior team mobbed the race. Anyway, off we went.
Now this race really deserves a full report, but I am going to have to rush through it to ever get it done. So here it is. The course was beautiful. Very rugged and remote. The altitude did not bother me nearly as much as I had feared. My Achilles, which had started making a peep toward the very end of QS, immediately started to bother me. It had not slowed me down there, so I had completely forgotten about it. But here it was, and it slowed me down considerably. Even the slightest pressure from my shoes was killing me, so I had taken them off coming into the aid station at mile 19. I tried cutting my shoes open, which did not help much. Jim, who saw me sitting at that aid station cutting open my shoes and asked me what was up, suggested lacing them tighter to keep them from rubbing. I tried that at the next aid station, but it made things worse. So I immediately undid that. Remember, it was Jim who gave me a hard time about RA. I decided I could not quit, so I would do the honorable thing and miss the mile 33 cutoff. That was a long walk away. I met a guy at the mile 22 stop where I re-laced my shoes who was having bad stomach issues and also considering an early end to his race. We walked and chatted until he took off running again. I saw him heading out of the mile 33 aid station, but I also saw him come back. I am pretty sure he did not finish. The aid station before that I chatted with some nice volunteers and told them of my troubles. They offered me a ride back if I quit, but seemed impressed and pleased by my intention to grind it out and miss the cutoff.
And now to really speed things up. I made that stupid cutoff, climbed the eight or so miles back to the summit and back down the mountain into Reno for the finish. Almost thirteen hours. 31 miles of basically walking. I have never been so proud of such a crappy result, and even got nice "way to grind it out" emails from Jim and Jean. The team scored in both men and mixed, since Jim showed up and Greg recruited a couple others at the last minute. That was a real ultra experience. And a tough effort, even if I do say so myself.
OHLONE 50K
My Achilles was still hurting. I made it all the way to the parking lot not knowing if I would start. Well, I did. And finished. And saw Lisa Benham hiking along the way. That was another tough course. Climb after climb after climb. Under 8 hours. Another slow, but proud, result.
NANNY GOAT
My Achilles was still hurting. Stockholm coming up. I approached it as Elisa's race and decided to limp along mainly supporting her. I walked 26 miles in flip-flops in twenty-four hours, in spite of only signing up for twelve. Super fun event that I enjoyed mostly through and for others.
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