Climbs and Crossings

Let's just get this out of the way: I got my first ever Did Not Finish last Saturday at Coastal's Cinderella trail run in the Oakland Hills. I don't like really like the idea of seeing DNF after my name, but maybe we can petition to officially change it to OMGWTFDNF. Takes a little of the sting off. Here's me walking to my doom, I mean the start.  It just wasn't my day. It was a series of unfortunate events. Almost ate it a few different times right off the bat due to some steep descents and gnarly footing On one of those times, my foot slid underneath me causing me to fling my arm out and catapult my phone out of the zipper pocket of my handheld into oblivion. Lucky for me, the girl behind me saw where it landed in the foliage.  Saw a girl get completely mowed over in front of me by one of the lead 10k runners that came barrelling up behind us on single track.  Saw a turkey. Pointed at it and said "heyyyy" with what was probably an idiotic s...

  Less than a mile to the finish, having been stuck inside my own head for the past hour or so, covered in sweat and salt, wearing water logged shoes, willing my legs to just keep moving, I heard a woman's voice behind me.. "I'M TIRED!" I laughed. Hard.   "Me too!" I called back to her.  "Sorry," she answered, "I hope that didn't sound negative." In my opinion, when you get to the last mile of an ultra, you can say whatever you damn well please. Let's start with Auburn, The Endurance Capitol of the World. (I'm not making that up) It's about 15 minutes from the race start at the Cool Fire Station, and driving in, there was a buzz that only hundreds of out of town runners in every hotel and bar and restaurant can create. The man at the front desk of the hotel checking us in made small talk...about Western States. He talked about the ice machines...in case I wanted an ice bath after the race. Downtown was crawling w...

Chapter 1 - RACE REPORT My 4:30am last Saturday and every Saturday.     8 hours of work later, I was shoving Gu and tape into my gear bag in a frenzy so that we could blow town and head for the ocean. Allison came with us because she's NEVER BEEN TO PACIFICA. I know, right? There was a slight detour to REI in San Francisco before we made our way down the coast to Rockaway Beach. I just started watching Lost and I'm on season 5 so I pretty much have a whole different perspective when looking out at the ocean. Shenanigans ensued during the evening. I've discovered Vine and took way too many videos, but I was in bed by ten...thirty...ish to be up in the morning for the 8am start of Coastal's Montara Mountain half marathon. The lot at the park filled early, so everyone coming in was directed to park along the streets- the neighborhood streets, like sleepy Sunday morning neighborhood streets. Streets with houses full of people that in no way expected to wa...

I'm not sure what we all did at jury duty before Twitter... A couple weeks ago I sat in a room serving my civic duty with 200 people for three hours and was excused because the courts did not require my service. What I didn't know was that one or more of those 200 people was sharing their gross sick germs with me.  When my fever finally broke and my antibiotics were done, I had missed the trail marathon I was supposed to run and totally disrupted a key week in my training cycle, so naturally I panicked. Despite the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything let alone moved off the couch for 8 days, I thought it was important to get in a 20 miler, so yesterday GeNene and Allison and I took off for Lake Chabot! Ready to crush it.  I took off and went about seven miles out of the way, or as I like to think of it exploring and adventuring, before getting back to a trail I knew. My out of the way included lots of hills, a creek crossing, a parking lot with ...

On my way up to the turnaround point at the north peak of Montara Mountain, I looked up to see  Caitlin Smith  cruising back down. Well, there goes my chance for an age group win today, I thought. (that's a joke) Someone should hire me to write course descriptions.  Inside Trail celebrated its one year anniversary with a return to Pacifica, the site of their inaugural event. Last year I ran the half marathon distance, but this year my training for Way Too Cool called for an 18 miler. The past few trail races I've run have had a good amount of climbing, but for the most part, the entire second half has been downhill. I was super excited to challenge my legs to some late in the race uphill. (spoiler alert: legs were not super excited to accept the challenge) I'm very familiar and comfortable with the first loop up the mountain. It's the longest and highest climb, but it's also the first three miles of the race when everybody's legs are fresh and rarin...

A light mist was falling as I wound my way up King's Mountain Road to Huddart Park last Saturday morning. Running again in Woodside, the race company was different, but the course was exactly the same with an out and back added to make it a half marathon. My plan was to run steady and conservative on the first half of uphill and then cruise on the downhill. The start is downhill across a wide open field to the start of the trail. Within a hundred yards there is a sharp turn around a fence that brings the pack to a dead stop as we funnel out down the single track. I knew I was running the first mile fast, but I like to think of it as taking advantage of the early downhills...plus it was fun. I flew, and then I began the long 5ish mile climb. About a third of the way up my legs decided they were done. Like DONE. I felt like I was crawling. The week before I had plowed uphill steadily feeling strong, but now, my legs felt like cement blocks. Finally reaching the top after a final ...

My training week consisted of a silent foggy Christmas morning run plus a handful of 5 and 6 mile runs. Nothing exciting to report. On Sunday, I finally got some trail time at the PCTR Woodside 17k. Yes, you read that correctly. Pacific Coast Trail Runs has been resurrected and is alive and well under new ownership! John and Maureen Brooks announced they were taking the reigns in August, and I think this post by John on the PCTR Facebook page sums up their vision:  It’s a dream come true for me to combine my work experience with my passion of endurance sports. I absolutely love the endurance community. Maybe some of you can relate to this: I really only race to be close to people like you. Endurance athletes are amazing people! We debated for weeks of whether to keep the name of PCTR or to rebuild from scratch. PCTR has a strong, 12-year legacy that was tarnished in the last 7 months before closing. One of the most important factors in retaining the name was reading the ye...