Miwok 100 Pictures 2015

Better late than never!  Here are some pictures of the race course and my experience during the Miwok 100 on May 2, 2015.

4:50 am - excited to start!

I wrote the cut off times on arm just in case.  Ended up not needing them but I was prepared!

I believe this was leaving Muir Beach.

My support crew! Uncle Ken at Tennessee Valley Aid

Auntie Gloria cheering me on with style!

Tennessee Valley Aids 4 and 6

Knees started getting sore here...just pretend!

Amazing views - it was hard to keep my eyes on the trail and off the coastline!

Leaving Muir Beach the second time - ready to tackle Cardiac again!

Bolinas Ridge - peaceful beauty.  I remember being totally zen here.

California Poppies everywhere!

This is the forest where all started to go wrong for me.  Somewhere between Bolinas Ridge Aid and Randall Trailhead.

Sarah Seads - finished in 12:38 and qualified for Western States!  You are the best running buddy ever.

We survived!

The carnage.  Brand new socks with holes in them and patched shoes that barely made it,  but left me no blisters at all.  They were lovingly left in the trash at the finish line.

Auntie Gloria, myself and Sarah

The day after the race we hit Ben & Jerry's...with a good reminder of what running is all about!

Post race refuelling at Boudin Sourdough Bakery - who cares about the calories!

The Pierson Crew!

My aunt is so awesome - and thanks to my mom for the shirt!

Miwok 100 Race Report 2015

Well here is my Miwok 100 2015 Race Report.  I am still having technical difficulties and cannot load pictures, which is regretful as I have some great shots.  I'll load them as soon as I'm able.  If oyu want a very technical breakdown of the legs of the race, elevation, etc, check out Sarah's race report here.  Since she broke it down so well, I've chosen to write a more narrative, experiential version.

The short version:  I had a super run until the 72K mark and made the very difficult decision to pulled out at 80K.
The long version: Keep reading!

May 1, 2015

The alarm woke me at 4:15 am and by 5:15 we were off to San Francisco via Vancouver. We carried all our race gear on the plane and I was so relieved when my body glide and nutrition made it through security! Once in SF, we picked up our rental car and headed out to Stinson Beach to check out the race start/finish. The drive out there on windy roads along cliffs with no shoulders made us so sick that we had to take Ginger Gravol. But we did get a preview of the terrain we would be running and it looked punishing.  Once we knew where to park the next morning, we drove to our hotel (on more windy roads with no shoulders or guard rails).  After a pre-race dinner of Pad Thai we packed our drop bags, set our alarms for 2:40 and 2:50 (just in case) and went to bed at 8:30!

May 2, 2015. RACE DAY

Race Start: 5:00 am

By 2:45 we were up and out the door by 3:30. Driving a crazy winding road in the dark in the middle of the night was enough to get my adrenaline pumping early.  We checked in, donned headlamps and without any preamble we all headed off into the night up the mountain. Immediately out of the parking lot, the trail narrowed to a single file line of people climbing stairs up and up and up the mountainside. This slowed us down, but forced us to start at a super easy pace. Sarah and I started together, but within 15 minutes we got separated in the dark.  I was solidly mid-pack. It was quite surreal to look up the mountain and see a zig-zag of lights ahead of me and then to look back and see the same behind me. It was stone quiet.  No one spoke. No heavy breathing. My mantra at this point and really all along was, "no heavy breathing, no burning legs." It was so amazing to be among 450 people that all seemed to have that same goal, but were also fit enough to climb a fairly steep mountain with no panting - in total silence.

Within an hour the sky started to lighten. I reached the top and passed the first aid station (Cardiac) without stopping at 0:51. I started fueling on schedule at 0:45 with the Berry Blast Pro Bar. It was my best snack of the day. Yummy! I carried my headlamp all the way down into Aid 2 (Muir Beach) in 1:42, passing Sarah on her way back out to start climbing our second major climb of the day. My strategy at this point was to go super easy and to watch the more experienced runners around me. A few locals who had done the race before were trekking all the hills at this point, so I figured I was right on track.  I crested the second peak at 2:20 and felt super good.  It was hard to hold back on the way down into Tennessee Valley, and I may have run a little fast there than I should have, but it felt easy.

I came into Aid 3 (Tennessee Valley) at 2:39 and stopped to grab a few bars from my drop bag and some water before heading out again.  My Aunt Gloria and Uncle Ken were planning on coming to cheer me on, so I texted them to let them know where I was, realizing that it was only 7:39 am and I had been up 5 hours!  The route out towards the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bridgeview Aid Station (Aid 4) was never flat - lots of ups and downs of mostly hard packed smooth single track and roads.  I had hoped for better views of this leg of the race, but it was overcast and cloudy/foggy.  This was a blessing as it was cool, but the wind was drying and I realized again that at 3:30 I would have to take more salt than the 2/hr planned. I should just accept that I need 3 Succeed caps/hour minimum if the temperature is over 12 deg Celsius or windy.

About 1 mile after I left Bridgeview (3:40), we came upon a woman who had fallen and either broken or dislocated her finger. She was all scraped up and going into shock. A handful of runners around me and I stayed with her for a few minutes and left her with a mountain biker to go back to the aid station. I felt so badly for her. Only about 1/3 of the way into the race and she was done. I was so thankful for my training on technical trails that gave me an edge on the rocky terrain that we encountered occasionally even though most of the run was very hard packed single track and logging roads.




I arrived at Aid 5 (Tennessee Valley again) in 5:18 after coming down some cliffs that offered an incredible view of the rocky California coastline.  I was feeling strong, continuing to run with "no heavy breathing and no burning legs."  My aunt and uncle were at Tennessee Valley to cheer me on.  It was great to see them!  I quickly grabbed a few pics with them, water, more fuel and ONE salt tab.  I was burning through my salt faster than expected due to the wind and I assume others were too because they were rationing the salt tabs.  One per person allowed, less than half the way through the race, and I was running solidly mid-pack at that point.  Not good.  Luckily I still had a reserve for about 3 hours but I had much longer than 3 hours to go! I should have known better and brought more with me but I had expected to get salt at the aid stations. I headed out for Muir Beach, feeling buoyed up by my cheering section!

Another up and down and I was running back into Aid 7 (Muir Beach) arriving at 6:18, still feeling strong but badly needing a bathroom.  The toilets at this aid were the public beach toilets with a long line of beach going families waiting for them.  I was not going to stand in line for 20 minutes waiting, so I filled up with 1L water, took the TWO salt tabs I was allowed, turned around and hoped I would make it to the next aid!

The next leg of the race took us through some lush flatter trails that I was surprised to see in drought ridden California and I feared they were full of poison oak as we had been warned.  Running with elbows high I gingerly picked my way through the trail before entering the most wonderful smelling eucalyptus forest.  It was like running through a spa.  Amazing.  Then the climb back up to Cardiac started and the sun came out.  I was suddenly going through water much faster than I had to this point  (about the same time Sarah was running out of water ahead of me on Bolinas Ridge).  I ran for about 40 minutes sucking on a gurgling dry hose, hoping each time that some water would miraculously appear. I was so glad to get to Aid 8 (Cardiac) at 7:39 elapsed time.  I filled up with 2L of water, refilled my salt bag (no more rationing here!), grabbed some aid station snacks and trotted out along Bolinas Ridge.

This was the highlight of the race for me.  The forest opened up to hills with a long ribbon of single track that wound back and forth and around for miles.  The grassland was covered in California poppies and we got frequent glimpses of the coastline.  It was a little like an visual illusion with the hills in the foreground and background, as I ran on a steeply slanted hillside.  The sun shone brightly, but my legs felt awesome as I ran, passing a few people along the way with my tunes playing.   I stopped to take a few pictures and then led a congo line of runners for several km, no one wanting to pass, each of us contentedly trotting along the countryside.   Nearing the next aid station I was ready for a water refill again.  For the first time EVER I was running without my GPS going.  I had wanted to run solely on feel and not be distracted by mileage.  However, it would have been nice to know how far I was out from the aid stations for water rationing.

I was starting to get tired as I got to Aid 9 (Bolinas Ridge - 68K).  I arrived at 9:31 elapsed time.  The aid station volunteers were amazing and I left that station feeling tired but optimistic.  I was having no pain in my Achilles or R buttock (areas that had plagued me in the past). I was running a solid pace - on track to finish under 14 hours.  Then something went wrong.  I had noticed that when I did my pack back up before leaving that my belly was really bloated. It barely registered at that time, as  I lengthened the strap to do it back up.  Within about 30 min I started to have major lower GI issues.  Without going into graphic detail, I had to violate the "no poop in the woods" rule and lost my phone where I had tossed it behind a huge redwood tree in my panic. Sarah passed me coming back up the long hill I was descending and saw me hysterically searching the woods for my phone.  She asked me how I was doing, and I yelled,  "NOT WELL."  Her response:  "Just pretend!"  Classic Sarah :) How had I gone from feeling great to everything falling apart?  I did find my phone and started walking. I kept thinking that if I could just walk it off, I would be fine.  Everything passes, nothing lasts forever.  Every time I started to run again, my body told me NO.  My legs were tired, but fine.  My feet felt like hamburger, but nothing I couldn't run through.  I didn't have even one blister!  But my physiology was falling apart.

I started to think about dropping out at the Randall Trailhead.  I didn't want to.  Oh, I didn't want to.  But I started examining my "WHYs".  I had completed the training.  A huge part of the journey for me was just getting to the start line.  I had seen the whole course - the rest was back the way I had just come, with a  major climb and descent still to come.  I had run 30K more than I ever had before and proven that I could go longer.  In every other run and every other crummy situation (like 6 hours freezing in the Cumberland rain), I have still been having fun.  Fundamentally having a good time.  But at that point in the race as I struggled to maintain my dignity and control of my bodily functions, I was NOT having fun.  I was miserable.  I feared letting myself get dangerously dehydrated and pushing myself past the point of reason.  So, I decided to drop.

I walked the last 5K into the Aid 10 (Randall Trailhead) at 11:20.  As soon as I saw my aunt and uncle I burst into tears.  I have ever only cried after a race once, my first marathon.  It was so traumatic that I didn't run beyond 21.1k for 10 years after that.  So when I starting crying, I knew that I was really done.  The volunteers tried to convince me to keep going.  I had a woman come to me and offer to pace me back out.  I wavered, thinking that maybe I could.  But when it became apparent that my GI issues weren't over and I explained that to her, she understood - telling me that I had very valid reasons for dropping.  I didn't need her validation, but it was nice that she was so gracious.  So I hopped a ride with my relatives to the finish line, laid down on the nice warm asphalt (it actually felt good) and wait for Sarah to come in just over an hour later.  She finished strong, and we shared a sweaty hug at the finish.

I have absolutely no regrets about this run.  Running 80K was still a huge accomplishment for me. It was a spectacular course, with a challenging elevation profile.  The weather was perfect, the aid stations well stocked, and I had a super run, up until the end.  Will I do another ultra?  Yes.  But I'm thinking 50K is a more realistic distance for me, and the training more sustainable for my lifestyle than 100K.  I'm even intrigued about multi-day staged races.  Even though we were pretty beat up afterwards and always swear we are NEVER doing this again, one can never say never.  As long it's healthy for my body to do so, I'll keep running.


Quotes of the Day:
I'm not going to run for a LONG time...like maybe a week.
"Just pretend."
"No heavy breathing, no burning legs."

Miwok Countdown: 81 hours

My favorite running picture ever - courtesy of sarahseads (instagram).  Check my rearview out in Ultrarunning Magazine online!

The training is done.  The taper is almost done.  Less than 4 days out from the Miwok 100 2015 and I'm almost ready.  I have a growing pile of stuff on the floor ready to pack. I've been taking my vitamins, getting extra sleep, drinking extra water.  I've barely run this last week, because I felt that I needed a little more recovery after my last "long" run.

The one thing that I still need to prepare is my mind.  There has been so much going on in our lives this spring that I really have felt unprepared mentally up to this point.  In the past month I finished the bulk of my training, we listed and sold our house, I flew to Winnipeg for job interviews, I hosted 2 kids birthday parties, and participated in the annual Snow to Surf Race last Sunday.  I finally accepted a job offer today that I am very excited about (that allows me to specialize in treating running injuries), which has relieved a HUGE amount of stress and weight from my shoulders.  I realize now that my sense of "not being recovered" was chiefly the stress hanging over my head about our move.  The power of the mind.

Handing off after running a 2k sprint on Sunday in the Snow to Surf Relay. From 2K to 100K in 6 days!

Team ELM and Team ELM Too - a great group of active ladies in the Comox Valley!

So now I can really focus on getting ready to race.  Time to print out the course map and profile, mark out the aid stations, plan the drop bags and race strategy.  After a short run tomorrow the rest of my prep will be all mental which I know is 99% of what I know will get me to the finish line.

Next post: my race report!

Taper Time Again!

Yes this picture is real.  A huge reason I run is that I get to look at things like this.

First of all, I want to thank all of you who are following this blog.  Since I started posting, I have had viewers from Canada, USA, Russia, Australia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Poland and Peru.  Amazing!  There are people interested in ultra-running all over the world and I am glad that my narrative from this little slice of the world in western Canada seems to interest and hopefully inspire so many.

It has been been a while since my last post, but honestly, I've been busy.  I continued to build and peaked with the highest mileage week last week.  I ran some big weeks with the final back-to-back run being 80 km in 24 hours (30km + 50km) on terrain with elevation that mimicked the race course as closely as possible.  But the end of that final run I was so ready for taper time.  I was tired of always being tired.  I needed a hair cut.  I needed to spend time with my family.  But then life got in the way.

And I hoped on a flight last Thurs to head to the city where we will be moving this summer for job interviews.  I spent 3 days flying, driving to interviews, driving around with our real estate agent, then flying home.  After that, getting up to run only 3.5 hours on Sunday seemed like a gift.  It's all in the perspective.

A week ago, I commented mid run that, "I am in the best shape I've ever been in my life.  No.  Wait a minute.  I'm the most broken down I've ever been in my life."  Which segues nicely into the purpose of taper time.

Many people think that the training makes you stronger.  Those long runs are what make you stronger.  Wrong.  Actually, the training and the long runs break you down.  It's the recovery time, and the time between runs when you actually get stronger.  When you are training, you are asking a lot of your body.  You are microscopically and sometimes macroscopically breaking your muscles and connective tissue down.  You are putting a large demand on your organs and burning fuel stores that are finite.

After all that hard work is done, the real miracle begins.  There is a law in physiology called Wolff's Law.  It relates specifically to bone, but states that bone gets stronger in response to the stress placed upon it.  The rest of the body does the same thing.   Muscle fibers and connective tissue rebuild stronger than they were before in response to the demand that was placed on them.  Energy systems fine tune, organ physiology works to find the balance between demand and ideal function.  Following the SAID principle, the body undergoes Specific Adaptations to the Imposed Demands that the athlete places on it.

The recovery period (and taper time) are where the real magic happens.  I still feel very broken down. I tried to run a tempo run today and my legs felt like lead weights.  But in about 10 days I will start to feel amazing.  Training right up to a race breaks you down and is foolish.  I've learned that entering a race well rested, if even slightly under-trained, is better than entering a race tired.  The longer the race, the longer the taper, and a month of recovery will hopefully allow enough recovery time without deconditioning for my 100km run.

Our human body is an amazingly miraculous piece of machinery that works better the more it is used.  Train it well, feed it well, rest it well, and it will perform.  The human body never ceases to amaze me.  It is so easy to live very narrow lives within very narrow limits.  It is only when we push ourselves to the extremes that we experience an element of divinity, where we witness ourselves accomplish things that defy logic or common sense. That is the essence of ultra-running for me.  Defying common sense to experience something truly amazing.

Mental Toughness

It's been 3 days since our last long run and I finally feel I can blog about it.  Wow.  Talk about training for the mind.  Despite our AMAZING winter (or lack of it) and really early spring here on Vancouver Island, not all runs can produce picturesque postcard Go-Pro pictures worthy of travel magazine or real estate insert covers.  Last week reminded us that running on the island often involves getting wet.  And cold.  And muddy.  And repeat.

Backing up, for the last 2 weeks our family has been fighting all manner of flu and cold bugs. My kids seem to have brought EVERYTHING home from school in 2 or 3 variations this month.  I have been doggedly determined not to get sick.  I've taken my vitamins, oil of oregano, gotten extra sleep by going to bed super early (to make up for being woken in the middle of the night by sick kids), washed my hands repeatedly, even done acupuncture on myself 2x/day, all to boost my immune system to fight those nasty bugs. Going into our 2nd-to-last long run week, I knew I needed to log the miles cause there is no time left.  I managed to get 30K in on Thurs by running 2x that day - all without getting really wet, and got to bed really early.

2 hours in and still smiling

Friday I woke up to wind and light rain.  Sarah and I met in the parking lot at the trailhead at 0600.  Not many words were spoken, we just switched on our headlamps and took off trotting up Queso Grande.  First mental note of the day: my headlamp is sufficient for night road running, but NOT night trail running.  Must get new headlamp before Miwok.  It was a slow first 1.5 hours in the dark up the mountain, but the sky started lightening as we summited Upper Queso and I could relax and stop prancing like an idiot to avoid tripping in the dark.  So much for energy conservation.

Blurry pictures as reflective of how much moisture covered EVERYTHING in my pack.

The rest of the run was a blur of getting wet, wetter, cold and colder.  We looped back to the cars after 3 hours to change socks, grab hot miso soup, restock water and fuel, and say hello to a hard core friend who showed up with her baby snuggly tucked into the jogging stroller to start her own run amidst the downpour.  Ok, maybe it was a drizzle at that point, but I was wet and miserable.

Puddles and mud

At the 5 hour mark, I wasn't doing so well.  We were very high up, the wind was cold, the mist was deeply penetrating into my bones.  I was tired.  I was cold. Mentally, I was DONE.  All I could think about was, "what is the fastest way out of here?"  If it wasn't for the fact that I really needed Sarah to guide me out of where we were, I would have bailed on her.  Whoops - did I say that?  She kept me going, even though all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep in a puddle.  I am NOT kidding. But lesson learned again...

If you just keep going, it gets better.  After a lovely Oskri Pineapple Coconut bar snack, and descending to an altitude that brought the temp up maybe 2 degrees, I felt revived!  I was Chatty Cathy as we picked our way down the mountain, while Sarah was having her own issues with seriously cold body temps.  I bored her with a long narrative summary of my latest audiobook (Running with the Kenyans) to keep her sufficiently annoyed enough to stay ahead of me lol!

My shoes are still holding up!  I wore through 1 pair of socks today though.  Completely shredded.

When we finally made it back to our cars (total time 6 hours), we made a beeline for Sarah's backyard cedar woodfired sauna to stretch and restore our core body temps.  What a treat.  We didn't log the miles we'd hoped for during that run, but the energy expenditure in keeping warm and dodging puddles alone must have counted for 10 extra kilometres.

Miwok, please bring me warm sunshine and shoes that aren't weighed down by water and mud.  But if you don't, my mind is now tougher.

Adaptability

"A lot of people talk about expecting the best but preparing for the worst, but I think that's a seductively misleading concept. There's never just one "worst."  Almost always there's a whole spectrum of bad possibilities. The only thing that would really qualify as the worst would be not having a plan for how to cope." Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

This week I've been thinking a lot about adaptability.  It's mentioned a lot in places like URP podcasts, that ultrarunners have one essential characteristic in common: we are adaptable.  We have to be.  Nothing EVER goes exactly according to plan, especially when your plan can cover several hours and kilometers of time and space, not to mention months and months of training.

Our long run Friday was supposed to be another building week - over 6 hours, 45km with 30km the day before or after.  But things got in the way.  Sarah's body was telling her it was time to back off, so she texted the night before asking me if we could drop down to 3 hours.  I agreed.  Even though I was game for a 6 hour run, I was exhausted from getting the house ready to list and a sick child home from school.  Thurs I had gotten up at 4:45 to run 16K before work, then other 5K that night with the ELM 10K Clinic.  Then that night, my other child woke at 2:00am vomiting.  Needless to say, but the time 5:45 Friday morning rolled around, I was just getting back to sleep rather than leaving the house for a 6:00am long run start as originally planned.

At 7:30 we met at the trail head.  Our original plan had called for more drop down weeks, which left some flex for days like this.  Thank goodness.  We took our time, running some flat miles along the river, then climbing before descending to the bluffs on Goat's Head for this great picture.  It was a lazy, sunny, perfect run day. And we did not feel guilty in the least.

I've learned that when training for a 100K race, you MUST be able to adapt.  Adapt your schedule, adapt your fuel, adapt your mindset.  Injuries. Job stress. Illness. Birthday parties. Vacations.  Life gets in the way.  The only way to succeed at ultrarunning as a working wife and mom is to weave my training into the rest of my life, while having a plan for how to cope. Thanks for the perspective Chris.

One For the Memory Bank

Five days ago we received something we've dreaded for at least the last 5 years.  Notice that my husband's job will require him to move.  This summer we are to move to Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Where there are no mountains, no vistas, no forest.  Only long, flat roads and open prairie.  On which I might take up cycling.  But in the mean time, I want as much trail time as possible!

So, after a down week last week, I was so grateful for an amazing run on Friday in the mountains of Cumberland.  I couldn't start til 0900 after I dropped the kids off at school. Sarah had started at 0600 with another running buddy and was already 3 hours in when I joined her.  It was a perfect sunny spring day, the air still slightly crisp, and the trails almost dry.  We climbed for 2 hours to the highest point in the area and then followed the Trent River for a long loop that brought us back to the parking lot 1 hours later.  Sarah was done at that point and headed for salt hot chocolate from the Wandering Moose and I refueled and headed out for another 2.5 hours.

I had tried to find someone to share the final half of my run with me, but there were no takers.  And honestly, I was ok with that.  I retraced our path back up the mountain to the top in the mid-day warmth.  I felt great.  I had been fueling perfectly, taking Succeed caps every hour, and pacing well.  I honestly felt like I was kissing mountain with my feet with every footstep, trying to keep things light and reverent.  There won't be many more runs like this for me in this area and I was determined to take it ALL in.  The green of the moss, the smell of the ozone in the air, the creaky boardwalks on Thirty Beaver, the lonely tall tree in the middle of a logged out area somewhere near Switchback, the view of the Georgia Strait in the afternoon sun.  For once I didn't even think about cougars and bears.  I felt totally safe and comfortable out there in my endorphin-induced bliss.

I did have one interesting thing happen to me.  I had my first real hallucination.  Which seems weird as I was fueling so well, and felt great.  When I reach the highest point in Cumberland a second time at 4.5 hours elapsed time, I felt a sharp sting on my forearm.  I looked down, actually fearing some crazy bug bite that might leave me incapacitated way out there in the middle of nowhere by myself.  I saw a huge white topped boil on my arm, and I totally freaked out.  I literally blinked once...and it was GONE.  No sting, no boil, nothing.  I blinked again.  Rubbed my arm.  No sign of ANYTHING.  Very weird.

My last long run was 4:40 and I only at 2 bars and a few gummy bears (I was experimenting).  My tummy was actually growling most of that run. Not good.  If I didn't actually bonk on that run, I came very close to it.  This run was 5:40 and I was determined to eat well and kept to my fueling-every-45-min routine.  I stuffed myself with Oskri Bars and Pro Bars, as well as some of Sarah's heavily salted broiled baby potatoes.  Baby potatoes are heaven sent for a runner who has missed lunch and hasn't stopped since breakfast. Take note.

This week will be filled with getting the house ready to list.  It will be a struggle to get my runs in, which might mean some awfully early mornings...so I'm off to bed!