The 2011 San Diego 100 in 22:31

The adventure of it all was what drew me to the challenge of running a 100 mile race. 100 is a good round number and a 100 miles sounds like an insurmountable distance to cover on foot in less than a day, so running a 100 mile race was about the most bad-ass sounding thing I thought I could do at this time in my life.

On the starting line with friends

So months of training, warm-up races and planning put me on the start line of the 2011 San Diego 100 Mile Endurance Run. Race director Scott Mills hollered out a “go” and myself and 164 other idiots took off out of the Al Bahr campground in the Laguna Mountains. About 20 seconds into the race I heard a loud, deep “go Kurt” and thought that’s not my dad’s voice. I looked over at the crowd and to my surprise saw that two of my friends, Cody and Simi Johnson, had made a spur of the moment decision and decided to drive all the way down from Huntington Beach early that morning to join my parents in crewing me on the race. I saw my mom in the crowd a few seconds later and told her they were there and I’d see them all at the first aid station in a little over an hour. 

As the field wound its way through the trees and onto the meadow I found myself thoroughly enjoying myself and my predicament.  I looked back over my shoulder at the meadow I just ran through and at the long line of racers behind me. I started to think about how awesome this all was but got interrupted by a root I tripped over that almost sent me to the ground two miles into the damn race. Stupid root.

I kept my ridiculously leisurely pace through the first aid station. Lorraine Gersitz and Steve Harvey had both told me you can never go out too slow in a 100, so I was happy to run at a trot. There was a short out and back that lead into the first aid station. As I hit this I saw Pam Everet coming out. We said hi, but she seemed a little panicked that she was ahead of me. At the aid station I gave my mom my arm sleeves and put some more sunblock on. Heading out of the aid station I heard my name yelled by someone and saw Deborah Acosta coming down the trail and into the aid station. It’s fun knowing a lot of people in a race you’re in.

Often after I go through the first aid station in a race, I pick my pace up, even if ever so slightly. I was catching people, but not really concerned with making passes, they just sort of happen. I was more concerned with keeping a nice rhythm to my running. At one point a young guy ran past the group I was running in and was charging all the water crossings hard (the rest of us made sure to keep our feet dry – he ran through them like he was at a mud run). I figured I’d see him again in a while, totally spent. Right behind this guy was a tiny little woman who ran past me as well. Her Nathan pack was almost as big as she was. She was running at a decent clip along the flats, but because of her short, little legs, she wasn’t much of a climber. I bet it took her a long time to hike out of Noble Canyon.

I hit the second aid station at Red Tail Rooster still having a lot of fun and thinking this 100 was a good idea. I refilled one of my bottles, said hi to my crew, and my buddy Cody helped me figure out which way I was supposed to go to leave the station (I got a little turned around once I got in there). I left the aid station running with a guy in Hookah pontoons shoes. He said they were his favorite trail shoes in 20 years of trail running. I’m still not convinced about those things. 

A little further along I saw the guy who was charging the water crossings just three miles earlier. He was staggering back and forth across the trail, then BLAH! He threw up like he’d been taking tequila shots for an hour. I’m not sure what you do to make yourself that sick 13 miles into a 100 mile race, but this guy figured it out.  Next I had to rescue Sam Bosworth from himself. The course took a hard left off the fire road onto a single track and Sam was continuing to run down the fire road. I yelled for him and he got back on track. 

From aid station 3, Todd’s Cabin, it was a nice downhill to Penny Pines where I met my crew again. I got my Camel Pack to wear for the Noble Canyon portion of the course, Simi reminded me that they had oranges at the aid station (one of the few things I’ll take at an aid station) and quickly headed out for another nice downhill run. Even in a 100, quick aid station stops help.

Oranges are one of the few things I'll eat from an aid station

It was an easy run into the canyon and to the next aid station. Our family friend who lives in Pine Valley, Wes Borland, was volunteering at the aid station, too. Wes is a three-time Western States 100 finisher. He’s kind of a goofy looking old guy, but he was wearing his silver WS belt buckle from his 22hr finish in ’87 to show everyone what’s up. 

I was looking forward to the Noble Canyon loop because I actually knew those trails really well from when my parent’s lived in Pine Valley. It was hot, but that didn’t bother me. The flies were annoying and I got bit a few times, but lived. I was all smiles coming back into the aid station after the loop and ready for the hardest part of the course – the hike out of Noble Canyon. I was feeling great so I hiked like the finish line was at Pioneer Mail. That ended up being a bad strategy, though not as bad a strategy as running with only one 20oz water bottle. I passed a guy who had just one bottle. He didn’t look so good and I figured he eventually just curled up under a tree waiting to die. 

I shocked my parents with how fast I got up to Pioneer Mail. They just beat me there. It became pretty obvious that my charge out of the canyon was useless because a group of people I passed were re-passing me on the hike out of the aid station. I did hang onto this group throughout the next section, but it was a struggle. It’s funny how you’ll rubber band with people.  I did end up re-passing two of the five before the Sunrise aid station. 

Taking with the crew at Sunrise

I felt good coming into the aid station. I think because I knew that’s where I’d pick up Cale and that it was a big aid station. However, a few minutes out from Sunrise aid station and I felt pretty crappy. I was just really weak. I’d fallen off my schedule of taking down gels during the last segment. I wasn’t feeling sick to my stomach, but I was so exhausted  and spent that nothing sounded good to eat and I just didn’t want to bother ingesting anything. I told Cale I felt like someone who was just getting into running – a person who can only run a mile at a time, even when it’s flat, then they have to take a walking break. I could barely speak. 

Pepto Bismol - a race saver

At Stonewall Mine aid station the first thing I went for was the Pepto Bismol (I have to thank David Christof for the tip of packing this stuff just in case). I sat down on the ground as my crew refilled my water bottles and Cale got our headlamps out. Cody later told me I looked like hell at this point. Leaving the aid station, Cale made me try eating a piece of potato and salt. I’d never tried this before, but he insisted because it would be easy on my stomach, wasn’t sweet and give me some much needed calories and sodium. He was right, it wasn’t bad and easy on my stomach. 

The sun was going down and I was running better, but once we started to climb over this big hill for the next section, I was feeling light headed and like I couldn’t catch my breath. It was a weird sensation, like I was at altitude, but our altitude at that point wasn’t any higher than the majority of the rest of the course. I don’t know what it was. Maybe because my blood sugar was so low it was giving me this weird sensation. 

At Paso Picacho I plopped down on a bench and ate another piece of potato and sipped some broth as my water bottles were being refilled. My mom had told Lorraine about my not eating. Lorraine gave me a ginger chew (I was carrying one, already, but didn’t want to put the effort into putting it in my mouth) and talked to me about other ways to take in calories that could maybe work around my not wanting to eat. She didn’t lecture me, but made it really apparent that I had to start taking in serious calories or I was done. 

It was dark leaving the aid station and the lower temperatures were making me feel better. I seem to be able to handle colder temperatures than the average runner and really like it when it’s cold. With that I was able to get myself back onto my regularly scheduled program of two gels and two electrolyte capsules per hour. The footing was pretty tricky on this part of the course and Cale and I were careful, but when the footing was decent, Cale lead us on a pretty solid pace. It didn’t seem like we were going that fast, but we did catch two sets of runners on our way to the Sweetwater aid station. I could definitely tell things were getting better for me as I had to pee again. I hadn’t peed since about mile 14 and we were now on mile 70. Peeing’s good. 

With the crew at Sweetwater

At Sweetwater I apparently looked a lot better and was talking like a normal person. I had some tomato bisque and a big cup of water while my crew did its thing and Dorene took care of Cale. He felt like he was getting a caffeine headache. We saw the lights of the last runner and her pacer we passed start to come into the aid station, so Cale and I wrapped up our stop and took off.

The first third of this next section was across a flat open meadow that we knew had good footing.  We took advantage of this and put a push on to put distance between ourselves and the runners behind us and make time on runners in front of us. It felt like we were running pretty damn fast, but it probably wasn’t faster than an 8 ½ minute mile. Cale led the charge and he’s pretty easy to follow. At 6’4” and 200lbs, I undoubtedly had the biggest pacer in the race. It was like having Sasquatch leading me through the woods. When he’d go crashing through the underbrush on an overgrown trail, I sort of felt like I was chasing a bull through a china shop.

It’s funny how there are cold and warm patches in the wilderness. During some of the climb we had to take back to the Sunrise aid station, we hit a patch were the temperature immediately dropped at least 15 degrees from what it was a few feet before. This was the first time I’d felt cold the whole race. The cold patch passed and we got back to the normal brisk temperature. I don’t know what the average temperature really was, but everyone I saw not running was bundled up like they were on a ski trip.

Photo Op with the parents at Sunrise2

We could see the lights from the Sunrise aid station from pretty far out. Apparently the people in the aid station could see the runners from pretty far out, too. I was surprised when I heard my crew (namely my mother) yelling for us as we came up the trail ‘cause we were kind of far out when they started yelling. 

Cale and I had decided to make this an extra-long stop to get ourselves gathered for the final 20 miles. I handed off my water bottles to an aid station worker and plopped down in the dirt to stretch my hamstrings a little. I also asked for a cup of chicken broth and cup of water. I learned that the cup of water is good because it helps you drink down the hot broth faster. One gulp of hot broth, then one gulp of water to cool that broth down in your stomach and repeat until the broth is gone. Without the water, you gotta kind of stand around and wait for the broth to cool off. Time waster.

When the woman brought me my broth she pointed out that I was sitting in what was essentially a wind tunnel and she led me somewhere else out of the wind. I didn’t know her, but she became kind of like me personal pink-haired concierge at the aid station. I had thrown on my long sleeve running shirt to help warm up a bit and was enjoying the broth. My concierge took a picture of me with my parents and I felt like I was ready to go and started to take the long sleeve shirt off. My concierge stopped me and said she wouldn’t let me leave unless I was wearing that long sleeve shirt. People had apparently been dropping because they were getting too cold. She insisted that if I did indeed got too warm with that shirt on, I could always take it off and tie it around my waste, but if I got cold, I couldn’t really come back for it. I ended up wearing that shirt through the finish of the race. 

Cale getting ready to head out of Sunrise2

I wasn’t sure what Cale was doing, I later found out he wasn’t feeling so good, but I was ready to go and started to head out. I knew I couldn’t outrun Cale so he’d catch up in just a minute.

This next section had an overall negative elevation gain, but it was rather undulating. We were either running pretty good on the downhill, or hiking some uphill. This part of the course is on the Pacific Crest Trail and is a pretty narrow single track. Cale fell at one point and almost rolled down the hill off the trail. Fortunately he didn’t fall into the abyss as running the rest of the race by myself would have been rather lonely. 

At some places on the trail, we could see a pair of headlamps ahead of us. It makes you feel good when you’re catching someone, but this section of the course still seemed to take forever to finish. I was really glad when we finally hit the downhill run to the Pioneer Mail aid station. Once at the aid station Cale disappeared with Dorene and I plopped down in the dirt again and chatted with my crew. When we went to leave I was given the pleasant news that it was only 4.7 miles to the Penny Pines aid station and mile 92 of the race. For some reason I was thinking it was further to Penny Pines. 

Loading up with gels at Pioneer Mail

With the section being fairly flat and short, we ran it pretty hard. We caught a runner and her pacer along the way. The runner moved over to let us by, but her pacer didn’t realize it and her runner didn’t say anything to her (probably because she was too exhausted to speak). Cale and I ran along behind the other pacer for a bit as I noticed over my shoulder the runner kept dropping further and further back. Eventually I yelled to the pacer that we were leaving her runner behind. She stopped and seemed rather surprised we were there and not her runner. 

Quicker than we had even hopped we came into the Penny Pines aid station. About 80 yards out we came upon another runner and pacer combo. Cale and I both figured we’d just follow these guys into the aid station, but as soon as Cale got up behind them, they both jumped out of the way, almost like they were startled. I guess when you look over your shoulder and see a headlamp way higher off the ground than yours, it can spook you. 

At Penny Pines I felt great, mentally, because I knew I had only eight miles to go, even if most of it was uphill. I had a water bottle refilled and grabbed another gel or two and was ready to go, but apparently Cale wasn’t. He was feeling really sick and wasn’t sure if he could go on. Dorene had running cloths and shoes on in case she needed to jump in as a substitute pacer. I told them I’d be fine to go it alone and that I was feeling great, but Cale didn’t want me to wonder out into the darkness on my own and sucked it up and went with me. 

Team meeting at Penny Pines 2

We followed a runner and her pacer out of the aid station, but they immediately moved aside and let us past. I learned later that this runner was at one point 30 minutes ahead of me, but was struggling with the cold. After another few minutes of running, we saw another pair of lights ahead of us on the trail. This must have been like blood in the water to Cale ‘cause he seemed to pick up the pace to a point that I could barely keep. We ran down the next pair and quickly put them out of sight. We didn’t want the glow of our lamps to motivate them to push on after us. 

It was a long slog up the climb from Penny Pines. Even once we finally reached the top of the climb, we still had a ways to go to get to the final aid station – the Rat Hole. We were both anxious to get to this aid station because that signaled the race being almost over, but the trail just kept going on and on. In frustration I yelled to Cale “where the fuck is this aid station?!?” Another mile. Damn it. 

We finally came down a slope and saw the Rat Hole aid station – the last aid station in the race. I didn’t feel like hanging out here too long since it wasn’t crew accessible and the team were all waiting for us at the finish line.  I did my usual plop down in the dirt routine while my water bottle was being refilled and for the first time Cale sat down, too. I stretched briefly and got back up when I was handed my bottle. I looked back at Cale and said I was ready to go, but he wasn’t getting up.

“I was hanging on by a thread just to get here, dude. I’m done,” Cale said. He was moving pretty god damn fast to me, so I had no clue as to his predicament. There were only four and a half easy miles left in the race and I was content to go it alone the rest of the way. I left my pacer at the Rat Hole in good hands after his valiant effort to drag me long at a hard pace for 45 miles and ventured out into the wilderness. 

The sun was just starting to rise as I made my way through the woods and back to a meadow we ran through that previous morning. I turned my headlamp off as soon as I could see without it and enjoyed the colors of dawn. It was actually kind of nice that I was now running on my own again. It enabled me to reflect on what I had done and bask in the thrill of conquering the challenge. 

Finished

I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if anyone was catching me, but they weren’t. I eventually tumbled into the campground and ran on what felt like the hardest asphalt on earth. A few twists and turns aside and the finish line came into view. I picked up my pace to a real stride like I was running like that the whole time and crossed the line, dropping my bottles in exhaustion. Scott Mills gave me a handshake and a congratulations as my crew ran down from the lodge. Simi gave me a big hug. Dorene gave me one of her fist bumps, then came my mom, crying and proud. I even hugged my dad. Not something we usually do. Cody put his camera down long enough to shake my hand, then it was back to taking pictures of how dirty Kurt was.

In the warmth of the lodge, I plopped down on the floor (I had decided I didn’t like chairs anymore, apparently) and took off my socks, thrilled to not have any blisters. Cale showed up a few minutes later. He was given a ride by an aid station worker back to start/finish. The post celebration was brief as the crew was about as tired as I was. After a quick round of congratulations and thanks, we all went our separate ways. 

It was a relief to have it over.  It was tough. The hardest thing about the race wasn’t how tired I got, but managing my stomach and calorie intake. 100’s really are eating competitions with some running thrown in. I don’t know if I’ll do another one, but I wouldn’t trade anything for this experience. 

Finishing time: 22:31:20

Finishing place: 11^th overall

It was a team effort though, and I couldn’t have done it without Dorene Nathan, Cale Stubbe, Cody and Simi Johnson and my mom and dad.

Chick'd Again at the 2011 El Moro 50K

The second annual El Moro 50k was something I was greatly looking forward to. I really enjoyed running the race last year, partly because I know the park so well and partly because I finished third overall in the race. My shot at a second straight podium finish in this race was in serious doubt due to the IT band issue I developed during the Leona Divide 50 two weeks prior. The weekend between the two races I tried running with a group in El Moro, but could only stand 6 miles before the pain in my knee was too great and had to give up.

I rested my leg the week leading up to the race and spent a lot of time on the foam roller trying to get this IT band back into shape. Just walking around didn’t bother it and neither did light jogging. I wouldn’t know if I was good to go or not unless I ran hard on it, so I was just going to have to wait until the race to find out how it was going to feel.

The weather the morning of the race was perfect – over cast and cool, just like last year. I was nervous about how my leg was going to hold up. Dean Dobberteen and I were talking about our injuries. He was kind of in the same boat as I was – we were either both going to do really well, or we would DNF if our injuries flared up, but we wouldn’t know until about an hour into the race.

Starting Line for the El Moro 50K. Mike Kennedy in his starting stance.

Molly the race director yelled go and we were off. Dean shot away from the starting line like he was running a 10K. Typical. Michelle Barton followed close behind trailed by another pack of runners. I loafed along in no real hurry. I was nervous of the IT band flaring up and wanted to really ease into it.

Once we got into the first big climb of the race up I Think I Can, most of that first chase pack died away. Once at the top I was following the 2nd and 3rd place women, Holly Anderton and Allison Wenster. They were fun to watch in an early race duel. Allison doesn’t charge the up hills very hard, but runs the flats and down hills really fast. Holly takes more of an even keel approach, more like myself, where you work a little harder on the up hills, but don’t run as hard downhill. Different strokes for different folks.

I put a pass on the two of them just before we turned off Moro Ridge for the Missing Link single track. At that point I was pretty much on my own. I waved to the people at the first aid station as I made the hard right to go down Slow and Easy and just cruised along. Thankfully my IT band wasn’t acting up and I was feeling pretty good, just running my own pace.

As I crested the top of the hill on Bommer Ridge Road, I could see a tiny person in black out in front of me, just getting to the Ridge Park aid station. That had to have been Michelle. Once I got to the aid station, I waved hi to my parents where were there to watch and had my friend, Dorene Nathan, refill my water bottle. That took all of 5 seconds and I was off again.

On the run from the Ridge Park aid station to the turn-around point, I was consistently gaining ground on Michelle, though once we started our decent down No Dogs, she put some time on me, again. Michelle’s another slow-up-fast-down kind of runner. Once we hit the turn around, we had to then run back up No Dogs. I made ground back up on Michelle rather quickly and passed her about 2/3rds the way back up the climb. When I caught her and said our hello’s, she didn’t seem like she was ready to run hard and I thought maybe this was the optimum time to put a push on and build a gap.

Behind Michelle running up No Dogs

 
The run back from the turn around to Ridge Park is the toughest part of the course and I worked it hard. My push worked in the sense that I put a gap on Michelle of, probably, two minutes, and was five minutes behind Dean at the aid station. Once I left the next aid station at West Cut Across, it looked like my push had backfired. Michelle was gaining ground on me and my legs felt pretty tired. I was still running hard, but I could start to feel my IT band get sore. Shit.

The IT band was causing some pain when I ran, but I found that hiking the steep ups made things worse. When I stopped running and started hiking the steep sections, my IT band would tighten up, like it was cramping up. The pain from my knee all the way up to my sciatic nerves in my hip made running again almost feel debilitating. After the steepest climb, I stopped to stretch my IT. I looked back and saw Michelle rounding the top of the hill and new she’d be on me in less than a quarter mile. I hobbled along as best as I could, but getting caught was inevitable. Besides the pain in my left leg, my legs were just pretty tired.

Michelle passed me a little before we started the Slow and Easy climb and when I saw that she wasn’t chugging up the hill very fast, I tried running again to try to keep with her, but the tightness in the IT band and pain shooting from the sciatica made me abandon that hope. I had to let her go. I was able to do some run/walking up the hill and noticed the IT loosening up when I forced myself to run. I was thankful for that because once I made it to the top of Slow and Easy, the climbing for this race was over.

I stopped at the aid station for water and to stretch. My friend, Michelle Mechem, told me Michelle only had two minutes on me and encouraged me to try to go after her, but I was done. I knew I had 3rd place locked up and resigned myself to that position. I was too tired and in too much discomfort to want to push the last five miles, which were mostly downhill, Michelle’s strength.

I was able to run a pretty decent pace the rest of the way and crossed the finish line happy that I could then stop running, as standing or walking didn’t hurt my IT. I was also happy that I didn’t feel like I had to throw up, which was an improvement over last year. I also improved my finishing time by 14 minutes over last year.

So all-in-all it was a pretty good race. Still having the IT pain was disappointing as I need it to go away before the San Diego 100, but I still ran a faster time than last year. Just maybe next year I won’t get chick’d.

2011 Leona Divide 50

The 2011 Leona Divide 50 was supposed to be my “easy” 50 miler on my run up to the San Diego 100. I had already done the Old Goat 50, which is considered a tougher course and blazed it with a 46 minute PR, so this one should be a breeze.

Ah, the over confidence of youth and exuberance. 

The Leona Divide races are allowed a large cap for entrants, so with this race’s long and positive history, plus an actual purse payout, there were almost 300 people starting the race. Plus another 75 or so in the 50k that started at the same time. So there was going to be a lot more people out running this race than your average ultra. 

Starting Line for the 2011 Leona Divide 50

Even though I spent the night in a nice room in Palmdale, 25 minutes from the starting line, I still only got six hours of sleep because I woke up an hour before my alarm was to go off. I hate it when that happens. 

The race started and we all tore up the hill with the wind howling through the passes. My years of racing motorcycles at Willow Springs north of Palmdale/Lancaster taught me to HATE the wind that plagues the Antelope Valley. Thankfully running in the wind isn’t as bad as trying to race a motorcycle in the wind. Sometimes we were sheltered from the gusts by the hill sides and trees, but even when we were running straight into the wind, it wasn’t that big of a deal because when you’re running a 50 mile race, you’re not trying to run that fast. 

With the field being so large, I knew a lot of people in the race. I ran with Greg Hardesty for a while. I ran with Michelle Barton for a while. However, both were having problems from nagging injuries and I felt bad for them as I left them behind. Glad I felt fine, but too bad for them.

Or so I thought.

I was starting to get a feeling as I went through the 20 to 25 mile mark that I might be developing a problem of my own. I was taking in a lot of gels, like I felt I should have – 2 per hour, but they weren’t the normal Hammer Nutrition brand gels that I’m used to. Also, my dinner the night before from Panera Bread wasn’t a “normal” dinner for me and was a little greasy. All this was starting to add up to an uncomfortable feeling.

I was running well, though, and as we approached the big turnaround point at mile 30 I was holding down 7^th place overall. But when I left that aid station to climb back up out of the canyon, I knew I had a problem. So thank god the aid stations in this race are well manned with experienced volunteers who think of everything. You never know when you’re going to need toilet paper in an ultra.

And that was essentially my race. I couldn’t run as hard for fear of making a mess in my shorts, plus by mile 40, I developed a very sore IT band outside of my left knee, I assume because of my non-normal running style. So that sucked, too. 

I normally blow through aid stations like I’m being chased by the police, but when I reached the major aid station at mile 42, I sat down and recouped for about 10 minutes. It was aggravating sitting there and watching people go by because I wasn’t tired or dehydrated, I just had a stomach problem and now a sore knee. At least the aid station people were great. I still finished the race, but dropped way down the order to 28^th and crossed the line in 8:35. Probably a good 45 to 50 minutes slower than I would had I not run into issues. 

Bummer, but you learn from your bad races, and like I told the race director, it’s good that I had a bad race at a good race, otherwise I might not have been able to finish. 

I’ll take these lessons learned with me onto next weekend’s El Moro 50k and the San Diego 100 in June.

Saucony Peregrine

 “Minimalist” is marketing slogan gold nowadays in the running shoe world and everyone’s slapping that word on as many models of shoes as they can. Saucony is marketing their new trail shoe, the Peregrine, as their new, minimalist, trail shoe. It’s really not “minimalist,” it’s just really light for a trail shoe. It’s pretty much a road shoe with a bigger outsole (the Peregrine is based off their Kinvara road shoe). Because of that, it fits and fells like a road shoe – very tight around the foot with no slop.

This shoe is built to be fast, like the bird of prey it’s named after, and I’d say Saucony hit the mark in that respect. This shoe is super light with great grip from the lugs on the outsole. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the light weight meant less material and less material means less protection for your foot.

The upper mesh is about as thin as possible, meaning it doesn’t keep dirt and rocks out as well as bigger shoes do and it doesn’t feel like there’s a rock plate in the midsole, but apparently there is. You definitely feel the trail in these shoes. The shoe's also doesn't make me feel as planted on the ground with each stride because of the narrowness of it. A wider shoe would have been heavier.

The lacing is nice and pulls the shoe around your foot well and I haven’t had trouble with the laces coming untied. Also, the tongue is sown into the outer mesh, which is always good for a trail shoe - as that does help with the rocks and dirt issue.

I wore this shoe for a 15 mile trail race and a 50 mile trail race, and for me, this isn’t a shoe to wear for an ultra, at least not one longer than a fast 50k. It was awesome for the 15 mile race (I won the race), but my feat got really beat up in the 50 mile race. The trails I on was on for that 50 weren’t very rugged, either. For my delicate feet, the Peregrine was just too soft for that length of a race. I was wearing them in a size 9.5, which is my normal shoe size, so if I were wearing them in a size 10, I might not have blistered on my left big toe like I did.

I know some elite ultra runners will like super light shoes and their feet can take it, even over 100 miles, but they train 40 hours a week while us normal people are at a job 40 hours a week. I do plan to wear the Peregrine’s for a 50k I have in two weeks, but that is a fast 50k on well groomed trails. For my attempt at the San Diego 100, I’m going to go back to the tried and true Cascadias.

SoCal Ragnar Relay, Leg 3

After Cale handed off the baton the sun was just starting to rise and we were ready for breakfast. We drove into San Diego and checked out the exchange zone near UCSD, then headed to breakfast where I had a $7 waffle. There wasn’t anything special about the waffle, it didn’t come with anything else, didn’t have bananas, whip cream, blueberries, nothing.  Just one waffle on my plate and it was $7. That wasn’t a good choice, but biscuits & gravy would have been a horrible choice as I was supposed to run 10 miles in a couple hours.

When we got back to the exchange point, we all laid down on the grass on the cliff overlooking the ocean and rested for while.  It was starting to get pretty warm, but thankfully before my leg started, the humidity began to drop and the ocean breeze picked up.

When the misfits showed up that meant Euri wasn’t far behind. When he got there I took the slap bracelet baton and headed off. I could tell that my legs were pretty tired as I didn’t have a lot of get-up-and-go when I first started running. I also need to pay more attention to where I was running this leg since it was in an urban setting and had a lot of turns. The teams weren’t all that bunched up anymore. After I passed 10 people in the first few miles of the leg, I didn’t see anyone for quite a while. I did see my team, twice, since they stopped along the route and that was reassuring me that I was running the right way.

Toward the end of my leg the teams started bunching up and I was getting more kills. I was also hitting stop lights which sucked to have to wait at, though getting hit by a 4Runner would have sucked more.  After nearly 10 miles, my leg and Ragnar came to an end when I handed off the slap bracelet to David. Or at least I thought it was over. One of the members of my sub-team had developed an injured foot during her first two legs. So then there was a debate about who would run what legs to make up for it. I was happy to run another leg, honestly. Hell, I was excited to run another leg, so I slotted myself in to the second to last leg, which was just over 5 miles.

I ran this leg really hard. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I really wanted to close the gap to another team I wanted us to beat. I wasn’t sure how fast their last guy was compared to Cale, but I wanted to catch up to them as much as I could to give him a shot. I ran my skinny ass through parts of San Diego and National City that my upper-middle class, suburban upbringing never brought me to before. I charged down the road as hard as I could to get the baton to Cale and send him on our anchor leg. Now my Ragnar was definitely over.

I jumped in our Tahoe and we headed for the finish line. Getting into the state beach where the finish line and festivities were took some time as there were a lot of people trying to get in there at once. Cale’s girlfriend, Dorene (another runner on our sub-team) was starting to panic that we weren’t going to get to the finish line in time to run in with him. I was thinking that while Cale’s fast, he was having to run seven miles and he’s not that fast where he’d beat us there. Well, he almost did. We found the other half of our team, the misfits, all drunk from spending four hours in the beer garden, and within seconds I saw Cale’s lanky 6’4” body running up the walkway toward us. We all jumped out and ran with him across the finish line.

Team #17, On Your Left, Post Race

We didn’t mean to, but we ended up finishing 18th overall out of the almost 500 teams in the Ragnar and Cale totally wiped the floor with that other team’s anchor leg. It was a pretty fun event for us.

Showing Off Our Kills

SoCal Ragnar Relay, Leg 2

With the team reassembled, we jumped in the Tahoe and drove down the 15 to the next major exchange. The plan was to try to catch a few hours of sleep before our shift started again. According to projections, I was going to take the baton from Euri at 2:00am. This next major exchange point was actually a model/remote control airplane “airport.” Essentially all it consisted of was a tiny runway, a covered picnic area, a couple sheds and a lot of open space. The field everyone was using to sleep in was god awful uncomfortable. I did wear earplugs to try to drown out the sound of people cheering in the distance as runners came in and left and of vans coming in and leaving, but I still think I only slept for about 20 minutes. 

This mini airfield wasn’t set up to handle this much traffic coming in and out so the rest of my team jumped in the Tahoe to get in line to leave and I waited for Euri at the exchange. Ironically enough I ran into my dad who was running on a team in the AARP division. He was having knee pain and could sleep so was up wondering around in the dark. His team wasn’t as cohesive as mine and he wasn’t having much fun. We didn’t talk long before Euri came in, pretty much right on schedule. I took the baton and tore ass out of dodge. 

The weather for this leg was perfect; cold and humid. My leg was 8.5 miles with a big climb in it, but with the weather being what it was, I felt like I could run forever. In fact, the hardest part of the whole thing was keeping track of my kills. With everyone wearing headlights and flashing tail lights, I was always able to see people way out in front of me, spurring me on to run faster. I was having a blast. While the big climb was tough, there was actually more downhill to the course and I loved blazing down that. 

All too soon my run had ended and I came flying into the exchange zone. I slapped the baton bracelet onto Dave’s arm and he was off. I was beaming with pride after my run, both with how fast I ran and with how many kills I notched - 38. We were in the thick of the teams, now. With my run done, I jumped in the back of the Tahoe and relaxed. We were going to have to get moving to the next exchange points pretty quickly because everyone else’s legs were fairly short. Though in five short miles, Dave was able to rack up 30 kills. We could tell we were going to run out of room on our back window for all the tallies pretty quick, but that’s a good problem to have.

SoCal Ragnar Relay, Leg 1

I’ve never done a relay race before, but couldn’t imagine how this wouldn’t be fun – except for the not showering part. 

The Ragnar Relay was originally run in Utah and created by a guy who wanted to mimic the Hood to Coast Relay in Oregon. For the most part it’s made up of 12 person teams, split into two sub-teams. One sub-team will run a series of legs of the course with their six runners and eventually meet up with the other sub-team and they’ll run the next six legs of the course. The teams do this over the 200 mile long course, each runner running 3 times. 

Of the 12 people on the team, I knew, or at least knew who, five of the other people were. We did have a team dinner the weekend before the race so everyone could meet, but ironically, the two sub-teams kind of stayed sub-divided during the dinner and didn’t really interact much. My sub-team – van 2, was the “older crowd.” Van 1 was the misfits – mostly UCI grad students. Adults, but still college kids in a sense. The main thing I wanted to get out of this dinner was to meet the guy in van 1, Euri, who was going to be handing off the “baton” to me so we’d recognize each other at the exchange point. Well I did meet him, but when it came time for the first exchange, our original meeting was all for naught. 

Waiting for Euri at the park

Apparently Euri is a professional drinker and was rather bombed at dinner, so as he came running down the slope into the exchange point he didn’t understand who he was going to be handing the baton off to. As I stood there in the middle of the trail – the only person standing on the trail, I wondered why does this guy look confused? He had a look on his face that read “who do I give this to?” To me it seemed pretty obvious who he needed to hand the baton off to – the only guy standing in the middle of the trail waiving his arm at him! 

Once I got the slap bracelet baton I took off down the trail. We’ve had a cool spring here in SoCal, except for this day. It was about 91 or 92 degrees out and I was running on a paved black top trail in exposed sun, so I was rather warm. Thankfully I was only going to be running seven miles and it was all flat. I wanted to record as many “kills” as I could (passing other runners) and got a little excited at the start of my run as the next runner was in site. I looked down at my watch as I went through the first mile and saw I’d run it in 5:56. Oops. Too fast. I throttled back to a 6:30 pace for the remainder. 

My team found a spot during my run where they could stop and cheer me on. That gave me a bit of a pick-me-up, but it turned out that stopping for me like that might not have been the best idea. The van rout that paralleled my run took them onto the east bound 91 freeway. On Friday afternoon, this freeway is a parking lot. When I came blazing into the exchange zone, happy with my six kills, I looked around and saw no one from my team! Unlike Euri, I knew the person who I would hand the baton off to and could tell Dave wasn’t there. Thankfully only a few seconds passed before Dave came running up and I gave him the slap bracelet. 

I was a sweaty mess, but with no place to take a shower, I grabbed a Gatorade out of the cooler and climbed into the back seat of our team Tahoe and began wiping myself down with baby wipes.  I tried stretching some and began eating because I had essentially 10 hours to kill before I ran again. That makes it sound like the Ragnar is really boring, but I never was. While your van is running there’s a lot of action going on as you leapfrog your runner and navigate to different exchange points. The down time while the other van is running flies by as you try to sleep or eat a real meal and get to the next major exchange point. 

The rest of the team ran well through the heat, but thankfully we got some relief when the sun set. Cale ran strong through the dark and didn’t get hit by any cars on the narrow country road he had to run down. He had nine kills on his leg, meaning two things: 1) Cale was running pretty fast and 2) we were starting to catch up to the meat of the field (we were one of the later teams to start due to our team’s average pace). At the next major exchange point in Lake Elsinore, we met up with the team in van 1 – the misfits. We didn’t see them at the previous major exchange because the traffic was too heavy to allow them to drive there faster than Euri could run (that’s LA traffic for you). The misfits were in good spirits and ready to start their night leg.