As some of you might know I started getting into trail running about a year or so ago as a result of hanging out with Scott Krell and Michael Cartwright. It may have been a result of dragging Scott on a climb and needed to keep up with those two on the approach and my desire for one day ascents in the mountains. Regardless, it has become something I enjoy very much and am now officially an "Ultra Marathoner" as I have been told by one elite runner...ehem Nicole. Thanks to the running dogs and cats for getting me out on Friday mornings at 6:00am to run Tiger and for all the other training runs. I have loved them all as much as I have hated them but this was a pay-off I hadn't really considered.
So after a week of rest I decided on August 7th that I was mentally fit to go run a 50 kilometer (31.5 mile) course that I had linked together and refer to as the Harvey Manning 50K. I had been fairly consistent with my running and the longest continuous trail run I had finished before this was the 6 Summits run of 5000 feet and 18 miles. So after some discussion with Michael regarding the logistics and talking to Nicole regarding my pre-run nutrition needs both offered to pace me on the course. Nicole said she would run with me on the Tiger portion and Michael committed to pacing me on the last 16 miles.
When I woke on Saturday morning it was about 5:30am, too early for what I wanted but I think the excitement of the day had me pumped to go. I actually did not feel too well physically and was if anything on the lower end of my physical energy. I had not been sleeping well and believe that I was under rested. I considered calling the crew and canceling but for whatever reason, I decided that I would at least give it a try. I ate fairly well the day before and my morning consisted of 2 bowls of whole grain cereal and a pb'nj on toast. After dropping off my van at the finish point, Nicole drove me to stash a drop bag at the Cougar Mountain West trail head. This, I would later determine, was too far along the route and it should have been at the Cougar East trail head instead. We then drove to Issaquah where Michael would meet us and shuttle us to the start at the Tiger Mountain Trail Head. At 10am on August 9th I headed off on to what would be my longest run to date.
We started off with a nice pace down the hill and alternated between walking and running the next few hilly sections. I was still feeling asleep to some extent and not quite with it. After 30 minutes of trail I hit my first pack of Goo with 2x the caffeine. OK now I was awake and after that kick start I never felt sleepy for the rest of the day.
Running on Tiger Mountain Trail
The Tiger Mountain section of the run went very consistently with only one close face plant after hooking a toe on a root on the TMT. I kept up with 5 minute drinks and 15/20 minute Goo and Shot Blok consumptions and with every input of carbs I felt my energy was very sustained. It wasn't until the long descent off the West side of Tiger that I felt anything in terms of effort. During our descent I rang Michael to inform him of our progress and he ran part way up the trail in good form to grab some pictures of us on within minutes of the cars. Once at the cars I changed shirt, shoes and reloaded water and Gu. It was about a 14 minute stop and shortly after we were crossing into the Sycamore neighborhood and on our way to Squak Mountain.
Nicole wanted to run a bit more so she joined us for a few miles up Squak. On the way there we saw a snake and she let out a shrill scream that could put most car alarms to shame. Apparently she is petrified of snakes, even harmless little grass snakes. I think she would get along well with Indiana Jones. The climb up Squak is a long one but we paced it along since Michael kept flipping me crap for running the hill. Eventually we topped out and started long the East Side Trail which makes its way down and then traverses the slope for a while before really flattening out. It was along here where the trail master himself almost ran into the bush and missed a critical turn. The other two quickly piled in behind me as I came to a quick stop and we all started laughing about the navigation error. Michael decided it was another Kodak moment to capture my mess up. After a few snapshots and they finished poking fun at me Nicole decided it was time to turn around and so we said our goodbyes and parted ways. Michael and I headed off up the trail and Nicole headed down. It only took a few minutes of running and a few key land marks for Michael to realize we were running backwards on the trail. Somehow during the initial foo bar we got all turned around and all of us headed off in the wrong direction. This meant that Nicole was carrying on and we were headed back! We quickly remedied that situation and straightened things out. With Michael and I back in the correct direction Squak seemed enjoyable and it was only when we were on the down hill portion that the skies opened up and it began to pour. The downhill section was the first time I felt some muscle fatigue and it would have been most advantageous to have placed my drop bag of food before the Cougar section at mile 21 instead of mile 26. That said, I did throw back a few more Shot Bloks and the climb up Cougar was quite enjoyable. As we crested the summit of the climb I picked up the pace on Shy Bear Trail and ran strong until the downhill. Once again the inner thighs screamed nooooo all the way down and I had to moderate my pace. Hitting the Red Town Trailhead meant digging into my food stash but I wasn't all that hungry. Michael tried to get me to eat but nothing sounded any better than shooting more Gu and Bloks. I worked back some of the Clam Chowder and a few chips but all in all liquid felt better. As we started off on the last 5 miles and down into Coal Creek Park I slowly came alive again. The food was hitting my muscles and I felt another burst of energy. The pace was moderate but the 5 miles went quickly and we found ourselves crossing Coal Creek Park in a short time. Unfortunately this is where things fell apart, not for me so much as for the course. Bellevue City correctly decided that the Parkway crossing was too dangerous since the traffic flows quickly and there is no cross walk. They replanted the old trail with ferns and rerouted the trail to run up to a set of traffic lights and down into the park from a different corner. We of course just set off on the original route and trampled right through the new plantings. With the rerouting of the course I lost about 15 minutes waiting for Michael to collect GPS way points of the new trails and ended up running in and out of a few myself before getting up to Coal Creek Parkway and taking that to the Lake Washington Trail.
As I ran down to Newcastle Beach Park on my own I felt a sense of accomplishment but was a bit sad that it was over. One nice thing was that Nicole had decided to show up and was waiting in the parking lot to congratulate me on my achievement. Well at least I had one person to cheer for me - thanks Nicole!
My splits were as follows:
Tiger Portion - 3:46
Aid Station #1 - 3:56 / 10.41
Squak Portion - 5:39 / 1:42
Cougar Portion - 6:44/ 1:05
Aid Station #2 - 6:55 / 11.09
Coal Creek Portion - 8:15 / 1:20 (lost 15+ min in reroute)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment