Pinhoti 100 Race Report: The "Perfect" Race

Peak bagging in Alabama! Thanks to fellow runner and five-time Pinhoti 100 finisher Perry Sebastian for snapping this photo of me around mile 40.

Last weekend, I re-learned a lesson I've already been taught many, many times, but somehow keep forgetting: the key to satisfaction is low expectations.

And, in the case of running 100 miles, also: patience, humility, and a sense of humor.

When I first signed up for Pinhoti in Alabama's Talladega National Forest, still in the wake of my slight-disappointment over how the Bear 100 went at the end of September, it was with a plan: rest completely for one week, train hard again for three weeks (favoring intensity over volume, so lots of speedwork, hill repeats and strength training), taper one week, then crush Pinhoti.

Instead, here's what happened during those five weeks: a couple yoga classes, an 8-mile hike, a few 45ish-minute easy runs and a 12-mile long run. No speedwork, no hill repeats, no strength training. In the seven days leading up to the race, I ran zero miles.

Truth be told, I just felt over it. I signed up quietly for Pinhoti within hours of publishing my Bear 100 race report, felt excited about running another 100-miler for approximately two days, and then regret sunk in. I felt like I just really didn't care anymore. I'd trained hard all year, I was tired, I felt ready to focus my energy on other pursuits for the rest of the year.

It's not an inspiring message, but it's genuinely how I felt. When Pinhoti race weekend rolled around, I no longer harbored any expectations of "crushing" it. I chose, instead, to define my goal not necessarily as nailing a perfect race, but as just what I articulated on my blog last month: "to just not fall apart ... to run hard and feel (mostly) good the whole time, or as (mostly) good as it's possible to feel during a 100-mile race." 

Because I had no crew or pacer, I wasn't worried about projecting my times or hitting any targets, other than staying ahead of the race cut-offs. I admit to not even really looking at the course profile before the race.

When the race began at dawn in a 32-degree chill on Saturday morning, I took it easy. I hung out in the back of the pack, didn't get frustrated when I got stuck in a slow conga line on singletrack for the first few miles, just relaxed and reminded myself to run slow, slow, slow.

What the Pinhoti Trail looks like on Instagram. But seriously. It's this beautiful. (I cross-posted this image to the Trail Runner Instagram page.)

As the sun came peeking through the trees, we runners spread out enough that I got into a groove. The first 40 miles of Pinhoti are smooth, runnable singletrack without any of the significant, gut-busting climbs that make up the trails on which I train at home. Not that it's flat, by any definition. Just steadily rolling, with one big push up to the top of Mount Cheaha, Alabama's highest point at 2,411 feet, around mile 40.

Several notable things about Pinhoti that set it apart from most other 100s I've run, volunteered, paced and/or crewed at (which include: IMTUF, Leadville, the Bear, Pine to Palm, Cascade Crest, Badger Mountain, Pigtails and Hardrock): 

1. The leaves.

The singletrack is lovely and carpeted with fallen leaves this time of year. I was very grateful for the toe bumpers on my shoes, which saved my feet from many a bump and bruise. I tripped over hidden rocks and roots at least a few dozen times, but only face-planted onto the ground once, after stepping on what I like to call a "leaf cornice" on the edge of a particularly narrow strip of singletrack cut into the side of a steep slope. I thought there was solid ground underneath the leaves on which I stepped; alas, there was not, and down I went. No serious injuries, though.

2. The number (and quality!) of aid stations.

Pinhoti has 18 aid stations, far more than most 100-milers—and this is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because the aid stations are unbelievably amazing—liberally packed with not only the usual ultra trappings, but all sorts of goodies like doughnuts, bacon, sausage, pickles, homemade cookies, Nutella wraps, fresh vegetables and hummus, whiskey—but a curse because it's easy to lose time hanging out. Because I had no crew, though, and know virtually no one in the state of Alabama (save for Ms. Brandi Garcia, whose smiling face greeted me and brightened my day at many an aid station!), I never sat down and rarely spent more than about 60 seconds at any aid station, except to swap out my shoes at mile 55, which kept me at that aid station for maybe five minutes.

3. The runnability.

Since I often train at altitudes two miles above sea level, my lungs felt like a million bucks the whole race. i.e. Colorado people should be given a serious time handicap at sea-level races, because breathing that much air felt like cheating. My legs, on the other hand, had literally never done that much concentrated running ever—I've averaged 40-mile training weeks all summer long, and even the majority of those training miles are hiking, not really much "running," per se—so by the end of Pinhoti, my legs were definitely worked. But all that running felt damn good, too. So much gorgeous singletrack.

4. The long, long night. 

After the sun went down in blazing, red glory, we didn't see it again for a long time.

It got dark on me somewhere around mile 45ish for me, and by the time it was light again, my race was nearly over. Because Pinhoti occurred later in the year than any other 100 I've run, the daylight hours were much shorter—and because I ran this one much faster than any other 100, despite its benevolent 7 a.m. start time, I finished quite early the following morning, by comparison. I love night running, but I've also always greatly looked forward to sunrise on the second morning of hundos, because it's such a natural energy boost and mood lifter—so sometimes it was hard to spend such a long night out there alone, knowing that sunrise was still so many hours away, and that I'd spend almost the whole second half of the race running in the dark.

5. Bottom line: If anyone ever wants to try a pacerless/crewless race, this is the race to do it at! 

People in Alabama are nice. Here's me chatting up a storm with folks at an aid station, while simultaneously shoving copious amounts of snacks into my face.

It's also just a great beginner hundo. Beautiful fall weather all seven years it's been held (no capricious high-alpine storms to contend with), plenty of drop-bag opportunities (I used four drop bags in total), and amazing volunteers and aid-station support. I carried a small pack, mostly for extra clothing layers and some snacks, and one handheld bottle; I rarely drank more than its 20 ounces' worth of water between aid stations, so it's really possible to do this one with minimal supplies.

6. With that said, for those planning to run this in the future and trying to figure out what to pack, here was my complete gear supply list, keeping in mind that forecast was for 30 to 60 degrees, high wind but no chance of rain. My base running costume was just shorts and a PEP merino wool T-shirt (short-sleeve version of this one), but I also had with me at all times (sometimes wearing, sometimes stowed): a long-sleeve wool shirt, a lightweight windproof jacket, full-length tights, a Buff, earwarmer headband, and lightweight fleece gloves. I also carried with me the whole race my Suunto Ambit 2 (which utterly failed, dying less than 10 hours into the race after a full battery charge; strange, because it lasted all 31+ hours at the Bear on the same settings), point-and-shoot camera, Black Diamond Icon headlamp (it's heavy, but so worth the extra ounces to not struggle to see the trail at night), just-in-case spare headlamp, a bunch of spare batteries, a couple Band-Aids, a mini tub of Vaseline, and ample snacks such as squeezable packets of pureed baby-food, bars (I favor nut-based ones like KIND and Clif Mojo), dried fruit leathers, a few Vespa packets and Endurolyte sodium tabs that I took sporadically (probably 10 during the whole race).

Here are a few photos I took with my camera during the race that really capture the beauty of Alabama's trails and all the sunlight filtering through autumn foliage:

 

I did have some early twinges of pain—a dull, inexplicable ache in my right knee that started around 35 miles, and persisted until mile 50ish when it was overshadowed by a sore left Achilles for the next 5 miles or so—but I have been through enough of these things by now to know those small pains almost always pass if you are patient with them. I don't take Ibuprofen or anything like that during races, so my only defense against pain was really my own patience. So, to my mind, I'm ever grateful; the rest of my race was fairly pain free.

All smiles (almost) all the way! Photo by Brandi Garcia.

Frankly, all I tried to do was have fun. I talked a lot with fellow runners, I smiled and laughed at every available opportunity, I joked around with all the aid-station volunteers—my favorites were the women at Hubbard Creek, mile 52ish, who were tickled pink when I saw the plate of raw broccoli stalks and hummus they'd set out on their aid-station table. I exclaimed, "BROCCOLI?! I LOVE BROCCOLI!" and dug in, and they got excited, because I was the first runner to pass through who'd been stoked on the broccoli.

A mile later into the woods, as I passed another runner and his pacer, they called out after me to say they wished they could run that confidently at night. Then one of them said, "Hey, wait a minute, that's Broccoli Girl! Damn, I should have some broccoli, too, if it makes you run like that." The other said, "I just ate a bunch of bacon there, instead of the broccoli. The bacon's holding me back!" I yelled over my shoulder that I'd eaten plenty of bacon at the aid station, too, but also that yes, broccoli is awesome.

I'd had this suspicion before, that running a race sans pacer or crew would force me to stay more positive overall, to maintain my joy and my humor, and above all, to stay strong mentally rather than relying on someone else to do that for me. Steve was a wonderful pacer for me at my first two 100s, but I found myself using his presence as an excuse to complain about everything that was bothering me, to garner his sympathy, to cry on his shoulder. He was kind and reassuring and coached me through my low moments, but the point is, when you're running alone, you can't let yourself fall apart in the same way. If you want to finish, it's simply not an option.

And so, there was no falling apart this time. Not to say I didn't come close a couple times, though.

Just before the sun came up, I was beginning to get tired and loopy. I kept saying (yes, aloud) to myself, "Stay focused; you cannot lose your shit now." Despite my best warnings to myself, I was seriously loopy, so somehow managed to accidentally leave my gloves and handheld bottle in the middle of the woods after a quick break around mile 82. I just plum forgot to pick them back up when I started running, and didn't realize it until over a mile later.

To my horror, I thought I'd also dropped my rental car keys somewhere in the woods, because I couldn't find them anywhere in my pack—so I spent several miles alternately berating myself for being such a careless idiot, then telling myself to calm down, because as Scott Jurek once wrote (forever one of my favorite quotes about ultrarunning), "The ultra distance leaves you alone with your thoughts to an excruciating extent. Whatever song you have in your head better be a good one. Whatever story you are telling yourself had better be a story about going on. There is no room for negativity.  The reason most people quit has nothing to do with their body.” But even this, I managed to push onto my mind's backburner, focusing instead on the beautiful scenery and gratitude toward my body for being capable of this sort of thing. (Fortunately, after finishing, I found my car keys buried deep inside my pack.)

If I can take away just an ounce of the meditative calm and wisdom I somehow find during ultras and apply it to the rest of my life, I'll be a lucky little lady indeed.

By mile 85, I was still feeling fantastic. I could smell the barn, too, so I kicked things into high gear. I had a blast running hard for about seven miles before my body decided that was enough, and it was done. Oops. Thus, the final eight miles were quite a bit slower going, mostly walking. A good deal of those miles are on paved or gravel roads, so in theory, though, if one were to save anything in their legs for the home stretch, there's ample opportunity to run 'er in.

Morning frost on the relatively flat final miles of the Pinhoti 100 course.

I crossed the line in 25:57—a pleasantly surprising "PR" for me by a full three-and-a-half hours, but far more importantly, the most joyful and least emotionally wrecked I've ever felt at the finish line of a hundo. Pursuit-of-the-"perfect"-100 mission accomplished! I'm now content to retire from my 2014 running season and turn myself over to the gods of winter for a season of snowboarding, cross-country skiing, Swiss Bobbing and other non-running adventures!

Not a homeless person: Just a tuckered out ultrarunner. It's not the first time someone with a camera has taken a post-race snap of me. Thanks, Brandi! :)

Big thanks, as always, to everyone who supported me from afar at this race—Steve, my parents, my friends, my coworkers, my comrades in the ultra community, my Colorado running buddies Annie, Jeason, Elinor, Julie, and Jen—as well as all the spectacular folks I met or hung out with in person in Alabama last weekend, including my wonderful host Marnie, fellow runners Vanessa (three-time Pinhoti finisher) and Donna (first-time 100-mile runner and finisher), Brandi, Perry, Rich, all the volunteers (especially the purveyors of broccoli at Hubbard!), RD Todd Henderson, and the many more good folks I chatted with but whose names I didn't learn. Y'all are awesome!

The times, they are a-changin'

Two weeks ago, Alan and I got a notice on our front door, announcing that our building had been procured by new owners. In 60 days, our rent would jump by over $500 a month. My mood about it, since then, has ranged from stress and anger (stage 1) to delirious amusement (stage 2) to a quiet, tentative sense of excitement (stage 3).

Stage 2 delirious amusement came in considering how NOT worth the new rental rate our building is. Yes, it's been a great place to settle into Seattle - walkable to everything from work to downtown to the stadiums to quaint neighborhood main drags to stunning views and urban parks, close access to highways to the mountains too, a quiet building with mostly good neighbors, etc.

But there are plenty of issues that we've tried to ignore for the last couple years. I won't go into detail here about them, but they're pretty 50/50 with the positives.

The new owners are not really landlords. They're a small investment company who renovate beat up, old buildings into fancy new apartments to make them far more profitable for owners. They don't really expect us to pay the new rent; they just want us out to do their renovations and help along our "rapidly gentrifying neighborhood." (Their phrasing, not mine.)

Learning that caused a brief plummet back into stage 1 (stress and anger), but it was shortly replaced by a leap into stage 3 (!) when I started cruising apartment listings. Although the market for renters is much tougher now than it was two years ago when we were last looking, we managed to land a new place within about a week and a half of initiating the search - and it's a great one!

And so stage 3 continues. Now that I know for sure where we are going, I feel like I'm at the beginning of a new relationship - giddy, distracted, and ultimately obsessed with the concept of something I really don't know at all...but will, very very soon. As I write this, I'm on my lunch break at work, chowing down over my keyboard so I can get some of my infatuated ramblings off my chest before plunging back into work.

We'll be moving to Queen Anne - the other major hill in Seattle that nuzzles downtown. The famous, so-called "Frasier view" is taken from Queen Anne. I took the following photo on my first run up the hill, nearly two years ago.


Hassles of moving week itself aside, we'll get to enjoy all the perks of moving without the hassle of having to find new jobs or new friends. Instead, we'll get to explore new cafes, new restaurants, new bookstores, new libraries, new ice cream shops, new running routes, new evening walks, new hidden public stairways and secret views...all the exciting aspects of going somewhere new!

We'll be in a nicer neighborhood overall, and finally have covered off-street parking! We'll have our very own balcony with beautiful views of the Seattle skyline, Mt. Rainier, Lake Union and the Cascade mountains. We'll have enough space to not need a separate storage unit anymore. And all for about the same price we pay now!

Clearly, we should have made this move a long time ago.

In the meantime, as with all goodbyes - however small - I have lists of things I will miss about our current home...lists of things I still haven't ever gotten around to doing in our neighborhood, that are imperative to do before moving next month. Funny how a deadline sometimes is all the push you need to grant yourself the experiences you've been thinking about, if not dreaming of. Nostalgic list entry coming soon to my blog :)

Practicing

Well, I've done it again - gone and failed to blog for nearly a month - and as usual, I'm far more compelled to write about small moments, small pleasures, than I am all the major, more drastic things that have been taking place.

The fact, for example, that my local Trader Joe's has started carrying kale, and I told my checker tonight how psyched I was about that, and he asked what I would do with it, and I said probably blend it up with all those peaches and bananas and kiwis I was buying too.

Or the fact that Lauren and I hopped on a bus yesterday in the afternoon sun and rode it all the way to Ballard - the complete opposite corner of Seattle, but a really spectacular little neighborhood - to get a couple microbrews during the Noble Fir's "Pints for Parks" night, where they donate a buck from every pint to an environmental nonprofit. This month's cause of choice is my beloved Washington Trails Association.


Doing our part for the environment
We followed that up with tapas and gelato and a nice evening stroll as the sun was going down. What more can you ask from one evening, really?

Or the fact that on Sunday, I discovered that the river is a fantastic place to practice my banjo. I can be there with friends, but also go down by the river on my own to play where the current is loud enough to drown me out, and I can strum my banjo as loudly as I please without offending anyone's ears.


I take lessons from these cats. Future string band, hello.
The big news of the month, of course, is that I'm now three weeks into my temp job with REI Headquarters, that I'm no longer in school, that I flew home to Kansas City for all of 40 hours to surprise my dad for his birthday, that last weekend I ran my second ultramarathon (third place this year, and almost exactly, to the minute, the same time as when I ran the same race last year), that my amazing friend Shari arrived in Seattle for the summer, that I went to a beginner's meditation workshop a couple weekends ago, that I've gone on some spectacular trail runs with friends (Zanna! Ron!), that I've seen some spectacular live music (Sarah Jarosz!), that I've read some spectacular books (more Ann Patchett!), and that despite it being the most hideous few months weather-wise for Seattle, summer is definitely in the air.


The snow has finally melted off Mt. Si! As seen from the airplane window on my way to Kansas.
I went for a long (for me) bike ride after work today. After starting to feel a little stir crazy about not running in five days (trying to let myself recover fully from the 50K; I have that persistent, nagging sore right shin again that I had last year after the ultra), I hopped on my bike and just took off for the lakefront. It felt good - all that wind and fresh, just-rained air, and the glorious sensation of riding my bike over the I-90 floating bridge, my tires so near to the sun-glinting waves of Lake Washington.

Once again, I can thank coworkers at REI for inspiring to challenge myself in new ways. Last week, as part of a "team building" day for the entire Product Information team, we went kayaking together. It was only my second time on a kayak - and what a joy it is!


Paddling on Lake Washington with new friends
One of my coworkers asked if I'd like to ride our bikes down to the kayak launch together, since we live in the same neighborhood and the lake is only a few miles away. We met up for coffee in the morning and then rode to the lake together, and it reminded me how much I like being on my bike - afraid of it as I am much of the time.

See, I have the same problem with biking in Seattle that I had with running when I first moved here: a sad sense of resignation that Seattle will take away from me one of my great passions. How am I supposed to like biking with all these ridiculously steep hills that I'm utterly incapable of going up and down? But, of course, as with running, it's going to just be a matter of building myself up to it. Not being afraid, not being impatient, and not giving up - just steadily climbing the giant metaphorical hill along with the literal ones. And one day I'll enjoy a chuckle at how epic my bike ride out to Mercer Island across bridge and back felt today.

The new job is going really well. It's straightforward work and extremely project-oriented, which is the way I work naturally, so the time flies by. Copywriting has forced me to stop evaluating my language in the big-picture way that I've spent most of my life doing, and start focusing on the minutiae of my words, my sentence constructions. Zinsser's "On Writing Well" has been on my bookshelf most of my life, since my father had the foresight and kindness to give me a copy, but it had been years since I'd cracked it open. I started rereading it, and wow, it has to be one of my favorite books ever written.

Why wasn't it required reading for any of my creative writing classes at Oberlin? We spent so much energy in those classes on big-picture discussions - on plot, on character development - but so rarely did we work on the bare bones of language itself. When did we relish in the many shades of meaning maintained by a single word? When did we discuss the uselessness of most adverbs and of many adjectives, the richness of active verbs? When did we pay homage to the origins of words, express gratitude for the delicious possibilities that the English language puts at our fingertips?

I need more practice with the craft itself of writing, with the art of decluttering, of editing, of sending half my words to the chopping block. There is value in this all, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work on it in my daily life this summer. (I should practice this decluttering business in my blog more often, I realize...but cut me some slack; 40 hours a week of stripping my sentences to their essential parts...getting to ramble a little on my blog is kind of like having a familiar, relaxing drink at the end of a long day.)

Speaking of which, it's well past my bedtime now...

Life Report + my second half marathon

This life I lead is a good one.

I worked this weekend some, but all in all, it felt a lot more like heaven than it did work.

Friday: writing projects during the day (work on my trail running stories for Outdoors NW, green smoothie blogging for a website I'm doing some writing for), beaches and sushi and magic with good people in the evening


Work or Heaven?
Saturday: 3rd Annual Running Shoe Expo, i.e. spending the day outside geeking out about running shoes with vendors and customers, then driving up to Deception Pass State Park with Lauren to meet up with friends and camp by the beach


Lauren and me at Deception Pass
Sunday: Running the Whidbey Island Half Marathon, relaxing afternoon back in Seattle, potluck dinner up north with many wonderful people

Today, the sun is out, and I get to spend my day: in my PJ's, eating good food, interviewing trail runners I admire, writing for work, and meeting Ruth for dinner in Wallingford tonight instead of going to class. After much deliberation over the matter, I decided to let go of my web databases classes this semester, and drop down to halftime school, rather than doing another full time quarter.

I'm still taking a few classes I'm pretty pumped about - user experience design (creating e-commerce websites) and writing for the web (would like to teach this in the future!) - but there was no way I could keep my life balanced and thriving with any more schoolwork on my plate. While many people in the web design program I'm in are there to make a 180 career shift and get a full time design job, I will maintain that writing is, and probably always will be, my primary passion. Web design and development, while very exciting to me, are merely hobbies with which I hope to supplement and support a career path of writing and creating.

But enough of the overarching life reflections I tend to litter my blog with..let's talk about running! (...because that is something I never talk enough about on my blog...) The Whidbey Island Half was my second half marathon I've ever done. The first was the Cleveland Half nearly two years ago, and I thought I'd never be able to beat that race: the weather was perfect, my body was humming, my friend Aseem was a rockin support crew, I ran faster than expected despite it being the longest race I'd ever run, and I loved every moment of it. Whether consciously or subconsciously, I think I've avoided running any more halfs because I was scared I'd never run one as great as the race that day.


Aseem and I enjoying brewskis after my first Half.
But! Yesterday reminded me how much I love the 13.1-mile distance, when it comes to road running. It's long enough to get in a groove, but not so long that the finish line is ever impossibly out of sight. The weather was everything that Washington state is known for this time of year: gray, overcast, icy cold, brutally windy, and on the verge of pouring rain the whole time. On a clear day, the Whidbey course features spectacular mountain views (earning it its title from Lonely Planet as one of the top ten most scenic marathon courses in the WORLD) - but even with the mountains in hiding and the sky resembling a slate blanket, it was an unbelievably gorgeous course.


The ladies at the finish line
It was fun to run it with friends, too. I'd never run a road race with a friend before. We all ran at slightly different paces, but because of certain out and back sections of the course, we passed each other often and were able to exchange cheers and high fives at points. Several boyfriends came along, too, to cheer us on along the course and at the finish line. (Boyfriends were also responsible for helping put together the rockstar carbo-load dinner at camp the night before: grilled salmon with pesto pasta, zucchini squash, and portobello mushrooms...who knew camp food could be so gourmet?)

The course was pretty hilly, and I realized how much I have grown as a runner since coming to Seattle; hills used to terrify me, but these days, I embrace them. They make me feel hardcore. It's admittedly very empowering to cruise up them when others are slowing down, because of all the mountains and hills (thank you, Queen Anne!) that I've run in training; my muscles were all, "Hey now, we know what to do here!" Uphills generally mean downhills, too, which are pretty much like free periods of rest for my legs and heart while clocking sub-7-minute miles: awesome.

Overall, I finished with a chip time of 1:49:23 . I maintained an 8:21 average pace, which was an improvement over my 8:33 pace at Cleveland two years ago, but still with a big window for future improvement and PR's - the best of both worlds. Also placed 7th in my age division, woohoo!


Here's me approaching the finish line at close to a full-out sprint: so much energy still left in the tank!


Lauren also had energy left in the tank...here's her prancing around on rocks a couple hours after running her first half-marathon.
Running is delightful. It is a framework for me to understand, interpret, and process my life. I love trail running for the scenery and laidback nature and solitude and more intense mental challenge...but there's still a place in my heart for a good road race with cheering crowds, camaraderie, and course support. Really looking forward to a solid running schedule in 2011. Also, big thumbs up for camping out the night before at the world's most beautiful campground!

Next up for me: Eugene full marathon in three weeks!

RAGNAR Race Report

Many, many months ago, a piece of expertly marketed advertising arrived in my mailbox at our apartment: a postcard with two scratch-and-sniff vans, one that smelled great, one that smelled terrible, and a dotted line labeled "187 miles" connecting the two. So it was that I was introduced to the Ragnar Relay Series - a dozen gigantic relay races throughout the country in which 12-person teams pack into two vans and leapfrog their runners to the finish line over a series of 36 legs (3 per runner). The Northwest Passage Ragnar starts in Blaine, up by the Canadian border, and goes all the way down to Langley, a small town on the south end of Whidbey Island.

I think Ragnar got my address from my Seattle Marathon sign-up, but more power to 'em: the scratch-and-sniff postcard hooked my interest. I posted it up at work and asked if anyone might be interested in putting together a team. Within a month, I had 11 hooligans interested in joining me for a two-day fest of sleep-deprived, pavement-pounding madness. After many months of organizing, reorganizing, planning, training, and the occasional team run/BBQ, this past weekend finally plunged us into the craziness of running a huge relay in one of the most stunning parts of our country.


To those who know me well, it may come as no surprise that our official team name, "Alpacas by Day, Ninjas by Night" was my doing. Four years in Ohio cemented my slight obsession with alpacas...and as for the ninja part, I really have no idea. But it worked; our competition included team names like "Runners with an Eating Disorder", "Blood, Sweat, and Beers", "Postpartum Aggression", and the "IT Bandits", and costumes and van decorations ranged from Robin Hood-themed warriors to a van with a three-foot cardboard shark emerging from the top.


Seeing all the other vans was inspiring and awesome.
We met up in Seattle at 7 a.m. on Friday to decorate our vans, don ridiculous noses and starry glasses (which, of course, have nothing to do with either alpacas or ninjas, but who cares?!), caravan up to the starting line, and torment/amuse drivers in other vehicles along the way.


Ron started us off at our staggered start time of 10:30 a.m., taking off for the first of 36 legs total. The two vans, one with runners 1-6 and one with runners 7-12, alternated being "on" and "off" vans - so for the first six hours or so of the relay, my van was "off" and able to just wander around downtown Bellingham, stroll around by the beach and boardwalk, grab some lunch at the Colophon Cafe, and pick up some IPA's and Scotch-style ales from the infamous Boundary Bay Brewery in anticipation of our post-race celebration (still more than 24 hours away at that point! And as for how to make room in our coolers for the beer...who needs cold Gatorade anyway?)

In the meantime, Van 1 was leapfrogging our first six runners all the way from Blaine down to the first major exchange point in Bellingham, where around 4:40 p.m., I laced up my running shoes, lined up in the exchange chute, took the baton (err, slap bracelet) from Jenica and took off running.

Tempted as I am to write a play-by-play of the whole 28-hour ordeal, I understand that might get tedious. Instead, I'll summarize the highlights, and rely heavily on photos to bring the event to life for those who weren't there in person to run under a full moon, watch sunrise over Deception Pass, smell the sweat, feel the aches and pains, and experience the drunken stupor of total sleep deprivation. (1.5 hours of sleep during the entire event, AGHHH!!!!)

Washington state is gorgeous. It's more diverse in its landscape than anywhere I've ever visited, let alone lived, before. We ran by all of it: mountains, volcano views, lakes, bays, beaches, forest, farmlands, everything. Each leg of the race brought new scenery, new places to ooh and ahh over. When our van was "on", we leapfrogged our runners, cheered and hollered as they ran, blasted bluegrass from our van, danced along the side of the road, took photos of our antics, and ate snacks pretty much constantly. When our van was "off", we also ate snacks pretty much constantly, hung out, laughed ourselves silly, and occasionally tried to pile into sleeping bags and catch a few winks of sleep, generally in vain.


First and foremost, our stellar team of volunteers, without whom our run wouldn't have even been possible.


My van mates broke out their best "Yitka pose" by the side of the road.


Don't we look like fun?


At sunset on Friday: 4 of our van's 6.


Elodie got both the sunset and the sunrise run.


75% of the team, pictured at Exchange Point 12.


...where they had free s'mores!


In our blazingly attractive reflective vests.


Getting sleep during the relay meant getting creative about beds.


Homeless? Nah, just runners. Notice the Pringles can and stack of bagels on top of it.


Eating salty chips and guzzling Gatorade at a convenient store in the middle of the night. Just about sums up the whole Ragnar experience.


Sunrise over Deception Pass.


Post 1.5-hours of sleep: Breakfast, sunshine, listening to bluegrass, waiting for Van 1 to arrive.


Jenica arrives!


Greg kicking butt on his last leg.


Exchanges ranged from smooth to messy; this one was speedy, sweaty, and largely a failure of coordination on our part, but Greg's sprint at the end succeeded in giving me the leg up on the team that was even with us at that point.


Peter and I toast at the finish line...


...while Jeff hops on a treadmill and takes 7th place nationwide for Most Elevation Climbed in 5 Minutes. Crazy man!
Overall, it's just impossible the put the experience into words. No worries, though; the Alpaca Ninjas fully plan on returning next year for their second Ragnar, so let me know if you're interested in joining the team for next year! We ran hard, averaging a team pace of 8:51 overall, with our fastest legs paced at a ridiculous 7:17 pace (go Jeff and Elodie!) There were some blisters, some sore knees and shins, some seriously taxed muscles, some general heat exhaustion, some Sunday work shifts that needed calling off...but overall, I think it's safe to say we had a blast with it. Couldn't recommend the Ragnar series more highly to anyone thinking about doing one.


Ragnar 2010: Alpacas by Day, Ninjas by Night

Boot camp continues

Last-minute trail-running boot camp continues. (Yes, I know this is a terrible way to prepare for a race. I'm just really excited, and can't help myself.)

So, yesterday was intended to be my last big run day before next weekend. I would have loved to have gone out to Cougar Mountain again and done a long, rolling trail run with a lot of elevation, but unfortunately, I had to be at work at 11 a.m., and Cougar Mountain is just far enough away that a decent run out there before work was implausible. So I did my best to work with what the city has to offer instead, and plotted out a 12.5 mile course around Seattle, hitting up as many steep hills as I could possibly cram into one run - though promising myself I'd take it slowly.

What I did instead was a full 16-mile run with a couple miles worth of hill sprints about 9 miles in, at Gasworks Park, and still, my average overall pace was a full two minutes per mile faster than the last time I did a long, hilly run. Granted, I was primarily on roads this time, and roads are always faster than trails, but my gosh how wimpy and manageable all the city hills seemed after spending the last couple weeks trying to run up mountains!

Today, as I wrote before, I was up at 6 a.m. (for the second day in a row, woohoo!) to get out to Issaquah to proctor an SAT for a room full of bleary-eyed high schoolers. I packed all my running gear and my favorite trail-running guide to western Washington *just in case* I felt like cramming in a bit more last-minute elevation training.

Turns out I did. This time, I went for West Tiger 3, one of six peaks in the 13,500-acre Issaquah Alps. It only got a 3 (of 5) "Pain" rating in the guide (as opposed to Mount Si, which got a 5), despite climbing 2,000 feet in just a few short miles with pretty much relentlessly steep uphill trekking. It was a bit rockier than Si as well, and given that it's been raining all day long here too, I definitely had to take the downhill a bit slower to make sure I didn't slip on wet rocks or twist an ankle in the sloppy mud. Taking the uphill slowly wasn't such a conscious decision...it just happened. The good news, though, is that I ran for 2 whole miles uphill before having to stop and take a rest! (Compared, again with Si, where I was lucky if I could string together a 30-second segment of actual running before breaking down into a hunched-over, discouraged trudge.) And then I made it up pretty much the rest of the way actually running, except for the last really steep, incredibly rocky chute to the summit.

Apparently on a clear day, you can see Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Puget Sound, and the entire Seattle skyline all from the top. I will definitely have to go back another time for all that! Instead, I reached the summit and found myself enshrouded in fog and complete silence, save the gentle pit-pat of the rain hitting my rain jacket. I sat down on a rock for awhile to appreciate the solitude, and the simple joys of fresh air and rain and my breath, before turning around and beginning my roller coaster of a ride back down to the bottom.

All in all, a good start to my weekend. 5 a.m. wakeup call tomorrow morning to leave for volunteering on Orcas! No pictures from today (cameras and rain, a bad combination), but hopefully some soon. And maybe also soon an entry that doesn't just obsess over running... :)

P.S. My latest work for OutdoorsNW: Click me!


(Photo courtesy of ONW.)

Test driving my new shoes

One of the really nice perks of my job is the opportunity to buy gear directly from vendors at a deeply discounted rate. Admittedly, it's a dangerous perk - but one that, given that a good deal of my annual budget goes toward running/outdoorsy gear already, is most appreciated. My Christmas presents to myself this year were some new footwear - the aforementioned Vibram Fivefingers, a few pairs of Injini toe socks to accompany them, and a pair of the new Brooks Cascadia 5's - a trail running shoe partially designed by Seattle's own (and my longtime hero) ultrarunner Scott Jurek.

All the new colors of the Cascadia 5's look fairly hideous online. I finally settled on what I considered to be the least hideous color of all - a scheme that Brooks likes to call "Spicy Wasabi/Cedar/Black/Silver/Pavement"...whatever that means! In the flesh, the shoes look quite different than online - I've gotten everything from "algae" to "pond scum" to "pistachio" from various coworkers I polled. (It's impossible to walk anywhere in these guys without commentary.) Regardless, they're *slightly* less hideous than I thought they'd be, which is a bummer, as it'll tempt me to wear them around in daily life - generally a bad idea if I'm looking to extend their shelf life as a useful, technical shoe for running up and down mountains.


Sitting atop a small peak, overlooking the Cascades
But! I have taken them out for several exciting test runs this week. The first was a fairly spur-of-the-moment, total impulse run up Little Si a couple days ago before I had to go into work for REI's overnight inventory. I threw an apple, a bottle of water, and a rain jacket into a backpack and took off for North Bend, a small town about 30 miles east of Seattle, and notably, home of the infamous "Twin Peaks" show. It took me about an hour to run to the top (hiking/walking about 30% of the uphill, as this was my first real attempt at a technical trail run) and back down again (so much fun on the way down!). The views from the top were nice:



Today, the Cascadias got to come along for a sweet ride. Several friends from work and I went mountain biking in an obscure old logging forest, also about 35 miles outside of Seattle. There were literally thousands of acres of old growth forest, and all still in their full, lush glory, because so many trees in the Northwest are evergreens or moss-covered or whatever else that manages to survive, green and vibrant, all winter long! We stuck mostly to old logging roads - easier than any real technical mountain trails, but still a big, rocky, gravelly, and occasionally hilly mess for which I was infinitely grateful to have the mountain bike Jeff loaned me. We had the entire forest to ourselves for the five or so hours we were out, with some sporadic rain that made the whole day a muddy pit of fun.

Album from the day:


hxc.


Picture of the day? Jeff rides ahead into the sunlight.


Territorial view.


Sandwich-and-bourbon break!


Waterfall/cascading river/mountains/trees. Yes please!


Muddy legs. Shoes still fluorescently pondscum-like.


Jenica and me, 37 miles later.
Doing this definitely beat going to work. Although hours are way down now that the holidays are over, I'm enjoying every minute of the free time I finally have after a long push through the hard stuff!