Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

US Ultra-Long Champs at Pacheco Pass. Mass start at 9am. Sunny, somewhat warm. Turned into a very interesting race. Early on I was exhausted by the climb. In the middle, made up ground when others must've made mistakes, and was in front heading to #6. But with stronger runners with me, knew I had to have a tactic for separating myself. Took a different route to #7 than the other leaders. Wound up running the last 4 legs alone, but without knowing whether I was in front or way behind. Only at the finish did I discover that I was in front!

The details:

1. The usual pandemonium at the mass start. They had us all lined up facing the fork in the road to the SW. At the appointed moment, everyone turned over their maps and started moving towards the road leading over the saddle to the S. After several seconds, I realized that my #1 was 90 degrees to the left; but I looked over there and no one was headed that way. Check the map again: am I right, or am I going to blow the race in the first minute? I’m right; start trudging up the hill. I must start slowly or I’ll never make it. Now people are streaming by me. When I get to the top of the ridge, I see Ole out in front, and it seems to me a dozen other people who I don’t recognize. (Looking at the splits now, I see that In fact, there were 11 other people there, only 3 of whom I didn't know, so that was just my panicked brain.) Settle down. Checking off features, everything makes sense. When I cross the final spur, I see the copse I’m headed for and Ole coming to a stop above it, seemingly unsure. By the time he decides he’s in the right place, I’m almost there, along with a bunch of others.

2. Looks like an easy leg to navigate, right along the red line: Down to the pond, up to the saddle, down the reentrant, up the next one, little reentrant on the right side. Looking back as I’m leaving #1, I see Charlie coming in, maybe a minute behind. It appears that he and several others must’ve taken the road over the saddle and then come in along the S side of the ridge. After crossing by the left side of the pond, Brian Ellis comes by. I see Steve Smith leading the pack up the hill, with a dozen people stretched out behind. Who are all those people and why are they ahead of me? Legs already weary as I reach the saddle. OK on the downhill, but starting to feel overheated on the next climb, and my legs seem to be petering out. Not good.

3. Seemed that most of the people ahead of me headed SW, straight up the hill. My legs can’t do that. Desperately looking for a way to avoid climb, I head SE to the saddle, and then start contouring around. But it’s pure folly: I’ve gone way out of the way, haven’t saved any climb, and still have to ascend the humongous ridge. All the people who were ahead of me seem to be practically at the top, and now I see people who were behind me (Gary K, Charlie, Marg Ellis) further up the ridge, clearly ahead of me. Turn up, trudge and trudge. Forget competing for a medal; I’ll be lucky if I can finish this race. (This, fortunately, turned out to be my only real mistake of the day. Figure I lost about 2 mins due to the bad route choice.) Finally near the top. I see people ahead of me turning left as they hit the road, so I start wondering if I’m one saddle further right than I intended. When I get to the top and peer down the monster reentrant ahead, I see that I’m exactly where I want to be; guess the others went S on the road with the intention of going down the spur. My intention is to go down until where the dark green patch on the right encroaches on the reentrant, then contour over the spur and up the next one to the control. As I start my descent, I see Charlie and Rich Parker well to my left but heading for the same place I’m headed. Feeling much better on the downhill. Charlie and Rich are out of sight by the time I reach the place where I think I should contour across. There’s someone else there, perhaps an M-Brown, thinking about crossing the spur, and he does when I do. (I now think that that was probably Allen Hubsch.) When I get to the nose of the spur, I see Charlie and Rich crossing the reentrant ahead. When I get to that reentrant and look up to where I think the cliff should be, I see the cliff and the control. Up to the bag, studying the next (relatively short but technical) leg.

4. Mostly contouring, dropping a little. My intention is to squeeze between the road and the green patch right before the control (so I have recognizable features to catch me if I’m off a little either way). Halfway there I see Steve Haas, who’d been up with the leaders heading towards #2, searching around. Catch a glimpse of Charlie ahead, but lower, seemingly headed right for green patch. I see I’m getting close to the ridge line (with the road) and then see the green patch ahead and a little to right - perfect. Around the top of the green, start heading down along the far edge of the patch, spot the bag 40m below. Just then Charlie pops out of the green, halfway between me and the bag, but he doesn’t see it. But as he sees me heading down, he looks to his right and sees it. I arrive there just behind him, and Steve H comes in a little behind me. Completely unbeknownst to us, we are at this moment ahead of everyone except Brian, who is way out in front. (Brian, a Canadian not eligible for the US Champs, remained way out ahead and out of sight the rest of the way.)

5. Quickly got ahead, contouring and dropping a little out to the road. Down the nose of the spur and out into the open. Look towards where the next control should be and see the adjacent aide station, a few hundred meters away (and below), with no one else in sight. Feeling moderately energetic now, get there with little trouble. I ask the attendant whether anyone else had been there yet, and they said one person. I figured (correctly) that it had been Brian and that, amazingly, I was now in the lead. As I drank, suddenly half a dozen other people showed up.

6. Head N along the road, studying this leg. The hill on the right is so steep, I don’t want to go up it. I’m thinking of going all the way to the big, rocky reentrant before heading up. But I come to my senses: that’s extra distance, saves no climb, and I’d have to contend with the rocks. Better plan: start heading up at the next to last reentrant, and angle up across two spurs. I look up and realize that I’m almost at that reentrant and that I’m on the wrong side of the fence. I veer sharply and scrooch under; I get the sense that there are several people behind me who suddenly do the same thing. It takes only a few seconds of walking up the hill until my legs are feeling dead again. Knowing there are people behind me keeps me going. Reading vegetation and rocks on the spurs to keep me on line. Want to get up near the rock on the nose of the final spur before contouring the rest of the way. I see the rock. As I get close, Johanna comes up on my right. In a few moments, Ole and Steve H are edging ahead, contouring a little below me. I can see where the reentrant ahead must be, so start really focusing on the next, very intimidating leg. Gary Carpenter comes by before I get to the control. I imagine Charlie must be close behind, too, but turns out he was struggling on the hill even more than I was and had fallen back a bit.

7. As I approached 6 and the others came by, I realized that staying with them was a losing proposition for me: they are all much stronger runners than I am. My only chance was to go a different way than they do to #7 and hope that I might execute it better. I really wanted to drop to the road, if for no other reason than I just couldn’t see myself climbing any more right now. Also thought that the road was a safer route for my fading brain. I was hoping the others would go high, but I was prepared to go which ever way they didn’t. They headed up. I headed down.
A little ways down, the big reentrant I’d given some thought about coming up is too rocky - glad I didn’t come up this way. Past the big side reentrant on the right, climb up a bit to avoid the rocks. But the hillside is so steep, I can’t run along the contour - can barely keep my balance walking. Finally get around the spur and see the trail below. Realize the trail is headed up, so stay along the contour - better footing and not so steep now, so I can jog - until I meet the trail. Around the bend, and there’s a huge open expanse ahead of me, and I’m all alone. Jog a little ways on the trail, but even the slightest uphill forces me to walk. I see on the map that the road on the edge of the map has somewhat less up and down than the trail does, so even though it’s more distance and it means two fence crossings, I go out to the road. The point of taking a longer route to a road is to be able to run, but I really can’t run. Some jogging, but walking every slight rise. Brain having a hard time: I know that the big bend in the road will be my signal that I’m close, but a couple of times I think maybe I missed it, until I figure out by what’s on the hillside where I am. Finally, the totally obvious big bend comes, and I can see the spur I want. Cross the fence at the reentrant on the S side of the spur, and slowly trudge my way diagonally up. Read all the features with no problem, work my way up to the lone tree at the same level as the control, contour across and there it is. A dozen jugs of water, and none of them have been opened - my gambit has worked!

8. Or maybe not. I’m figuring Brian has already been here, and apparently he didn’t drink, so maybe my competitors have been here, too. I sit down - sit down! - and get myself some water. I know I have to go - if I am truly in front, I’ve got to get out of here before the others come - but I need some rest. The route choice to #8 is clear: I can’t possibly climb any more at the moment, so I’ve got to go down. Down the little wooded spur until it ends, then contour around until the I’m parallel to the road. Stay high until the spur with the trail, then down to the fence reentrant junction. from there I identify the features on the next spur and start heading for the side-by-side lone trees. Can hardly move upwards. Have to make a bargain with myself: 30 steps, then rest. But after the first 30, have to revise the bargain: 20 steps at a time, then hands on knees for 5 deep breaths. Repeat: 20 steps, hands on knees, 5 deep breaths. Again and again. Finally reach the trees. Now head for the rocks on the spur. Get there and rest in the shade for a bit. From here I can see the ridge that the control is on. There is a very distinct row of trees angling up to that ridge - yeah, see it on the map. I pick out the tree that I think is the one that should be the control site, but I can’t see a bag. Maybe it’s just well hidden. Sort-of-contour around the reentrant to the tree - no bag. Don’t panic. Look at the map. See that the desired tree is actually just the other side of the ridge. Walk a few steps up and over and there it is. Whew.

9. Panoramic view from this control. Still no one visible ahead, no one behind. Don’t know whether I’m ahead or behind, but either way, running fast isn’t nearly as important as not making a mistake. Got to put all my effort into concentrating. More or less contour around the big basin and over the next spur. From here, great view of the terrain ahead. I had been thinking I’d go up the road a ways before heading over the hill, but looking at the terrain it’s obvious that that is silly: out of the way, no climb saved. So, down to the road at the junction with the fence, and walk up the unmapped cowpath along the N side of the fence. This hill is not as steep and I know I’m near the end, so seem to have a bit more energy. Contour when I reach the trees, then climb to the gate at the fence corner. There’s a control on the other side, can’t possibly be mine, but I check the code anyway. Take a quick bearing, see the correct patch of trees, proceed directly to the control.

10: Straight down a little, then contour, hit the fence corner as hoped. Contour across the last two reentrants, see the copse on the far side of the spur; the control should be just past the copse. Through the copse - whack! A branch hits me in the face and knocks off my glasses. No damage to me or the specs. Punch in.

F: My legs have a bit of a tough time getting down this last steep slope. Don’t see anyone milling about the Finish. Try to look into the assembly area to see if any of my competitors are there, but don’t see anyone. Get to the Finish punch. Francois and Steve Harrison are sitting there. Don’t seem particularly excited to see me, making me think that maybe I’m just another finisher. “Has anyone else finished?” I ask. “No. Well, one guy, but maybe he was on Classic Brown.” “Tall and slender with a green shirt?” “Yeah!” That’s Brian. I was in fact ahead of everyone else! Wow!

Note: Later found out that the pack that had been just ahead of me at #6 and took the high route, wound up searching for #7 way too early. Gary C eventually separated and got to the control well ahead of the others. He took the high route to #8, and as he was nearing the control, he saw me heading for #9. However, he over-ran #8, allowing Ole, Steve H and Steve S to get ahead. Those three finished close together, in that order, in 2nd, 3rd and 4th (U.S.).

C • Another US Champ Title 8

US Ultralong 2013 Brown - Splits

Event: BAOC: Pacheco State Park A-meet
 

Pacheco Pass. A-meet Middle. Taking it easy. Navigation was very easy at that speed.

Warm up. Had to hustle to make my start time - actually jogged straight to the final start line.

Middle Brown - Splits

Charlie D drives down from Santa Rosa for dinner. Tomorrow we drive out to Pacheco.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. 9:30am. Todd and Louise do the usual 4 mile run, but I'm just loosening up. Bring an old Pacheco map and plan routes while walking.

Tuesday I felt a twinge in my right quad, just like the one I felt in Golden Gate park 6 weeks ago. There's still soreness there today.

Continue map reading as I jog a bit past the half-mile mark and back. Did the last half in 448, running easily, slowed down a little by map reading.

Two-thirds of the Theraband exercises, half the weights, one-third of Pilates mat and hips.

Front of house. Windy and chilly. Rather sleepy after a rough night. Dragging on the run. Only planned to do a warm up, and I managed that.

633, 603, 530

Cool down

Two-thirds of the theraband exercises, half the pilates mat exercises, a third of the hip exercises, and some light weights.