The North Face SF Endurance Challenge Marathon
The North Face Endurance Challenge are races held across the country. The SF race is mostly in the national park right across the Golden Gate Bridge. This year, due to rule and permit changes, the race moved a couple of weeks earlier from December to November and the start and finish moved outside of the park. The race finishes across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. The race has a 50m, 50k, marathon, and half-marathon distances. The difference between the marathon and the 50k or the 50m is much less than you would imagine, as there are five 1000 feet climbs out of six or seven.
Last year I ran the 50k and bonked hard. I had trained for the climbs. But I went out too fast. I hit a bad patch in Muir Woods where I had trouble with the muddiness and tree roots on single track at the edge of the hillside where I was cautious and passed by tens of runners. Then I skipped the aid station right after this section. It was a struggle to finish. Spent 15 minutes contemplating a DNF at the aid station right before finally decided to go on. Walked the entire hill with a great deal of struggle and finished.
I knew that I had to redeem myself. But decided to run the marathon which removes the section of Muir Woods which I knew that I would not be able to accept the risk of hurting myself.
Training for this race was just training for the half marathon race last week. I planned to run parts of the course as long runs. But I wasn't able to get more than a couple of runs due to issues in the training cycle which also limited my peak miles (~42 miles average). I accepted that I was going in undertrained. I also had run the half marathon the previous week, so not feeling fresh. To rest, I only had two 3 mile runs between races. One was 2 days before where I did some short 1 minute hill climbs at 6min/mile and at 5,10,15, and 20% grade to remind myself how hard the climbs would be.
I break the race up to the 5 climbs. I have to be conservative early on. A friend from work was running slower, so I planned to run the first 2 climbs with him. This was good for him and me, since he was unexperienced and go out too fast and I would go out too fast because that's what I do. I wanted to be in good shape for mile 15 because the last hill is runnable and I don't want to walk the bridge portion to the finish.
I take advice from an experienced runner to 1) run-walking the steeper sections. 2) cruising the flats [not too many of them] 3) stretching it out a bit on the downhills 4) low wattage on pavement.
Conservatively, I thought about 1 hour per 1000 foot climb/descent so sub-5 hours for the finish would be a good goal.
The night before I carbo-load by meeting with my running club at a bar. I do the next smartest thing and go home relatively early. Next morning I wake up at 7:30 and do my routine of tea, banana, oats and blueberries and almond mild, and a shot of expresso. And a bear claw which is habit for my long runs. I live 10 minutes from the start and get there 15 minutes before to bag check. It wasn't too cold, but I started with arm warmers and gloves. I meet up with my friend from work who is probably afraid of running with me. I made the one great decision to run with my Nike Flyknit Lunar Epic which has the most cushioning of all my shoes but no traction. It had rained 2 days before and I assumed that the trails had dried out. I chose to carry my Orange Mud double quiver pack, mostly so I will have a place to put my arm warmers and gloves after the start.
We start in a small shopping mall in Sausalito which is a short run to the trail head. I expected to be out there for 5 hours, and there were gaps of 1 hour between aid stations, so surprised at the number of people running in just singlets and nothing else. They do sprints, WTF? We line up at the back of Wave 1.
Hill #1 Sausalito to Bobcat 4.5 Miles
At the start everyone takes off. it's so easy to get caught up in the excitement. I had to pull my friend back and tell him that we will catch the rest of them later. Or not. But in any case, we would blow up follow them. At that point I felt like we were still going fast. I stay with him as he stops for a bathroom break at the top of the climb, taking pictures of the scenery. At some point I take a GU Roctane. He's doing ok and I try to tell stories to make sure I am not running too hard. We hit an aid station, which happens to not be a check point until the end and I go for some energy chews, gatorade and water. Just happy went haven't done anything wrong and then flew down the descent at about 8/mile pace.
Hill #2 Bobcat to Bobcat 9.5 Miles
We do another loop, but a little bigger as we are not going to the start. When we stop at the aid station at the bottom of the descent and I realize that I forgot my SiCaps. So I went for boiled potatoes with salt early. I have some more gatorade, coke, and water. On the uphill it's pretty much unrunnable as I did this path before. My friend is staying with me and I am surprised on some people running uphill ahead of us. Oh well. I dig into my stash of Oreos. I ask my friend if he wanted any but he said no. Unfortunately, he went with the race running rule of not eating anything unless you tried it before. For ultra trail running, the rule is that there is a reason why this weird assortment of food is out there. We walk the uphill but we are still doing good. I realize that I have to be more aggressive on the downhill as it's more work for the muscles to run slower. We see a lot of people that we have passed before. I pass a lot of people to the aid station at the bottom. My friend is close behind and I linger just 10-20 seconds longer.
Hill # 3 Bobcat to Tennessee 13.3 Miles
At this point I knew that my friend and I would part ways. We see someone talking to herself as she runs uphill at this ridiculous 10-20% grade and telling my friend that it's tragic that she is wasting this energy to be 20 seconds ahead. In any case, I get ahead of him on the climb and I stop to take some pretty nice pictures and get a good shot of him running up. But then at the top I am off. I didn't expect to run so fast, but I just tried not to lose any energy going downhill. This is where the shoe choice was brilliant as it absorbed a lot of impact. I pass the person running up the hill earlier, but then I am going down up to 6/mile and was scary that I was right at the edge of wiping out, but I knew that I was being efficient. It's funny that it felt ridiculously fast, but the winner of the marathon ran this pace for the entire race. I start seeing some of the faster runners coming back and wondering if I took the first part too easy. On the other hand they look like they are suffering much more than I am.
Hill # 4 Tennessee to Tennessee 17.3
This portion is an out, loop, and back. The elevation change is a little less. There's only a short hike uphill, none of which is runnable, so I just tried to keep pace on the flat and then again try to extend back on the downhill at about 7 minute per mile pace. Last year in this section, I had already bonked and gravity was carrying me down. I stopped for 15 minutes trying to decide if I was going to DNF. This year, I felt really good and ready for the last climb. I stop for a bit to tie my shoes and prepare me for the climb.
Hill #5 Tennessee to Alta 20.2
I wanted to run this entire climb, but reality set in. It would be mile 20 at the top and after that is 3 miles of rocky single track before I hit a section of downhill switchbacks which is partially eroded and good chance to fall. I went with a strategy of running 20-30 seconds, then power hiking with hands, then running sideways left, walking backwards, running sideways right, power hiking with hands and repeat. I would target a runner ahead of me and then pass them. I passed 10-20 runners on this climb. Actually some were in the race and some were not and some were at different distances. But I probably gained 5-10 minutes. I thought that I should have done this earlier, but who knows how tired I would be. It took forever to get to the final aid station. Got passed by 2 runners. Unlike last year this aid station did not have soup which saved me (and Jim Walmsley at UTMB. I was disappointed.
From the top of this last climb it was a descent of 6 miles to the finish. This was in 3 parts: 1) single track on lose rocks, 2) crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and descent, and 3) a flat mile to the finish. At the start of the single track, I let 3 runners pass me with the expectation of going slow. They all stop to take pictures. I run this section often so I didn't stop. The pounding on my feet was getting to me so I took very deliberate short steps. I am starting to feel cramps and I am running on fumes. Also I was afraid of falling off the side of the hill about 100 feet high. The switchbacks were treacherous. I only tripped once, but that was on the bush side with a slight worry of poison oak. But because it was downhill, gravity carried me to the bridge. When we got to the bridge we had to go down steps and up steps to get to the other side. There it was a little uphill until the middle and we would encounter tourist. But I was going too slow for it to matter. The crossing of the bridge would seem easy, but I was having problems. It wasn't exactly muscle fatigue, but I had to just stop every 600 meters to pause and stretch my calves and then I would run at a descent pace. At one point, I got passed by someone who was obviously having leg issues and running tilted to his right. I kind of wanted to pass him as it seemed odd to finish behind someone in that condition, but I couldn't catch up. But once we got downhill, I did okay. A friend from my running club ran by me in the opposite direction telling me that I was running strong. Sure. I stopped a twice to stretch along the flat section to the finish and was passed by a few runners, but I was pretty sure that I was going to finish.
5 miles less, 1 1000ft climb less, but 2 hours less than last year. When I made it to the finish, they called out my name. Pause my watch. And was surprised that I was well under goal. My heart was still pounding. I laid on a bench for a while and then hit the beer garden. I waited for me friend. I looked around and came up with the realization that everyone there was in the upper echelon of fitness to make it through the races. I arranged a ride home. Picked up gear check and then looked up awards. Got a nice trucker hat. I was first AG (out of 4 and just ahead of second by 5 minutes :) ). I passed 36 of 285 runners from the half marathon to the finish. Stayed for the marathon/50k/50m awards ceremonies. Over the last year, running on the treadmill, I watched the Hawks vs Miller video of last year's 50 mile race about 20 times last year and got a photo-op with them and this year's winner Tim Freriks. Of course, my phone died before I could get a picture with the women winners.
I was pretty beat up afterwards, the worse I have felt in a long time. 2 blisters. I am pretty sure I don't want to do this again. Have been resting all weekend. If I ran last year with the same fitness and more aggressively, I probably would have shaved 20 minutes, but for where I was this was a pretty solid race.
