2009 05 06 miwok 100k

Susan Donnelly Ultramarathon Trail Runner. Motivational Speaker. http://www.susanruns100s.com

Miwok 100k Date : May 6, 2009

I don’t know about you but for me, letting go of expectations is sometimes harder than it should be. Even on a good day, things rarely go exactly as we plan, so we learn to be flexible. At least most of the time. Judging by this weekend, unfulfilled expectations still seem to be a problem for me in certain circumstances.

This weekend, we ran the Miwok 100k (62 miles). I’d read about it for years and was excited to make it in through the lottery. Rob said this was the ultimate tour for someone like me who’d never been to California. With 62 miles, I’d see plenty of territory and most of it was on my life list – stunning ocean cliffs, classic views of the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco, towering redwoods of Muir Woods, and the famed trails of Mt. Tamalpais. It was an out-and-back course with a few variations along the way, so we’d see most of it twice (i.e., plenty of views).

According to Rob, aid station tables would be stocked like luxury buffets (“Western States style”), there would be plenty of veggie burgers at the end, and there’d almost certainly be nice swag. They were even using my favorite sports drink – Gu2O. To top it all off, the footing was so easy, virtually manicured according to our eastern standards, that we’d have no problem calling it a play day and still finishing in the daylight, well ahead of cutoff. The perfect run two weeks before Massanutten 100 mile.

We talked about it so much in the intervening months and weeks that I could smell the ocean and taste those hard-won veggie burgers. I even sprung for a new camera the day before the trip.

A Little Worried We arrived in San Francisco the day before the race to chill temps and rain. Well, that just meant it was sure to clear by race day. We ate at the Greens Restaurant and watched the sea lions at Fisherman’s Wharf while the rain and wind steadily increased. The Weather Channel hourly forecast that evening showed only a 30% chance of rain most of race day. Ok, it might be foggy at the start but that wouldn’t last long. Besides, I had two chances (out-and-back) to see the views.

Race Day

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Leaving drop bags.

Morning, and no rain. With the forecast in mind, I decided to take the new (non-waterproof) camera. We arrived at Rodeo Beach in the dark and added our drop bags to the pile. I opted against reason to start in a long-sleeve capilene and ultra-light jacket.

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Log jam at the start.

The crowd lined up on the beach as the fog was just starting to lighten, headlamps still a necessity, and at the signal, started across the loose sand to the trailhead where we waited‌and waited‌and waited. Two or three minutes later (no kidding), the log jam cleared and we climbed up the trail to the road that ran around the point. Sure enough, the jacket came off.

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A bit foggy.

We chatted with legend Barbara Elias, running her milestone 10th Miwok. She’s a great inspiration and proof positive you don’t have to stop doing something you love when you grow up. We also ran a few miles past 1930s military bunkers with Maine friend Melanie Haber who was here with her GAC crew for some nice, warm weather.

We caught a ghostly glimpse of the Golden Gate bridge in the pre-dawn fog but that was it. It started to rain and the camera went into safe-keeping for a while.

The course turned off the pavement and descended gently to aid station #1 at Bunker Road (6.2 miles), a simple fluids stop. We tanked up quickly and headed off toward the Tennessee Valley aid station (gotta love that name). Beautiful country composed of gently rolling hills and landscaped with perfectly scattered trees and wide swathes of blue lupine.

At the Tennessee Valley aid station (11.9 miles), the tables weren’t a buffet from Arabian Nights fables but it was early yet and mid-to-late aid stations are better stocked. Besides, I don’t need much more than fluid refills anyway – I just wanted to see a “Western States style” tables. Better than food, I got to meet Stan Jensen, whose website has been the ultimate go-to resource for the ultra community as long as I can remember.

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We left on pavement and after an unexpected detour (I left my bottle at a “groundcover check� and had to run back for it), we turned onto dirt road again. The rain returned, then cleared momentarily for a teaser view as we descended some tricky stairs above the ocean. Wow, this

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was going to be great when the rain quit and fog burned off!

Moments later, the rain returned for real. The view disappeared and the camera got doubleziploc’d for the duration. We pulled into the Muir Beach aid station (16.0 miles) shortly thereafter and were greeted by Tony Gonzalez from Atlanta/San Fran, who was working the aid station. It was so nice to see him! We chatted for a moment and got back on our rainy way.

The next section wandered along the road for a bit before it crossed to climb up into the Muir Woods. WOW. It was probably all the more mystical and spectacular swathed in foggy mist.

The field of runners had spread out by now so Rob and I were essentially alone with only the sound of raindrops. Dwarfed by giant redwoods who were most certainly our wise elders, it felt like a welcoming and deeply spiritual place. A holy, natural cathedral. You couldn’t help but whisper.

We arrived at the Pan Toll aid station (21.7 miles) before we knew it. Our drop bag was here, with my Patagonia cool weather top, fleece gloves, wool hate, and dry long-sleeved shirt inside.

It was still raining steadily, we were soaked, and it didn’t look like it would stop. I took the gloves, put my jacket on, scrounged some Nature Valley granola bar pieces off the minimal table offerings, filled my bottle and we left. In the rain.

This was the Mt. Tamalpais section. It sloped sharply down to the left and started out through mossy green rainforest-y trees. Before long, it emerged in what must have been a meadow that sloped down to what sounded like the crashing ocean below. The meadow, without the trees to shield, was cold and shockingly windy. I pulled my hood up and it rattled in the wind like the edge of a taut sail. Soon, the wind was blowing me off balance into the side of the hill and was even blowing rain sideways into my ear. I couldn’t hear Rob behind me and he couldn’t hear me, or see with the fog and rain blowing onto his glasses. Without a word, we fell into a strong pace, trying to stay warm, where he was watching my foot placement and I pointed out holes and stray rocks he might not see. The first place runner passed us somewhere along the foggy way, looking unhappy and red-skinned in the cold. The trail wound us through miles of this windwhipped meadow-tree-meadow pattern before delivering us at the tree-sheltered Bolinas Ridge aid station (28.4 miles).

On any other day, this aid station wouldn’t have been a total mud pit. Today however, crew, runners, and aid stations workers had clearly given up and were milling around everywhere in the stuff. We filled our bottles, grabbed some soggy chips and headed back out in the rain.

The turn-around was ahead.

With the aid station still in earshot, Rob quietly informed me that we had two hours to run seven miles for the cutoff. What?!? This was supposed to be an easy day. I hadn’t even been stopping to take pictures! What happened? My brain struggled with the math. Ahead of us, the road was wide but filled with small ponds and churned up mud, and it was still raining. This could be tight. Well, I darn well wasn’t going to DNF here. I buckled down and ran us through every runnable inch, which wasn’t much. As if to add to the challenge, my orthotic started to bother my foot and low blood sugar began to weigh me down. We kept going. We’d been through much, much worse and I knew this was do-able.

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We descended the hill to the Randall Trail aid station (35.6 miles) in time, grabbed a cookie, and headed right back up the hill through more thoroughly-chewed up mud all the way back to the Bolinas Ridge aid station (42.8).

Heading for home The next section, Mt. Tam, was still as windy as before and now more chewed up and slick, but we each slipped only once. The visibility was still the same – a few yards. Vague shapes of boulders and trees, along with the occasional sound of sea, slipped by us in the fog.

Back at Pan Toll (49.5 miles), I changed out of the wet shirt and saturated jacket and put on the dry cool weather top. I kept the sopping gloves and tied the jacket around my waist, in case.

We grabbed our headlamps, since we were probably slow enough to need them today.

Returning through Muir Woods, it was still foggy and now growing dim, though (finally!) less rainy. The forest still breathed peace but the pressure of having 12 miles and scant daylight left was a distraction. My foot was bothering me again and we ran as much as we could. Halfway through, the course changed and we climbed up to a new Hwy. 1 aid station (54.7 miles).

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Tony, earlier in the day.

Tony Gonzalez was there with a smile and a hug again. He said we’d have a steep downhill coming up – bad news for the foot, but oh well. We filled our bottles again, I grabbed a cookie and we headed out. The omnipresent fog still stifled the view, though you got the impression of beautifully rolling hills.

Stan Jensen greeted us again at the Tennessee Valley aid station (58.4 miles), now the last one. This had gone incredibly fast. I couldn’t believe there were only four miles left. We filled

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our bottles one last time in the remaining light and took off to squeeze the last good running out of the day.

We didn’t get far – halfway up the next hill – before resorting to headlamps. The fog was so thick, the headlamp beams were reflecting badly in our faces so we had to carry them instead.

Rob had wanted to get down the stairs at the end before dark but that wasn’t going to happen.

My foot was hurting and both of us were a bit tired. We passed a group of three runners (two pacers and one runner?) in the dark who, judging from the conversation, had one headlamp between them. Goodness.

A mile or two later and we heard the ocean and people yelling at the finish – way below us on the left. Several switchbacks, Rob’s stairs, and we ran across the finish line, caked with mud and smiling.

With Melanie at the finish.

At the finish tent, burgers were grilling. Unfortunately, none of them were veggie burgers.

There were none, and there was nothing else for me to eat (ovo-vegetarian) except a salad.

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The women’s finisher’s shirt was a fantastic blue running bra-tank…that was two sizes too large. We talked briefly with Melanie Haber, who had DNFed earlier and spent the rest of the day volunteering, then left to search for a food source still open at 10:00 pm. We managed a few hours of sleep before flying back home in the morning.

After I’ve been feeling a bit blue about the race ever since, like I missed a party or everyone forgot my birthday. Disappointed, really. Which makes me feel even worse. After all, I like the race, weather is weather, and no matter what, it’s always about running that course on that day. It’s about the experience, not the aid stations or food or silly t-shirts or even the expected views.

So why does it all bother me? As best I can tell, it’s the expectations, or to be more precise, the high expectations, combined with the fact that none of them came to pass!

All in all, I’m still glad we went and wouldn’t change that. Like Rob said, at least it’s memorable! And who knows, maybe we’ll lucky in the lottery again next year and give it another try.

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