MT Repetitions

I ran the Nisene Marks marathon Saturday. It’s an out and back (or maybe, up and down) marathon in the state park of the same name in Aptos (near Santa Cruz), CA. It follows a fire road from town (about 100′ elevation) up through the redwoods and into what locals call mountains, topping out at about 2500′ elevation. There is a little bit of up and down along the way, but mostly it’s just up for 13.1 miles, then back down… There are a couple of steep sections that are a bit difficult to run, but mostly it’s runable. Loosely speaking, I suppose you could call this a trail marathon, but since it’s on fire road, I think that’s pushing it. There was also a ½ marathon and a 5k. About half of the half was on single track (and fun single track – I’ve run those trails before) but for the full they stuck to fire road.

How would I rate it??
The course: A-/B+ hard to complain about running through redwoods on dirt. I would have loved some single track.
Aide stations: A+ every three miles (out and back has advantages), good snacks, water, coke and gator aide. They even put leis over our heads at the turn around for fun.
shirt/swag: A+ – nice long sleeve technical shirt. Lime green color and nice graphics. A nice little finisher plaque photo thingee… (I’m not much into medals)
Overall runners mood level: A Very happy and social marathon. Many were quite the hard core marathon group. I know of at least 4 that had run at least one other marathon in the last two weeks.
How I felt? B My hip was bugging me… darned hip. Other than that, I really felt quite good.
How I feel today (2 days later)? B Ran three this morning. Stiff and sore, but really not bad at all.
How did I do? B+ 4:16 35th out of about 70 finishers (that’s a guess for total finishers – haven’t seen the official results yet). My goal was really a two parter. Up, I hoped to get to the top at 2:10-2:20. I was there at 2:15. Down I wasn’t sure, but I hoped for about 2 hrs, which I hit almost exactly. I figured my realistic finish window was 15 minutes either side of 4:30 – so I really did pretty well on that front. I think I would have been 30 seconds a mile faster on the down if my hip hadn’t been bothering me.

Would I recommend it? If you’re up for the elevation and can mange to not worry about your finish time, it’s great. You’re not likely to get a personal best here.

Outfit! Bright orange running cap, contacts, bright red shirt, black short tights (to prevent chafing) and shoes with 150 miles on them. I wore my Garmin and carried a water bottle with NUUN in it… Also took a PowerGel that I didn’t end up using. I don’t usually run in just tights, but I’ve found that glide wears off after about 3 hrs… and it was really too warm to wear shorts over tights.

Clear skies and maybe 55 at the start, 65-70 at the finish.

Preparation: I just decided to run this about 3 weeks ago. I’d done a couple of fairly good distance runs with nice elevation and felt I could do one more long run and be ready. Longest prep run was a little over 17 miles and 3 hrs. My overall base is pretty good having run consistently since a 30k trail run in Pacifica in January and the Timberline trail marathon up in Oregon last September.

On the course. Very fun run. I ran with 3 guys from a group I run with most Saturdays. They are all a bit more hardcore than me… each having run 2 other marathons in the last 5 weeks. We all stayed together and chatted for the first 3 miles – not too much of a hill yet – running about 9 minute/miles. We split up a bit at the first aide station. I grabbed a quarter of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a cup of water (this would be my standard fare at each aide station). 2 of my cohorts fell back at this point, one due to tummy issues and the other because he wasn’t sure how good he felt and wanted to start easy. I played leapfrog with the third, Vince, all the way up. My hip twinged about every 3 miles and really had a constant ache by the top. I managed to run the first steep section from mile 6 to 9, but had to walk a bit where it got really steep around mile 12. The first runners coming back down passed us at right about mile 12 – or 14 for them. They were moving and looking fresh. The winner came finished at 3:09.

Vince beat me to the top, but then hung out to wait for the other two. I kept on going but discovered down was going to be a bit harder on my hip. It twinged pretty bad about every mile for the first three miles. I was getting paranoid and slowed way down. Vince caught up with me at about mile 15 and we were chatting and I was complaining when I tripped on a root and nearly bit it. It took me two giant steps to catch myself. Turns out that was a good thing – seems the lurching and stretching adjusted my back / hip and I had far fewer problems the rest of the way. Vince then took off and ended up finishing 7 minutes ahead of me.

I plodded on… enjoyed views of the ocean and the mtns… said hi to the mtn bikers as they made the grueling climb up. At about mile 20 I realized I might hit 4:15 so really tried to minimize my aide station walks. I did manage to run under 9 minute miles the last 10k, but missed 4:15 by a minute.

The best part may be that I really enjoyed the whole thing. I didn’t have to force myself to go running today and I’ll be happy to entertain another marathon or trail ultra soon. It’s nice to finish and not feel totally run down, beat up and out of it.

Oddity: My Garmin lost about 1 mile on the way up, which was a little annoying. Since there were no mile markers I like the garmin for keeping tack of how far their is to go. Interestingly, Sporttracks corrected the distance when I loaded it up.