Too Cool April Fools race

Another excellent adventure race!  We're lucky to have Too Cool Racing designing fun courses in interesting parks around Texas.  We're also happy to be in Texas for a few months to participate in these races, and lucky to have Dave as an excellent teammate!

The April Fools race brought us back to Parrie Haynes Ranch where we hadn't been since August 2008, wow that's quite a long time, and it was great to be back.  Also, the weather this time around was SO much better, being that it wasn't August and it wasn't 100+ degrees.  We had clouds, a bit of wind, some tiny sprinkles, threats of rain that didn't hit us, and overall the most perfect day.

Art and Robyn gave us the race maps at 5 am and we mapped the route in Dave and Michelle's travel trailer (thank you for the comfortable digs, y'all!).  Michelle made biscuits and we plotted points and had breakfast.  Meanwhile John was off to the paddle put-in to hang out with the boats and wait for the teams to arrive.  We had guessed we might see him rather early in the race.  Kind of hoped so, in case it really did start storming later like it looked like it might.  I stuffed a biscuit in my pack for him, just in case he was hungry when we got there.

Here's most of the map, except for the cemetery and paddle put-in to the west and one bike point on the eastern edge:

We thought we were starting with a bike share leg (one bike per two teammates) but right at the end of the pre-race briefing Robyn mentioned we were ALL starting on bikes for the melee portion of the event.  Ah, OK, well, then I will go get some bike lights set up for me.  We kept expecting at some point to hear "April Fools!" but no, everything we were told was for real.

The melee was fun - called "Luck of the Draw," each team picked a random starting checkpoint and we quickly plotted where we needed to head.  Dave and I took off down the road, immediately alone in the dark.  Our first point was on a "wall" but we didn't see anything obvious right along the road where we had it plotted.  Dave wondered if it might be among the ropes area off in the woods?  We checked around the cabin, including all the walls of the building and even inside the bathrooms and around the water tank (lots of walls!).  Well, that was likely too far north anyway so we went back down the road a bit, and Dave finally went off into the trees and yelled "got it!"

He was on top of the structure by the time I got over there - wow, that's a challenge!  He had somehow managed to pull himself up on this platform that was maybe 10 feet off the ground?  He read off the coordinates to the next location while I scribbled them onto the map.  I sort of helped him down, with me wondering how I might have managed that one if, say, I had been racing solo.

The next checkpoint (CP) was back at the transition area (TA), so we rode back pretty darn quick (PDQ).  Time to assemble a jigsaw puzzle!  Dave told me that he's not great at these things, which is fine because I enjoy doing them and it's nice to feel useful.  He helped sort the pieces and I did my best to put them together quickly.  Funnily, the photo that Too Cool took suggests he was sleeping on the job, but I can assure you that he was busy moving pieces around in a mostly not-random way:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

One Snow White and a few dwarves later, and our little break was over.  Back to the bikes, back on the road, now heading toward the ranch entrance.  We started seeing more racers on the course, including a couple 6-hour rogainers collecting as many CP's as they could on foot.  Apparently they had 3 of our 4 melee points as well, fun!

We continued our trend of being slow to find points in the dark, standing right next to the flag and missing it completely (that was all me) before exploring more downstream.  No, that must be wrong, back upstream.  Yes, there it is, geez.  At least we recovered on this one more quickly and didn't go into any buildings along the way.  More coordinates to plot...

One last melee point, this one in the middle of a pond to the north of the TA.  On the way there we discussed whether there was any advantage to starting with one particular point out of the 4.  Well, if all of the points required you to go back to the TA afterward, there shouldn't be much advantage to any one (except the timing of the break for the puzzle).  Ah, but from the pond point you could bypass the TA on the way to the wall.  So actually, we started with the least optimal of the four.  Dave mentioned this to Art later and he told us that's why they called it "Luck of the Draw"  :)

We rode up a long gentle hill, down some rocky drops (with me taking it slow but happy that it was getting light out so I could see - one advantage to doing this one last).  Dave offered to wade into the water to punch the control, thank you Dave!  That was not an insignificant thing.  Here's Art demonstrating the depth of the pool in a pre-race photo:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

Back to TA, with Dave now quite wet but not complaining.  OK, well, that opening leg took an hour and a half, plenty of time for darkness to disappear (which is probably not physically, nor poetically, correct).  Excellent, now I can do the riding part of the ride-and-tie without needing lights, and in fact we don't even need to carry the lights to the river at all.

We did a quick transition, Dave changing into running shoes, me picking up my bike lock, both drinking some Spiz and dropping off headlamps.  Still got the biscuit in my pocket though!  Don't worry, it's my pack pocket and not in my pants.

I rode up the hill, Dave running along wondering how long this hill goes?  We would get to know this hill pretty well by the end of the race.  I asked if he could try riding my bike?  Sure, he says!  I rode ahead, dropped the bike and helmet, and ran a ways before Dave passed me and repeated the process for me.  I made sure I got to run down the rocky part, that was definitely the faster option for me and probably for Dave as well but I wasn't really thinking about him.  You can tell because I ran ahead and made him push the bike up the next hill which had so many rocks it wasn't all that rideable even for him.  Eventually he passed me near the top of that hill and we went back to switching off riding and running.

Some easier trail, a few barking dogs (mostly confined to their yards), and a tiny bit of navigation later and we were at the bike drop.  I found a spot in the cedar trees to lock the bike to a branch, managed to forget the key in the lock even though I lock my bike to things almost every day while riding around town, went back to retrieve it, and we were finally on our way.  The fence had the tightest barbed wire we've ever seen, making it about required to go over the top.  Finally, onto the road!

The next several miles were uneventful, just running and chatting.  We found one CP next to a cemetery.  Looked at a potential shortcut that avoided the last hill but decided not to thrash through some crap and possibly wake up potential dogs and maybe an irate Texas landowner.  Running down the last bit of road over the bridge we could see John was awake and waiting for us - Hi John!!

John hanging out with a bunch of boats:

[Photo courtesy of Darby Stewart]

Here John, have a biscuit that I've been carrying around for a couple hours!  He seemed to appreciate it, or at least acted like he did.  We had fun talking for a couple minutes while we prepped to paddle.  John had fun watching our reaction at the boat put-in location - a nice big drop down a concrete bank.  OK then!

He told us there was also a little trail we could take, but he had strung a nice rope down the embankment, so of course we had to do that.  Not so fast, Dave!  Yep, through the trees, sure why not...

My least shining moment of every race is usually figuring out how to get in a canoe off some rocks while trying not to get my feet wet (I'm not proud of this but I haven't committed to changing it - yet).

In the water, practicing the back stroke:

And finally on our way, let's do this:

John took a bunch of pictures of other teams, and this certainly was a good spot for that.  Here's a view of the trail (which he told us later might have been tough to get a canoe through):

Another angle on the incline:

Another canoe coming down:

You could probably calculate the angle from this photo:

These guys don't need no stinkin' rope:

More like our "through the trees" method:

View of the bridge underside:

The river paddle was fun!  It has been a while since we'd done a river paddle, especially for me sitting in the front of a canoe using a kayak paddle on moving water.  Good practice.  I enjoyed reading the river, remembering how to spot potential obstacles just under the water, to look for nice downstream V's to start the little rapids, and to plan for steering around the corners.  Dave had the same take on everything and did a great job with the steering.  I most need to work on my draw stroke with the kayak paddle, something that doesn't come naturally to me like it does with a canoe paddle.

Good current, interesting twists and turns, a few shallow spots that slowed us down, a few trees to avoid, curiously shaped limestone rocks in the water below us.  Then there were herds of deer running across the river ahead of us.  A kingfisher swooping around.  A slight headwind as we headed south, changing to a tailwind as we went around a large U.  More river reading, lots to keep our attention, plenty of loud directions on my part, hoping Dave could hear at least the important stuff.

We bumped one solid rock with the front of the canoe and I made some kind of incomprehensible noise while shifting my weight toward it.  Need to work on a brace to complete that maneuver, but we stayed upright just fine.  We mostly avoided the rest of the obstacles except for taking out a few leaves on some low limbs here and there.

Hey, some wild pigs!  A whole bunch of them, all running once they spotted us.  Wow, that was super cool.  That got us started talking about bacon and favorite foods.  We agreed on pizza with Canadian bacon (with pineapple for me).

One last set of branches hanging down alongside the river... just... stay... left... OK, now we're in the middle of them (yeah, that lack of a good draw stroke I was talking about...).  To avoid getting completed whacked I lay back and grabbed limbs to slow the boat.  We extracted ourselves with some pushing and pulling, and I came away with only a couple minor scratches but way too many spider webs.  And spiders!!!  In the boat!  Luckily the next section was easy navigating for Dave because I was busy removing as many as I could from the front of the canoe.  Several ended up catching a ride to the take-out.

And there it is, the end of the fun 5 mile paddle.  We pulled up to the rocky beach and schlepped the canoe fairly far away from shore in case there was a stormy deluge later that caused the river to rise.  One short walk up the hill and we were almost back to TA.  The bluebonnets in the field were lovely, I noticed - here are a couple other racers climbing the hill from the take-out:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

Well, that was fun!  Thank you for the excellent river paddling experience.  Time to go collect my bike.  Another quick transition and this time we had Dave's bike with us.  His bike has egg-beater pedals and a taller seat so it wouldn't be so easy for me to ride.  I told him I was happy running the whole way, so he took my pack and handed me the towline.  Sweet!

I felt really fast without the pack, getting towed up the hill.  Just like in the old urban racing days with John pulling me around the city.  I let the bike go ahead for the rocky downhill, then got back on tow for the nice trail along the upper fence.  Soon I was unlocking my bike and handing it over the fence to Dave.  Time for some road riding.

The road loop was pretty uneventful, giving me time to ponder how we were over 4 hours into the 12-hour race and had gotten only 5 of the 20 numbered checkpoints.  Although actually if you count the first 4 points from the melee, 9 out of 24 total CP's wasn't bad.  But there wouldn't be a lot of leeway for clearing the course in the allotted time.  Gotta keep pushing to make that happen.

We saw a rogaine team at the north end of the course as they popped out onto the paved road to trek to the CP we were riding toward.  We were happy to be on bikes for this part, quickly reaching the intersection but not finding the control flag...  I happened to glance down into a little ditch and saw it hidden in the brush by the culvert - not likely to be found by anyone who wasn't actually looking for it (and maybe if you actually were).

More pavement, some gravel, a checkpoint under a bridge (thank you Dave for thrashing through all the vegetation and obstacles to reach the CP punches), and a climb up a small hill to start heading south.  The headwind wasn't bad, but look at that dark sky.  We figured we would be happy to get as much of this bike ride finished as we could before the rain hit.

And - no rain - just a solid ride back to the ranch entrance and then all the way back to TA.  1.5 hours for the loop, not too shabby.

Trekking nav, yay!  We started with CP 10 because we knew the route almost all the way there, up the hill and past the "swim pond" again but going straight instead of on the trail to the bike drop.  Through some cedar, Dave collecting spider webs as he led the way (thanks Dave!), a couple hundred meters up a creek to the CP.

We came back to a trail and began some trail nav.  Because I thought I knew what I was doing, we then took a fenceline trail to a drainage that we wanted to cut across (to save a bit of distance vs. going around on trails).  Well, I don't know nothin', because the vegetation through the drainage was crap.  We spent some time and effort finding a way through, and I made mental and verbal notes to not do that again.

Cedar twigs down the back of your neck, well, it's not the worst thing in the world.  We found the road on the other side and followed it toward a jump-off spot for a little pond.  More cedar and thick vegetation, this stuff couldn't be helped.  Oh, yes it could have been.  We found the pond and CP 9, then found a spectacularly clear way out directly west, complete with a cairn at the spot where we hit the road again.  Lovely.

Bygones.  More road/trail through the woods, then an excellent turn uphill to climb way up to the water tower.  A good opportunity to look ahead on the map.  We found CP 8 behind the tower and Dave pointed the way to the steep "trail" down the backside.  Oddly, there was a racer coming up the hill wearing his bike helmet - ?  Really not sure what that was about.  He told us there was another team just ahead of us, and we looked to see a couple figures off in the distance along the boundary trail.

Turned out it was Tammy and JD, who had skipped the paddle leg completely with the thought that they wouldn't be able to clear the course but might be able to collect more CP's than many of the other teams that chose to do the paddle.  Interesting strategy.  We found CP 11 and then chatted with them for a bit as we ran toward the center park road.

Dave and I discussed how best to get back to the TA, settling on a plan to take a trail cutting up and over the ridge.  That worked great, as when the trail ended in a T we continued straight along a clearcut through a couple ditches and popped out close to camp.  This trek took 2 hours for 4 checkpoints, right on pace for the "2 CP's per hour" needed to clear the course.  Still, not a lot of room for error.

We discussed possibly doing something different and next going counter-clockwise for once to shake things up?  Naw, let's stick with what we know - no sense taking silly chances when there's not a lot of room for error, right?  One more bike leg, this time mostly on trails.  It still wasn't raining, happy for that!

Back up the road on the long gentle hill, past the swim pond, back to the fenceline trail.  This time we took a right turn along another fence and followed a trail until it started steeply downhill toward a "gulch."  We were wondering about the use of the term gulch instead of a creek, but it turned out to be a pretty large drop so we agreed it was warranted.  CP 13, done.

We retraced steps and headed out past the bike drop spot again - there was still a bike there, yikes!  We wondered how long John had to hang around the paddle put-in.  Maybe I should have brought him 2 biscuits.

Another bike hand-up over the fence, this time I tried crawling under and managed it OK.  We were happy with another bit of pavement riding, this time stopping at the fence where we had seen the rogaine team earlier.  Another bike hand-up over this fence, maybe we were done with fence climbing.  This was actually a solid gate so it was a bit easier.

We found CP 12 in the bushes, had a quick bite to eat, then started down through the middle of the ranch on trails we had run earlier.  Dave did some excellent trail nav and I tried to pay attention since I suspected we'd be back here for the final trekking leg.  We spotted the giant oak tree, trying to figure out why it was on the wrong side of the trail, but it was definitely the right tree.  Complete with the checkpoint flag up in the branches!  Another adventure checkpoint for Dave, fun!  (at least, it was fun for me to watch).  This is another racer up in that tree collecting their punch:

[Photo courtesy of Darby Stewart]

Back to TA, done with the bikes, no rain, and we had 3:45 to get the remaining 6 checkpoints on foot.  At 2 CP's per hour, this should be doable, but you never know until you've done it.

For old time's sake, we started the final leg in the same dang direction, up the long gentle hill.  Dave jumped back into the swim pond to punch that control one last time (not just for fun, nor was Dave overheating, it actually was CP 17 as well as one of the first melee points).  Thank you for swimming again, Dave!

We headed northeast to locate the trail we had followed earlier, followed a couple more trails, and made careful note where we expected to turn off later for CP 18 since there were two possible fencelines to pick from.  We were also looking up to the top of the next hill where there was a pretty overlook in the area of CP 15.

But first!  A dry pond and CP 19.  No problem.  OK, shall we go straight up this little mountain?  Sure, why not?  There wasn't an obvious alternate route that looked any easier, no trails or roads besides going all the way around to the saddle, and that would only help partway up.  Let's do this.

Dave led the way, clearing spider webs again (thanks Dave!).  It got quite steep, but thankfully the vegetation was fairly clear.  In fact, I remarked, it reminded me of the Barkley course.  Speaking of which, the Barkley was going on that day!  I wondered how everyone at Frozen Head was doing.  In the meantime, we had this tiny little climb and then we were at the top.

We checked a short way to the right to verify we were indeed at the southern end of the mesa.  Yep, go back the other way.  And there's the overlook - spectacular!  Dave decided we had time for a quick photo, nice!

I thought it was funny that racers on trails below us might be able to see us, so I waved (such a dork sometimes).  We poked around through the rocks and trees but didn't see any checkpoint flag.  Hmm, we must not be to the western point yet.

More west, more west, ah yes, we agreed that we were now at the western edge.  Hmm, still no CP flag.  We started climbing around on the rocks and finally I spotted it down below by a boulder.  Nice one!  That one took some real navigation work, I like it.

We worked our way back past the overlook (wave!) and started down the way we had come up, no sense in trying to push through another unknown area that might have nastier underbrush.  Suddenly Dave says hey!  I don't have the map!  Uh oh.  I don't either.  He decided he must have dropped it back near the last CP.

We debated a few seconds - we had 3 CP's left and I thought that I *might* remember enough about them to find them without the map.  But it was a risk.  No, better to go look for the map before trying something crazy like that!  So we went back up the hill (more training!), past the overlook, back toward CP 15, there's the map on the ground, whew!

Once more across the overlook, now I figured anyone sitting down there watching us must really wonder what the heck we were up to!

As we were going down the mountain for real, I told Dave I wanted to try navigating without looking at the map just to see if I could do it?  He was game to try, although I'm guessing he thought I was nuts.  We came out at the road a bit far to the east, and since we weren't precisely sure where we were, I figured it would be stupid to make a mistake right now just because I wanted to try some strange map memorization trick.  So we checked the map and decided to go west.

Yep, that worked, we knew where we were.  Past the windmill, to the fenceline we had looked at earlier, down a trail toward a trail/draw intersection.  We found the spot easily, but had to search around to find the CP 18 flag behind a bush.  Two to go!

We used the trail map to try to figure out the fastest route toward CP 16 at the bass pond.  The trails seemed like maybe they were working, but the intersections we hit were kind of vague although we were mostly going the right direction.  I didn't think it was possible to cross over one large north/south trail without noticing it.  But then Dave asked about the contours so we stopped to look.  And hey, isn't that water over there to our west?  Since we're looking for a pond, maybe we should go check it out...

Yes, that was the pond, somehow I had messed that up pretty good but we also recovered just in time.  Still not sure what happened there.  The funny thing is that without a map, I would have backtracked from CP 18 to known trails and followed our biking route from earlier directly to the pond.  So for once I might actually have done better without the map, who knows  :)

CP 16, disaster averted.  One more checkpoint, this one at a tower.  I could not remember an obviously visible tower in that area (near the wall from the beginning of this story), and it was mapped in the middle of nothing, so this CP was the main reason I had hoped we would find the map.

We ran into Kim finishing her penultimate trekking loop and ran together to chat briefly.  Then it was time for us to detour toward the giant tower sticking up above the landscape (so yeah, not one I needed to worry about!).  We ran across a nice field and found CP 20 inside the bottom of the structure (no rock climbing today!).

About a mile to run back to TA and we were done!  Course cleared in 10 1/2 hours, yay!  That was a fun one.

John took a picture of Robyn taking a picture of the top three 2-person and solo teams - congratulations everyone!  Especially Kim who overcame a large early error to take 2nd place overall, and Darby who was 2nd solo (two women at the top of the leaderboard for the solo category, nice).

We pushed hard the whole time, a good effort for the whole day.  My biking legs were quite tired by the end, phew.  Dave says his trekking legs were tired by the end (phew).  So it all worked out.

Big thanks to Too Cool Racing for an excellent adventure!

Recently around Austin

Last Saturday I had a plan to ride a bunch of trails in South Austin.  Many are new since we last lived here and they seemed to connect up nicely.  I've been to McKinney Falls several times already (and always enjoy running and biking there), so I skipped that for the day.

The first challenge was Onion Creek Park.  I opted to jump in on the southern trail network and started exploring.  Some of the trails are nice and pretty, but soon it became clear that the majority are overgrown and rather annoying.  I made it to the Onion Creek crossing spot but decided not to get my feet wet heading across and back.  Best part was that the creek is quite lovely:

As I was riding along through the overgrown vegetation, I started wondering if that's poison ivy all over the place?  I now see this plant all over Austin as everything is turning green, so I really should just attempt to identify it.  Let's see... yep, quite possibly poison ivy!

I got out of the park as fast as I could (easier said than done) and rode over to Slaughter Lane.  I made a quick stop for a leg wipe-down (Zanfel later!) and a snack.  I skipped Mary Moore Searight as I have ridden there before - it has some fun little side trails and a nice view of Slaughter Creek:

Time to get off the main road and onto some actual trails.  Bauerle Ranch Park trails are really nice.  The community is surrounded by green space and trails, and if I lived there I would probably run on those trails every day.  Fun to ride through wildflowers too:

The southern side is a bit more technical with some good rock training and little ups and downs.

I biked across Brodie and into more green space.  After getting stuck in the Wildflower Center (it's probably not wise to come in from the back side on a bike, let's not try that again) I finally made my way over to the Veloway.  Something I haven't seen in years, fun!

I enjoyed riding a loop+, then cut over to the trail that parallels it on the north side.  The trail crossed under Mopac to another network of trails, fun.  Brief detour to the Coffee Bean  :)  then back on trails toward Circle C.  Really nice park on the other side of Escarpment.  Then over to 1826 to explore Slaughter Creek Trail.

Now this was a good loop.  About 5 miles around, signed for bikes to ride clockwise and pedestrians and horses to go CCW.  Not sure why it took me so long to figure out that pattern, but it makes a lot of sense now that I understand it.  The first mile in the biking direction is quite rocky and I was wondering just how long these 5 miles would take me.  But it got smoother and faster and I enjoyed most of the rest of it.  Even got a bit of good training out of it:

That was fun!  And I wasn't done with trails yet - more connections from 1826 to Davis Lane, then a nice path through Latta Branch over to the paved trail through Dick Nichols.  Excellent.  I found the side trail that cut under Mopac and followed under the highway until I popped out here:

It's called Whirlpool Cave and it's one of the more interesting cave entrances I've seen.  Looking inside it drops straight down, so this is likely a safety cover/management of who gets to go in the cave.  I was actually looking for the Convict Hill/Brush Country intersection when I came upon this, so I was rather confused for a couple minutes but a quick map check got me going the right way again.

Another nice path along Brush Country - it would have been great to have all these options when we lived in Oak Hill!  Also - a Kerbey Lane Cafe would have been amazing  :)  John met me here for a "late breakfast" (also known as breakfast for supper) - Hi John!

One last picture on the way home...

...to go along with a sign I had found earlier in the day:

Fun day!  The next day was quite enjoyable as well.  Dave and Leslie met up with us to paddle from Mansfield Dam down Lake Austin.  Thank you John for doing a boat shuttle so we could make this work.  Heading out as it just got light:

I brought the O-maps from the orienteering meet a couple weeks prior and we got out at Commons Ford to explore.  It was nice to get a look at the park without being in a hurry for once.  Team photo at the pool:

More fun in the park!

Coming in for a landing over at River Place:

Practicing with kayak paddles and enjoying the speed of a 3-person boat:

Leslie led the way up the River Place Trail and we got some good elevation training that morning.  And we're done, yay!

One more day of Austin exploring - this time mostly stationary (although I did bike there).  Electric Drive was having a grand opening, complete with electric vehicles on display, why hello:

Thinking about an electric scooter:

The solar kiosk that John has been working on, where you can charge your phone and electric bike:

Another view of the kiosk - well done, John!

Mayor Adler making a few remarks before the ribbon cutting:

A chance to sit in a Tesla, couldn't pass that up!

I've been enjoying training and exploring around Austin, a fun city to spend a few months!

4MPH Challenge in CA #shepersisted

It's about time to get serious with the training for this year's Big Thing - the Primal Quest expedition race in September.  Pack weight, paddling, lots of climbing, gear prep, all that good stuff.

But first!  One race in a format that I enjoy very much, the "last (wo)man standing" style event that started with the Big Dog Backyard in Tennessee.  Mark Swanson and Shasta Trail Runs have set up a 4MPH Challenge race on a beautiful 6-mile course that you have 90 minutes to complete.  It's a one-way trail/road over to a second aid station, then you turn around and come back to the start in the next 90 minutes.  If you decline to start a lap or fail to finish one, you're out.  Until then - run until you stop!  Kip and I ran this race in 2015 and enjoyed it and it seemed like a good one to run again.

This weekend was totally just for fun for me, a reason to visit Kip and Scott in California, and a test to see how this would go with zero pressure for once.  I was psyched that Kip decided to come do the race as well, great company for the drive over and a trail running buddy for whenever we happened to be going the same pace.

There was a bunch of potential rain in the forecast, that was a possible downside.  The upside was that it rained hardly at all, mostly in the first couple hours, and it was amazingly cool and cloudy the whole time.  Beautiful running weather!  That made everything much easier, what a major bonus.

After spending a night tripping over roots at Rocky Raccoon, I was also thrilled that this trail was so easy to run on.  There were a few small obstacles but I could see every potential trip hazard and I could run without the threat of falling on my butt.  After some recent races for comparison, I was definitely appreciating many aspects of this one.  Only thing missing was my Super Crew husband, but for quite a few laps I had plenty of time in transition to take care of everything on my own, no worries.  He would have been super bored, and anyway, this race was just for fun.

Enough with the lead-in already, let's get running!

Here's me with my rain jacket flapping, running down the beautiful trail.  All photos are courtesy of Shasta Trail Runs - much appreciated!

The course starts on pavement through the campground parking area, then jumps onto singletrack and weaves along the lake for several miles.  One memorable section is along the main road, and one has to wonder what the cars (or I guess, the drivers) think of our headlamps in the middle of the night.  This was the rockiest section of trail so I tended to run/walk through here (and I might be in this photo if you look really closely, but I couldn't say for sure):

Then lots of twists and turns and lovely views of the lake and wildflowers and a tunnel of manzanita (maybe?) - all very pretty:

After a while (which tended to feel longer as the laps went on) we exited the trail onto another section of pavement.  There's a chance that's me in the back, or at least someone with my color hat on:

I liked the road in the middle as a place I could power walk up the hills and run down, slowing down through here the least of all the parts of the course.  Then back to singletrack, including a solid climb up some switchbacks, a long traverse above the next valley, and then a steep drop down to a creek.

Two years ago we had to rock-hop across the creek and that was quite a challenge.  Since then the race organization helped the park build a bridge, yay!  It's a beautiful bridge too.  Unfortunately it wasn't quite ready for us yet, but happily we weren't back to rock-hopping.  The race organizers had a solution.  It involved this, which John would have loved to be a part of, I'm sure:

Setting up the plank, with supports and even an anti-slip cover!  It still required a bit of care, which became "a lot of care" in later laps, but it was a big improvement and I succeeded each time without getting my feet wet.

Then a nice gentle downhill to the far aid station.  The start/finish area had been moved further back (to a lovely spot with real bathrooms and covered areas and picnic tables) so they were able to remove the technical loop around the far field.  Another excellent improvement.

Someone asked me how the course compared to the Big Dog - the daytime laps are definitely easier, with the smoother trail, more % pavement, slightly shorter distance per hour, and I think less overall climbing.  However, the nighttime laps are harder because the 4MPH Challenge stays on the same trail, while the Big Dog switches to the easier road for 12 hours.

Still on the easy daytime laps, a crowd of runners coming back along the middle road section:

The woman on the right sat next to us in the far TA and she would talk to herself and say funny things and make us laugh - thank you for the smiles and cheeriness!

Hey, there's Kip (in the background, obviously)!  Go Kip go!

A couple other events were going on at the same time, a 12-mile and a 36-mile division.  They were billed as non-competitive, but it is worth mentioning that this 12-year old named Natalie got back to the finish line first for the final lap of the 36-mile event.  Most impressive!

As you might expect, the laps mostly blur together in my brain.  Kip and I ran together off and on and had a great time talking to pass the time.  I dialed in some time checkpoints and worked on optimizing my time on the course.  After one really crowded visit to the far aid station (it was raining and there were a maximum number of people there all trying to set up chairs and drop bags under the easy-ups), everything smoothed out and became routine.  Run, finish, pee, drink Spiz, fill the water bottle, maybe eat a bit of fruit or reapply some lube.  Sit for a couple minutes, get up and go again.

My running felt really easy all day, I was very pleased.  I let my lap times drift upward and I applied a bit more effort as the day went on, balancing the amount of leeway of time and effort that I still had available.  My recent training on the Hill of Life in Austin seemed to be worth it, as the uphills took no toll on my legs.  The weather continued to be awesome and perfect.  My mantras were "patience", "posture", and "panther", finding that I liked mimicking a big cat padding along the trail.  Plus, you know, alliteration.

After 7 laps, it was time to pick up the lights.  We didn't actually need them until we were almost back to the start/finish, but it was better than fumbling through that last mile in the dark.  Well, time to figure out if I can improve upon this part!  Two years ago I yo-yoed between too slow and too much push, too relaxed and too stressed.  This time I eased into the nighttime transition, paid close attention to my splits, and continued to slowly ramp up the effort but only a little at a time.

The night laps were certainly a bit slower, but nothing to fret about.  I was really happy with my improved attitude about it, that helped keep this race "just for fun" and I was interested to see how far I could take it.

Starting another lap, we usually hung out in the back and let the faster runners go on ahead:

It was interesting watching everyone else speed away at the start of each lap.  Looks like everyone else had decided on the "faster running, more transition time" strategy.  I was working toward minimizing the time sitting down and lowering the stress of the running/walking.  I started thinking about it as area under a curve, where the graph is effort over time.  Sometimes when my brain is left alone too long it gets a bit math-y...

As far as what everyone else was doing, whenever I started thinking too much about anything like that, I would say to myself, "Irrelevant!"  I used that word a few times that night.  It's a keeper.

Kip tested out a new ibuprofen strategy of taking a little at a time but more frequently, and that seemed to work out well for him.  His legs were feeling better than mine by the end of the day, which we both thought was odd considering our comparative training coming into this race.  I made note of his ibu test and decided it might be something I could make use of.  I was utterly hydrated for once (thank goodness for the bathroom/portapotties on each end of the course!) and this looked like a good opportunity to run such a test.  So I started on a low dose/higher frequency intake after mile 60.  Legs and body responded well, that seemed to be working.

Kip lasted partway into the nighttime hours, way to go Kip!  He hit several milestones, or as he put it "I should do one more lap so I can reach (x)" where x = 50K, returning to the start/finish (also known as where our car was parked), running a lap at night, 50 miles, etc.  Finally, for realsies, he was ready to be done after 60 miles.  It was great running with you, Kip!  He went to shower, nap, and then helped crew me on that end of the course.  Much appreciated.

I was enjoying how everything was going so well.  My main goal was to set a personal record (PR) for this course, which previously was 72 miles officially (I went almost 78 miles but the last lap was over time).  Heading toward the 78-mile mark, I just wanted to be sure I got there on time for it to count.  Stay calm, just get there.  And I got there, excellent!

It was finally time to start taking a look at the rest of the field, which had been quite large for quite a long time.  It took a while for the group to start dwindling, well done to everyone who lasted all day and into the nighttime hours.  It was hard to count everyone for sure because they allowed people to start a minute or two into each lap, but with a little focus I guessed there were two other women and six guys heading out on the 78-mile leg.  Top 10, cool.

For sure my previous women's record was going down.  Any chance I might be able to get it back?  Well, the other two women were running strong, so I decided that for the immediate future this question was irrelevant.  Just something to keep in mind in case it mattered at some point.

And all of a sudden, there were just two of us ladies remaining.  I didn't get a chance to meet them (or many other runners for that matter) with my pace being so different from most everyone else's.  But I did hear that Roxanne was running with bronchitis?  That's pretty hardcore.  She made it to 78 miles before succumbing; I'm guessing she has more miles in her when she's not sick.

The group of us made it back to the first TA, no problem.  I went about my business, peeing and refilling and drinking, making the most of a couple minutes.  Kip mentioned that the other woman, Melissa, wasn't happy to see me finish that lap.  Well, that's interesting.  Turns out, she decided not to run another one - after we started the next lap, Kip came running after me to report that she was done.  Awesome, thank you Kip!  And also, how are you still running?

So now I just needed to make it to the other end to hold the women's title again.  Careful pacing, watch the time checks, ease on up the hill and down the other side.  Yay for the win!

Go on or no?  The interesting thing about this particular race was that I had reached a point of making that decision lap by lap.  It was a very "pro/con" kind of discussion in my mind.  How are my legs holding up?  What is to be gained by continuing?

One thing I noted was that a 6-mile lap is WAY more commitment than a 4-mile one (i.e. compared to the Big Dog).  That's a pretty long way, so you kind of need to be sure you can make it at least most of the way without it turning into a death march somewhere in the middle.  When the miles are easy, 6 of them doesn't seem like much.  Later in the race, it becomes a bigger hurdle to continuing on.  Not an insignificant difference.

So, contrary to my normal mode of having a plan and sticking to it, I was perfectly happy making assessments on the fly, putting off the bigger decisions until I really needed to make a choice.  I had a few things going on at the 90-mile point.  I needed a bit of time in the portapotty, I had fewer minutes to spare (down to around 3 minutes at that point), and I needed to mix up another set of Spiz if I was going to get any real food in me.

My thoughts about continuing included wanting to get back to the other end of the course and not having to wait to get shuttled back, wanting to make it to daylight and the second morning for the first time on this course, and wanting to show that the women's win wasn't my only motivation (it really wasn't something I had thought that much about).  My legs seemed OK with continuing, requiring more effort and moving a little slower with each lap but no real issues yet.

What ended up happening in those 3 minutes: A stop in the bathroom that should have been quicker, a water refill that should have been more, a kind of "throw up my hands and give up" regarding the Spiz powder mixing since I was low on time, a skip of the ibu pill, and a grab of 2 honey chomps packets to have *something* to eat now that I was skipping the Spiz for the first time.

I lined up with the 6 guys, said to myself "I don't know what I'm doing!" and took off back into the night.  It was finally starting to get light again, yay!  I really appreciated being able to see the trail again.  I wasn't moving faster but my brain was happier not having to concentrate as hard.  I focused on eating some chomps to keep from bonking at this stage in the game.

Then the question - maybe 100 miles?  Should I go for it?  I pondered this for a while on the way back, working up some plans.  It seemed reasonable, I had a serving of Spiz left at the other end, I had help from Kip to make that turn-around a lot easier, and he could come pick me up if he knew I was going to stop next time at the far end.

As I was mulling over the ideas, about a mile from the end of the lap everything started hurting at once.  My legs got sore, my knees were aching, even the bottoms of my feet seemed tired which doesn't often happen to me.  Hmm, I guess that ibuprofen was really doing something, up to the point when I stopped taking it!

Well, that was fine, it helped my decision.  I muddled through the run/walk cycles to finish out the lap and made sure I got back in time.  96 miles and 24 hours - good enough!  I had fun, I got to run some experiments, I learned some things, and it was topped off with a "last woman standing" title that I haven't managed to accomplish in a couple years.

5 men continued from there, and after 108 miles it was whittled down to 3 - Saravanan, Larry, and David:

They lasted 120 miles before David and Larry stopped (topping the previous record of 114 miles).  Here's Saravanan on his last, winning lap:

Pretty picture of the road coming into the far TA:

Congratulations!

Full results:
https://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=42063

It would have been fun to wear this shirt after the race, but it didn't arrive until after I left for California.  Back in Texas, modeling my new favorite shirt - and Waffle House arm warmers  :)

Fun race, fun time with Kip, excellent weekend!