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2021 Mt. Tam Trail Run 50k race report – Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Stinson Beach, CA

2021 Mt. Tam Trail Run 50k race report – Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Stinson Beach, CA

Saturday’s Mt. Tamalpais 50k race was an experience, to say the least. 

I have trained for, and raced, enough of these endurance events (road marathons, specifically) to know that at any given time, in the throes of the race, I should anticipate experiencing what feels like the totality of the human experience: mighty highs, killer lows, and everything in between. 

My racing and training experience has also taught me that just because I feel a certain way at a certain point in time during the race doesn’t mean that I’m going to feel like that forever. This reality is what allows me to enjoy the exuberant moments and take comfort, or solace, if you want to think of it in those terms, in the recognition that the bad parts won’t last forever. 

And yet. 

On Saturday morning, when I was making my way up, through, over, under, and all manner of prepositions all over Muir Woods and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), I experienced what I can only describe as a volatile whiplash of emotions — that whole aforementioned “totality of the human experience” thing — in ways that I 100% did not see coming. 

The race began at 7:30, which meant a 4am wakeup at home to be out the door and to begin driving the ~80 miles to Stinson Beach from SJ by 5am. The earliest runners could arrive was 6:30, so that was what I planned for, to give me enough time to get my bib, use the bathroom, and do all the final last-minute race stuff. 

I knew the race had sold out amongst its 10k, half, 30k, and 50k runners, with 500 participants total across all distances, but I figured it was still sufficiently small that it’d allow me to do everything I needed to do in those last 60 minutes before the gun went off. It was a super chill race morning, by all accounts. I wasn’t nervous about the task at hand as much as I was just excited to finally be doing this thing for which I had worked my tail off for the past several months.

As I was standing around at Stinson Beach with about 20 minutes before the gun, I ran into Michael S., whom I knew from TSFM ambassador program several years ago; it was delightful to see him and catch-up for the first time in what felt like forever. Michael was running the 30k for fun and knew the trails well, so it was great to spend some time with him before we began racing and get some not really “insider knowledge” about the beautiful and challenging trails we’d soon be tackling. 

happy to encounter a buddy at the start

And without much fanfare, the race began. It felt “California crisp” at the race start, but by a mile or so into the race, I had warmed up enough that I shed my long-sleeve and just ran in my sports bra and crop, with my hydration vest over it. From the very start, we began climbing and spent a fair bit of time in the woods, with beautiful tree canopy, bubbling streams, the whole bit. The beauty was ridiculous.  

I know that people come from all over the world to run these trails in Marin County, and good grief, I can see why. They are next-level gorgeous and challenging (think: lots of stairs to ascend and descend, a 10’ ladder to ascend early in the race, downed trees to limbo under or hurdle over, some muddy and wet spots, tons of rocky and rooty and technical patches… basically everything you can imagine). I 100% got my money’s worth. I didn’t take any pictures mid-run, but these websites give you a good idea of what various parts of the race course looked like.

Aid stations were situated about a 10k apart, which was just fine since I was wearing my UD hydration vest and was carrying 50 ounces+ of water at any given time. I stuck to my plan of taking an SIS every 4 miles, alternating between ones with electrolytes and ones without, and I also hydrated early and often with SIS hydrate tabs to keep all my levels “topped off.” I was thrilled to not have a single GI issue for the entirety of the race; seriously, that’s a victory in and of itself. 

sprung for the beautiful pics from Let’s Wander (again) because these views were next-level. I think this is from Steep Ravine. Hello to Heather behind me! the course allowed hiking poles, but I didn’t use any (because I never practiced with them in training).

I arrived at the first aid station, about 3.7 miles in, at the top of Cardiac Hill, and quickly moved through it, grabbing some slices of watermelon for the road. That early into the race, I felt really smooth and strong and was keeping the effort controlled, with the idea being that I’m not out there to break any land speed records. Plus, realistically, I had a lot of race left to run. Better to be conservative early. I’m not determining my race’s success by how the first 5k goes.

Between the Cardiac Hill AS and the next, at Deer Park (about 6.3 miles away, circa mile 10), a 50k male runner passed me and piqued my interest really fast with his drive-by commentary about the race cutoff times. The what?? He mentioned how he usually chooses his 50k races with “generous” cut-off times but that he was concerned about this one, since it was only 8.5 hours. 

Dubious — and probably a touch cocky — I responded that that seemed doable, provided that we cover at least 4 miles an hour. He didn’t respond in kind, so it was after he dusted me that I looked at my watch and realized why he was concerned; like him, I, too, appeared to be cutting it pretty close. 

I had no idea of what the AS cut-off time was going to be for the next AS near mile 10, but when I arrived, there seemed to be 30k and 50k runners everywhere! I was incredulous and thought surely, we’re all not going to have to DNF or drop-down in distance!? An AS volunteer and I chatted while she was refilling my water, and when I asked what time it was, her answer made me realize that as of that moment in the race, I only had a 4-minute buffer. Four minutes! And I was only at mile 10 of a 50k! How in the world was I going to do this?!

And herein began the biggest low I have probably ever experienced in an endurance race setting. As I left the mile 10 AS with my body feeling strong and ready to roll, with no aches or niggles at all, I began resigning myself to what felt like the promised likelihood that I’d have to DNF or drop-down in distance for the first time ever in a race. 

How did I screw this up? I thought I had trained really well for this. 

What am I going to tell A? That sometimes you take a risk, think everything’s ok, and that you can still fail? It’s all part of the learning experience? 

There must be a mistake… I’ve been moving this whole time! I haven’t lollygagged, stopped to take pics, nothing! 

And on, and on, the self-flagellation went, for a good ~6.5 miles until the next AS at Muir Beach. 

At one point, after I had written my mental obituary on this race and figured out how I’d be able to frame this whole experience to A, I decided to go ahead and drop the effort down even further because if I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race I had started, why bother? 

Why overexert myself when I know at the next AS, I’d be told to either stop running altogether or to drop down to the 30k distance? Crucifying myself didn’t make sense. 

Another runner near me, Heather, who was running this 50k as her first (which blew my mind!), was in the same predicament, and we both simply remarked that we’d keep on, keeping on, until we were advised otherwise. At that point, there wasn’t much else left to do.

Descending from the woods into the beach treated me with some otherworldly-gorgeous views as well as what felt like the entire population of Marin County out and about at the park and the beach, making getting to the AS a bit of an exercise in dodge ‘em (and necessitating copious amounts of patience).

I couldn’t shake the sadness of knowing that I was moments away from having to DNF, even though it wasn’t really my choice, or dropping down in distance, also not particularly my choice, so naturally, this was when a race photographer popped out of the woods to capture my existential malaise. (Naturally). (I looked forward to what surely was a ridiculous pic, but I haven’t found it anywhere. All good).  

Anyway. For the 6.5 miles between AS 2 and AS 3, besides the aforementioned existential handwringing, I tried to convince myself that really, at the end of the day, everything was fine

Even if I had to drop to the 30k. 

Even if I had to DNF. 

The silver lining would be that I could possibly make it back to SJ in time to catch the girls’ swim meet that I was missing, so that would be lovely.   

I convinced myself that I didn’t really care all that much about finishing, and that if I really wanted to, I could come back and re-run all these trails on my own time, at my own pace, without course limits mandating my speed. 

I convinced myself that really, I wasn’t feeling it all that much anyway, and my body felt kinda bleh, and who does 50ks anyway, all of that. 

My mental hole was getting profoundly deeper by the second, and I was on track to be the world’s fastest shoveler. 

At long last, I arrived to AS 3 at Muir Beach, fairly dejectedly, waiting for the volunteers to tell me what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go with my DNF or distance drop-down.

You can probably imagine my massive surprise, then, when the AS volunteers said that I was about 45 minutes ahead of the cutoff and that I should keep doing what I was doing because I was looking and running strong. (!!)

The totality of the human experience, my friends. There you have it. 

In a matter of minutes, I went from being convinced my race was over (and convincing myself that I didn’t care) to being all “game on, let’s do this,” no-questions-asked-I’m-gonna-finish-the-thing.

I scurried out of the AS like a child on Christmas morning, completely FLOORED by this realization and again having no real idea of WTF just happened between AS 2 and AS 3. I didn’t anticipate that I had made up much or any ground, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear otherwise from the AS volunteers.

Just as quickly as I had dug and buried myself in that mental hole, I had catapulted myself out of it — with the love and encouragement of an AS volunteer — and suddenly, I had the second half of the race to run ahead of me. 

fresh off AS 3 where I learned that my race was still on. circa mile 17, running alongside Highway 1/Dias Ridge. TY, Bandoro, for the snap!

As long as I’d make it back to Stinson Beach by 4pm, I’d be golden… and at the rate I was going, I *should* be ok. Other runners in my vicinity, like Heather and Joe, were similarly elated at this revelation as well. 

I had spent so long, nearly all of the past 10k, convincing myself that I didn’t really care about this race, and that I was fine if I had to quit, and that my impressionable children wouldn’t care if I had to alter my goals on the fly, but the reality for all of it was completely the opposite. 

The rapidity and breath-taking realization of coming to accept this opposing, much more favorable, reality — I can’t even. 

The whiplash was stunning and unlike anything I have ever experienced in a race setting before. 

As I moved from AS 3 to AS 4, at Cardiac Hill (5.6 miles later, mile marker 22.1), Heather and I split since she was making good on her promise to herself to whip out her music/headphones after the half-way mark. Along the way, I connected with Joe, a pharmacist from Tucson who had interned in SF in the 90s and who had come back to see friends and go on a north-south California road trip. We spent several miles together chatting, running, and hiking, and it made miles 16.5-22.1 fly by. 

I felt fantastic in this section and slowly began to pick-off other runners, one at a time, easily fifteen-plus in total, whom had passed me earlier in the race. I think every runner will acknowledge that it sucks to be passed late in a race, yet at the same time, if you’re the person doing the passing, the feeling is effing exhilarating. 

Between AS 3 and AS 4, I also had some fairly uncomfortable, very close run-ins with mountain bikers who were descending veeeeeery fast, relative to how quickly I was ascending. These trails brought with them all types of topo challenges for sure but also those of the weekend warrior variety, as well. There was never any time to space out, else you’d risk tripping on a root or a rock or coming head-to-head with a cyclist.   

Between AS 4 at Cardiac to AS 5, still at Cardiac, runners got to post another 6.4 miles of dense, forested descents before some final long and slow ascents, the fifth final hill of the day. As I was beginning my descents, I saw the men’s and women’s leader beginning their final ascents, which was wild because they were easily hours ahead of me. Talk about unfathomable trail speed, dear lord! 

For most of the 6.4 mile section between AS 4 and AS 5, over the final of five big inclines of the race, I was in no-man’s land. I only focused on following the colored ribbons on the trees to help ensure that I was going in the right direction, since there was no one in front of me, as far as I could tell, nor anyone behind me, either. 

I encountered several groups of hikers whose thoughtful “you’ve got this!” remarks buoyed my dopamine levels a bit (THANK YOU!), and by the time I hit AS 5, back at Cardiac, I was at mile 28.5 of the race, had only a mostly-downhill 3.1 miles to go, and still felt freaking fantastic. I had maintained my buffer ahead of the cutoff from mile 16.5 onward (from AS 3) and knew (or rather, hoped) that my 35-45’ buffer would hold out for the final push homeward on the fabled Dipsea trail

circa mi 28.5 on Dipsea, about to begin the final descent to the beach, and feeling FLY!

Another woman popped up to AS 5 and left shortly before me, so I hoped to try to give chase for the final 5k homeward. Alas, she was flying, and my jets couldn’t match hers. A race photographer appeared at mile ~30, and it took everything I had not to hug him and scream that I was doing it! I tried to hammer on the final mile downhill — made harder by all the Dipsea Trail stairs punctuating it — but it was thrilling. Tourists and hikers exclaimed, “YOU’RE SO CLOSE! YOU GOT THIS!” more times than I could count, and I felt like I was on top of the world. 

And then I made a wrong turn. 🤦

At what has to be about .5 mile (or less) to go, as I reached the bottom of Dipsea, I took a left and saw that I popped out onto the road that I had driven on that morning en route to the beach. I looked around, didn’t see or hear any runners nearby (which wasn’t surprising, since I hadn’t seen or heard anyone since I left AS 5, aside from the woman who had dusted me miles ago), so I tried to put the pedal to the metal to run on the road for the final .5mi or so before reaching the beach. 

I saw a huge “RUNNERS ON ROAD!” sign, the same I saw elsewhere, earlier in the race, so I figured I was doing the right thing. It wasn’t until I saw a volunteer standing at the entrance/exit of Dipsea, the same place that we had entered within our first .5 mi of the race, that I realized I made a wrong turn at the veeeery last bit of the race. Dammit. 🤦 Annoying, for sure. 

I quickly told the volunteer what I had done and where I had exited the trail, just up the road a little bit, and he said it was fine, that the distance was the same, and to cross the street and run the final .2 mi stretch into the finish line. 

I was completely perturbed with myself for messing up the directions at the very freaking last minute of the race, after doing so well for the other 30 miles. That said, honestly though, the jubilation of finishing the thing that I thought I wasn’t going to be permitted to finish outweighed any annoyance I had of my apparently directionally-challenged self. 

And then – after running and traipsing around GGRNA and Stinson Beach and Muir Woods for literally the entire day – I ran across the finish line at 31.27 miles, after running for 7:41:59 (14:46 pace), and climbing 6,316’. My stats vary slightly from those of the race (31.5 miles, 6,800’), but that is to be expected. Trail racing isn’t known for its precision. 😀

I have never been so happy or proud to finish a race. 

a lot of work for a pint glass, a t-shirt, a medal, and some trail mix, but dammit, the feeling!

And finally, after a bit of milling about to watch Heather and Joe finish their races, and after chatting with another SJ runner, I slowly but surely made my way home after stopping at a 7/11 in Stinson Beach for the biggest cup of tea money could buy so I could stay awake for the drive home. 

While there at the 7/11, I also got photographic evidence of my impressive (and unexpected) chafing souvenir from the race; four days later, it still burns like hell and looks like someone took an iron to my right ribcage. Otherwise, I am feeling fantastic and have absolutely no complaints. 🙂

not bad for 31 miles. could be worse (although TBH it stings like hell, still).

THANK YOU for all the support and love. 

This feeling is incredible and will stay with me for a very long time. I’m bottling it, for sure.

xo

race week!!! — Mt. Tam Trail Run 50k

race week!!! — Mt. Tam Trail Run 50k

It has felt really good to train for something again. 

Like pretty much everyone else, when the pandemic began, I felt a bunch of sometimes conflicting feelings, but chief among them was the sense of the loss of control. Realistically speaking, of course none of us are ever really in “control” of our lives, per se, but we tend to have predictable patterns of behaviors, seasons of life I guess, and as runners, we often thrive off that structure. 

When the pandemic hit way back in March 2020, it felt like the world’s entire rug was pulled out from under me as I tried to make sense of everything, for both my family and for myself. I say that knowing full well that my family has gotten by relatively unscathed and that our privilege affords me the opportunity to say that in the first place. 

Nonetheless, running offered a predictable out, a way to intentionally carve time out of the day, away from family and volunteer and everything-else obligations, to help try to maintain some sense of equilibrium. The massive side benefits, of course, were all the other wonderful consequences that running gives us in terms of our mental and physical health and well-being. In a time in life when not a lot has made sense, running has always made sense. Fast or far, it doesn’t matter; forward is and always will be a pace.

During the earlier part of the year, Coach Lisa and I (and Janet, before she got pregnant with baby J) were training for a fast mile. Even though I showed up to do all the mile-specific workouts as prescribed, there was little else of my running that resembled mile-specific training, as I kept gravitating to doing what I had been doing: running an hour+ most days of the week and almost always on the trails nearby. I felt like I was training for a mile in name only, only on the track workout days, and it was 100-percent on me. I wanted to train to run a fast mile for a change of pace, literally and figuratively speaking, but I guess I also kinda didn’t. Again: 100-percent on me.

When I eventually had the eureka moment that encouraged me to register for, and begin training for, the 50k, I won’t say that a weight had been lifted because this is all self-induced pressure. Absolutely no one else on earth cares about my running as much as me; this I understand quite well. My running did begin to feel different, however. The volume of miles I had posted since the pandemic began made a lot of sense and now actually had some meaning to them beyond just “get out of the house for an hour every day,” which, admittedly, feels good for a while, but then the drive begins to wane. 

At any rate, the premise of endurance training being an exercise in cumulative fatigue was no longer something that I had only experienced in the thickest parts of marathon training, as it had kinda become the norm over the past year+. I think it made the transition from being “not in training” to being “in training” pretty seamless. I now had structure, more than I had before, some 50k specific workouts, and a long run plan that was a bit more intentional than running based on feel, how I slept the night before, and the weather. 

The only other time I trained for a 50k, back in late 2014, I did things fairly differently because I was in brand-new-to-me territory. I recapped my training a bit in the race week post I did in ‘14, and damn, things look different this time around. 

Three key differences stand out. Namely: 

Back-to-back runs looked a bit different this time around. During my first 50k training, I think I put a perhaps-outsized emphasis on the back-to-back long runs because everything I read at the time, or the stuff that seemed the most significant, praised this gospel. (How in the world did I run a 20 miler the day after I had outpatient surgery in 2014?! I remember doing that now, but …WTH!?! That was the day that I had surgery to retrieve a runaway IUD that had perforated my uterus, and when I woke up from surgery, my surgeon told me that he fetched the aforementioned runaway and that he also noticed that my appendix was on its way out, so he removed that, too. Cool. One anesthesia bill. I had it good, though, because another patient woke up to find out that the same surgeon removed a problematic-looking testicle. Good times! I haven’t thought about this in a while and definitely didn’t remember running a 20 after all of that happened). Anyway. I definitely didn’t do the hefty back-to-back long runs this time around simply because I have been running every day, usually for about an hour a day, for over a year now. If volume and consistency and accumulated fatigue are the point in running back-to-back long runs during training, I hope what I’ve done is sufficient. I guess we’ll see.

Workouts! During the first go at 50k training, I didn’t do a single workout for the entire training season: no pickups, no strides, no sprints, no repeats, absolutely nothing. What I read at the time — and what I probably still agree with — is that for your first time at the distance, worry more about volume and the time on your feet and simply finishing the distance and less about how fast you cover it. This time around, I typically did a structured workout a week and/or added in additional strides or pick-ups at the end of some of my runs. Additionally, I ran almost all of my workouts on trails, on ascents and descents, so while the pace may not have always (or ever) mirrored or resembled road speed, the effort was there. In terms of what the actual workouts were, more often than not, they were from Krissy Moehl’s Running Your First Ultra book (highly recommended; I remember reading through it when it first came out what feels like forever ago now).

Way more time on trails. In 2014, I ran some of my long runs on trails, but I still ran a lot of roads and many of my long runs, even the long-long-runs, on roads. Roads was my de facto running environment, and so even though I was training to run a trail 50k, it was a lot easier at the time to run roads more often than not. This time around, it’s virtually reversed. Most of my runs have been on trails or a slight road-trail hybrid, and I can only recall a couple long runs that I did on roads (and one simply because ARP was closed due to fire or environmental hazards that morning when I rolled up). As most anyone who runs both trails and roads can attest, more often than not, athletes will spend significantly longer time to cover the same distance on trails than they do on roads, simply thanks to the topographical differences between the two. In terms of training, I think it is advantageous because it forces runners to constantly “shift gears” between varying levels of running or hiking speed, and in that way as well, it decreases injury risk due to overuse or to hard-surface-damage (like from running on pavement excessively).

behold the lovely “oh shit!” face from the 35k a couple weeks ago, mid-chat with new buddy Aaron from Folsom behind me, upon encountering a lot of very wet and tricky mud (and on a descent, no less!) LOL. PC: Alys D., thank you! <3

And reason 3.5: way more elevation exposure than before. Closely related to my earlier point is that with my spending more time on trails than ever before in the past ~18 months is that I’ve had the joy (most days; some days it’s less so) to play on way more elevation than ever before, too. I was terrified before Woodside in ‘14 because the race had like 4500’; this time around has significantly more, which is also still terrifying but also admittedly pretty intriguing, too. 2014’s Woodside Ramble was a great first 50k experience, and honestly, it feels like it was so long ago that I sorta feel like I’m doing this for the first time, all over again.  

I’ll end with a good ol’ fashioned chart because runners like numbers and because sometimes the quick and dirty calculations help to put everything into perspective. There’s always the wanting to have done more, but sometimes finding satisfaction (or peace) with what you’ve accomplished with everything else going on can be really powerful, too.  

WeekDistanceElevation
Week 18: race week!!
Week 17: week of 11/130 miles2,670’
Week 16: week of 10/2550.16,177’
Week 15: week of 10/1846.54,721’
Week 14: week of 10/1165.38,372’
Week 13: week of 10/440.6 (felt a little unwell)3,553’
Week 12: week of 9/2760.17,723’
Week 11: week of 9/2052.95,439’
Week 10: week of 9/1355.27,247’
Week 9: week of 9/655.25,961’
Week 8: week of 8/3046.42,608’
Week 7: week of 8/2358.95,892’
Week 6: week of 8/1650.27,234’
Week 5: week of 8/951.685,790’
Week 4: week of 8/250.24,498’
Week 3: week of 7/2652.63,093’
Week 2: week of 7/19*51ish2,801’
Week 1: week of 7/12*
Hadn’t actually decided until about week 3 of training (15 weeks out) to begin training, but these were my stats for the week anyway
55.6ish2,749’

Just a few more sleeps separate me from the race … here we go, 50k, parte dos! Not much left to do but run the thing.

LFG!

ready for THIS FEELING on Saturday!!!!
(the scenery is too pretty to not remember from the 35k in the Oakland hills.
gem of a picture from the talented staff at Let’s Wander Photography. TY! Happy to support.)