Miwok 100k – rain with friends

A few weeks ago I ran Miwok 100k, a 62.2 mile trail race with 11,800 feet of elevation gain that is famous enough to have its own Wikipedia page. I had gotten into this race ~10-15 years ago when it was still a lottery, but was injured so didn’t run it. When several friends said they had signed up for this year, I got on the bandwagon too, without much additional thought.

To summarize the race, it was a super hard day – extreme wind conditions with gusts up to 30+ mph, sideways rain, reports of hail on the course. Athletes got pulled from the course due to hypothermia. The trails were unrunnable in parts due to the weather. Fifty percent of registered runners did not finish – many (intelligently) chose not to even start. I finished, but not fast – I was exactly 50th percentile for women finishers. Highlights include SO MANY friends on the course. Lowlights include … basically everything else.

Training for Miwok

I am currently training for Badwater 135, a desert road race … so, basically the opposite of what Miwok is. As a result, I was very opportunistic about training for Miwok, as I was trying to do most of my miles on road in preparation for Badwater. If trails presented themselves, I would run them, but I didn’t do a lot of intentional trail or hill work during the week.

The best part of training for this was getting to run in the Marin Headlands with my friends Brianna, Felix, and Rodney (you’ll see them below). We had a pretty good routine going where we would meet up somewhere on Saturday and run some part of the course, or meet up somewhere not on the course and run similar terrain. Getting to put in miles with this crew was absolutely wonderful, and on race day when things got tough, I pulled pretty heavily on some of their guidance and coaching, as well as knowing that we had run most of the course already together.

All of this is to say that my training for this race was not race-specific and could have probably been better.

Course

While running, I was mostly just thinking about numbers:

• Seven major hills
• 62.2 miles (about 2.5 marathons of distance)
• About ten aid stations
• 11,800 feet of climbing

As a way to track progress during the race, I was really anchored on the number of hills and, later, the number of aid stations remaining. Races like this can be very tough psychologically, because consistent pacing (e.g. minutes per mile) is impossible to sustain due to the elevation changes and terrain. Sometimes a mile can take 8-9 minutes, or sometimes it can take 20-23 minutes … which can be very demoralizing if you’re living off of a watch. I find it helpful to look for other metrics to track progress that aren’t just “miles.”

Pre-race

Zach insisted on coming to support/crew me for this race, despite my explanations that watching a trail ultra is literally the most boring experience. The night before, we drove up to Bolinas, a famous surf city about 15 minutes from the start line in Stinson Beach, and made dinner at the house.

The race starts at 5am, so I woke up around 3am to prep gear. Zach drove me to the start line around 4am (then intelligently went back to the house and back to sleep). It had not started raining at this point – I found friends and said hi to them.

Start through mile ~26

The first ~26 miles were honestly pretty great. I was having a fun time on the trail, the weather wasn’t too bad, and I had some good energy. I was counting progress based on the number of major hills we had completed, and five out of seven of them are in the first 26 miles, so it felt like really good progress. I was chatting with other runners and crushing the downhills, most of which were extremely runnable. I’ll go into a bit more detail here on these sections in the first marathon.

The race starts up a steep climb – the first of seven major hills – in the dark. It’s pretty tough single-track, so there’s some incentive to not get stuck in a conga line. Cyndi and I headed towards the front of the middle of the pack. We ran (mostly hiked) the first several miles together in the dark. This is a highly technical section with a lot of stairs, rocks, switchbacks, etc, so there are very few opportunities to pass.

At the top, it’s a pretty gentle cruise down to the first real aid station at Muir Beach, about 8 miles into the race. There is an opportunity to drop your headlamp – I didn’t do a lot else here, since I was carrying a lot of my own nutrition.

After Muir Beach is climb number two, out of that aid station and then down into Tennessee Valley, another 5 miles. Felix was working this aid station, but I moved through it pretty quickly as well so didn’t see him. The cutoffs on this race are VERY tight due to permitting, and I was only about 20 minutes ahead of the cutoff here (2:55 against a 3:15 cutoff, I think). Honestly this was quite terrifying – I am usually never that close to cutoffs, and I was highly motivated during this race to NOT miss a cutoff. I moved fast through the aid station and on to climb number 3, which goes up and then down to Bridge View aid station. I can’t say I remember Bridge View that well, but I do remember this section being quite windy with some of the crosswinds on the ridge.

After Bridge View is climb number four, then back down to Tennessee Valley for the second time. This is 7.4 miles, so a bit longer, but the descent into Tennessee Valley is absolutely wonderful – long gently descending fire trail. I was flying down this section and feeling really good. Once I landed at Tennessee Valley the second time, I was about 45 minutes ahead of the cutoff, so I was pretty confident I was going to clear the cutoffs for the rest of the course – a big relief.

Tennessee Valley to Muir Beach (miles 26.2 to 30.3)

At Tennessee Valley, Zach was waiting (and looking pretty cold, because it had started raining more). I was super psyched to see him, as well as Alex, who was also there supporting Cyndi. I blitzed out of there pretty quickly after filling a bottle of water.

After Tennessee Valley, there is a flat-to-slightly-downhill mile before the fifth major climb. I ran into Felix on this section – he had just run with Brianna out of the aid station. It was great to see him – we ran together for a couple minutes. He gave me a quick preview of the rest of the course, which was five more aid stations. At this point I needed to switch away from counting hills to counting something else, because after this next climb, there were only two more major hills, and counting those wasn’t going to provide sufficient motivation/distraction, since there were only … two of them. So, I switched over to aid stations – five more to go. Felix’s course preview here really anchored me for the rest of the race.

When I hit Muir Beach, Zach was waiting there too (looking warmer with additional layers) and I was very happy to see him.

Muir Beach to Randall (miles 30.3 to 49.2)

This is where things started getting really bad. The rain was unrelenting, and climbing out of Muir Beach to Cardiac Aid station – only 5.2 miles – is the hardest / longest climb of the race. Also, the race is not even halfway over, which psychologically is awful when you’re suffering.

The uphill trail was also insanely challenging at this stage. It is single track, but not an easy single track. There was a huge divot in the middle of the trail where a river had formed, and the bottom of the divot was less than a foot-width wide, and on either side were fairly steep embankments leading into the divot. So the options for this were either run uphill in the mini river, try to straddle it by bouncing between the embankments, or stick to just one embankment and mostly end up sliding into the river. I opted for the first choice and it was brutal.

The weather was really a factor in this section. I was absolutely frozen. I was power-hiking up a hill, which is usually where my body temperature is highest, but I was completely soaked through and actively shivering the entire time. I couldn’t feel my fingers at all. I don’t think I have ever been colder in any race I have run.

Three things got me through this section:

• I was repeating “it will get better; it will get better; it will get better” over and over in my head. I had no idea if it would in fact, get better, but the alternative (the weather somehow gets … worse?) was miserable to contemplate and I couldn’t let my brain start spiraling.
• “Four more aid stations” – the new mantra now that there were only 1.5 more hills to go.
• “Be consistent.” Felix had shared a video ahead of the race about the three mental states of running a race: (1) Composed (2) Consistent (3) Competitive. Since we were in the middle third of the race, I just focused on being Consistent – just getting up the hill, focusing on one foot in front of the other, and maintaining forward momentum.

This section was brutal and I did not have a good time. I caught up to Brianna here and she also looked very cold. I wished I had anything to help, but I literally had zero other clothes beyond what I was wearing (mistake on my part to not bring more.) It was presumably bad for other runners too – at Cardiac aid station (mile 35.5), they were pulling runners for hypothermia.

Once I got to Cardiac, I somehow thought I would magically feel better. I did not. I did pee, which helped a bit, but then I was even colder due to stopping. I was afraid to spend too long at the aid station because I saw runners warming up inside crew cars and that looked … very tempting. I lso didn’t want any volunteers looking too closely at me and deciding I shouldn’t run anymore. So I took off.

I was down to just three more aid stations – Bolinas, Randall, and Bolinas again, and I had seen 100% of the rest of the remaining course already – about a marathon left to run.

The next 13 miles to Randall are rolling hills along a ridge line and through a forest. Even knowing the course didn’t really make this section a lot easier. I knew that Brianna, who had run this race last year, had really struggled during this section last year. When she and I had run it together as part of a training run, she pointed out a lot of milestones along the way, and parts she found tough, which really allowed me to mentally prepare for how hard this section would be on race day.

At Bolinas aid station, a volunteer asked what I wanted, and I said a new pair of legs – he suggested caffeine instead, which was a good plan.

From Bolinas aid station, it’s about 6.7 miles to Randall. Randall has a 1.2 mile descent leading into it, so I spent most of this section just waiting to see the gate so I could run the downhill into Randall. Getting to that descent was pretty brutal – while the trail is wide and mostly runnable on good weather days, there were a LOT of mushy sections and fairly deep puddles that were tough to get around. When I finally saw the gate (which I recognized thanks to our training runs), I shouted “GATE!” The trail volunteers were entertained, but not as entertained as I was by the fact that Randall aid station was now verifiably close.

Randall

As I headed into Randall, I saw Raj coming back up from that aid station – he looked really strong. The rain seemed to also be moving on and the sun was coming out, so overall, this mile and a quarter downhill was absolutely wonderful.

Zach was waiting at the aid station, and I was thrilled to see him. Alex and Aditi (Raj’s wife) were also there, as well as Felix, so basically the entire gang was hanging out. It was so energizing to see everyone.

I spent a few minutes filling up bottles and saying hi to people, then headed out – Zach walked with me up to the top of the hill (hill #7!), which I really appreciated because he kept me moving and we got to spend more time together. I saw Brianna on her way down, and she looked a lot happier / less cold, and Rodney was right behind her. I had a pretty good sense at this point that we would all finish.

At the top of Randall, Zach turned around to head back down (after I showed him some of the miserable puddles we had to run through/around). I saw Cyndi shortly after on her way into Randall – so basically I got to see all my friends running on the course in the space of like 30-45 minutes. This was a highlight for sure.

Randall (49.2) to the finish

The rest of the race was pretty slow and drama-free. All seven hills were behind me, the weather was better, and I knew the entire rest of the course because I had run it three times before. I was tired, but knew I would finish, and would finish under the cutoff.

With the exception of the last ~2 miles of the course, the rest of it was mostly rolling / net uphill, so it took longer than I anticipated and I walked more than I wanted.

The weather was really irritatingly sunny – it felt like it was mocking us for how miserable it was for the first part of the race.

After hitting Bolinas aid station one more time (the last aid station – zero more to go), I put together a couple of trail markers in my head and started repeating them as my final list of things to count down. They were “creek, bridge, road, car,” which were things I had to pass in order to get to the downhill section. The Creek is a little creek in a shadowy part of the trail that we had to hop over. The Bridge is a wooden bridge with a massive downed tree on the other side, which was really a bit of an obstacle course to navigate. The Road is a short section – maybe 100 meters – where the trail hits the road and you run on the shoulder for just a bit before getting back on the trail. And The Car is a rusted out old car that fell off the road a bunch of years ago. Nothing special about these other than they were some things to pass. I didn’t remember what order they were in either.

After finally hitting the last one (“Car”), and seeing the turnoff for the final descent, I was so ready to be done. In my mind, the turnoff to Matt Davis meant there was maybe only a mile to go, so when the volunteer told me it was actually 2.2 miles, I almost started crying.

The final 2.2 were pretty tough. My legs were tired, and the terrain is really tricky – lots of steps, roots, rocks, switchbacks, steep areas, etc. Tough to run even on fresh legs, and I hadn’t really trained this sort of trail. So it took a while to get down. At some point I started counting both switchbacks and man-made steps in order to stay motivated.

Finish

I was so happy to be done. I saw Alex at the final bridge taking pictures, and then Zach at the finish line. I immediately doused all exposed (and many non-exposed) areas of skin with Technu to try to prevent poison oak (was 97% successful). Brianna and Rodney crossed the finish line, and Cyndi did as well – one of the very last official finishers. Then we went home.

Reflections

Couple of thoughts:

• I didn’t mentally take this race seriously and I think that made it mentally a LOT harder on race day. “It is only 100k,” “it isn’t my A race,” “I’ve done all these trails before,” are all actually true, but I am not sure those were particularly helpful when I was actually running it. I am not sure I would have done anything differently – because this isn’t the race I care most about this year – but it isn’t clear those were helpful thoughts.
• 100k is a weird distance and I don’t think I like it. You start in the dark and, in many cases, finish in the dark. It feels like it should be a 50-miler, but it’s actually a half-marathon longer than a 50-miler. It actually takes a bit of time to recover from. Not sure I would do it again. Glad to have done it once.
• The cutoffs for this specific course are completely absurd. I understand why they exist (e.g. … permits), but Canyons 100k, the week prior in Auburn with 12,200 feet of elevation gain, is a super comparable course and has a 21-hour cutoff (vs 15.5 hours at Miwok). I was running scared for the first 15-20 miles at Miwok, which is not a fun headspace. I firmly believe there are a ton of athletes who could have finished this race if the cutoffs hadn’t been as rough as they were. Again, nobody’s fault here – I get that permit regulations exist for a reason and that reason is usually safety. I am highlighting this fact because there are some runners who might pick a different race if they are worried about cutoffs.
• Running with friends is AWESOME and continues to be the best strategy for races. I LOVED seeing all my friends on this course – Cyndi, Brianna, Rodney, and Raj all CRUSHING their goals on the course was SO inspirational. Zach, Alex, Aditi, and Felix supporting us and cheering us on made the course seem so much shorter. Getting to train with Brianna, Rodney, and Felix really helped prepare me for this race in a way that I wasn’t anticipating and it was so helpful. Surprise sightings of Joyce, Amy, and Wendell were magical. On the course, I got such a boost of energy every time I saw someone I knew. My plan was just to show up and solo yolo it, but you guys made it so much better than my baseline plan. Thank you for being such an inspiration.