On Saturday, I ran Montara Mountain 50k with Coastal Trail Runs. It has 7 large hills, for a total of 6,700 feet of climbing. I first ran this race in 2011, when I finished in 7:38 and finished in first place somehow. By “somehow,” I mean “because the weather was absolutely terrible and everyone else was smart enough to drop out beforehand, leaving me as one of very few finishers.” The course is incredibly steep and relentless, and I avoided running this race again for a very long time because of how terrible I felt during the 2011 race.
When I ran Lake Chabot in 2021, I did some miles with Audra, who suggested maybe I should try Montara again since it had been a decade. And when I moved to my new house, I started doing some long runs that included the mountain in question. So, when I saw that this race was happening, and the start line was only 15 minutes from my house, I figured I would sign up – which I did on the Thursday before the race.
The course is pretty rough. There are seven large hills, which are actually three hills that you do several times. I will call them Big Hill (Montara Mountain itself), Small Hill, and Medium hill. The order is Big Hill, Small Hill, Medium Hill, Big Hill, Small Hill, Medium Hill, Medium Hill. You can see the course profile below.
There is one aid station, which is also at the finish line. Runners hit it after every Big Hill and every Medium Hill. So it’s 6-7 miles between aid, which some runners thought was a lot but I didn’t really mind.
Start
I somehow convinced Mandy (fellow podium queen at Firetrails and NYOD) to also sign up for this last minute. She brought friends! We hung out at the start line together and took selfies, an important pre-race ritual.
I had eaten some oatmeal before coming to the start line, but was still pretty hungry for some reason – I assumed it was because of the jetlag of being on the east coast for the last few days.
1. Big Hill – first ascent
Mandy, her friend Todd, and I ran / hiked up the first three miles together. I know this part of the course very well from having run it a number of times as part of my long run. It was great to be able to think ahead to what was coming next and know which parts of the trail that were tough for me. The course starts out as a pretty easy single-track, then leaves the park. Then there are six switchbacks that are pretty difficult, with rocky footing and bushes encroaching on a narrow trail. After that, the trail meets up with a wide fire road with incredible views, which terminates at the top of the mountain. Mandy and Todd were subjected to my blow-by-blow tour guide summary of what was coming up next on the trail, as well as fun facts about whales and sharks, during the ascent.
The view at the top was really amazing – it is beautiful every time I go up there. This day, the visibility was great – we could see the bay on one side and the ocean on the other, as well as the Farallon Islands. Zero fog.
I was feeling pretty good, so I left Mandy and Todd just ahead of the summit, then blitzed down the hill we had just climbed. I passed a number of people on this part. This was pretty much the only time during the race when passing happened – after this, the everyone was pretty much set in their positions.
2. Small Hill – first ascent and 3. Medium Hill – first ascent
The next two hills weren’t too bad. I ran some miles with a guy I met on the trail named Mark – he was running the half marathon. He was training to pace his 19-year-old daughter in her first 100-mile race and wanted to make sure he would be able to do a good job with her for the last 25 miles of that race. It was awesome to get to chat with him – I told Mark that having my dad crew for me at my races is one of the coolest things, and that Mark’s daughter will remember it forever.
I did try to convince Mark to run some more laps of this course with me, but he seemed to be pretty committed to not running four more hills. We parted ways at mile 13, which was when he finished his race.
4. Big Hill – second ascent
Heading up to the top of Montara the second time wasn’t terrible, although I was starting to feel a little tired. There was a woman in front of me who I started calling “pink shorts” in my head – because she was wearing these amazing pink shorts. She was about 10-15 feet in front of my for most of the ascent, including the 6 switchbacks. I really wanted to catch her, but when we got to the fire trail, she took off and I never saw her again – super impressive speed.
The descent of this hill was where things started getting pretty dicey for me. Miles 18-20 in particular were quite difficult. I was very tired, my legs were pretty weak, I was hungry, and I had a massive headache. I had a bit of tunnel vision here too, which is unusual in general, and definitely unusual this early in a race. When I got to the aid station, I ate a ton of calories – mostly baked potatoes with salt – and drank a bunch of electrolytes in hopes of addressing some of the muscle fatigue. I also had some Coca Cola, which is not a choice I make on shorter race like this, but I was hoping the caffeine would help.
5. Small Hill – second ascent and 6. Medium Hill – second ascent
Before I started this section, I ran into race director Wendell at the aid station. He asked if I was starting my last hill (implying I was at mile 26). I was like “hah – nope – still at mile 20!” but I didn’t mind that he thought I was about an hour faster than I actually was!
These sections were fine. I was paying attention to Medium Hill, because I knew I would have to do it a third time. I was specifically reflecting on why it was such a catastrophically difficult hill back in 2011. I think it is because (1) it is a 2 mile hill and (2) it’s a very meandering hill – the switchbacks are all over the place with no predictability, so it’s hard to know how far you are. I did figure out that there are quarter-mile trail signs, so that was very helpful.
The last couple of miles here, I started to get hungry again. I was drinking a lot of water, which was good. At the aid station, I had more Coca Cola and electrolytes, more potatoes, and a slice of somewhat crunchy PB&J sandwich.
It is important to note that this aid station pass marks the completion of a marathon. So it’s theoretically possible to stop here and have run a full marathon. While it was tempting, I felt pretty okay after some food and chatting with the aid station volunteers, so I left the aid station before I had too much time to think about it.
7. Medium Hill – third and final ascent
The best part of this final section was getting to take the “shortcut” to get to Medium Hill – the route skips Small Hill and goes straight back to Medium Hill for the third time. Getting up to the top of the hill this time wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because I knew that I could watch out for the quarter mile signs. I adopted a pretty brisk run-walk strategy on this hill, whereas I had mostly walked it the second ascent. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job on this section, even though everything hurt and I was tired. The mental preparation for the last two ascents – and the last 13 years of reflecting on it – probably helped.
I finished in 6:49, which is almost 50 minutes faster than 2011. I came in sixth or seventh – nothing to write home about because the whole field of women was like 12-15 people – but I felt pretty good about that time. More on this below.
After
Mandy and Todd finished a few minutes after I did. Travis (Mandy’s husband) met them at the finish line. We all sat around, took more pictures, ate watermelon, then headed home. So happy to have found some running crazies to yolo sign up for races with.
Reflections
This was obviously a pretty tough race. I felt pretty wrecked the day afterwards – moreso than I expected for a 50k on trails I know well. However, as I prepare for my big summer race, I am trying to use these local races as training runs more than target /speed races, so the race did its job in that respect.
The factors that may have made this race hard include:
- Bad sleep the prior week – averaged 5-5.5 hours a night due to work commitments
- Jetlag – mostly that my stomach wasn’t set back to PST, so I was processing food in a weird way
- Sauna training – I had spent 45 minutes in the sauna the day before and it’s very likely I didn’t replenish electrolytes sufficiently. Lesson learned – I’m drinking a lot more this week (this sauna part is race-specific training for an upcoming race)
- Zero taper – I ran about 35 not-easy miles on Monday-Thursday of the prior week, and had done some lifting
- Not enough food the night before? Unclear. I was really hungry during this race for whatever reason
I didn’t really have a goal time in mind. I figured if it was a good day, I could maybe get to 6:30, so 6:49 isn’t quite there, but not terrible. Also, that’s a lot faster than I ran in 2011, so that’s great progress. The winning women both ran 5:31 (drama! such a close race) so I wasn’t even close to sniffing the podium on this one. This is definitely emblematic of where ultrarunning is – everyone is getting faster! Which is great for our sport.
I also captured a couple of Local Legend segments on Strava – not something I in any way optimize for, but highly entertaining and fun to see.
Overall, very fun day. Excited to run this race again and move on from the terror that 2011 inflicted on me about this course, and looking forward to running the race again when it comes back around.
BRB Running 