100th Marathon: 2nd place at Crissy Field

This weekend, I ran my 100th race of a marathon or longer. I have been having a hard time getting started on writing this post, because I have a lot of reflections on this 15-year journey and I am not sure how to structure them. So let’s get started and see how it goes.

Before the race

I figured out earlier this year that I might hit the 100-race threshold in the next 12 months. I knew I wanted to do something special to celebrate, but wasn’t sure what it was. I considered picking a really hard race, or running a race I liked, or traveling somewhere special to race. However, after celebrating Raj’s 50th state marathon with Raj and all of his friends, I realized that the true gift from this journey is the Friends We Made Along The Way (TM). Raj explained how he chose his final race to be one that people could travel to, so I decided to do the same, choosing one of my favorite local races: the 6hr around Crissy Field.

In this particular event, you have six hours to run a one mile loop as many times as possible. I have run this race several times with Coastal Trail Runs, one of my favorite running organizations, although this was the first time I ran their summer version. Usually I run their New Year’s Eve event (2023->2024, 2021->2022, 2018->2019, 2017->2018, 2015->2016, 2014->2015) and I love it every time. It’s also a great spectator race because the whole race is contained in a small area, and you see the athletes about every ten minutes.

I also wanted to fundraise for my friend Kevin’s non-profit, Miracle Messages, which uses the power of social media to reunite those experiencing homelessness with their loved ones. If you want to donate, the fundraiser is still open at this link: https://bit.ly/3y3FCri. You can always donate on their webpage as well: https://www.miraclemessages.org/donate. It’s really an amazing organization.

Before the event, I emailed a bunch of folks and invited them to come cheer at the race, run the race, and/or donate to Miracle Messages. I was honored and elated when so many friends and family responded. Originally, I had planned to just do this as a fun run, but now there was a bit of pressure to not run terribly at this race.

The Race Report (TM)

I woke up about two hours before the race started and started the drive up. I was by myself, which caused a bit of reflection – I was thinking back on all the times I had woken up early, dragged myself into my car, and driven to a start line. Sometimes it was from my house, sometimes from hotels, sometimes from friends’ places. All those mornings add up to more than three cumulative months of driving to race starts. For me, those moments are almost never full of nervousness, but more of quiet energy in the midst of a routine that I now know well.

At the start, I met up with my parents, who drove up from San Diego to celebrate with me. My friend Susan had signed up for the 3 hour version of this event, and Kelly drove up from Los Angeles to run the 6 hour, as well. We puttered around our crew setup – four camping chairs – and then lined up to start.

My goal for this race was to place (in the top three), which is something I’ve been able to do at this race in the past. Because it is a loop, it’s sometimes hard to tell who is leading, so when we lined up, I edged up to the front to check out the competition. When the race started, there were three of us towards the front – one woman who I knew I would never keep up with and who I also saw was running the 6hr (later learned her name was Ashleigh), another woman who I ran several laps with and was running the 12 hour so was not competition (Vanessa), and me. Kelly started behind me but I was pretty sure she was going to catch me or overtake me at some point. So it was Ashleigh, Kelly, and I.

The first two hours I spent running with Vanessa, which was fantastic – she kept me moving a bit faster than I would have otherwise. She had been training to qualify for Olympic Trials in the marathon, but when USATF lowered the qualifying time by 8 minutes, she changed her running goals to longer distances. This 12 hour race was a training run for her. We ended up yo-yo-ing quite a bit for the rest of the race, and it was so fun to see her crushing it.

Several friends stopped by during those first few hours, including Simran, Angela, and Natalie. My friend Ed happened to be running in the area and did a quick flyby as well.

In the middle part of the race, Kelly overtook me and maintained her lead of about half a lap. I wasn’t sure if I could catch her, but that would still have been good enough for 3rd place for me, so I kept pushing.

The only logistical hiccup during the race was the timing chips. You can see the orange wristbands in the photos. Almost everyone had one or more laps that didn’t get counted – Leng and Wendell were great at adjusting these for folks. I had one lap dropped somewhere between 15 and 20, and my friend Felix was able to work with Wendell to look at the splits to get it added back in.

Kelly was running the loops in the opposite direction that I was (which is allowed, and a super fun dynamic of the course). We saw each other every five minutes or so. At some point, she asked how close I was to a marathon distance, and I realized I was only a couple of laps away. At that point, Mom and Dad had also arrived, and Mom was walking the course in reverse as well just to see the lay of the land, so she was on the course too.

On the lap where I hit 26.2, I was weirdly emotional. I was going through a list of people in my head who had impacted my running in one way or another, and it was a long list. Many of them were positive – folks who had inspired me or pushed me. They showed me what was possible by doing it themselves or providing encouragement. In a lot of cases, these are people who just talked “shop” with me at some point or another – it’s surprising what sticks from random conversations. Some of the people I thought about, though, were people who had not been supportive. I felt pretty good about hitting this milestone both to prove the supporters right and to show the detractors what was up. (Note – I didn’t actually go tell any haters afterwards … but in my mind I felt good about it!). It is really incredible how much this sport – or any hobby, really – is not even about the activity itself, but about the people that make it up. Even in a sport as “individualistic” as running, we are more successful when we have a team around us.

With about 80 minutes to go, I set my sights on hitting 36 miles. I put up a couple of good laps before I had to use the bathroom, which cost me 2 minutes, which meant I would probably not be able to fit my last lap in. I settled for 35 miles and pushed the last couple laps pretty hard.

By this point, many friends and family had arrived, and it was so fun for the last 30 minutes to see them at the beginning of every lap.

I crossed the finish line with about 7 minutes remaining, which, even in the best case scenario, would have been really hard for me to fit another mile into. So we took some photos and cheered Kelly as she sprinted out her last loop.

I ended up coming in second, behind Ashleigh (who was like 3-4 miles ahead of me) and just before Kelly (same number of miles, about five minutes behind me). Because of the timing chip issues, it took a few extra minutes for the awards ceremony, but it was worth the wait.

Here are a bunch of photos.

Reflections

Growing up, I was not a fast child, and I hated sports. In middle school, I regularly finished the mile second-to-last, in front of a girl who had a medical excuse to walk. I spent most of high school trying to avoid mandatory sports requirements. Excuses included:

• Developing “shin splints” for 16 weeks (was only true for about four four of those weeks)
• Convincing the administration that “building sets for the theater” was somehow a sport
• When that failed, defaulting to yoga, where at least part of the class involved lying on the floor and doing nothing (thanks, shivasana)

I started running when I crewed for a family friend at Badwater. Mike was like 80-90 miles into his run when he asked if I wanted to pace him. He looked like he was going pretty slow, which I didn’t understand, because it was the first time I had ever seen someone run at not-5k pace and didn’t realize that’s how ultras worked. I ran about 3 miles with him and did not immediately die afterwards. That’s when I realized that you don’t have to be breaking speed records every time you go for a run in order to be running. This experience resulted in a deep curiosity about these folks who were running long distances and the psychology behind it. I devoted a significant amount of my time as a student reporter to learning about that race, and I ultimately published this piece about the experience. Also, I started running a few miles a day. (Note – Mike has competed in Badwater 3 times and is an incredible athlete. I had no idea how accomplished is was at the time I was crewing him).

My first ever race was a 36-mile trail ultra in Lake Tahoe, called “Lake of the Sky,” in 2009. You can read about it here. It was a really hard race for me – I finished second-to-last. I signed up for Lake of the Sky because, when I graduated from UC Santa Cruz and joined the work force in suburban Sacramento, I was terrified that I would stop running because there wasn’t any reason to run anymore. The burbs were hot and full of concrete, and lacking in trails, so I thought that if I signed up for a race, I would stay motivated to keep running. The race was really, really tough, mainly because I didn’t understand how training worked and hadn’t prepared at all for the hills or the altitude. It took me so long to finish that my boyfriend at the time was considering calling in a search & rescue team. Afterwards, I had difficulty breathing, and I wasn’t able to eat dinner that night.

I ran my next race – a trail 50k in Santa Cruz – about two weeks later, because I didn’t understand how recovery worked. It took me almost 8 hours to finish that second race, but I had a lot of fun.

I think a lot about my running journey in the context of this somewhat inauspicious start. This 100th race was 35 miles, and I came in 2nd overall. Over the course of the 100 races I’ve run, I’ve won some, I’ve set a (still standing) course record, I’ve qualified for (and run) Boston twice, I’ve run six 100-mile races (including one under 24 hours). My 50K PR is under 5 hours, which is … a lot faster than that 2nd race in Santa Cruz.

I’ve somehow gone from a kid in middle school who regularly placed second-to-last in the mile, to a runner who … doesn’t suck. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to beat Courtney or Camille at anything – but can hold my own okay.

A lot of folks I talk to think there’s some genetic predisposition to being good at running. I am evidence that 90% of being successful in running is not genetics, but just refusing to quit. There was no natural talent here – just a deep-seated fear of DNFing and dogged adherence to getting some miles in almost every day.

If there is anything I want you all to take away from this, it is that you can start from zero and still do this sport. This sport doesn’t judge, and there are no barriers to getting started. It doesn’t matter if you go slow, if you go fast, if you have a good day or a bad day. What matters is getting out there.

Some highlights from the 100 races

Kelly texted me afterwards with some questions that were thought-provoking and I thought would be fun to answer.

• Favorite races: So many.
  • Sub-24 finish at Javelina Jundred last year was mind-blowing.
  • Running in Antarctica continues to be a favorite memory, as does Kenya. All seven continents were so special.
  • First Boston was really cool – the whole family showed up. Scott memed the photo of me in the pink shirt to demonstrate how my running form was “perfect” by pointing at various aspects of it (knee angle, lean, etc). I don’t have the photo anymore but it was great.
• Favorite moment racing:
  • The time when Dad showed up at mile 80 of Rocky Raccoon with a mocha from Starbucks (link worth clicking for peak ultra fashion)
  • Placing 3rd in a 50k at Lake Chabot – but it was basically a tie, so I cut the trophy in half and shared the other half with Ingrid, who I had met on the course and ran most of the race with.
  • Any time when I saw a friend on the course unexpectedly. Such a boost.
• Lowest moment racing:
  • Mile 50 at Javelina Jundred last year, when I did not think I would finish.
  • Finishing NYC marathon, where I broke down sobbing in the medical tent for no discernable reason (the race report obviously doesn’t do it justice because I didn’t write about that moment)
  • Dropping after 40 miles at NYOD, a 24 hour race
• Scariest moment racing:
  • Getting stuck in the rain at 14,000 feet in Peru while experiencing food poisoning during the Inca Trail Marathon
  • Encountering a mama bear and her 3 cubs at 3am by myself at Tahoe Midnight Express 72 miler
  • Realizing my brain was not firing on all cylinders while trying to climb an ice ladder at Broken Arrow 46K last year
  • In summary, all three of these seem to be altitude-related, as they all happened above 7,000 feet of elevation
• Best aid station food: Easy answer. A 50-miler in the Marin Headlands had an aid station at Tennessee Valley. They had this insane cinnamon coffee cake. I ate so much of it.
• Best middle of the night memory: First time hallucinating during a race was at Pine Creek 100. I saw some yet-to-be-released iPhones in the forest, which really tipped me off that I was seeing things that weren’t there. Wins for “best” because I felt like I had finally joined the “ultrarunner” club.
• Proudest accomplishment: Definitely my 2019 (still standing) course record at San Francisco Ultra

Thank you all for supporting me on this journey. See you out there.