Golden Gate Dirty 30

I have a new standard for a tough 50km. 

In the first few months after moving to Boulder, as soon as I saw a relatively close ultra open, I signed up.  Trail running and racing had become such an important part of my life in Corvallis, it seemed logical to jump right in in my new state.  As with so many other things in life, there were several unexpected factors that meant that my training and racing in Colorado wouldn't meet my expectations.  Probably the biggest factor is that I've been working -and traveling for work- a lot more than I'd thought.  I've also been struggling with finding my running community in Boulder.  There certainly isn't a lack of runners, but I haven't yet found a group who's training schedule and routine really matches mine.  On top of that, for the past 9 months, I've been trying to get used to how different it is to run in Boulder compared to the Pacific Northwest.  I am neither a good downhill runner nor am  I particularly quick with my feet, so the long technical downhills in Colorado have been quite a challenge.

I'd heard of Golden Gate Dirty Thirty (actually a 50km, despite 'thirty' in the title) a few times before the entry opened.  The way people talked about it, it sounded a bit easier, something that people often did as their first ultra.  I signed up without looking at the elevation profile and then focused on training up for Quad Rock 50 miler, figuring that the training for Quad Rock would also be sufficient for Golden Gate.

The first monkey wrench in those plans was that I ended up doing only the 25 miler at Quad Rock, so instead of Golden Gate being a 'recovery' race, Quad Rock become a training race for Golden Gate.  The second was that the elevation gain for Golden Gate certainly was much more than what you would find for a typical 'entry level' 50km.  The course has over 8000 feet of climbing (and descending), between 7500 ft. and 9500 ft.  So I adjusted my expectations and figured that I would probably finish closer to 6 1/2 -7 hours, than the 6 hours and under that I had aimed for in my last several 50kms in Oregon.

 
So, come race day, I wasn't feeling like I was in my best condition, but I was also feeling relatively confident in my ability to finish the race with a decent result.  If nothing else, my suffer-fest during Waldo had introduced me to a level of perseverance and stubbornness in myself. 
 
As soon as we started running, I felt nauseous.  I knew we were starting fairly high, but I'd thought that living  mile high would have given me some prepared me fairly well.  Apparently not.  This was one of my biggest struggles of the day - not getting too negative about it and instead focusing on what I could actually eat that wouldn't turn my stomach.  Unfortunately, one of the things that made me feel worst was the EFS gel that I'd previously found surprisingly enjoyable.  Dealing with elevation-induced nausea is actually a lesson I was given during Siskiyou Out and Back a few years ago, where my legs felt great - I just felt like I was going to puke the whole time.  Instead of focusing on who sick I felt, I tried to focus instead on my breathing, how my legs, felt, the sensation of moving my body in space, and the wonderful scenery around me.  Despite how I felt, I ate on schedule (a good squirt of gel every 30 minutes and at least 100 calories of food plus some coke at aid stations).  If food make me sick, I'd evaluate if I was staying up with electrolytes.  If I was, then I'd tell myself that it wasn't actually *me* that was the issue - that it was just a normal part of being up high, and turn my attention elsewhere.  This mostly worked.
 
Despite the queasiness, the beginning of the race felt pretty good.  There was a bottleneck of runners getting through the first climb, but that helped to keep my pace in check.  The downhill wasn't too technical, and I was happy that I was able to open up a bit and gain some position in the pack.  The first significant climb was tough, but I was able to power hike up pretty well.  On the cruise down to the first aid station, I snuck through some trees for a potty-break, came back out, and about 100 meters down the trail realized my sunglasses had gotten pulled off my hat.  Doh!  I actually ran back to look for them briefly - to no avail.  Luckily we were in the trees most of the day and it was a bit overcast as well, so I didn't miss them too much during the race.

The trail was a mix of single track, double track, forest road, dirt gravel, non-technical, technical, scrambling up rocks - in other words, a bit of everything.  There were some gorgeous stretches of single track that wound through mountain meadows, where it felt more like flying than running.

I felt like I handled most of the climbs relatively well and was able to pick up some good speed on a lot of the downhills.  For most of the race, I thought that I'd easily be able to pull out a 7 hour finish.  Then I hit mile 22.  This downhill just plain hurt.  I tried to open up my stride and let gravity pull me down, but the surface was off-camber and uneven, and although it wasn't particularly difficult, I slowed down more than I sped up.  This was then followed by the climb up to Windy Peak.  I don't really have much to say about the climb other than it was long and slow.  I got passed way too many times both on the way up and the way down.  I think it took me almost 2 hours to do the last 6 miles. But, everytime I started to go to that bad place mentally, I'd remind myself of Waldo, of the last big climb up to Maiden Peak and the run into the finish that was way harder than it seemed like it should have been, and reminded myself that if I could do that, then I could certainly do this.

I ended up finishing in 8:05:43, 43 out of 71 women; 198 out of 255 finishers.  So - not horrid, but certainly not what I expect out of myself.  Run Rabbit Run 50 mile is coming up in September, and I know that I really need to focus more on (1) picking up speed on downhills, (2) the transition from uphill to downhill, and (3) training hard at elevation  (in addition to the usual increase endurance, increase foot turnover) -- especially if I'm going to try to get a qualifying time for Western States (more on that in my next post).