Mt Diablo 50k

This weekend included the start of the Skyrunner World Series with the Transvulcania VK and Ultra, plus the last qualifier for Western States 100 at the Ice Age Trail 50. These races attracted a large portion of the world's trail ultra talent for good reason and led to many amazing performances and records. However, in-between peeking at updates for these races on Twitter I took advantage of yet another great Bay Area ultra, this time from the revitalized Pacific Coast Trail Runs (PCTR).

Under previous race management I ran the Mt Diablo 50k back in 2010 and this largely affected the decision to move to Walnut Creek (which is at the base of the mountain) in 2011 and again last year. In fact, running on Diablo has been the centerpiece of my training over recent months so I knew every tiny change in gradient in the race. The double 25k loop which summits twice totals 8,900ft of ascent, making it one of the harder 50ks locally (Skyrunning's Speedgoat 50k has 11,600ft of ascent for comparison).

After a purposefully hard April with plenty of races, some at harder efforts than others, I wanted to see whether that training was paying off. When I ran it before it took 5:09 but the loops were 2:26/2:43 so I aimed to be a little more consistent while keeping things at a sustainably hard effort. Since only one person broke five hours since the race started in 2002 and many fast runners have had a go over the years, that was my target. Yet the more important part of the plan was to keep the lap times similar to practice pacing - running a fast 50k but fading near the end would tell me nothing useful about my fitness for 100 milers.

At the start I bumped into Brett Rivers (fresh off taking my Diablo Challenge 50k record last month) and Dylan Bowman (just a week after his strong win at TNFEC Bear Mt 50 Miler) who were squeezing in their eight hours of trail work for Western States before the deadline by volunteering. There were only about 10 runners in the 50k event, partly because PCTR is still getting back on its feet and many more were running the 25k or 8k distances. If this event is anything to go by then that will soon change and PCTR, like all the Bay Area trail race companies, should flourish. 

So I headed up the Back Creek Trail and was passed after a couple of miles by a guy I didn't know who ran every step of the ascent. I ran perhaps a third of it but used power-hiking efficiently enough to be only 30 seconds back at the summit in 1:26, then took the lead immediately on the descent. Loop one ended in 2:15, which was quicker than I expected, but I know several runners who started with that kind of time in previous years but missed five hours overall by slowing significantly. 

Loop two was similar and I got the pacing about right as temperatures heated up slightly. The summit came a little slower, arriving after 1:29 on the loop (3:44 total). Then the familiar descent was still fun with my legs behaving and feeling surprisingly unbattered. My final time was 4:33 with loop splits of 2:15/2:17, taking 15 mins off the 2009 record. Overall, it went better than expected and the record was a bonus plus a great confidence boost. However, I think that record could go much closer to four hours if some of the best mountain guys turned up motivated.

Full results are here and thanks to the race directors and volunteers for another excellent day on the trails.

Gear:

Scott Kinabalu T2 2.0 shoes
Clif Bar Shot gels and bloks
UltrAspire handheld bottles with new 2014 nozzles
Drymax Trail Max Protection socks
Julbo Dust shades

From Winter To Summer In One Day...Plus Diablo Trails Challenge 50k

I've been in California almost a week so far after living here back in 2010/11 too and much as I really love Oregon, it'd been so good to get some hot weather. As if to reinforce this point, we loaded up the moving truck in a snow-storm, drove it in a very dangerous blizzard then woke up in a motel in Weed (they have a lot of obvious tourist T-shirts) in northern Cali to drive through the sun to Walnut Creek in the Easy Bay of the San Francisco area. Unlike the micro-climate of San Francisco with its fog and generally poor weather, Walnut Creek has some foothills as a barrier to the Bay and therefore has more typically California weather. In fact the temperatures have been freakishly hot and even hit 90F (32C) today.

One of the things I most love about the Bay Area is the variety of trails and number of races. It's easy to run a trail race of any distance from about 5k to 50 miles virtually every weekend, if you so choose. And I often so choose...

Even more conveniently there was a race at Mt Diablo State Park on the first weekend of living down here with multiple distances, but I needed a long training run so did the 50k with a solid 7,000ft of ascent. Since I last lived here several new trail racing companies have popped up or grown much larger and this is organized by Brazen Racing who did an immaculate job with a perfectly marked course and nothing to fault at all. They also have the largest medal I've ever earned! In addition it's all for a good cause, the Save Mt Diablo project which aims to buy up the large patches of the mountain that are privately held to make them usable for all instead of developing it.

I saw the course record was 4:51 and that it usually doesn't have a deep field so I thought it'd be a perfect, no stress race which I could just relax in. However, the owner of the new San Francisco Running Company store, Brett Rivers, decided to turn up in great shape and proceeded to head out at a fast pace in the early miles. My legs were still sore from moving into my third floor apartment without a lift/elevator so I really didn't want to chase him, but I also kind of wanted the win. It didn't help that I was interviewed at the start and cited as the favorite to win and break the record...no pressure, then!

Brett dragged me along and I just aimed to keep him in sight on the climbs but with the last few miles being mainly downhill I managed to take the lead at 26 miles then hang on for dear life til the end. Brett finished within a minute of me and I just wish I'd been able to run side by side the whole way instead of with a small gap almost all the time as it was good to catch up with him. At least we both ran good times and lowered the course record to 4:15 with Brett coming in at 4:16. The women's course record also fell to Katie Murphy in 5:22 - full results here.

Start line in the morning warmth (that's a change from recently)

Mt Diablo from the south before we got very close

Brett about a minute ahead of me maybe 10 miles into the race

Diablo in the background and Lon Freeman just behind me. Copyright: Scott J Hein

At the finish line. Copyright: Katherine Ingram

Two very tired runners - nice work Brett in pushing me as had as I could go

Good food at the finish

On a separate note, I've recently started using Strava to upload my GPS runs to. I never really got the point until I saw the geeky fun of formalizing fastest known times (FKTs) for pretty much any run or segment of a run. It certainly adds to the challenge on the standard routes I do regularly to have mini sections to use a time trials and aim for the times other locals ran those sections at. It's certainly strangely addictive and turns tempo runs into races.

The next few weeks should be fun too with more Bay Area races lined up. The beautiful Big Sur Marathon next weekend (along with friends from all over like Mike Wardian, Mario Mendoza and Sean Meissner) then the Miwok 100k the week after that, one of my favorite trail races. For once I won't be either jogging it or wearing an Elvis costume so it should be a great test for the Grand Slam.

Mt Diablo 50k - great views and big climbs

View from Mt Diablo.

Another Pacific Coast Trail Run this weekend, again near Oakland. This time an even hillier one and I hadn't realised just how hilly the Mt Diablo 50k was until I checked out the profile a few days before (8,900ft of climb by going up and down Mt Diablo twice). I think I'm right in saying that Mt Diablo is the highest point in the mountains surrounding the Bay Area, too.

Plus the fact the best times on the course were by some very fast guys and yet only one person had broken five hours. Five hours? For a 50k CR? Hmmm...looked like it might take a while, especially since I've not been able to train much and wanted to 'take it easy' so I could get back to training mid-week.

The event also includes a single loop of the course (25k) and a slightly different course for 8k, the latter starting 15 minutes after the longer runs. So the single and double loopers started off together and went straight uphill, which was almost non-stop from around 600ft to the summit at 3,849ft.

Start line.

I'd hoped to run most of it, but the race was basically a long hike followed by a fast downhill, then the same again. And the second lap certainly felt like a harder hike, particularly when I got my nutrition wrong by not eating enough or taking in any salt. I cramped a bit near the top, but the views made it worthwhile.

On the way up.

The Observatory at the top of Mt Diablo.

Time to turn back and go down...then do it all again.

The checkpoint half-way up.

What a great course and what perfect training for the mountain ultras. Well organised and very friendly too, like all the PCT runs. I ended up taking a bit less time than I'd expected (5:09 and 1st) even with the slow crawl up to the top each time. But the long run back was such easy running, even if it left me with sore legs for the next day.

Got two more of the PCT runs this year so am looking forward to them too. This run will help get me back in shape for the North Face 50 miler final in San Fran at the start of December too, which has over 10,000ft of ascent.

Oh, and Will - if you read this, drop me an email at sharmanian@hotmail.com as it'd be good to sort out some training runs like we discussed after the race.