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Okay, so this race is not 100% up and down, it’s just about 90% up and down. But luckily most of that flat 10% is rocky. I got what I wanted, a hard 50k. This course took me a little more one hour longer than the Chuckanut 50k for reference. This really fast (because, you know, anyone faster than me must be REALLY, REALLY FAST) guy from MT beat me by 12 minutes. He has beaten me before and I didn’t like it this time either. Amazing views, you could see Mt Adams, Mt Rainier, some mountain that I forgot the name of, and lots of rocks. The tallest plant on this course is about 3′. I fell three times and broke one trekking pole. There is no shade. But there was wind, strong enough to move me sideways on the last descent when both of my feet were off the ground. But there was pizza and beer at the finish. And each time I fell some nice person stopped for a minute to see if I was okay. Each time I lied and carried on. The overall winner ran in a button down shirt. I’m sore today. I should buy more button down shirts.

I decided two days before the race to sign up for the ten miler (there was also a 10k) because I wanted to do a nice long tempo. I got to Gas Works Park about 45 minutes before the start and immediately had to use the facilities. Those were the cleanest port-o-potties that I have ever seen (I guess that’s what happens when a group of women organize the race – nice work Oiselle!). After a quick warm up, I headed toward the start line to be greeted by Aid Station #2’s Olin Berger who was there cheering on his girlfriend.

Because the 10k had some decent prize money, there were quite a few elite women and Club NW dudes (one of those jokers decided to go shirtless on the 45 degree morning) so I grabbed a spot about 5 rows back. The 10kers were blazing form the start (a couple of sub 31 dudes and a sub 34 female – damn fast!) so I settled in just under 6 minute pace with what seemed to be a mixed pack of 10 milers. At 5 miles, where the two courses split, our pack was down to two – 2 time Olympian Kara Goucher and me. According to her Wikipedia page, all of her PRs are faster than mine except for the 1500. We clipped off a couple 5:50s while passing the dude in second and closing the gap with the leader. I started pulling away at the first hairpin turn around mile 7, much to the dismay of the predominately female field who wanted to see the Oiselle star take the overall W. I overtook the lead with a little over a mile to go and cruised into Gas Works with an 18s victory. Goucher ended up in 5th overall about 30s back. She thanked me for my 3 miles of “pacing” and gave me quite the high five.

I had friends running the Yakima Skyline 50k so I couldn’t stick around for the awards. I Irish goodbye’d out of there and hightailed it to Ellensburg.

Oiselle did a great job organizing the race and I felt pretty great for most of the run. Definitely a win-win.

Regret is not a meal best served cold. Thats revenge. However, regret could be a tex-mex dish served in a curiously expensive food emporium adjacent a Yakima winery. This is a story of the latter.

5:00 am 4/21/18. I awake without the grogginess of pre-evening drinks at The Brick, or of the reefer the cooks at the bar were smoking that evening. The air is cold in Roslyn, the drive to Yakima is longer than I’d like, and the gas station coffee is sufficient. No regrets have yet to occur.

7:00 am 4/21/18. The Italian rimpiangere phase of the race. I manage a nice pre-race constitutional. As does Grete. I regret not bringing more poop bags.

8:01 am 4/21/18. The Albanian keqardhje phase of the race. The race starts. I regret somehow being in the front. For some ungodly reason it is holy ultrarunning scripture to run a near army crawl pace from the gun. I regret this is the only sport I’m half decent at.

8:03 am 4/21/18. The French katua phase of the race. We hit the first uphill. I start walking, the rest of the field behind me does not. I regret taking a prerace dump wishing I could instead crop dust these sand baggers. I do not regret not running more section line repeats. This portion of the race blows goats.

8:35 am 4/21/18. The German bedauern phase of the race. The lead group hits the ridgeline. I begin running. The rest of the leaders seamlessly transition from running up a 60% grade to picking wildflowers at a pace befitting a 90 year old. I do not regret making up all the distance they put on me on the climb with near zero effort. This pacing is Donald Trump-level consistent. Oscillating wildly between extremes.

9:15 am 4/21/18. The Welsh yn ofid phase of the race. After completely destroying ourselves for no reason, then erasing all forms of competitive pace on the flats once more. The lead group hits the first climb. For the first time all day I am running some uphill. I think to myself I am going to “wreck some fools” in an hour or so. I might regret this line of thinking.

9:45 am 4/21/18. The Polish zal phase of the race. I notice my legs are already sunburned. I regret not wearing sunscreen. This will not get better in future phases.

10:15 am 4/21/18. The Spanish lamentar phase of the race. The descent into Buffalo Road has completely decimated what feeling my feet never had. I regret believing any rockplate is worth a damn.

10:25 am 4/21/18. The Dutch betreuren phase of the race. The lead group hits the Buffalo Road aid station. My plan is to run the entire climb out of the aid, then coast on good good good vibrations to a victory. I regret bringing my Nathan softflask, it literally takes multiple people and several minutes just to put the cap on.

10:27 am 4/21/18. The Cebuano ikasubo phase of the race. The cap is not on the softflask. I dont regret the moisture from the leaking bottle at this point in the race. It is nice and cooling. I blame Rob Krar.

11:00 am 4/21/18. The Scottish Gaelic aithreachas phase of the race. I just successfully ran nearly that entire climb. Somehow I’m farther behind Mike Wolfe than when I started the climb. I am also in a world of hurt. I regret that my race plan only had one step to it.

11:30 am 4/21/18. The Corsican rigrettu phase of the race. I am yet farther behind Mike Wolfe. Catching second now seems a desperate proposition. I trip no less than 4 times on this descent and still to this day don’t know how I didnt eat a face full of tumbleweed. I regret not picking my feet up better. This is going to be a very VERY long next hour.

11:55 am 4/21/18. The Afrikaans spyt phase of the race. I am staring up at the final climb. 2nd and 3rd are not far away. They are walking. I however am in full cramped leg lock mode. I am walking sideways up the climb. This is not as efficient. In fact, one could say it’s both stupid, and stupid looking. I am regretting not doing like ONE additional section line repeat.

12:40 pm 4/21/18. The Sudanese kaduhung phase of the race. I have made it to the top of the final climb. I leaked time to both remaining podium positions like a colander. I dreamt of running this final ridgeline with Walmsley-esque form. Unlike Letsrun.com, those dreams are not a reality.

12:20 pm 4/21/18. The English regret phase of the race. I finish the descent back to Umtaneum Canyon. My feet are hamburger. Thinking of this makes me wish I’d eaten a hamburger since the last aid station. Or a gel. Or anything. I arrive at the parking lot and realize we now need to run a quarter mile around it to the finish. To be clear here, my legs cannot move. Running is as much an option for me now as Joe Creighton modeling for L’Oreal. Attempting to hobble to the finish line I regret checking over my shoulder for anyone hot on my tail. I think my best race strategy at that point would be to throw my leaky soft flask at them.

12:27 pm 4/21/18. Finish. I somehow do not regret running the race.

12:28 pm 4/21/18. I regret not bringing a glass for the keg.

6:32 am 4/22/18. I awake. Instantly I regret trail running being the only thing I’m passably competitive at. I should have focused on something less painful like competitive oil painting, or poetry jams.

8:00 am 4/23/18. A friend emails me a link to a race in Idaho. I spend 2 hours investigating it. I have yet to learn from all the phases of these damn races.
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This race is a challenge by choice. You can do 1-10 laps of the Chirico Trail up to Poo Poo Point on Tiger Mt. I tried to do all 10 in 2014 and failed, this time I made it and surprised myself with 2nd place. It’s always on a Wednesday to avoid the weekend hiker traffic. This year it took me TEN HOURS to finish, but on reflection, it would have taken me over 10 hours back in 2014 if I had been able to finish…the event is put on by the Seattle Mountain Running Group Facebook Group (Jess Mullen specifically) and is a massive community effort. Officially there is no aid, no timing, no nothing; but we had the best aid station I have ever experienced, digital timing and loads of support including two event photographers. Wow.

This was my first race since Thanksgiving so it was painful! My only goals were to run hard, show Samir Rahman who’s the boss, and eat some donuts after. Mission accomplished!

I didn’t want to run it because I had been dealing with a hamstring injury since Chuckanut and my left leg hasn’t worked normally since, but I knew I could and you never know, maybe today my L leg would surprise me and finally feel ok.

Warmed up, got to the start line, saw there were three fast women there (prizes only go to top three), and almost asked the race folks to drive me to the finish (it’s a point-to-point course). Note: In the past 6 years, the winning time has only been “fast” the two years I’ve run this race.

Gun went off, we ran across the bridge (beautiful), my L leg reminded me that it didn’t like to move normally, but it was just fine enough to not drop out on the other side of the bridge where my friend was standing, taking photos.

L leg finally felt warmed up somewhere between mile 6 and 7, giving me a glimmer of hope.

11 miles in I was 3:30 behind places 1-3 (they were all together). I did some in-race math (not usually a good idea)…That meant that by the end I would be at least 10 mins behind. That was a frustrating prospect.

Most of the rest of the race was spent feeling discomfort and pain move from area to area of my L leg and trying to get it to move with some semblance of normalcy (that glimmer I felt earlier was truly just a glimmer). I also learned that my L leg had zero ability to push off going uphill. The course is very hilly. These two things are not a good combo. (Running an easy effort up a hill in a marathon because your leg doesn’t work and not because you’re dead tired is excruciatingly frustrating.)

Around mile 15 a lady passed me near the top of a hill. That was irritating. Fortunately, there was a downhill right after and I “took off” (taking off is a relative term). Around mile 19 she passed me near the top of another hill (the 5th of 5 in a row). Fortunately, again, there was a downhill soon after and I, again, “took off.”

At mile 20, I figured I only had a little over 6 miles left, so I might as well finish the darn thing (this decision was made harder every time I saw my friend driving by in her van…I really wanted to get in that van).

A little later I could see the 3rd place lady far in the distance and was determined to catch her. I still had 5-6 miles to catch her and since she had been so far ahead, I though I had a pretty decent shot. I caught her with a few miles to go and then was determined that “hill lady” wasn’t going to catch me since I was now in 3rd place.

My L leg felt terrible and I continued to use all the mental strength I had to get it to move into the strong headwind we were now running into.

I could see 2nd place’s (and fellow SRC teammate’s) pink calf sleeves up ahead. Unless she died hard, I wasn’t going to catch her, but you never know what might happen in the last 1.5 miles of a marathon, so I had to stay on it (and I was sure hill lady wasn’t too far behind).

I finished in 3rd place, not that the announcer mentioned anything as I came in and crossed the finish.

It was probably the most mentally taxing race of my life and also high on the list of the most disappointing. What I was proud of was a) how mentally strong I stayed despite all the discomfort in and lack of my leg working and b) to work my way up to 3rd on a bad day made the experience sting just a little less.

Yep, some rough days are really rough. We’ve all had ’em. They’ll make us stronger, even though they suck donkey balls in the moment (especially when that moment lasts a few hours). Keep at it!