I raced the Berkeley Adventure Run 50K (31 miles) today, put on by Inside Trail Racing. It was a challenging course, with 6800' of elevation gain, going all around Tilden Park. I had a good solid run and I did about as well as I could. It took me 5 hours 18 minutes 42 seconds and I finished 7th out of 64, and 3rd in my age group. (The first place male, Daniel Kono, was 52 years old!) The scenery and forests were pretty and interesting. The weather was great for running -- cool and overcast. I only felt warm for some brief periods in the late morning and early afternoon.
I signed up for this race on the spur-of-the-moment, learning of it only one week before. I didn't register until just two days before the race. I thought this would a fun experience and a good training run.
I think I paced myself well and executed the race about as well I could, all things considered. I drank only Tailwind sports drink, and even started out with 20oz of Tailwind that I prepared at home. I ate an energy gel about every 45-50 minutes. My energy levels felt pretty good the entire time, but I got a strong thigh cramp around mile 29 on an uphill. I felt like I was on the verge of cramps and couldn't push any harder, even when another runner passed me in about the last mile. He was in my age group, too! Oh, well.
The only real negative part of the race was that there was some trail marking vandalism that cost me 4-5 minutes. Someone had not only removed the course markings, but had relocated them to mislead us. 🙁 Otherwise things went smoothly -- no falls or injuries.
Random socializing
- Suki's and my mutual friend Katie met us before the race. She ran the 10K.
- I met Seth from San Francisco and we crossed each other's paths repeatedly and had plenty of time for conversation. This was his first ultramarathon and he did great!
- I re-met Jason who recognized me from the Woodside Crossover 50K (in 2019, I think).
- After Suki finished, I met Lulu, an ophthalmologist from Menlo Park, who is interested in running on Montara Mt.
What went well
- Pretty much everything! I felt good and ran strong almost the entire time.
- I carried one 20oz handheld bottle. This made aid station stops very quick. I ran out of sports drink a couple of times, but not for too long, like 10-15 minutes, I think.
- I used RunGoo on my toes, nipples, and other likely chafing spots. That worked pretty well.
- Inside Trail Racing puts on really nice trail runs. The swag (t-shirt, medal) and prizes (pint glass and coaster, for 3rd place age group) were thoughtful and attractive. There were lots of helpful volunteers and lots of course markings and signage. There should be some race photos available for free, too.
Things to improve
- I had never worn these particular Injinji socks with these particular shoes (Hoke One One Speedgoat 4 size 13), and the socks didn't cover all the skin that the tongue of the shoe touched, so I got some chafing there, with a bit of bleeding. If the race had been much longer, like 50 miles, I would have had to attend to the problem during the race, but it hardly bothered me for this race. In the future, I need to make sure that the socks and shoes will work well together.
- I wish I had known the course really well, so that I could have followed the course by memory instead of following the colored ribbons, but that's just not practical for a race course that's an hour's drive away. There were about 50 turns in the turn-by-turn instructions, plus the trails didn't have signs anyways. It would have been very difficult to really memorize the course without running on the trails in advance. Some runners had the course's gpx file on their phones or watches, and that might have helped me, but I didn't want to carry a phone on this run.
- I woke up at 5:30am which seemed to be fine for the 8:30am race start. I met Suki at 7am in Pacifica and we had plenty of time to get our bibs, warm up, use the porta-potties, and get ready for the race.
- For breakfast, I ate a whole wheat English muffin with peanut and jelly, and a small bowl of corn flakes with honey.
- I weighed 167.0 lbs the morning after the race. I forgot to weigh myself the morning of the race, but it was probably about the same.
