Running, my second job and passion...

Back to Dubai: flat and hot

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Friday, a few hours in lieu of a weekend before I get on the plane to Riyadh... In the Gulf, weekends are Friday-Saturday except in Saudi Arabia where it's Thursday-Friday. As a consequence, I'll be working Saturday through Tuesday in Saudi, a busy Memorial Day "weekend..." The past years and since I started ultra running in 2007, this Memorial Day weekend was very special with a lot of miles. Before my first Western States in 2007, I ran the traditional 3 Memorial Day training runs on the course, including the extension from Forest Hill down to the river the second day. Then I started a tradition of three very long runs (well, 3 hilly and hot ultra runs) over the three days, in the Bay Area (126 miles in 2008, 122 in 2009 including the Mission 6-peat madness, 49 miles only in 2010, and 47 in 2011 including a 72-lap tempo run at the track to prepare for the World Masters). So long for the tradition, we'll see how it works out next year.

After completing my Spring ultra madness with Ohlone last Sunday, I had to take Monday off (running) since I spent it on a plane (16 hours, straight after the race). I went for a run on Tuesday night, mostly on Jumeirah Road. This is the place I highlighted last time (see my Running in Arabia post) and that I still highly recommend. It's a few blocks from the sea and beaches, but it has tens of miles of bike path and there is no continuous path along the beaches anyway with too many private ones or on going construction of huge villas. The temperature was just over 100F with 35% humidity and no breeze and I found it really difficult to maintain a 7:45 min/mile pace. The heat was so oppressing, I stopped for 5 minutes at miles 5 and decided to turn back. I was sweating so much, my shoes were soaked and it would take more than one day for them to dry... At the turn around, I was thinking of Pierre-Yves's accident at Ohlone (helicopter evacuation after he fainted just half a mile from the finish...), and decided to be cautious as we still hadn't definite news that he was ok (he got better on Wednesday but isn't completely off the hook yet and still at the hospital this Friday).

I had a business dinner on Wednesday evening and went for another run on Thursday night at 9 pm. This time, the temperature was "only" 90F (32C) and there was some breeze from the sea which made the run really enjoyable now that I got somehow acclimated to this heat. I ran 19.5 miles, still at a pretty slow pace (7:35) though. I went to bed at 3 am after processing more email and I went for a 14.5-mile run this Friday before going to the airport. This time it was mid-day and the sun was straight at its zenith, that was quite hot again, almost 100F.

Short of pictures from my run (not much to see on that road), I posted in Picasa a few pictures I took from my excursion to the 124th floor of Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the World which you can see in the latest Mission Impossible movie. This is actually far from being the top of the skyscraper, as the owner occupy the last floors. See the view of the top from the 124th floor, you can barely see the very end of the building...

Unfortunately, the visibility was quite limited by the sand dust which actually resides in the area most of the time (a colleague from our Dubai office told me that the locals say the sky became this way after all the bombings of the Gulf War, it's hard to believe this is still the reason, more than a decade later...). Anyway, we could still see the "small" nearby buildings and being that high was quite impressive. The height of the tower is 2,700 feet, almost the height of Black Mountain, above Cupertino.

Have a great week all, and especially a nice long Memorial Day weekend in the US!

Ohlone 2012: 50K and a plane to catch!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:10:00 +0000

Here we are, 5th and last episode of my Spring ultra madness, 5 ultra races in 5 weekends (4 weeks and one day...)! First, I've not been the only one racing like crazy these past weeks, the season is really heating up! This weekend alone, Toshi did the Silver State 50-mile/Ohlone 50K double, a back to back over 2 days! Now, after winning my Ruth Anderson 50-mile race and the Quicksilver 50K last weekend, with Leona Divide (50-mile) and Miwok (100K) in between, I was raising the bar again by combining a 50K, and not anyone, a tough one, and a flight to Dubai the same day... For that, I really had to rely on Agnès' logistical support, the third of the five races she attended and I'm grateful for her ultra support of this new challenge!

The weather had been relatively cool this week and I was hoping that will stay for the race, although I particularly like Ohlone for the heat, in which I'm usually doing better than in cold weather conditions. Last Sunday, the day after Quicksilver, I was able to squeeze in a 23-mile run to the top of Black Mountain before we went to Layang Layang with Greg and Agnès to celebrate Mother's Day (great Malaysian restaurant on De Anza in San Jose). I ran a short 6-mile flat run in the neighborhood and then took the rest of the week off, that is from running, not from work, with even more hours than usual, in particular to catch-up with local things as I had been on the road for 3 weeks recently, and 10 more days right now. Agnès drove me to the start this Saturday morning and the temperature was already reaching 60F by 6:50 am, it was going to be a hot day again for sure.

We were able to watch the early start (7 am), wishing all the group a great day on the trail. It was then the opportunity to meet with a few local runners, or others who had flown or drove from out of State, such as legend Frank Bozanich from Reno or Ian Torrence from Flagstaff, to celebrate this very special milestone, the 25th Ohlone run! Once the buses from the finish area unloaded their loads, the place became really crowdy and it was time to get another ultra celebration! Here is the Quicksilver Ultra Running Team contingent for the occasion (minus Chris Calzetta who was still getting ready).

After recognizing and highlighting a few faithful old-timers of this event, Rob sent us off on (or up, as we start uphill) the trail right on time, at 8 am. 2 yellow jackets, a.k.a. La Sportiva ultra team members, took the control of the first miles of our ascent to the top of Mission Peak. Jason Reeves followed the ambitious pace but I passed him as the climb got really steep. I was followed by teammates Chris (Calzetta) and Marc (Laveson) who also passed me before the end of the second mile. We were missing Leor astonishing speed today (Leor smashed the course record 2 years ago to 4:16, but he has been injured since the start of the season unfortunately), but the race was definitely on!

Right after the summit, Marc took the lead, passing the La Sportiva leader (Marc, Chris and I had passed the other one before the switchbacks), with Chris following and me passing him too right after the first aid station (where Tropical John teased me for stopping to swallow a Gu, but at least that's one way not to litter... there were quite a few Gu pockets on the trail at Miwok when I was following the leaders...). It was actually Peter Fain whom I had seen on the entrants list but never met before. Peter climbed to the top of Mission Peak with so much ease, so light on his feet, I was surprised he had slowed down after the summit. He explained that he got a knee surgery last October, so he is only ramping up, not to mention that he lives in Truckee where the snow just cleared from the trails. He is aiming at peaking in September but has offered to pace our group in August when we'll attempt to set a new speed record on TRT (August 13-14), an exciting venture led by Gary Gellin. Anyway, just having gotten the clearance from his surgeon, Peter said he was going to take it easy in the downhills today. But he is such a climber, I expected him to go strong in the long climb to Rose Peak.

Carrying 2 bottles, I didn't stop at the second aid station (Sunol) and caught up with Chris, with Marc not too far behind. After a very fast and aggressive climb to the top of Mission Peak, Marc was experiencing some issues in the steep climbs and Chris and I caught up with him in the 10th mile. I felt good pushing the pace and leading the QSURT charge now that we the three of us were now in the front. A short stop at the Backpack Area aid station to get my bottle refilled before the big and long climb. Chris is a real diesel in the climbs and he was still just a couple of minutes behind after the following aid station, and I could see Mark's red cap not far behind. I summitted first in 3:01, got my bracelet from 2 volunteers up there, saw Chris entering the summit loop as I was completing it (about a 4-minute lead) and Marc just before I turned left down to the next aid station.

The first year I ran Ohlone (2007), I had passed Graham Cooper after the Backpack Area AS and was in the lead but cramped so much after the summit, believing that we were done with the climbing after Rose Peak. Well, as anyone who has run Ohlone can say that this isn't at all the case, with 10 more miles alternating steep downhills and uphills! It took me a few years to manage to run this section correctly, the best being 2 years ago. I kept running most of the uphills despite a few cramps in my quads and, sure enough, they passed with more drinking, a few S!Caps and a second Vespa concentrate, allowing me to even fly down the Schlieper Rock aid station, where I was welcomed by co-RD and IBM colleague, Larry England (a Distinguished Engineer too!). I got my Gu2O bottle refilled one last time by the very efficient volunteers who wanted only one thing, get me out as quickly as possible; you... rock guys!

I passed a few hikers with huge backpacks in the technical switchbacks going down Williams Glutch. Just before crossing the creek, I was greeted by Gary (Gellin) who was getting an easy run after his great Zion 100 a week ago. He gave me some encouragement, said I was 4 miles from the finish and that I could make it under 5 hours. With 45 minutes left, I surely was hoping to, although I realized that I was much slower than last year when I did my Personal Best in 4:37. I walked part of the next big climb to the ridge then flew down the last 2.5-mile steep downhill to the finish, not without stopping for a quick bath at the last aid station, one my favorite spots of this run! Here is a great shot from Joe Swenson, who couldn't race this year (injury) but still managed the perfect marking of the whole 31-mile course, just as I turned into the downhill from the ridge above Lake Del Valle:

I crossed the finish line in 4:49:05, good enough for first overall this year, without fast guys such as Leor, Gary or Jesse. 3 wins (2007, 2008, 2012) out of the 25 editions, that was completely unexpected on my end! 6 sub-5 (hours), 6 podiums (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 1), no wonder this is still my favorite race in North California, such an homage to the Ohlone people, Native Americans who were peacefully leaving on these exposed hills a few centuries ago.

After a few minutes to realize what just happened, the countdown started, 40 minutes to cool down, stretch, ice my quads, get a drink and some food, and take a shower at one of the nearby parking lots. Chris took 2nd in 5:09 and Marc 3rd in 5:12, the top honors for QSURT this year (quite an appearance from our club, including a scary helicopter evacuation of one of our team members, collapsing from heat exhaustion less than half a mile from the finish. As of Monday night, he is better but still in an ICU).

We left at 1:40 and Agnès dropped me at the airport just in time to check in, spend 50 minutes standing in line at the security check (yes, I prefer running than standing...) and board a crowded flight toward Dubai, or rather India given the folks sitting around me in Coach... Good that I wear compression socks to get the blood flowing for 16 hours...

A big thank you to all the volunteers who made this 25th celebration possible and another ultra success. From course marking (Joe, Chihping, ...), to the remote and exposed aid stations, the great burgers at the finish, the trophies, the flashy hoodies, Zombie Runner's support, course sweepers and marshals, all of them under Rob and Larry's leadership.

As Agnès put it, time for some vacation, from racing. Talk to you from the Middle East next weekend then, a great opportunity for some serious heat training again! Anyway, it's midnight here in Dubai, time to post the race report, get a real shower and go to bed while the sun is shining in California... And, if you have read the report that far, you may want to see a few additional pictures in Picasa, mostly from the start.

With Agnès, and Catra, photo courtesy of Noe Castanon (Facebook)

Quicksilver 50K 2012: holding even strong...er!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:32:00 +0000

Last week I titled my post "Miwok 100K: holding strong" in reference to the first three solid performances of my 5-ultra Spring madness. And this weekend's #4 wasn't bad either, read on!

The unplanned part of this madness was the business travel: after Madrid and Vegas it was Riyadh last week and quite an epic journey to get there. So much trouble at my connection to Frankfurt that the improvised last minute connection through Dubai was a mess and that confused the airlines computer apparently. Indeed, when I showed up at 10:30 pm at the Riyadh airport for my 1 am flight, the attendant said that my flight wasn't in the computer anymore, gasp! Fortunately, after another stressful moment, he was able to put me back on my original flight and everything went smooth this time. Well, almost, because I was barely able to sleep for an hour on the first leg to Frankfurt, 2 hours in the lounge there after a shower and barely another hour on the long flight back to SFO (it's quite a sport to travel coach for 25 hours door to door...). With that, I enjoyed the 7 hours of sleep I got before waking up this Saturday morning at 3 am to get my pre-race breakfast.

I arrived at the parking lot around 5 am and it was already half full although the start was only scheduled an hour later. It was easy and fast to get our bib numbers and doggy bags (great hoodie plus a beer glass, great picks Pierre-Yves!), thanks to the perfect organization and volunteers' efficiency. Sun rise was scheduled for 6:01 am so we had some day light to finish preparing and see many familiar and friendly faces around. Race Director, Pierre-Yves sent us off at 6 am and I rushed in the first down hills with Toshi but another runner passed us right away and set a crazy pace right away. I told Toshi it must be Lon Freeman whom I had seen in the 50-mile entrant list, although I couldn't recognize him from behind. Lon is an amazing athlete. When I started running ultras in 2007, I was very impressed by his Miwok win in 8:09 and his sub-6-hour American River the following year. However, Lon doesn't race often so it had been a while since I had seen him on the circuit. Anyway, I lost sight of him by the end of the first steep climb and thought I would never see him again. Actually, at that point, I wasn't even sure it was him and not a fast rookie on the 50K so I maintained the effort in a pursuit mode for the many miles to come. Behind, I also lost sight of Toshi between the third and fourth mile on the New Almaden single track trail.

Last year I had reached the Dam Overlook aid station in 1:12 (mile 9) and I was just 15 seconds off this year after grabbing a Gu on the way and thanking the Striders volunteers as I left the station.

Agnès and Greg were part of the gang and I was going to see them the three times we come through that aid station, the most busy one with more than 750 runners passing through! Here is Lon at his first passage, right after 7 am.

A few miles later, I saw a runner in the distance and timed the gap around 2.5 minutes. However, when reaching the next aid station, Caphorn, one volunteer said that I was about 4 minutes behind. Without stopping at the station, I kept running all the way up Mine Hill trail, including the detour on April trail. Still no sight of the first runner on the ridge or even as I was flying down back to Dam Overlook where Agnès hold me another Vespa and two new bottles (mile 19) which I will keep for the remainder of the course. I asked the volunteers but still couldn't get if the lead runner was on the 50-mile or 50K.

I ran all the hills on the subsequent 4.7-mile loop which gets us back to Dam Overlook again with a couple of miles uphill toward the Bull Run trail on the ridge. I grabbed a last Gu and one S!Caps and went on the climb, against the sparse flow of 50K and 50-mile runners going down for their 2nd passage through that aid station. I got many nice words of encouragement but, climbing and needing all the air, wasn't able to respond this time. Last year, I was way behind Leor who destroyed the course record on the 50-mile, and a few minutes behind Gary Gellin who was also on the 50-mile, but I was leading on the 50K until Chris Calzetta passed me before we got on the Bull Run trail to finally win in his first ever 50K by a couple of minutes. This year, Agnès finally confirmed that the lead runner was on the 50-mile so it had to be Lon and being in the lead motivated me to run all the way and not walk like the other years.

I was off my times of last year by about 1 or 2 minutes I believe, when going through the Dam Overlook aid station for the third and last time so I was determined to run the rest of course in order to improve the age group course record I set 2 years ago and improved again last year (a time that Gary would easily slash by 15 or 20 minutes now that he is in our age group!). I ran hard and didn't stop at all at the English Camp aid station (mile 27), pushing the pace in the steep down hill. Right after crossing Mine Hill trail though, I almost slipped when I saw a bug rattle snake across the trail. I waited a few seconds to see if he'd move to no avail. I threw a small rock at it, no move. I was started to get nervous the wait will cost me the course record... I threw another rock and the guy coils itself in the middle of the trail, shaking up its tail and showing me its tongue, yikes, quite impressive! I decided to risk going around on one side, sprinting and not looking behind, then trying to quickly recompose myself for the upcoming and final hills ahead.

For the insiders, the last 2 miles of the race include a killer roller-coaster then a very steep downhill plunging down to the finish area (Hacienda trail). to my amazement, I was able to run the first two up hills and walked only 3 times for about 20 steps each. Yet, the clock was ticking and there was not a second to lose to break 3:56. I pushed the pace as much as possible in the final killer down hill and actually passed Lon at the bottom of it before crossing the finish line in 3:55:11, one minute faster than last year, phew! Short of more competition, that was good enough for first overall and a new age group course record. Lon went on the 50-mile and I went to the car to grab my camera, staying at the finish to take pictures of more than 250 runners (25K, 50K or 50-mile), see my Picasa album (also containing a few pictures from Agnès at the Dam Overlook aid station earlier in the day, 270 pictures all together...!).

Toshi took second in the 50K about 15 minutes later and, in the 50-mile, Lon won in 7 hours and change. More results will get posted on the race website and ultrasignup shortly.

After 3 hours of unplanned shooting, my battery finally ran out and it was time to enjoy the amazing café and buffet that Paul and Darcy Fink put up with their crew every year for the Quicksilver club. I really think it isn't chauvinism to say that this tops any other finish party on the ultra circuit, even the renowned Firetrails when Ann Trason was in charge, or Ohlone (we shall see next week!). Several delicious and fresh salads, salsa, dips, burgers with beef or chicken, tomatoes, salad, pickles, ..., sausages, ribs, fresh salmon grilled on wood, ice cream, assortment of cakes, cookies, whipped cream, large assortment of beer and soft drinks, what a menu! You rock guys!!

From the perfectly stocked and manned aid stations, Pierre-Yves' race direction, the great goodies and amazing finish line café; Karen, Adona, Stan and Dave at the timing table (the printer will work next year!), Greg's announcements, this is a top and very professional event, even providing a wide range of options for runners willing to discover trail racing or pushing the limits on a challenging course in the heat. No surprise it fills up every year! And sorry for the few runners who missed a turn despite the good course marking...

I'm in town for one week before Ohlone next Sunday and flying to Dubai a few hours later for two weeks over there and Riyadh again. I'd better run Ohlone fast again as the race starts at 8 am and my flight is at 4:45 pm at SFO. At least we got some heat training today with temperatures in the low 90s by mid day. One more/final race in the Spring madness and it will be time to turn the page on this fun and bold experience. But, with 2 overall wins (Ruth Anderson 50-mile and today) and two other strong performances at Leona Divide 50-mile and Miwok 100K, that's way above my initial expectations already. A lot of training miles (74 miles/week average since January 1st, versus 63 last year) and the Vespa effect in the races, allowing for fast recovery (following Tim Olson's advice and Jon Olsen's amazing performance at the World 100K a few weeks ago, I'm now down to 1 Vespa every 2 hours and it helps indeed). And a lot of good stress from work to get out via this intense exercise, not to mention the 10 hours of jet lag...

Good job to all finishers today, especially to the 50-milers who had the guts to keep going on after coming back to Mockingbird at the end of the 50K, and see you all on the trails again soon!

PS: and here is to the Birthday Girl, with assorted pink cast, very classy! :-) Again, see more pictures in Picasa.

Miwok 100K 2012: holding strong

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:37:00 +0000

After Ruth Anderson 50-mile 2 weeks ago and Leona Divide 50-mile last week, that was #3 of 5 ultra races in my Spring Ultra Madness "experience," 5 ultra in 5 weekends... And the top of the difficulty in that series, combining the longest distance (100K or 62 miles) with the most cumulative elevation.

Due to planned construction at the headquarters of Marine Headlands at Rodeo Beach, Race Director, Tia Bodington, had to redesign the course and in particular the start and finish area. She took the opportunity to actually redesign the whole course across this amazing park a few miles North of San Francisco. The conditions getting in the race were no so ideal on my end: I was exhausted and some will say it's normal for someone racing so much, but it was more about a super busy week in Vegas with meetings from 7 am to midnight and more work afterwards to catch-up with emails or finalize my own presentations. Yet a very fruitful week from a business standpoint, it was very refreshing to meet with clients, partners and colleagues from around the world, including Panama, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Portugal, France, Germany, UK, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia not to forget Canada and the USA of course!

With that, I didn't have much time to prepare for the race and the associated logistics and to make it more challenging, my carpool option to the start felt apart on Thursday. I emailed right away 6 other participants from South Bay or Mid-Peninsula but got 4 negative replies by Friday morning. Agnès cancelled a few of her Saturday tutoring sessions and offered to drive up and crew for me like in the good old times when I started running ultras 5 years ago ;-) We left home at 3 am and picked Charles in San Francisco on our way. With the winding road and the darkness, it took us 10 more minutes to reach Stinson Beach at 4:43 am for a 5 am start... There was a huge line at the check-in to get our bib number so I rushed instead to the nearby bathroom. With the line there I was done by 4:56, got my bib from Stan at 4:58 and was still getting ready when I heard Tia giving the start. I left a minute later and started passing runners, and more runners... 430 made it through the lottery back in January but, I would learn later, only 354 started. Here is how the start looked upfront:

And from the rear side... my 2nd DSL (Did Start Last) ;-)

On this new course, the race starts with a 1,800 straight climb to Bolinas Ridge. Being far behind the leaders probably prevented me from starting off too hard. However, I felt the urge of running the steep uphill while some were walking so I ended up sweating quite a lot from the hoping and quick accelerations to pass others on this narrow single track trail. On the ridge, I was following Tina Lewis and had still no idea how many runners were upfront. I still had my bib number in my pocket when I got into the Bolinas Ridge aid station and stopped for a few minutes to pin it before turning to a bandit... I passed the lead women again on the ridge and a few other runners. Adam Hewey and Adam Lint were the last ones I passed before we plunged down to the Randall Trail aid station. It was so cool to run this section on fresh legs as opposed to other years when we were hitting the ridge at mid course, around mile 30-34.

The first runner I saw coming back up from the Randall aid station was ultra favorite Dave Mackey. Dave set an amazing course record last year, breaking under 8 hours. But Dave wasn't running alone, he was with Chris Price. I was still about 4-5 minutes from the aid station so they had a lead of at least 12-14 minutes and we were only 13 miles in our run. Jesse Haynes was in 3rd. I had seen Jesse (Ink 'n Burn) at Leona Divide last week where he wasn't running but volunteering. Quicksilver Ultra Running teammate Marc Laveson was in fourth followed by Jonathan Gunderson from Tamalpa, Christopher Wehan, Paolo Castiglioni, Mark Lantz and Owen Bradley from Alabama. I left the aid station right behind Mark and David Brown from Texas. David passed me as we were approaching the top of the hill, and I passed Mark. David and I traded places on Bolinas Ridge, before we got passed by the Adams (Lint and Hewey) just before coming back to the Bolinas Ridge aid station (mile 19). I refilled my Gu2O bottle, took a Vespa concentrate before leaving the aid station, passed David in the next technical section, then Adam Lint as we hit the road, the David passed me again on the Coastal Trail ridge before I passed him before the technical section and many stairs leading us back to Stinson Beach Fire Station, marking the first marathon (and a hilly one already!). After Randall Trail, Agnès was there again and I will see her at the next aid station too, at Muir Beach. I didn't dare to ask how far behind from Dave I was (27 minutes from the webcast which I looked at after the race), I felt I was going quite slow today, around 9 min/mile average pace and was hoping we were done with most of the climbs. I saw teammate Gary Gellin at the exit of the aid station, he was going to pace Dave in the final 10 miles. The next 8 miles to Muir Beach felt familiar (a good part of the Quad Dipsea course, or simple Dipsea for the matter) and I felt OK and energized to got on the brutal climb after the aid station although I had to walk more than I wanted to in the last ups. I saw a runner closing on me a mile behind but were able to maintain the gap until Tennessee Valley.

It was great to see Stan Jensen and Agnès again at this aid station he manned for many years. This year, Stan wasn't the time keeper so he could be the buffoon around... ;-)

I fueled a little before getting on another uphill. I must admit that, 38 miles in the race, I was not so excited about climbing again. Michael Arnstein from New York had closed the 10-minute gap I had over him 14 miles earlier at Stinson Beach, I was now in 10th.

I got my bottle water refilled at the remote Bridge View aid station before the long 7.7-mile stretch back to Tennessee Valley through Rodeo Beach and on the steep Coastal Trail again. I lost sight of Michael but started seeing a runner a mile or so behind. With the never ending uphills my pace slowed down to around 9:30 min/mile. I got a moral boost at Tennessee Valley when the time keeper told me I had run the 12-mile loop just 5 minutes over Dave's time, which really surprised me. Evidently, I was not the only one slowing down but a few were keeping a reasonable pace and catching up too. I walked and jogged up to Coast Trail closing on and passing Jonathan before the summit and steep downhill into Muir Beach. I left the aid station in 9th place and kept moving through the next grassy section. I was excited to hit the final climb of the day and thought we would come back to Stinson Beach by another and shorter route. I got demoralized when I saw that we were taking the same way we had in the morning and that left me completely out of mental juice, walking a lot in the subsequent 2-mile climb, so much that Kevin Shilling (Utah) passed me in that section. I was actually satisfied to reach the end of the hill in 10th place but that's when I saw another running a quarter mile behind. It was Tim Long who ended up passing me with 1.5 miles to go.

With that, I crossed the line in 11th overall and 5th Masters (both Kevin and Tim are 44, I think I could have shaved 4 minutes for top 3 Masters would have I known... but easier said in a blog post than done...) in a time of 10:18:15. During all the race I was so disappointed with my slow pace, not knowing that Dave had himself slowed down and finished in 9:16, much slower than usual due to a much tougher course (12,750 cumulative elevation according to my Garmin, not to mention an extra mile), lack of serious competition and, according to Gary, ankle problems caused by too short socks (gasp!). So, given the circumstances, this ended up being another serious ultra performance for me, 3 in a row actually, holding strong...!

If it was tough for the leaders, the course will be even tougher for the rest of the pack with many more hours on the trail and more time between aid stations. Indeed, at least 83 runners DNF'ed out of 354 starters (77% finisher rate). Yet, the conditions were excellent from a trail and weather standpoint so I believe the issue was more about mental preparedness as many uphills are actually runnable and not that long but the number of them were just intimidating. If the course remains the same next year, and we are lucky to make it through the lottery again, we'll all be warned and given the opportunity to come better prepared for the new Miwok! My Garmin around 11,000 cumulative elevation last year so that wasn't so much less to explain the discrepancy in our performances. Here are the two course profiles. First, 2012:

Then 2011:

Anyway, in addition to the very helpful volunteers at the aid stations, I want to thank the volunteers for their perfect and abundant course marking. I liked in particular the way ribbons were carefully placed on the particular side of the trail announcing a turn in that direction. Thank you also to the runners who provided encouragement as we crossed each other, although they had much longer to go than us at the front. And a big thank to Agnès for crewing on such a long day and showing up at 8 aid stations along the course! And hat off to my teammate Marc Laveson who placed 8th for his first 100K!

Nice words with Tia, a few volunteers and runners at the finish, before Agnès and I left in order to stop by Palo Alto to vote for the French Presidential elections. Unfortunately, we ended up blocked for 30 minutes on 101 between 92 and 84 and missed the opportunity to vote for the second round. I ran 10K on Sunday morning before packing and going to Church with Greg then my trip to Riyadh turned to a nightmare but I was amazed how ultra helps me remaining cooler in such circumstances. Our flight out of SFO to Frankfurt was missing a crew (crew switch with the Beijing flight) so we boarded one hour late and my connection in Frankfurt was one hour and 5 minutes, not good... Then we lost another hour waiting for the clearance from the Chicago maintenance center for a defective break of one of the 16 undercarriage wheels. Calling United, then Amex and Lufthansa before we took off left me with the only option of spending Monday night in Frankfurt and taking the next day flight to Riyadh. 2 more hours spent upon arrival into Frankfurt (glad I didn't check in any luggage though) to learn that I got re-routed through Dubai where I discovered United and Lufthansa had booked me on a flight the next day (28-hour lay over instead of 4 hours...). After quite some negotiation and crossing the huge Dubai terminal 3 times (at least 3 kilometers...), I finally arrived in Riyadh at 3:30 am on Tuesday instead of 5 pm on Monday.... Knowing businesses are closed on Thursday, at least I have part of Tuesday to work there and make the trip worth before flying back on Thursday night.... Just in time for the 4th episode of the Spring Madness! See some of you at Pierre-Yves' run next week on our Club's home turf in San Jose!

Not as many as the 376 pictures I took at this event last year, but see a few pictures from Agnès in Picasa including mostly the leaders, a few flowers and views of the beaches and seashore, the set of the red moon at the start, a snake (sorry Mom!) and an amazing shot and "show off" of a blue jay.

Leona Divide 50-mile: feeling welcomed in South California

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:22:00 +0000

I'm on the go, flying right after another ultra to our IBM Impact conference in Vegas, so here is a short report about a great experience, my first ultra in South California!

Our QuickSilver Ultra Running Team captain, Greg, included this race in the Ultra Running League he launched this year. That's what got us to compete in Chuckanut (Washington State), Lake Sonoma 2 weeks ago and Miwok next week in North Cal, and Leona Divide 50-mile this Saturday, my second race of a series of five back to back, which I call my ultra Spring madness (5:49:59 at Ruth Anderson 50-mile last week, Leona Divide this weekend, Miwok 100K next Saturday, Quicksilver 50K and Ohlone 50K).

Greg, Bree and I drove down on Friday afternoon down to Lancaster and Palmdale where we met Toshi and Judy. We met Race Director, Keira Henninger, at the check-in and got a few tips, the main one that, despite an intimidating course profile displaying quite a long and steep uphills, the course was all very runnable.

Greg really likes the fancy race t-shirt design from Jesse Heynes' INKnBURN, ole!

It was quite chilly on Saturday morning when we got to the start area by 5:30 am.Temperature in the low 50s but more importantly quite some wind/breeze. I sneaked in right after the first row of runners on the start line which included many favorites for today's race (Tim Olson, Jorge Pacheco and Maravilla, Yassin Diboune, Chikara Omine, Jason Wolfe and Schlarb, Dylan Bowman, ...). Like at Chuckanut, a very impressive competitive field for this 20th anniversary of this race. (Photo Credit: Judy Hosaka)

The course starts with a good climb and I settled in about 20th of 25th position, quickly losing sight of the super fast leaders. My pace was just under 9 min/mile after the 3 miles of climb and quickly decreased as we sprinted in the long down hill to the 8-mile aid station. I didn't stop there as I was carrying 2 bottles and went on the next long climb to the 12-mile aid station where I just grabbed a cup of coke and two salt tablets. At this point we left the fire road for a very nice single track down to the 16-mile aid station, which is also the 42-mile one on the way back and the only placed allowed for crews. Judy took a few pictures and videos there. In the following 3-mile uphill, I started walking on got caught by the runner who followed me in the previous climb from mile 8 to 12, a great climber. I'm glad he did because he "waked" me up and was actually able to stick with him for the remaining of the climb and even continue on my own as he stopped to remove sand from his shoes. Speaking of sand, I never ran so many miles on such packed sand, most of the sections actually from start to finish. At places the trail was literally white which helped alleviate the midday sun.

My favorite section was the Pacific Crest Trail section before and after the aid station #7 and 9 where we actually ran in the woods (not to forget the special ambiance at this station manned by Jimmy Dean Freeman and his flashy and joyful Coyotes gang!). The second part of the 50-mile is actually a 38-mile out-and-back so we get to see all the other runners. The turn around is at the bottom of a 2.8-mile down-hill, like we have at Miwok. I was just starting going down when I crossed the lead runner who had a 5.6-mile lead on me, yikes! I kept crossing the leaders and counted 14 of them when I reached the aid station at the bottom of the fire road, mile 31 (50K mark). I quickly got my Gu2O bottle refilled, took another cup of Coke and a few chips and off I was for this long climb. Thankfully, it was still early morning (10am) and several sections of the fire road were still in the shade. And the breeze was still strong, keeping the air relatively cool, especially in the shade. On my way up, I was able to run half of it and saw Toshi, about a mile behind, and about 20 other runners including the top 8 women. Unfortunately, Bree wasn't part of them, I actually saw her at the top of the hill, she didn't have a good day. Also from our Club, Clare was a few minutes behind Bree, followed by Greg who was having a lot of fun taking pictures and videos, Scott and Nattu (Karen would drop on foot injury).

In the next section, I passed Scott Jaime (a very competitive Master) and another runner, then crossed hundreds of runners who were so nice to step aside and give the leaders the right of way. I'm particularly appreciative to all of them as they were on a uphill section and it's very tiring to stop and go in such conditions but that was the Race Director's instructions. I provided a lot of "Thank you" and "Sorry" at each crossing, I hope I didn't forget anyone (one even kindly replied "You don't have to feel sorry!"). The traffic actually intensified in the last section as we were catching up with the tail of the 50K race.

I remained in 12th place through the aid stations 8 and 9 (respectively miles 38.6 and 42.6). With 3 downhill miles to go I caught up with a fading Chikara, for whom it was a come back on the ultra trail circuit after a road racing season last year. I told him that we had to keep moving if we didn't want to get chick'ed (for the non insiders that mean being passed by a participant of the other gender...), and here he is, flying down the hill, leaving me in the dust, finishing ahead of me by 1 minute! You know what to tell Chikara to kick his butt... ;-) I crossed the finish line in an honorable 7:07:51, good for 12th this year and 3rd Master. Not too bad after last week's performance, on a course I didn't know.

Upfront, the fight for the win had been furious and Dylan Bowman, 26, of Colorado emerged as today's overall winner with an amazing 6:00:38, slashing the previous 17-year old course record by 21 minutes! Tim Olson took second, ahead of Jorge Maravilla by 19 mere seconds, in 6:07:34. Since Tim is already in Western States, Jorge was thrilled to get his own slot to participate in the Big Dance the last weekend of June between Squaw Valley and Auburn!

The aid stations were perfectly stocked and all the volunteers were extremely friendly and cheerful, each aid station with a distinctive theme and ambiance. A big thank to all the volunteers for allowing to enjoy such a wonderful and challenging course. And to Keira for inviting us to this special celebration and making us feel like at home in South California! I'm glad that Greg set such an opportunity to compete outside of our local Grand Prix, it's so nice to see other parts of our extended ultra running community and discover new trails!

Tamalpa had only 2 runners lined up today and Jimmy's Coyotes were all volunteering on the course so we had only two teams competing in the league this time, Ashland (Tim, Jenn, Hayden) versus Quicksilver (Jean, Toshi, Bree). And, with Tim's amazing performance, we lost again, by 44 minutes (22:54:58 vs. 23:38:54). Like at the World 100K Championships in Italy last week, these Oregonians are really at the top of the endurance running game!

Before leaving for the airport, I got a few tips from Tim on his use of Vespa and could compare to what Chikara and I did. I took 3 GUs, a few potato chips and cups of Coke here and there and 3 bottles of GU2O, and one Vespa Concentrate every 2.5 hours versus every 1.5 hours for Tim. Tim is taking about 100 calories an hour, I was slightly below that. Learning and tuning...

Great experience and heat training, ready for a busy week in Vegas from Sunday morning to Friday afternoon, then Miwok 100K next Saturday before flying to Riyadh on Sunday. What a busy Spring... Have a great week all!

PS: see a few pictures in my Picasa album, including Judy's pictures (IMG_0084 to IMG_0117) and video clips at the 16-mile aid station

Ruth Anderson: 50 fast miles!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:43:00 +0000

This Saturday marked the beginning of my Spring ultra madness: 5 ultras in 5 weekends! Not to mention or forget the business trips...

I flew back from Madrid (a couple of great training runs there last weekend) on Friday evening, in time this time to get some sleep before the race and get to the start on... time. If you recall, last year, we were supposed to come back from a family trip to Florida but missed our connection in Phoenix where I was still on the tarmac when runners were getting to the start line. I managed to started 2 hours and 15 minutes late and run a 8:05 100K (see the whole story and experience of Did Start Last...).

When I walked out of the airport this Friday, I was surprised how hot it was, especially coming back from Madrid where the weather was not so nice. Indeed, the forecast was for a hot day this Saturday and it was great the race started at 6:30 to take advantage of the cooler temperatures in the morning. I started with Victor who was going for the 100K distance after running his first marathon at Napa last month in an impressive 2:37. I had decided to go for 50 miles given my race calendar and "just" improve the age group course record I had set here 2 years ago (6:07). Having ran a 5:43 at Last Chance last November, I was confident, yet I was a bit concerned of the recent asthma incident at American River 2 weeks ago.

We started slightly under 7 min/mile pace and, after a couple of miles, I actually accelerated, running one lap just under 6:30 min/mile pace which was aggressive. My first 5 laps were in the 29-30 minutes range and my 6th lap was 30:01. I felt good and actually excited to now be on a trajectory similar to the Last Chance race, in the 5 hours 40 minutes range would I be able to maintain that pace for the remaining 5 laps. The views of the lake were gorgeous but it remains an urban race with all the surrounding noise (cars, trucks, motorcycles, sirens, shooting range, ...) and many joggers on the bike path. As we approached mid day, the shady sections of the course were disappearing and I was glad to be able to go fast to get done before the peak of the heat.

My pace went over 7 min/mile in laps 9, 10 and 11 as I was feeling fatigued, more mentally than physically actually, lacking motivation and real challenge to keep going hard. I pushed the pace in the last out and back, rushing to the main aid station to clock a 5:49:59 finish time (right on 7 min/mile!). (Photo, Keith Blom)

Not a PR but more than 17 minutes shaved off my course record and 2nd best time of this race history (granted, a low key event). I was actually thrilled with this performance after such a busy week in Madrid and 4 5-hour nights there. I'm home for a week now before driving down to the Leona Divide 50-mile next Saturday then flying straight to Vegas for another super busy week there, flying back a few hours before Miwok then flying the next day to Riyadh, phew!

On the 100K, Victor took first in 7:32 after passing the 50-mile mark faster than his PR at that distance! Like many other runners, he started suffering from the heat after 1 pm but managed to maintain an amazing pace, 7:16 overall.

Speaking of 100K, it is here that Joe Binder and Jon Olsen qualified for the 100K USA team last year in 7:00 and 7:12 respectively and they were competing in the World Champ even in Italy this Saturday. They did incredibly well, Jon taking 7th overall in a blazing 6:48 and Joe 10th in 6:54. David Riddle was the first for the US, in 5th and 6:45, and Michael Wardian 8th, 7 seconds behind Jon! In the Women, the race was actually won by Amy Sporston of USA in 7:34, with Meghan Arbogast placing 4th, at age 50! (She slashes her own age group world record from 7:51 to 7:41!) Team USA took second to Italy and ahead of France in the Men, and First in the Women with the top three times clocked by three Oregon residents! See iRunFar.com's report for more details.

We had a great contingent of our Quicksilver Ultra Running Team this Saturday, so much that Greg was happy he didn't have to run himself after Lake Sonoma last week. With 3 distances (50K, 50-mile and 100K) times 3 categories (Men, Women, Mixed), it was quite a task to strategize and keep track on what was going on on his brand new "paper iPad!" ;-)

Actually, Captain Greg had a lot of fun seeing us going through the aid station and, from time to time, playing Glen Tachiyama or JB Benna, mixing pictures and videos...

Yet an amazing event put up by Race Director extraordinaire, Rajeev Patel. Dave and Stan spent a long day keeping track of all our splits, hundreds of them, including transmitting them to the live webcast, the old fashion radio way!

I posted a few pictures in my Picasa album but I recognize the mix of bright sunny light and dark healthy shadows around the aid station made it difficult to get good shots with my simple and aging PowerShot.

From 14 to 77, there was a great representation of our passion for ultra running!

And here is Bill Dodson, our Pacific Association Mountain Ultra Trail running committee Chair, recovering from his 50K run (no, not barefoot this time!):

Warm thanks to all the runners whom I passed and provided encouragements! A special thank to the volunteers who kept the two aid stations perfectly stocked. I carried 2 bottles the whole way so I only stopped once at the mid-way aid station but it was great to get encouragements from you guys! Fueled by Vespa and all the fat from the rich food I enjoyed in Madrid, I took only 3 GUs and a handful of small cups of Coke (about 500 calories intake for a 5,000-calorie effort). I didn't cramped and I'm now going for a recovery run before tapering again this week before Leona Divide. Using racing as training...

Running in Madrid: from the airport...

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Ok, fair enough, there are much better places to stay and run from in Madrid than the airport! But, in case you are stuck there, the trick is to get on Calle de Alcala to get downtown. And it may be tricky as there are several highways in the airport area but there are also a few overpasses for pedestrians. While there are many cars in Madrid, the city is also well designed for pedestrians with an extensive metro networks (including a stop at the airport!), sidewalks in good conditions and these overpasses to cross the main arteries around the city. It was interesting to run both on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On Saturday, late afternoon, the Alcala street was very busy, with people shopping around. On Sunday, I ran between noon and 5 pm and the street were deserted in comparison. At least that made running on the sidewalk much easier on the second day!

Being on the East side and having landed in the morning, I went for a shorter run on Saturday (18.5 miles), to the "Parque del Retiro" near the famous Prado Museum. This is a large urban and historical park whose circumference is close to 3 miles when you stay on the outer alleys.

In the South part of the park, don't miss a botanic garden hosting at least a dozen of peacocks:

On Sunday, I went all the way to the West side of the city to visit one of my sister's friends whom I hadn't seen since 1972 when she visited us in Normandy, 40 years ago! That gave me the opportunity to go across the huge park Casa de Campo, similar to Paris' Bois de Boulogne (and much larger than Central Park which I heard someone comparing it to, just before we boarded at Newark). Including a few wanderings to cross highways on the west side, my run ended up being close to 32 miles, a good training run for the upcoming Ruth Anderson race in one week.

More pictures (48) in my Picasa photo album.

Certainly, if you have the opportunity to stay downtown, and you are looking for a few miles of trails, Casa de Campo is the place to go!

American River 50 2012: perfect conditions...

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:12:00 +0000

With Spring and Easter come prefect trail running conditions: not too hot, not too cold, trails still soft and not dusty yet, more day light. To top it this weekend, the sky was mostly clear to let us admire the full moon at the start and benefit from its light. Personally, I thought all the stars were aligned for a great day on the trail and pursuing my remission with this race after a hectic start (asthma crisis in 2008 and 2009). In 2008 I finished in 8:53 after painfully walking 2/3 of the course (Never give up!), unable to breath after mile 16. The following year, same story and this became my first DNF, dropping Beal's Point (mile 26.6, Giving up...). In 2010 I finally broke 7 hours (6:58, Faster, at last!) and improved again last year with a 6:47 (Older but faster). And I was aiming at another Personal Best this Saturday, hoping to run free with Caballo Blanco like last weekend...

It started well. After a few hundred yards I lost sight of the lead bike which was reasonable given this race has always very fast and competitive runners. My GPS indicated 6:55 min/mile as a pace which was slightly slower than I was expecting on the bike path. Without pushing much, the pace slightly went down over the next few miles as I was catching and running along Rod Bien. Lewis Taylor passed us when our pace was down to 6:40, then Phil Shaw. Both were targeting around 6:15-6:30 (that would be 6 hours and 30 minutes for the whole course, not a minute/mile pace). Rod finished in 6:20 (7th), Phil in 6:28 (9th) and Lewis in 6:39 (11th) so a good company to be in, pace and goal wise. We traded places while going through the first two aid stations (carrying two water bottles, I didn't stop), we were moving, life was good... Actually, around mile 17, before the bridge Nimbus Overlook, Rod asked how I felt and he had to ask twice because he couldn't hear my first response. Since my first asthma crisis at the Phoenix marathon in 2002, mile 16 has always been the place exercise-induced asthma would kick in from time to time. For the past 2 years I've been taking Singulair I came to the point of forgetting about this sort of wall. As a matter of fact, I thought about asthma at the start, with the chilly air, and ran the first mile with my Buff covering my mouth. Anyway, I could feel the lungs started not functioning and was hoping they'd hold on the remaining 30 miles of trails.

I stopped at Main Bar (I hadn't realized they changed the location from Nimbus Overlook), mile 19, to refill my GU2O bottle (above picture from UltraRunnerPodcast.com, still all smile...). While there it felt like I got under a train, a group of about a dozen running really strong (Erik Skaden, Sean Meissner, Mark Lantz, ...). Among them was teammate Chris Calzetta, whom I hadn't seen on the start line. He was all smile and I encouraged him to stay with such a pack. He would finish in 6th in 6:20, for his first American River! The average pace was still below 6:50 as we got on the trail. Staying on that trail for too long I almost missed Negro Bar which I entered after a small detour. At this point, we were getting back on the bike path but I had to alternate running and walking to catch my breath. It wasn't feeling good anymore... I was actually surprised that, in the next 6 miles, nobody would pass me despite the much slower pace. I passed the marathon mark in 3:03 and reached Beals Point around 3:08. I was so out of breath that I couldn't respond to all the questions the volunteers were asking me at the aid station and decided I'd rather get moving as the second half will be and feel really long. Here I am, enter Beals Point, photo credit to UltraRunnerPodcast.com:

Finally, one runner caught up with me just before Cavitt High School, and not any runner but Ellie Greenwood. Ellie is potentially the next Ann Trason, winning everything on the circuit, Western States last year, Chuckanut 3 weeks ago and she would easily win this race again placing 6th overall in 6:18, more than one hour before the second woman! She passed me in a uphill section, very focused and giving me a "nice job" on the way. Average pace then: 7:12. I kept moving albeit much slower yet didn't get passed again for a few miles. Toshi passed me during a pit stop, and that started a long series of tens of runners including teammates Sean, Marc and Jeremy. I'm not going to go into too much details over the last part of my run as I want to turn the page quickly and get back to... work... I managed to run the first 50K just under 4 hours and it took me another 4 hours to walk and jog the last 20 miles, on the famous section that I still hate (American River, Rio Del Lago, Sierra Nevada Run). I know this is a wonderful trail, with the views over Folsom Lake in particular, but there is something my body and mind can't stand, sorry... After the last aid station, Last Gasp, with 3 uphill miles to go, someone told me I was in 48th position which was something I could live with. I tried to run as much as possible but my lungs were really burning and my muscles crying for oxygen, having been asphyxiated for 30 miles... While I was pushing to the limit 10 runners actually passed me in that last stretch but I did manage to break 8 hours, 7:55:57. Photo Stan Jensen (run100s.com):

Phew, gasp, ahhh, yikes, ouch, there aren't enough onomatopoeias to express how I felt after passing the line. Of course happy to be done with my 69th ultra race, thrilled to have managed to cover the distance under 8 hours given the circumstances, but so disappointed by this counter performance and the fact that this darn asthma kicked in again. Taking Singulair has certainly helped containing my handicap but obviously not completely eliminated it. And I know I shouldn't even complain, so many people are not even able to run a mile because of much more serious asthmatic conditions. Or others because of lung disease like Tom Kaisersatt.

Overall, the conditions were perfect and, out of the 890 entrants, 686 are listed in the results on Ultrasignup. (I don't know how many of the entrants were actually at the start). Julie Fingar and her NorCal Ultra team did a very professional job to accommodate such a crowd with so many efficient, friendly and encouraging volunteers from the start to the finish and including the remote Buzzard's Cover aid station (special thanks to you guys!). I want to also salute Tim Twietmeyer who finished less than a minute behind me for his 32nd finish out of 33 American River editions (just missing the first 1980 run and having ran 30 under 8 hours and 16 under 7 hours)!!!

I'm heading to Madrid later this week and will be back for Ruth Anderson where I hope my lungs will behave and remain cooperative... Happy running to all in the meantime!

Caballo Blanco: run free us all!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:20:00 +0000

Dear Caballo Blanco,

My friend, as you were using in our correspondence. Friendship is such a precious thing and I have so much respect for the legend you are; I would have not use this term first, but you did and I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to get to know you. Like thousands of runners and non runners alike, I first met you in Born To Run. It started in May 2009 when, upon landing in SFO, back from a trip to Europe, I found a message from Zombie Runner advertising a book signing by Chris McDougall himself that afternoon. Agnès and I stopped by and Chris wrote something nice about my blog and my approach to running in the copy I bought there.

So, here we are, getting to discover and know a running ghost in a remote area of Mexico. I wrote a review of Chris' book (Born To Run: the Tarahumara secret), a post which got a lot of hits since then, although not as many as the number of copies Chris has sold since; it takes quite a tipping point to create a legend and your were not so thrilled about certain aspects of this media tornado. As sensational and fascinating as your appeared in the book, that seemed a bit odd for a true ultra running and I could feel there was something more simple and authentic in your personage, especially based on the other interactions you had with other characters of the book that I had met before (Scott Jurek, Tony Krupicka, Jenn Shelton, Ann Trason, ...). Then you appeared on FaceBook and finally I could meet you in person in October 2009. I'm grateful to Mike Nutall for having open his house for this fund raising event for your foundation, the Norawas de Raramuri. Mike is a local ultra runner and one of the three founders of the renowned design company, IDEO. It was quite a thrill to get to know you better and experience your joy of meeting members of our local ultra running community. We were all hoping to run a few miles with you but you had injured your foot a few days before.

Last weekend, I posted this call to action relaying the news about the terrible drought affecting the Copper Canyons and the Raramuri community. As you know, I first checked with you about the best way to help out and I was therefore slightly disappointed when you commented both on the blog and on facebook, about the danger of getting sensational with this story. I don't think I was and I hope readers didn't conclude it wasn't worth sending money to one of the agencies providing support to the Raramuris, because the need is still very much there and you acknowledge it! I believe that you wanted to protect the identity and pride of your people down there, after a few derailments in some press coverage. That was Monday...

Then, on Thursday, the news broke about you being missing after a morning run on Tuesday morning. Knowing your survival skills and the fact that you live in the wilderness a large part of the year, some of us imagined you smiling at the scale of the search which went on in New Mexico. But, as time passed, we became so concerned. We heard stories about you running in the car traffic, then the fact that you left with only one bottle of water, that the temperature in this large wilderness area was oscillating between 70F during the day and 20F at night. Then I got extremely worried when I learned that even your dog wasn't with you and couldn't find your trace. On Saturday morning, you were still missing, 4 days after you left the lodge. I went to the track (Los Gatos High School) to do my long tempo run and I kept thinking of you with optimism. It was very windy but I pushed hard and managed to clock 58:27 for 40 laps (close to but not quite 10 miles on that track). The strong wind made like the track had a few percent of incline... I came back home and kept checking the status on facebook and the best source of updates and information, Mark Kreuzer's blog entry on TrailAndUltraRunning.com. It's later that night we got the terrible news about your death, Caballo, with your friend Ray finding your body just 6 miles away from the lodge. The only consolation was to learn that you died doing what you liked the most, running, and that the report was talking about laying down peacefully...

But you left us way too early, we had so much more to learn from you! How symbolic is it that you ended your running journey on Earth right in the middle of your cherished communities of Boulder, Colorado in the North and the Raramuri and the Copper Canyons in the South. Close to a border that splits North America and didn't make much sense to your dual life here and there and your global approach to getting connected with our Planet. And what a symbol this happened in a place called... New Mexico! At least the news came before April Fool's Day, or that would have been a very hard thing to believe, especially knowing your sense of humor and mystery... Here is my favorite picture of you which captured so well your authenticity and inner peace (unfortunately, this picture has been flying around so much on the Internet, I don't know who to give credit to...):

I thought of you all night and, like many other runners, decided to go for a run this Sunday morning. I cannot believe how much I connected with you during these 4 hours. First I was debating which shoes to pick and, guided by your spirit, I ended up choosing my Brooks PureConnect although they were at the other end of the garage. Pure for minimalism and Connect to get in touch with the Earth. I was dialoging with you for quite a few miles and it's only after 8 miles that I looked at my GPS for the first time. Usually I look at it at least every 5 minutes... Not only this surprised me but, more importantly, I had never run up Montebello so fast! I was running... free! Free of negative thoughts, free of a priori about my pace, free of the clock pressure... The more I was talking to you, the more positive thoughts emerged and running felt so easy, while I was passing cyclists (Montebello is 6 miles and 2,500 feet up to the top of Black Mountain). Thinking of your communicative smile and joy of running, I was going through all the luck life brought me, my wonderful family, my parents still alive, our landing in this amazing Bay Area, the discovery of ultra and trail running, the connection with that special community in particular, and the list goes on... With a strong wind coming from Ocean, the sky was almost all cleared up after yesterday's rain but for a few white clouds, another opportunity to think of you and your facebook profile picture:

I reached the summit in record time (1:33 for 11.3 miles, a 8:13 min/mile pace). I could have turned back to see how fast I could do on this out and back but you were not the type of guy interested in records, so you told me to go on with my original goal of running longer today. After Montebello, which would not have been your type of surface (asphalt), I went on Bella Vista and, certainly, the views were wonderful up there. You would have enjoyed this trail so much. The ground was so soft after yesterday's rain and running down from the summit felt like flying over the hills. At this point I thought it would have been great to have a camera to videotape this scenery and I thought JB Benna (author of Unbreakable) might do a great movie with Chris, Luis Escobar and your other friends, about the joy of trail and ultra running, and the Raramuri culture in particular. To be honest, I couldn't get if you would support more mediatization of your second native family.

I never ran this loop so fast, I was stunned to have run so "free" and I'm so thankful to you for this incredible experience. Given all the traffic on facebook and the press coverage, it's clear that you have touched thousands of runners and change our world for the better. You were so authentic, you had found such a peace in running and living in the Copper Canyons, you were so true to yourself and others in the observations you were making about our world (yes, Mr. Micah... True! ;-), so eager to both find peace in living a simple and austere life like a monk but travel the world to inspire others and share the Tarahumara secret, your life left a wonderful imprint on the Earth for us and the generations to come. Here is a letter to turn one page and help keeping the warm memory alive. I didn't have the opportunity to meet your love ones but hope to do so soon and thinking of them in the meantime. Again, I'm so glad to have met you and to know that you'll keep inspiring us to run free.

With all my respect and gratitude for sharing your gifts and passion,

Jean.

PS: glad Scott Dunlap captured this picture of us at Mike's in October 2009 ;-)

Rain over here, drought down there: please help!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:36:00 +0000

How ironic... For the past three weeks I have been wanting to echo Tropical John Medinger's call for help which he released as part of his editorial of the March 2012 issue of UltraRunning Magazine. A call to help the Tarahumara who are going through the worst drought ever in their canyons. And, here on the West Coast, I was running in the snow last weekend and in the rain this Saturday in California. Yes, we didn't see much of a winter and here is the rain coming to celebrate the first days of the Spring...

March is the issue of UltraRunning Magazine which goes over the previous year's performances thanks to Gary Wang's masterful crunching of ultra numbers and his RealEndurance.com website in particular and also Mark Gilligan and Bill Carr's Ultrasignup.com. Nowadays, every bit of data is available on the web but it still takes the energy and passion of a few to consolidate such a flow of information into something more consumable and searchable. 2011 was such a year for me, I managed to get listed 7 times in this issue!

1 point in the UltraRunner of the year ranking (ok, versus 238 points for undisputed winner Dave Mackey... ;-)
In the "Four or more wins" page which is really something and likely not to happen anytime soon :-/ but you have to enjoy the moment! :-)
Overall winner of Skyline 50K, the 71st largest ultra (thanks Chris Calzetta for sharing this!)
8th best 50-mile performance of the year (it helps the course was flat, but still, 5:43 was quite something)
34th best 50K performance of the year (and that was 3:28, we'll see what this year's 3:19 at Jed Smith will score for 2012)
The results of the low key Saratoga Fat Ass on page 81
My win (79.6 miles) at Wendell's New Year's Eve 12-hour in San Francisco.

I missed the 100K listing because I was 1.5 hours late at Ruth Anderson (the 8:05 would have been good for #17) and the 100-mile listing with my drop at Rio del Lago. We'll see how 2012 goes, so far so good... And I keep training harder than ever, with 100 miles this week, resuming training the day after running Chuckanut! It feels good to run below 7 min/mile again and I'm planning on joining Bob and Jeremy at the track this week now that my 10-day cold is over.

Anyway, back to the title of this post, the Tarahumaras need your help! With their legendary discretion, they are not going to ask directly but it's good to have Christopher McDougall, the now renowned author of Born To Run, and the legendary Caballo Blanco, advocating for this nice running community and letting us know how much they suffer from hunger this year because of this exceptional drought which slashed their harvest to less than 1% of the usual levels (yes, a 99% shortage...)!

They are several ways to help:

Per John's editorial, you can send money to a local association, Cadena, an organization dedicated to providing disaster relief aid and which is run by the Jewish community in Mexico. John says that you can send a payment via PayPal to cadena@cadena.org.mx.
Personally, I chose to give again to Norawas de Raramuri, the foundation Caballo Blanco presented to us at Mike's house in October 2009 (see Caballo in the Bay: not a ghost!). Check the button Donate at the bottom left of the home page (I had to click several times not to get an error message tonight...)

(Photo credit: Scott Dunlap, October 16, 2009)

If you are not convinced and compelled or ready to take action yet, please consider reading other calls for help:

Maize urgently needed
Chris' Tarahumara Drought Update III (and if you click "Previous Post", you'll find many other relevant articles)
John's online article in UltraRunning Magazine: Famine Relieve Effort for Tarahumaras
WorldNews MSNBC's article: Famine sparks suicide rumors among Mexico's Tarahumara
Mexonline.com's Tarahumara Famine Relief page

Thanks for helping this remote running community and enjoy the rain if you have some, or the good Spring weather if you are getting out of a rainy and snowy Winter!

Chuckanut 50K: another comfort zone

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 05:15:00 +0000

As I said last week after Way Too Cool, I knew I was stepping out of my North California comfort zone with this race in Bellingham, on the border between Canada and the State of Washington, called the Evergreen State for a reason, the abundant forest nurtured by abundant rains... It is also unusual for me to fly to races, the carbon footprint being an excuse for me to focus on our local races as we are so blessed to have many in or near the Bay Area. And then there was this amazing convergence of competition to honor the 20th anniversary of this race with many 2:2x marathoners per Gary's term, that is guys running between 2:20 and 2:30 (and a few 2:1x ones actually!). Despite the rainy reputation of the area, I believe I wasn't the only one to be surprised by the weather conditions on this weekend. We actually had some trouble flying from San Francisco on Friday afternoon because of the bad weather coming from Seattle along the Pacific Coast. My plane was one hour late and Toshi and Judy's one almost 3 hours. With that, we only got to he hotel in Bellingham around 9pm. Thankfully, Gary was there early and was able to pick our bib numbers in the afternoon. Dave Mackey didn't have a room so Gary invited him to share ours, before another room became available with a last minute cancellation. With a room on his own and no family around, Dave had his best night for a long time, 8 straight hours! ;-)

Gary had run the race last year, placing 9th one week after taking 3rd at Way Too Cool. This year, Gary won WTC, setting a new Course Record (both overall and Masters) and he was excited about coming back for another back-to-back. Before going to bed, Gary shared his knowledge of the course and I'm grateful because that helped me visualize the whole profile. The sky was super clear at 10 pm so we fell asleep wishing for sweet dreams of a nice sunny run this Saturday. A look by the window at 6 am brought a different perspective though, with a good rain going. When we picked Gary at Starbucks, Dave said: "look, it's turning to snow!" (1st photo, credit Greg Lanctot)

Greg drove all of us to the start where we checked in then rushed back to the car when Dave announced that the start of our first wave wasn't at 8 but 7:50 am. So, here we are, at the start line by 7:48, in the cold rain, but no count down going. The start was actually at 8 and I was glad to wear my rain jacket, among many runners in singlets... (photo credit: Greg Lanctot)

Gary had told me that to aim at top 20 this year, you had to run the first 6 miles under 6 min/mile. I was happy not to shoot for such a goal... I settled for 7 min/mile for the first 4 miles, feeling like a back of a packer with maybe 50 runners in front of me. Just before the first aid station, Clayton Beach at mile 6.1, I passed Jen Shelton and mentioned to her how gracefully she was running, then Joelle Vaught and Toshi who were conversing and Brett Rivers from Tamalpa. Here is Greg's video at the entrance of the aid station (I'm the "yellow jacket" followed by Brett in blue, then Toshi and Joelle, Jen, Pam Smith, ...):

I went through the aid station without stopping and embarked in the first uphill of the day on Fragrance Lake Trail. It was still raining at the bottom but quickly turned to snow as we were gaining elevation with the snow starting sticking on the ground around 900 feet. I had a quick look at the quiet Fragrance Lake, still keeping a close eye on the many roots crossing the trail. We had a nice downhill section afterwards which was slightly muddy going through what looked to me as a rain forest. I was moving fast but had to stop to retie my shoe laces just before the second aid station on Cleator Road. I got passed by 3 runners in the meantime. I passed a couple of runners on the long and steady climb on this wide Cleator Road. At some point I decided to run in the few inches of fresh snow, getting more traction. Brett was a few yards ahead but didn't stop at the 3rd aid station so I lost sight of him. Indeed, I made a rather long stop there, asking a volunteer to refill my GU2O bottle. We were at the half marathon mark and I remembered the next aid was 7 miles away. After the aid station, I was following a tall runner who had some difficulties in this very technical section. After I passed him I really enjoyed hoping and jumping over roots, steps, rocks, the trail being not slippery but just soaked enough to provide a soft landing when jumping from rocks. I kept thinking of the fast and tall guys ahead and how impressive it must be to see them flying down. Needless to say, with the remoteness of the trail and the weather conditions, there were no spectators!

A couple volunteers were picking our numbers at the switchback marking the middle of the course. I don't recall exactly my time but it was slightly over 2 hours. After going down Chuckanut Ridge Trail we were now on North Lost Lake Trail which was very soaked and muddy. Here again, it felt almost better running in the fresh snow, aside from the muddy single track. I was thinking of how the trail will become after 650 runners have gone through... After 40 runners, it still looked beautiful, it seemed like running in the wonderful pictures Glenn Tachiyama shares in his Tribute to the Trails calendar (which raised $18,500 for the State of Washington trails this year). Glenn was actually shooting in the middle of the steep Chinscraper hill and got great shots of some of us sliding in the mud! (See in FaceBook his "Chinscrapper Flip & Slide" album.)

I passed a few runners before the fourth aid station located at the bottom this infamous Chinscrapper and didn't stop, excited to see what this beast was about. As Gary told me that everybody had to walk it, I felt not ashamed to do so too, although I was surprised to find some short downhill sections between steep uphills one. My Garmin indicated close to 1,100 feet at the aid station and almost 1,900 of the hill. I actually saw Brett a few switchbacks ahead but couldn't close the gap. Running with Tamalpa and training on the Dipsea trail, Brett has amazing strength in such uphills. It felt good to be done with this last hill, with 3 miles of downhill ahead to get back to sea level then the final flat 10K. I pushed the pace in the downhill feeling great, using Vespa and having only eaten one GU before Chinscrapper to get a boost. I caught up with Brett who was complaining about cramps. I kept pushing, getting my average pace down from around 9 min/mile at the top to 8:30 by the 5th aid station, Clayton Beach again. I didn't stop either at this aid station and kept moving fast, passing a few runners in the next 4 miles. With 2 miles to go, I passed a runner who was begging for gels. I stopped, had trouble opening my jacket pocket and gave him a GU. He was wearing bib #18 and it's only later that I found out he was actually the king of our sport, no less than favorite Max King. Poor Max was leading by mile 22 on Fragrance Lake Road and missed the sharp left turn where the course marshal wasn't posted yet. He kept going down and went of course for about 4 miles, killing any hope of a win with such competition just a few minutes behind him. Sage Canaday was just behind and made the same mistake but was fortunate enough to get warned by someone before going too far off course. I was of course far from the excitement going on at the front but read with some excitement the Byron's coverage of the race on his iRunFar tweet. As Gary said at the finish, it had some flavor of a championship! Here is a great shot from Greg of the top finishers (photo credit: Greg Lanctot):

From left: Dusty Caseria, Chase Parnell, Jason Schlarb, Tim Olson, Adam Campbell (bending), Mike Foote, Mike Wolfe, Gary Gellin, Dave Mackey.

I finished in 4:23 in 31st place and 6th M40-49. My strong finish showed that I could have pushed more along the way but, given the circumstances, especially the heavy workload during the week and my fighting of a virus since Monday, I was quite happy with this time, one week after my 4:06 Way Too Cool.

Of course, it was far behind Gary's performance who doubled too, with a 14th place this weekend (4:02) and 2nd M40-49 (behind Dave Mackey, 7th) after his overall win at WTC! At the front, there was much suspense in the men race especially after Max' errands. Jason Loutitt led for at least 15 miles but finished 8th. Winner Adam Campbell, from Canada, was still in third a few miles from the finish. On the women side, and also from Canada, Ellie Greenwood keeps dominating the ultra world and had a magisterial win, even improving the course record she set last year by 3 minutes despite the trail conditions. She finished 22nd overall in 2:09, 24 minutes ahead of the second woman, Jodee Adams-Moore, with Joelle Vaught 90 seconds behind in third.

The delicious home-made soup of Krissy's mom and the gas heaters under the food tent next to the finish line were most welcomed by all the runners. Apart from a few short rain showers, the afternoon ended up being mostly sunny. Krissy Moehl did a fantastic job directing her tenth Chuckanut and celebrating this 20th anniversary of this event.

At the amazing post-race party she thanked all the volunteers who helped making this event so successful and safe despite these winter conditions. In addition to overall and age group winners cash prizes and goodies, Krissy had many sponsor goodies left to give away and MC Scott Jurek had trouble coming up with enough ideas to pick lucky recipients.

After a few Irish songs by a hornpipe quartet to properly celebrate St Patrick's Day in addition to the great local beers, a rock band took over the stage to get us swinging until 9 pm.

The attendance was mostly composed of volunteers and their family and quite a few elite runners who had not left just after the race. Our Quicksilver gang represented California, clearly in minority today. Tropical John Medinger, Lisa and Tia Bodington were covering the event for their UltraRunning Magazine and a few Tamalpa runners completed this small Californian contingent (Dave, Brett, Gary Wang). Out team captain, Greg, in conjunction with Hal Koerner from Ashland's Rogue Valley Runners and Jimmy Dean Freeman from LA's Coyotes started an ultra running league this year. For this inaugural race, our team took third and Team Bend, first, winning an owl which matched quite well Jeff Browning's glasses! ;-)

The Rogue Valley team placed second and Tim Olson took home the second prize mushroom. Next league game will be Lake Sonoma then Leona Divide, both 50-milers.

Here is to mark the birth of the URRL, the Ultra Running Racing League, our Quicksilver team taking third this Saturday thanks to Toshi battling through the cold and the mud (and shopping for these fun awards in the afternoon with Greg):

The party was great although I didn't know it was going to be outside. Between the low temperatures of the end of the day, the chilly wind and the Ocean humidity, my cold of last week which was better right after the race (yes, running a tough 50K can do wonders!), my cold worsen during the night and I completely lost my voice, with my throat hurting. Oh well, 3 weeks until American River 50 (miles), and likely another trip to Dubai in the meantime, ample time to recover and put in more training miles... (I went for a 10K recovery run upon coming back home this Sunday.)

To conclude, in addition to Krissy of course, I want to thank Greg (Lanctot) for getting me up there, out of my comfort zone. It's certainly challenging to compete in such a young and talented field but that keeps you younger... It was also a challenge to meet Winter so close to the Canadian border but the Brooks PureGrit were the perfect shoes for the day and made the run much more comfortable, as well as the rain jacket I kept all the way. I actually slipped only once during the whole race, as I missed one step while looking ahead to Brett on Chinscrapper, right before Glenn Tachiyama's professional eye and unforgiving camera; I look forward to seeing the shots he got of me when I was crawling up that large flat boulder on four legs... Overall, an amazing ultra celebration in winter conditions, I can now say that I was not only nuts enough to run a Chuckanut and that I did survive not just any Chuckanut but the XXth!

PS: a few more pictures in my Picasa album.

Way Too Cool 2012: way too what?

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:44:00 +0000

It was certainly not too cool this Saturday, temperature wise. Not as warm as the 78F we had in Sacramento on Friday afternoon though, thanks to some clouds in the sky, but warm enough for me to run with one layer on, and for a few others to run shirt less. Otherwise, it was of course way too cool to run in Cool again, partly on the Western States trail and in particular that cool race celebrating a local frog.

It was my 7th Way Too Cool. The official website was mentioning the 15th annual running but the event has been on since 1990 making it the 23rd edition this year (Tim Twietmeyer only missed 1991 and 2003 so it was his 21st!). Here is Tim (left) with Stan Jensen, at the finish:

Before sharing more details about my race, here are a few "way too..." vignettes as a summary

Way too dry (part 1). I've never seen these trails in such amazing running conditions in March, barely a puddle and trace of mud except for 3 creek crossings where we got our feet wet. While it provides amazing running conditions, this really shows that we didn't get much of winter in North California. 19 runners broke 4 hours including 2 gals and 11 masters!
Way too fast. With such dry conditions and perfect temperature, it was the day to set Personal and Course Records and both male and female CRs have been improved indeed (for this course which changed significantly a couple of years ago).
Way too pro. I should say "so professional", speaking of Julie Fingar's management. With 200 volunteers, chip timing, an expo, big name sponsors, live video streaming, custom-made cupcakes, fully stocked aid stations, announcer at the start and finish line, the events organized by Nor Cal Ultras stand out and become has professional as the main road events.
Way too crowded. This one isn't from me but I did hear it from a middle packer: with almost 800 participants on such a great course with many long single track sections, it creates long lines of runners at times.

As you might have read in my previous post, I was still in Dubai on Friday morning. The trip back home was long (23 hours!) and the connection in DC particularly stressful because of the delay caused by the sun flares/storm. Agnès picked me at the airport and we headed straight to Eldorado Hills where she had a seminar, Friday evening and Saturday. That was ideally located, 20 miles from the start which I drove to early to secure a spot in the main parking lot. That was a good move as I had to use the bathrooms several time before the start. Indeed, although I flew more than 1.5 million miles for business and can handle jet lag pretty well, the only thing which I never managed to get right after such slights is GI issues. It always takes a few days for my transit system to regroup but, unfortunately this time, I had only a few hours and the thing was pretty messed up start from the start. With that, I was still at my car when I heard the count down starting and barely made it into the pack at the sound of the gun.

The start was so crowded that we had to walk first, then sprint and slalom to reach the head of the race. I ran the first mile in 6:15 (it's all road and slightly downhill) and settle after a pack of about 20 runners around the top three gals. I ended up just behind Erik Skaden when the trail turned to a narrow single track. Around mile 7 we passed master blogger Scott Dunlap who took this amazing shot while running. Scott is really mastering the art of "backward, single hand, arm length, in action, over the shoulder" photography! All that at 7 minutes/mile pace... (photo credit: Scott Dunlap)

Indeed, I closed the first 8-mile loop in 56 minutes and probably around the 20 or 25 position (photo credit UltraRunnerPodcast.com).

My intestine was hurting but I was still hoping that will clear-up in the way down to the river. As a matter of fact, the pounding in the steep downhill to Highway 40 crossing just made it worse and I had to ease the pace by a few seconds by mile 13. I stopped for the first time at mile 16, for 3 long minutes which got my average pace to fall from 7:12 to 7:22 and I saw about 8 or 10 runners passing. It felt better for a few hundreds yards before the cramps and diarrhea started hurting again. I passed a few runners who were wondering how I managed to come from behind (Ray Sanchez, Mark Murray, Jady Palko, ...) and they passed me again as I had to stop again... Not a good day although the legs were working fine.

With the gastro intestinal mess I couldn't eat anything which wasn't too much of a concern as I was using Vespa. But I was also resisting the need to drink, just forcing myself to empty my GU2O bottle which I managed to do by mile 20. At the ALT (Auburn Lake Trails) aid station, a ranger helped me refill my GU2O bottle. He then proposed to fill in my water bottle and, to my surprise, it was still almost full, I had barely taken a sip of water. That wasn't good either, that's my "Way Too Dry (part 2)" vignette because I did get too dry myself indeed... I took one GU for the whole race, I'm glad fat burning covered for the rest (yes, the Vespa effect...).

I stabilized the pace just below 8 minutes/mile in the relatively flat section before the steep Goat Hill in which I passed a handful of runners. (Photo credit Nor Cal Ultras)

At the top of Goat Hill, I got a hug from Norm Klein, and a quick accolade from Helen. I apologized for being late and not having time to stop by then rushed for the final 5 miles, the intestinal pain becoming more tolerable. I passed a few other runners and finished in 26th position, missing my goal by 6 minutes (4:06:00). It was the day to break 4 hours and 19 other runners had done it today. With teammate Gary Gellin even breaking 3.5 hours, winning the race and setting a new course record of 3:27:43. That should be an age group CR which should last for some time! Here are Gary and Holly before the start:

You can check the recording of the live video streaming in one of these sections, by finish time (I'm afraid Gary went too fast to get caught by the camera...):

3:43:15 - 4:27:39: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21014788 (my finish is at 22 minutes 50 seconds into this one)
4:32:35 - 5:27:45: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21015697
5:30:44 - 7:13:37: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21016790

After Jed Smith and a strong training this year, I definitely had the potential to do better to celebrate my 30th 50K, but this is still honorable given the circumstances. With all the bad exercise-induced asthma incidents on this course, it's actually my 2nd best time (3:56:47 in 2008 on a different course). I heard that many runners set PRs this Saturday, it was indeed a unique opportunity to do well in such perfect conditions.

A big thank you to the 200 hundred volunteers who assisted Julie, her NorCalUltras team and us, before, during and after the race, with such a perfect logistic! And so many cupcakes...

Special thanks to Ve Loyce and his Monsters of Massage for their deep massage. This allowed me to run 16 miles this Sunday; it's almost time to taper again before next race, Chuckanut 50K in 6... days (no, not weeks!) in Fairhaven, WA. I'm going out of my North California "comfort zone", in new territories and picking one of the most competitive field ever. Just to give you some perspective, there are 27 overall or age-graded "100%" entrants in the 700 deep field! Another indication is that Gary, who just won Way Too Cool, would be happy to finish in the top 20 there (he appears in 24th position in the past performance-ordered registrant list, I'm in 84th position...). Definitely out of my comfort zone... ;-)

Talk to you from Washington State next time then!

PS: if you live in the South Bay and like music, Max and his fellow a cappella SOBs (Society of Orpheus and Bacchus) from Yale are stopping by and will give a concert in Cupertino on Thursday evening, March 15 (tickets at http://www.yaleclubofsiliconvalley.org/article.html?aid=130 or at the door).

Stretched Dubai: more cars than runners...

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 02:09:00 +0000

This is my second business trip in Dubai in 5 months and there should be quite a few upcoming ones over the next few months. I arrived there on Saturday night and left on Thursday night for a full working week (the weekend is Friday-Saturday in the Emirates). With 12-hour working days on the client project plus a few hours to catch-up with emails, not much time to run except at night. Upon getting to the hotel on Saturday after a 21-hour trip, I left the hotel at 11 pm and ran toward downtown (North). There was a good breeze from the sea and the temperature was very nice, in the 70s, which is cool for the area so, despite the fatigue of the flight, I managed to maintain a 7:10 min/mile pace for 24 miles, running to the harbor and back to the Mall of the Emirates.

On Monday night, I ran in the opposite direction, toward the Marina, for 12 miles out and back, at a slightly slower pace as this was a tapering week before Way Too Cool 50K this Saturday.

To give a sense of scale, the red segment in the above "flower" (the Palm Jumeira, an artificial/reclaimed island covered with luxurious buildings) is 1.2-mile long (the island is about 3x3 miles or 5x5 kilometers).

Sorry for the ones expecting pictures, I didn't run with my camera this time and, again, it was quite dark except for the glow of the cars (you can still look at the pictures I posted last October). You cannot run on the seashore because of the private hotel and palace beaches. But, a block from the sea, you can run along Jumeirah Road which goes on for many miles, at least 20! As you can see on this map, Dubai stretches for almost 40 miles between the sea and the desert, not to mention the vertical stretch of the many skyscrapers including the highest in the world. Needless to say, in such an affluent countries, people don't cover these miles by foot but in luxurious cars for the wealthy, or buses, cabs and metro for the others. I haven't see any other runner this week, although the temperature was perfect, but many Porshes, BMWs, Maserattis, Ferraris, Mercedeses, Bentleys, ... among an ocean of Japanese cars.

I barely made the connection in DC this morning. We had to take a lower route between Dubai and Washington because of major solar flares/storm. Our flight ended up being one hour longer (more than 15 hours!) and we got at the gate at the time my next flight was boarding, not good... Fortunately, I traveled with a carry-on and managed to go through immigration, custom and another security check in less than 20 minutes, good enough for a sprint to the next gate and boarding among the last passengers, phew! Agnes picked me at SFO and here we are in Sacramento this Friday evening, 50 hours have passed since I last woke up in Dubai, I was fortunate to sleep for about 10 hours on the plane to catch-up with some sleep deficit.

For those not running Way Too Cool tomorrow (or another race this afternoon), you can follow some of the action, live, on the ultralivevideo channel (start: 7:30-8am, 8-mile: 8:30a, finish: 11:30a-1:30p, all Pacific times). Speaking of time, we are changing time on Sunday morning, the Spring Forward. See many of you at Cool, sweet dreams in the meantime!

5th Annual Los Gatos Overgrown Fat Ass: yet another great training run!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:58:00 +0000

A quick report as I'm pressed by time, having returned from the East Coast last night for a few days in town before flying again to Dubai on Friday... I actually thought that I was going to miss this 4th fat ass 50K in our area this year because of a trip to Riyadh, but this one got postponed a few weeks. It's the first year I actually manage to do these 4 "Fat Ass 50K" training runs: Saratoga, Fremont, 2nd Saratoga, and this one in Los Gatos, set up and directed by Adam and Sean. Knowing Adam, I imagined the course was getting through overgrown bushes in his Santa Cruz mountains, but was actually pleased to discover it wasn't the case at all. The course is actually very straightforward, mainly Limekiln Trail and Woods Trail up through the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserved, then down to English Camp in the Almaden Quicksilver County Park and back. But quite a hilly course as we reach 3,000 feet twice and a cumulative elevation of 6,200 feet. One aid station that we traverse twice at mile 13 and 17 when crossing Hicks Road, "manned" by the Race Directors' significant others in the early morning until Sean and Adam stopped after completing the first 17 miles themselves. Here is the group at the start, photo credit to Keith Blom:

Adam actually set a fast pace in the first mile up on Jones and Flume Trails through the St Joseph's Regional Open Space in Los Gatos. Sean and Mark were close behind with Mark staying right on my heels until the aid station. Mark then passed me during a short pit stop and I caught up with him at the English Camp turnaround where we had to find the phrase left by Adam (Pantat Lemak, or Fat Ass in Indonesian, not easy to remember... ;-). On our way back to Hicks Road we crossed Sean, then Adam, Toshi, and Peter who had started 25 minutes before us. At the aid station Mark and I took a small cup of piña colada to perpetuate this special and unique fat ass' tradition. Crossing the rest of the group, we stayed together until mile 21 (the turn around of the Quicksilver 50-mile), where I had to walk in the steep uphill to catch my breath and... lose Mark who kept running up the hill. At different places I pointed Mark 30, then 45, then 60 seconds ahead and definitely lost sight of him before reaching the top of Limekiln Trail. Here we are on Woods Trail (photo credit: Keith Blom):

My average pace was then down to 8:22 min/mile from the 8 minutes flat as we reached the aid station and 8:04 when we left. Adam was counting on us to break 4 hours and I pushed on the way down but didn't see how I could recover the minutes lost in the last uphill stretch of Woods Trail. Keeping pushing and flying down the steep Limekiln trail we climbed 3 hours earlier, I was able to get the pace down to 8:04 and eventually catch up and pass Mark by mile 27, with 4 to go. I walked part of the steep climb on Jones Trail then slalomed between hikers, joggers and dogs for a sprint down to the finish which I reached in 4:05:32. Not quite under 4 hours but a great work out thanks to Mark's emulation. Mark arrived 4 minutes later and I unfortunately had to leave before waiting for the next runners to come in.

The weather was idyllic, the trail in perfect conditions, the aid station well stocked and kindly and professionally manned, it was a perfect training run, credit and many thanks to Adam, Lisa, Sean and Heidi!

Here is my Garmin Connect entry and replay. Enjoy from the comfort of your couch! ;-)

Probably not much running during my short and busy stay in the Emirates, a good opportunity to taper before Way Too Cool in 2 weeks!

Running on the East Coast: DC, MD, NY, CT

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:33:00 +0000

These past 3 weeks have seen me visiting the East Coast twice: the first time for a business trip in DC, the second to visit Alex in DC (Georgetown) and Max in New Haven, CT (Yale). Both weeks had an unusual good weather for the winter season, just one rainy day during the first week and one snowy day in Connecticut the second week. Therefore perfect conditions to log a few miles while being on the go...

I didn't run with my camera though, so I'll let my Garmin recordings tell you about my runs. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a 3-hour GPS track worth...? ;-) In DC, I ran 5 times through Rock Creek Park for a total of 92 miles. Some people might have thought that I moved in the area... Rock Creek Park connects with the trails on the Mall and along the Potomac so, where every you are staying in DC, either in Georgetown or near West End, the bike path is easy to find and get on. It goes all the way to the North corner of the District of Columbia and the border with Maryland, and keeps going through Maryland outside the Capital Beltway.

After a few miles of bike path, you can get on very nice trails or stay on Beach Drive. Below is the SportTracks static view of my longest run in DC last week (25.3 miles), with more details in Garmin Connect.

A few days later, I was working from our Somers office and a colleague indicated a few trails behind the nearby Catholic High School. Again, great trails in the forest although these ones are better suited for cross-country and not recommended in the dark. For the benefit of other colleagues visiting this site, here is the Garmin trace of my run. Note that I ran at the end of the day and, unable to run more on the trails, I did a few laps around the campus, almost a 2-mile loop of nice road! Until the safety patrol injucted me to stop because they considered it wasn't safe to run in the dark on that busy road as employees leave work... Again, for IBM colleagues looking at an opportunity to run a few miles from our Somers campus: take the exit in front of the main building, toward Route 138; turn left on 138 (be careful of the traffic), down to the J F Kennedy High School. Between the track and the football field is the start of a cross country course with a few loops. Once in the woods, go right along the football field and the trail goes on for a few miles.

As I was staying with my friends in Ridgefield, I also ran 8 miles there yesterday, on the winding and rolling roads of New England. I was amazed at how good the road conditions were just a few hours after the 5-inch snow fall, yet I prefer my local Californian trails as these roads are quite busy and the cars not slowing down much for runners. I have a lot of respect for the local runners who have to train in this region and these conditions, either the cold winters or the hot summers... We are so blessed, or spoiled, in California...

2nd Saratoga Fat Ass: rain and PureGrit, at last!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:59:00 +0000

Finally some winter conditions appropriate for the season and a fat ass in the Saratoga Gap area. The first Saratoga Fat Ass we had this year had too nice of a weather, we needed a replay and the rain came just in time last night for that. Actually, we still need much more to alleviate the drought, it was mostly drizzling today.

Keith, the unofficial Race Director of this officially not organized run, will confirm the exact number of participants, my estimate is 30-35 between all the starting "waves" from 7 am to past 8 am.

While last year was cold and white (beautiful snow!), this year had just enough water dripping from the trees and mud forming on the trails to make it a good training run for Way Too Cool or Chuckanut. Especially with the presence of several fast Quicksilver teammates, Jeremy, Toshi and Sean. After passing the pack of the 8 am start, we had quite a fast run down Loghry Woods and Ridge Trails, each of us taking our turn to lead the pace. At the end of Saratoga Gap Trail, Jeremy took off as I was waiting for Sean and Toshi. After a few minutes and chatting with Peggy and Peter, I decided to continue on a slower pace and reached the parking lot after about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Sean and Toshi arrived soon after and we left the parking lot for loop 2 with my GPS showing 1:50 (elapsed time).

Toshi and I maintained a reasonable fast pace down Skyline-to-the-Sea and, after three miles of running, I asked Toshi if we should take the service road down on the left but he advised to stay on the trail. As my GPS was now indicating 15.85 miles, I finally decided it was enough and told Toshi and Sean with more assurance that we had missed the turned... We retraced our route back to eventually find a group of other runners also wondering if the turn I wanted to take initially was the right one, which it was indeed. My GPS was now at 18.0 miles, we had added 4.3 miles and about 30 minutes... With that, Sean told Toshi he would only complete the 2nd loop. As for me, I was not sure as I went through a wall around mile 21, before the end of the beautiful Travertine trail. I alternated running and walking on the way up to Skyline and went too far toward Summit Rock, definitely not focused today...

Back to the parking lot, I found Toshi who had inadvertently locked Sean's car key in the car and was now waiting for AAA... My GPS was now indicating 25.3 miles and, after spending some time talking to a few other runners, I decided to just do an out and back on the third loop to at least make it a 50K. My GPS was showing 27 miles at Charcoal Road, which wasn't enough, so I went on the loop but clockwise, starting with Table Mountain Trail instead of going down on the steep Charcoal Road. I figured out that I would run into Jeremy, then turn back to the parking lot. At this point, the sun made an appearance and it became so nice running on this more technical trail that I couldn't resist completing the loop. Running the loop in the opposite direction allowed me to meet a few runners (Peter, Keith, Penny, David, ...). I was back at the parking lot a 3rd time in 6:08 and 33.66 miles, which makes the 50K rather 29.3 miles. Did I mention it got muddy today?

It was the first time I was using the new Brooks PureGrit and I must say they behave extremely well. It was optimal conditions for them, with the mud and the rain. They hold very well in the muddy sections and they dried quickly after going through puddles. They provided enough traction on the rocks although I didn't really try to slide on the flat and large ones, nor on the slippery bridges. They also give a lot of stability with a larger sole than the PureConnect, and I didn't feel a single rock on this run thanks to the sturdy sole. They are so much lighter and more comfortable than the Cascadia, this is a great evolution toward minimalist trail running!

After a 5:42 last year in the cold and snow, it was disappointing not to break 6 hours this year but adding 4.3 miles certainly didn't help. Glad that wasn't a race... just a great and social workout! ;-) By the way, I ran 15.5 and 12 miles the following two days after Jed Smith, then 22 and 10 miles respectively on Tuesday and Wednesday in Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, so back to training for the next races. The 22-mile in DC was quite epic because I left Dupont Circle at the end of the afternoon and reached the border with Maryland when it was almost dark, having to run 10 miles in the dark, fortunately a mix of well-maintain trails and asphalt bike paths, on the safe side of the city...

A lot of travels ahead in the coming weeks before Way Too Cool and Chuckanut, so I'm glad I've logged 81 miles/week since January 1, as I'm not sure how these travels will impact training. Have a good week and run happy, even in the rain! :-)

Jed Smith 50K: can I still improve?

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:54:00 +0000

This was my 4th time at Jed Smith and I was excited to get back on this fast new course which we also used in part at the World Masters of Athletics last July for the marathon (2 medals for the US, bringing good memories... ;-).

For those only interested in the pictures, here they are.

The conditions could not have been more perfect. First, the weather, blue sky, temperature of 44F at the start increasing into the low 60s in the afternoon, no wind. Second, Victor's presence and friendly competition, or rather emulation, for a rematch of Last Chance. A nice ride in the morning, carpooling with Sean (I was driving this time). I was concerned with the lack of parking so we left Meridian Avenue by 5:10 and got it actually quite early at 7 am, which allowed not only to find a good parking spot but also to watch the start of the very exciting 50-mile race, albeit with a very shallow field (less than 20 participants) as the bulk of the runners entered the 50K which was the only Grand Prix event this weekend. The other good condition was that I was able to get a good night of sleep (7+ hours) and catch-up with a few 5+-hour nights as I had travel to Austin, Texas for business last week. Then, as usual, some heavy workload and good stress at work, enough excuses which pushes me to do what I can in race and eliminate as much stress as possible... Between the tapering and the business trips, I was 5 pounds over my race weight, but that meant some good fat to draw fuel and energy from! ;-) With the dry winter so far, the course was perfect, not a single puddle. Last but not least, I entered the race with more training miles than I had ever have at this time of the year (78-mile weeks including tapering/not running last week). Including some speed work at the track. Quite a few aligned stars, there were still a few needed to align during the race...

The 50-mile was exciting for three reasons: the debut of Chad Worthen who won the 50K last year in 3:18 for his first attempt at the distance (Chad also ran the World Masters and placed 2nd overall but winning his M35-40 age group in 2:35). After his amazing 6:04 at Last Chance, at 56, Mark Richtman was back to set a new US Age Group record at the distance. Similarly, ultra elite Meghan Arbogast, 50, was also shooting for the same goal. The M55-59 50-mile road record was 5:53:08 and F50-55 7:44:48! (According to the USATF 50-mile records page) Meghan certainly didn't have to push much to improve that record which was set in 1995. Here is the start with Mark (left, #21), Meghan (middle, #1), Chad (right, #26):

After Chad dropped around mile 35, Mark won the race in 6:13, followed by Joe Palubeski (6:17) and Meghan in 6:19:08, which is just 3 seconds more than the F40-44 US AG record by the way. Congratulations to Meghan, who appeared so relax and all smile the whole way! Such an inspiration for us all and for me in particular as I'm approaching this age group... ;-)

Back to the 50K, we had a dozen of participants from our club (QuickSilver Ultra Running Team) and, in addition to the rematch between Victor and I, it was also a match between the two leader clubs of the Grand Prix in 2011, Tamalpa and our club. A lot of blue shirts on the course this Saturday!

Victor rushed off the starting blocks and took the control of the pace, slightly under 6:15 min/mile. He was followed by his teammate, Jonathan Gunderson, my teammates Toshi and Sean and myself. At the first mile turnaround, we saw that the field was already getting quite elongated by such a fast start. My objective for that run was mainly to improve my 50K PR (3:25:13 at Jed Smith 2010, a 6:36 min/mile pace). As Victor was maintaining his 6:15 pace, I scaled down a little, running around 6:19 min/mile for the first 5 miles. As usual, seeing Victor ahead running so economically made me feel that the pace was ok and sustainable so I started gaining a few seconds which left the two of us leading the race. I passed the 10-mile mark in 1:02:30 then caught up with Victor around the 20-mile mark which we passed in 2:05:45. We were then on a 6:16 pace which Victor was able to maintain while I had to slow down by a few seconds. Actually, my GPS was a bit off, indicating 31.29 miles at the finish for a certified course of 31.1 miles hence an actually slightly slower pace.

Victor crossed the finish line in 3:17:53, improving his PR at the distance by 8 minutes! I placed second 76 seconds later in 3:19:09, also a new PR for me by 6 minutes! I told you, the conditions were perfect... Victor is also improving the M40-49 course record which was standing since 1996, by 10 seconds, good enough to earn him 20 bonus points in the Grand Prix, a great way to break his long-standing curse of 2nd places...

Toshi came in 3rd, followed by Michael Fink, Jonathan and first timers Barry Smith who won his M50-59 age group in 3:37! Although a phenomenal performance for him, our teammate Dan Decker took second in this same age group, finishing 7th overall, right after Barry. Dan too set a new PR (3:42), improving by a whooping 35 minutes!

We stayed for a couple of hours to see other runners going through the start/finish area aid station or sprinting to the finish line. Great opportunity to catch-up with a few. See about 150 random pictures which I posted in my Picasa album. After reading Ian Torrence's blog post on the legendary Frank Bozanich, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet him in person. At 67, he is still pushing himself hard and ran an impressive 4:19. He still owns the M55-59 50K US record which he set 10 years ago in Sacramento at 3:40!

You can hear Frank in this podcast (UltraRunnerPodcast.com).

I passed the marathon mark in 2:46 which is faster than my marathon in July so that shows that I can still do better (when stars align). Also I only ate one 1/2 banana (60 cal) at mile 14, 1 GU (100 cal) at mile 27, 1 bottle of GU2O (120 cal), and 3 Vespas (1 45 minutes before the start, 1 at the start, 1 2 hours in the run) which did the rest to get me the 3,000 or so calories I used up during the run.

Overall it was a perfect day for many and my thanks go first to Race Directors John Blue and Dennis Scott. And to the volunteers at the three aid stations and also the several control points on the course. Definitely an organization meeting the standard of championships (just limited by the parking capacity...). And the perfect way to start the 2012 season!

This Sunday, I ran a good, albeit slow, 15-mile recovery run in my new Brooks PureFlow shoes (an interesting blend of minimalism with still a lot of stability). Next race: Way Too Cool. With 2 trips to the East Coast in the meantime and a pending one to the Middle East. Have great training miles all in the meantime!

2012: on the trails again!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:07:00 +0000

January 28, it is time to talk about my 2012 running and racing plans... Overall, it will be a lot about ultra trail running again, more of the same and even more on top of that!

And, since we are going to talk about trail, here is good opportunity to highlight the work of volunteers who make the trails we run on so nice. At our Quicksilver running club, the trail maintenance guru is Paul Fink and he leads a 4-month trail maintenance program from January to our 50K and 50-mile race in April. As Darcey, former Race Director of our ultra races, reminded us, this is the 10th year the club has adopted these trails and offloaded a lot of the trail maintenance from the County Parks. We had a great group of 6 of our QuickSilver Ultra Running teammates and worked on removing many rocks from a trail near Manzanitaville. It actually didn't feel so good making the trail so nice as most of us, runners, did like this moderate technical section very much. But the County wants groomed trails which people cannot trip on... Here is the boss:

And here is a look at the upgraded trail!

You can see a few more pictures in my Picasa album. On this one, Darcey is showing us the optimal cross slope of the trail to let the water flow:

After 3 hours of such a maintenance work, I took off and ran the second part of our Quicksilver 50-mile course, actually the 10 miles out and coming back on the finish of the 50K course from English Camp, including the "roller coaster" which I ran entirely (phew, the insiders will appreciate... ;-). It wasn't as hot as it will be in April, yet it was close to 70F, what a gorgeous "winter" run... It took me 2:47 to cover the 20.3 miles (8:17 min/mile average), I pushed in a few hills and scared a few hikers whom I crossed in the final down hills, flying under 5 min/mile, sorry!

So, what's in the bag for 2012? So much in the beginning of the year that I will only cover the first 6 months and schedule the last 6 months based on what will have happened by the end of May. As I told you after Last Chance in November, I won my age group in the Pacific Association USAT&F Mountain Ultra Trail for the 5th year in a row and I feel both happy, excited and obliged to actively participate in the Grand Prix again this year as the defending champion despite getting quite close to the next age group (2 more years...). On top of that though, our team Captain, Greg, launched a new challenge, a Pacific league in which we'll compete with other teams from the states of Washington, Oregon and California, in races ranging from the Canadian border to South California. Like I needed more races in my schedule. The result is that I'm now planning on competing in 9 ultras in 4 months, another first! Here they are:

Date	Event	Distance	Edition #	Past runs	Personal Best
4-Feb	Jed Smith	50K	24	3	3:25:13 (2010)
10-Mar	Way Too Cool	50K	23	6	3:56:52 (2008)
17-Mar	Chuckanut	50K	20!	0	NA
7-Apr	American River	50M	33	4	6:47:53 (2011)
21-Apr	Ruth Anderson	50K/50M/100K	20!	5	(*)
28-Apr	Leona Divide	50M	20!	0	NA
5-May	Miwok	100K	17	5	9:41:01 (2008)
12-May	Quicksilver	50K/50M	28	3	(**)
20-May	Ohlone	50K	25!	5	4:37:50 (2010)

(*) 3:44:58 (2008, 50K) - 6:07:34 (2010, 50M) - 8:05:36 (2011, 100K)
(**) 3:56:19 (2011, 50K) - 6:49:02 (2009, 50M)

With 85 miles/week average since I resumed my training, not counting the 80 miles at the New Year's Eve 12-hour, I got the machine back in full swing. One trip to Austin, TX, this coming week, two trips to Washington, DC, in February and most likely a few trips to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in the coming 3 months will force me to juggle and optimize my calendar again. And you see why I leave some options open for the second half of the year. In July, I may run the Montagn'Hard, then there will be a scoop for August up in Tahoe, and I would love to enter the JFK 50-mile for this very special 50-year anniversary. Speaking of anniversary, that will be number 20 at Chuckanut and a quarter century at Ohlone, not to be missed! And, according to the results published on Ultrasignup, I believe it will also be #20 for Ruth Anderson and Leona Divide. What a year, what an alignment of stars!

The 2012-part2 schedule should clear up by June after I ran these 9 races. With that, I don't have a single road event on the map yet, probably a few 10Ks in the Fall to round it up!

Back to the title, see you a lot on the trails in 2012 then!

Fremont Fat Ass

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:34:00 +0000

Three weeks have passed since I resumed my training and this is already my fourth ultra run! After another busy week at work with a pair of 5 AM conf calls, I decided on Friday evening to participate in a second Fat Ass, albeit a much flatter one than the Saratoga Fat Ass, actually pretty much a flat one. Since the rain finally arrived in the Bay Area on Thursday and it poured all night this Friday, I was expecting a good rainy training run but it turned out to be mostly a sunny one, except for 10 minutes of rain. However, we had to run against a strong wind going toward the Bay and I must have enjoyed that so much that I missed the last bridge over the Alameda Channel and went 1.3 miles too far on the wrong side of the creek. I knew the Coyote Hills Regional Park was on the other side, but I had missed the fact that we had to cross the river a few miles before the entrance. At least, these 18 extra minutes gave me the opportunity to see Sean, Toshi and Larry who had started at 7 AM. Would I have not done the detour, I would have missed them before they exit the 8-shape loop in Coyote Hills Park (rather than 8-shape, it actually looks closer to the contour of North and Central Americas on the map ;-).

From the initial 8 min/mile average pace while I was running the first 4 miles with Dan and Mike, I managed to get the pace down to 7:25 by mile 15, running slightly under 7 min/mile. However, the strong wind slowed me down and my GPS gave a 7:41 pace after I stopped for a couple minutes at the super aid station that Chihping had setup and for us, giving away his whole morning for us during such a special New Lunar Year weekend.

Thanks to Mark Tanaka (and Toshi who posted the link earlier this week), I discovered (I know, it was time...) the cool replay feature of Garmin Connect and you can replay my run, from your chair ;-), and see this embarrassing mistake (click on the previous link, then the arrow button).

Between the extra 2.6 miles and the fact that we missed the small detour through the Niles Community Park at mile 3, my GPS gave 32.76 miles for the run, not too far from the 50K distance (31.1 miles). I was hoping to break 4 hours, I will have to come back next year and pay more attention at the bridge crossing...

It was fun to see a group of 25 or so, representing a good mix of our East Bay, South Bay and Mid Peninsula ultra running communities! A big thank you to Mike Palmer for setting such event up and giving us the opportunity to run in these local Parks. It was a first for me and I particularly enjoyed the amazing views from the West side of Bayview Trail in Coyote Hills.

Big thanks too to Chihping Fu for such a stocked aid station that he had to move back and forth to avoid the rain shower. And for attending to his legendary photo coverage of the events he is involved in (with a brand new camera!):

After bragging about my great 2111 season, I had planned to share about my 2012 program, this will have to wait one more week. As a hint, this run was a great preparation for a flat 50K in two weeks, many will know which one I'm talking about.

To finish this post, and for those who are not subscribed to Ultra Running Magazine (you should! ;-), I received my copy this week which includes a new column from our team Captain, Greg Lanctot, about running clubs, starting with a feature of our QuickSilver Ultra Running Team. And, on the 3rd cover page, the Vespa ad I mentioned in previous posts. Here again, I ran a good sustained pace for 4 hours after taking one Vespa CV-25 at the start then very few calories compared to the 3,000 or so calories I spent: 1 Gu (100 cal.), 1 banana (thanks Chihping!, 110 cal.), 2 cups of Coke (80 cal), less than one bottle of Gu2O (100), 2 S!Caps. Burning fat and learning how to leverage your fat as your main source of energy/fuel, isn't it what these Fat Ass events are all about? ;-) Anyway, another opportunity to wish you a great 2012 year!

2011: an exceptional millesime!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:33:00 +0000

With my last 2011 race on December 31, I had to delay a bit this special time to reflect on the past year, before I even tell you about what's up for the new year ahead, next week... The 2011 "grand cru" is bottled and the magnums carefully placed in the cellar. Just kidding... But, since I started running seriously after my move to California in 1998, this has certainly been the best year both in quantity and quality, at least in my own local league. And, like a vigneron or winemaker, I still hope to have another of such an exceptional year in the future. And I will keep working hard for that!

Quantitative look

One chart summarizes the year quite well from a quantitative standpoint: not only did I run many miles, the most of my running career in one single year, but I also ran them at a faster average pace. A total of 3,271 miles (5,264 kilometers), that is slightly above a 100 km/week average even with a few weeks off here and there to recover and taper and a healthy 3-week break in December. 438 hours of running overall at an average pace of 8:03 min/mile or 5:00 min/km. Cool stats, so much in line with the Farther Faster theme of my blog, all that despite getting a bit older, I cannot deny that! ;-) Not to mention a healthy busy schedule and workload on my primary job...

It is going to be challenging to do better than that. Even if there are other runners who average more miles per week, I would have to rearrange my priorities significantly to find more time to run. Maybe when I get closer to retirement...

A few other statistics for 2011:

Number of entries in my running log: 233 (4.5 run / week)
Number of races: 18
Number of ultra races: 13 (not counting the Fat Asses)
Number of ultra runs: 35 (yes, I also do ultras as training runs now... ;-)
Vertical/elevation: 270,000 feet or 82,300 meters (quite approximate as this isn't Garmin's specialty to track cumulative elevation)
Number of blog entries: 52
Number of overall wins: 4 (Skyline 50K, Stevens Creek 50K, Last Chance 50-mile, New Year's Eve One Day 12-hour)
Number of DNF (Did Not Finish): 1 (Rio Del Lago, mile 71)
Number of Brooks pairs of shoes I ran in: 14 (including 866 miles in Launch and 814 miles in Racer ST)

Qualitative look

Consistency - Apart from the DNF at Rio Del Lago, I did very well in most of the races. Except maybe Miwok where I took it easy, taking more than 300 pictures wile running. Thanks to Singulair, I have not been bothered by exercise-induced asthma during races, just getting my lungs slightly irritated after Way Too Cool and American River.

Improvement - I did PR on a few distances and also managed to set some Personal Bests at 2 races. Setting the bar higher but looking forward to matching that again in 2012!

50-mile PR: 5:43:39, Last Chance, November, certainly my top performance of the season;
100K PR: 8:05:36, Ruth Anderson, April (unofficial because I missed the start by more than 2 hours because of a missed flight connection);
12-hr PR: 79.6 miles, New Year's Eve One Day, December;
American River 50-mile PB: 6:47, Sacramento-Auburn, April;
Quicksilver 50K PB: 3:56, San Jose, April (new age-group course record).

Originality - Not so much in my racing as the only new place I raced this year was the Los Gatos High School track for an all-comer meet. I finally ran Steve Patt's estival Stevens Creek 50K for the first time, but that's on the trails I'm used to train on. The other new race was the one-time World Masters held in Sacramento this year so all my 18 races happened in California. Not much of an original program overall but at least good from a sustainability standpoint! Now, with all my business travel, I did run/train in many new places this year: Stockholm, Madrid, Anchorage, Riyad, Dubai, Manama (Bahrain), Fort Lauderdale, Des Moines, Toronto and several places in Croatia.

Intensity and fun - This has been a very full year with racing ranging from 5K to 80 miles, a focus on the PA USATF Mountain and Ultra Trail Grand Prix in which I won my age group for the 5th year in a row but a tiny 1% margin over superstar Dave Mackey this year (Dave has just been voted the ultra runner of the year by a panel of race directors assembled by Ultra Running Magazine) and our team won all the 4 team awards (men, women, mixed, overall)! It was fun and rewarding to participate in the World Master of Athletics this summer and get a gold and bronze medal, run as a team with the Quicksilver Ultra Running Team led my our energizing captain, Greg Lanctot, fun to train solo or as a group on weekends with the Stevens Creek Striders or our Saturday morning group. I also enjoyed a few runs with colleagues at the office or while traveling (Alaska, Spain) and, last but not least, with Agnès for her come back to running and Max when he visits.

It is the perfect occasion to thank again the race directors who put up all these races in 2011. We are in particular so blessed in our North California area, this is too good to pass on and not run one or two (or more...) ultra race every month! And I'm also grateful to the hundreds of volunteers, first of course the ones that we see at the aid stations, even if it is for a short time, but also all the ones helping out behind the scene to make these events not only successful and fun, but safe too.

Great run this Saturday, more than 29 miles, starting from Rancho, up to Black Mountain then through Palo Alto's Foothills Park and back to Rancho with Rhus Ridge's steep climb without walking. My 3rd ultra run in 3 weeks, I'm quickly getting into this new season rhythm!

In next week's post I plan on sharing with you what the first half of 2012 will look like from a running standpoint, although quite of that is already public courtesy of UltraSignup's near-monopoly on race registrations nowadays. Some rain is finally announced for this Wednesday in the Bay Area, looking forward to it to alleviate the drought. Have a great week in the meantime!

Saratoga Fat Ass 2012: is it winter yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:02:00 +0000

What perfect conditions for a run, but hard to believe that we are in the middle of the winter, even in California. Dry trails and creeks, sunny skies, wonderful clear views over the Ocean. The only trace of bad weather was the numerous trees barring the trail. Since I started trail running back in 2005, I never saw so many trees and branches on our nearby trails. Someone needs to get out there with a chainsaw, actually a great volunteering opportunity to pursue since the trend is more getting toward abandoning the trail maintenance and closing our wonderful parks because of budget cuts.

Back to the Fat Ass, I didn't have much fat to burn this year, having already run 80 miles on New Year's Eve and 53 miles since, during the week. But I like the tradition and was excited to join Sean and Toshi for an early start of this 4th edition for me (2005, 2007, 2009 and 2012) but the event has been on for a few decades, becoming quite a local ultra running tradition. A special thank to David Kamp for keep this tradition alive.

For various family or work-related reasons, Toshi, Sean and I took an early start at 7:20 am. Charles (Stevens) was waiting for Chris (Garcia) and planning on starting between 7:30 and 8. The sun had just risen and the light over the hills and Ridge Trail was amazing, as were the views in all directions but especially over the Ocean.

When not stopping for pictures, videos or read and re-read the trail instructions at each intersection, we maintained a good pace until the beginning of Slate Creek Trail where we started loosing our momentum when going around fallen trees and a huge one in particular.

Per Toshi's suggestion, I took the lead all the way up on Portola Trail, we got quite a good work out! We met Winnie and Lee Jebian who were so kind to be out there to man the only aid station at China Grade. As we were talking and taking pictures, all of sudden came Leor (Pantilat) who flew by all of us.

He had taken a late start (8:20) and had already made the 1-hour gap on us in the first 15 miles, wow!

We stopped at the aid station to fill up our bottles and enjoy a banana that Lee and Winnie had left for us, a sweet idea. A few hundreds yards after the aid station we also met Dave, the Race Director, who was adding to Winnie's trail markers as a new trail has been recently added in this area and that brought some additional confusion to the course.

The next section along the border of Big Basin Redwoods State Park is my favorite and I really enjoyed it in such perfect conditions. I was bothered with our slow pace (11:50 min/mile at this point), but it wasn't a competition after all and it was great to run in the company of Quicksilver teammates.

After stopping at the Waterman Gap campground for more water, about mile 21, Toshi picked up the pace and I lost sight of him. I hesitated to push in this long uphill section in which I had so many bad experiences in the past, bonking and getting cold. But, to leverage these unique good conditions, I eventually picked up the pace myself and closed the gap on Toshi, pushing all the way up to Saratoga Gap to close the loop in 5:22:21. Leor was kindly waiting for us although he had been done for a long while as he completed the loop in a blazing 3 hours and 50 minutes! Given the 7,000 or so feet of cumulative elevation, this is yet another very impressive course record which is sure to hold for many years given the low key format of this event. Here he is with Race Director David Kamp:

Jeremy Johnson arrived shortly after us although he had taken a later 8 am start. He clocked something like 5:05 which is very promising soon after getting the Rookie Award for his first 50-mile and 7th place at the Dick Collins' Firetrails race last October. He had won a free entry into American River as a prize so we will see him again on the trails soon.

A posted a few more pictures in my Picasa album.

Great way to celebrate the end of the Holidays and the beginning of a busy ultra running season. And, that the skiers and snowboarders forgive us, we really enjoy the current weather on the trails. At least I do! See you on the trails, hope you have a great 2012 year!

New Year's Eve 12-hour: running celebration

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 06:44:00 +0000

A few years ago, I was intrigued when I heard about the race called "Across the years." I initially thought it meant running for several years but you don't have to run for that long to go across two years, you just have to start your run the night of New Year's Eve and keep going after midnight. That's what a few dedicated race directors propose at the end of December, offering their time and recruiting valorous volunteers so a few runners can take on this challenge of running across the years. In Arizona, Across the Years has actually a few events (72, 48, 24 hours), in Florida Peanut Island has a 24, 12 and 6-hour, which correspond to what Wendell has been offering for the 2nd year in magic San Francisco. Even for locals and even more for out of town visitors, it is amazing to have the privilege to run in the City with majestic views of the Golden Gate, Marin Headlands, the Presidio, the Financial District and the Transamerica skyscraper in particular, the Palace of Fine Arts, Angel Island, Alcatraz, ... With such a touristic set, no risk of getting bored running tens of laps! ;-)

If you are not single, the hardest thing with such events and ideas is to get the family on board. A few couples and families were actually running together through the night (the 24-hour started at 9 am on Saturday, the 12-hour at noon and the 6-hour at 6 pm), which solved their challenge. On my end, Max had already left a few days for another tour on the East Coast with the SOBs, his Yale a cappella group, and Alex had a 6 am flight for DC on the first to join the Georgetown rowing team for a winter training camp, so he wasn't up to spend the night partying anyway. Agnès, Alex and Greg invited friends and had dinner at a Thai restaurant, downtown.

I drove on my own in the morning, getting to Crissy Field around 11 am. Noon was an unusual late start for an ultra, most races starting between 6 or 8 am when not at 5 am. And it felt strange to get to the start while quite a few participants were already running since 9 am, kind of the feeling I had when I got to Ruth Anderson 100K more than 2 hours after the start because of a missed connection the night before... Local elite Chikara Omine was flying through the start/finish area every 7 minutes or so, that got me excited to join the fun he seemed to have! Quite a few familiar faces were gathering for the start of the 12-hour, yet I was amazed at the number of new faces too, this definitely shows our ultra running sport keeps growing.

Here are (Tropical) John Medinger (right) and Lisa Henson, respectively Publisher and General Manager of UltraRunning Magazine, with Race Director and Coastal Trail Runs' founder and owner, Wendell Doman. Wendell has run at least 100 ultras himself and more than gave back to our sport, organizing more than 200 ultras himself!

He sent us on the course right at noon or more exactly at the 3:00:00-hour mark on the clock. With a simple 1.061-mile loop, with course marking (thank you Mike!), the pre-race briefing was... brief.

As you can see, the afternoon was gorgeous! Here is Mike, focused on pouring water in the mini cups, who has volunteered from 7:30 in the morning to 4 pm I believe, most of New Year's Eve daylight!

We then started running in circle... With Jason and David at the front we ran the first lap just above 8 minutes. For those who missed my previous posts, I took my usual running break in December and, except for the nice fun run organized by Mike for Boxing Day, that was my first run after three weeks of resting. I did listen to Scott Jurek's advice and follow the three topics of his recent article publish in Competitor's November issue: "Don't run, gain weight, hang out!" Speaking of the second advice, I did gain about 6 pounds over my optimal racing weight, and mostly fat which I was looking forward to burn thanks to Vespa!

With such eagerness and joy to get back to running, I was feeling excited and so good that I did pick the pace, clocking 16 laps in the first two hours (7.5 minutes/lap). That was more than the 8 minutes I had initially planned for, and certainly not the smartest strategy for such a long long run as I was going to quickly find out. I started getting quite tired in the 3rd hour and, realizing that there were many hours ahead, I scaled down to a 10-minute/lap pace after maintaining sub 9-minute laps until lap 28. I was still passing a lot of participants who were running or walking, but, after passing Chikara twice, it was his turn to lap me twice which was particularly humbling as he was competing in the 24-hour event!

I kept moving and became concerned not to see Agnès and the boys whom I was expecting around 3 pm, the time I needed to refill the two GU2O bottles I had drunk in my first marathon (slightly over 3 hours). Around 3:30 I decided to make my first stop at the aid station and Stevens Creek Strider, John McKiernan, kindly assisted me while I picked a few potato chips and a small piece of banana. A good move as the family arrived around 5:30 pm and stayed for 30 minutes.

It was already dark when they left and I put one more layer and my headlamp on. After a sunny and windy afternoon, the sky was clear and the half moon kept us company for most of the night making the surroundings even more magical between the lights of all the cities around the Bay, the ones on the Golden Gate and the contrast with the dark water and Alcatraz (that reminded me the story of the prisoners hearing the New Year's Eve celebrations in the audio tape of the visit of Alcatraz...).

With such a lap format, you are never running alone, always having the opportunity to exchange a few words of encouragement or, for others, do a few laps together. I passed the 50-mile mark after about 7 hours of running. At that time, my splits stayed in the 9:45-10:45 range with only 7 laps above 11 minutes when I did stop to get some hot soup (3 times)

Another Strider, Dennis, ran half a lap with me when I was experiencing quite a low (sorry, Dennis, for not having more voluble...). And Toshi, from our Quiksilver Ultra Racing team, ran one lap late in the night, before spending quite some time assisting Chikara who, very unfortunately, got injured in his quest for a great 24-hour distance (he dropped at midnight, not able to even walk anymore after 91 laps in 15 hours). Another teammate, Amy, was on the 24-hour and ran 95 laps, that is just over 100 miles!

After the 16 first laps and realizing that wasn't sustainable, I was now planning on settling for 6 laps/hour and still hoping to run 78 laps or 82.75 miles, still short of the 83.4 miles Akos Konya ran on this course in September 2007 (all in daylight though). Speaking of daylight, this was the longest I actually ran in the dark, even including my 100-miles: not only that made me relate more with what most of the participants in such events experience, but also realize that I have to get better at running through the night if I want to keep getting longer and farther...

Keeping doing the maths with laps slightly above 10 minutes and a few stops at the aid station, I had to revise my goal down to 77 then 76 laps. My first and only attempt at this race format was last year when I logged 74 laps (78 miles) with the last 8 hours in the rain so I was really looking forward to not only do better than that but also pass the 80-mile mark. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to run a handful of laps around 9 minutes each and I couldn't find the energy and motivation to do so and was glad enough to improve my PR by one lap and one mile and take first as a bonus! I ended my 75th lap in 11 hours 56 minutes and 45 seconds, just in time to grab a cup of Champagne before watching quite colorful fireworks above the Financial District at midnight.

A performance good enough for a nice mug (running 3 marathons in a row for a mug is something which actually surprises a few of Agnès' students... ;-).

Shan Riggs won the 24-hour event with 126 miles, followed by Daniel Gallo (116 miles) and Matthew McKinney (110 miles). Amy took first in the Female division and, at 76, Bill Dodson logged 90 miles!

In the 12 hour, Brandon Chalk got 73 miles and Andrew Foster 69 followed by Nancy Morehead with 66 miles. Battling a foot injury, Jason still managed to log See more results at that temporary URL or on the Coastal Trail Runs NYOD page in case the URL changes.

One more word about Vespa: according to both SportTracks and Garmin, I burned slightly more than 8,000 calories during the run. I ate a few potato chips, a small piece of banana, half a brownie, 7 GUs, 11 S-Caps and drank 3 cups of soup, one cup of Coca Cola and 5 bottles of GU2O, less than 3,000 calories total, Vespa helping me to efficiently switch to fat burning to keep the balance. And, for the ones who have seen or will see the Vespa ad in the January issue of UltraMagazine, I still buy the products (available at ZombieRunner)! ;-)

A big and sincere thank you to all the volunteers who gave up their New Year's Eve so we could run happily and safely this weekend, across the 2011-2012 years! Not to forget those who spent all night up to assist the valorous 24-hour runners who kept going after we left and went to bed... And a special thank you to Agnès for having accepted to plan around this "yet another" and last race in 2011...

I was definitely tired after such a long run and intense way to resume my racing and training season. Like Scott Jurek says, take a good break for a month then resume training slowly... Well, we'll see how bad my decision was to do 80 miles as a first run. Although I didn't cramp during the run I was actually quite sore on New Year's Day, from shoulders to calves. It still hurt today (January 2nd) as I ran to the top of Black Mountain (2,800 ft) and back, for a 23-mile "recovery" run before next weekend's Saratoga Fat Ass. Yes, we all ran across the years and it's time for another season! Once again, all the best to all of you for 2012!

Happy Boxing Day, Mike and all!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:27:00 +0000

A nice occasion for my 52nd and final post of the year, the celebration of a tradition which started in Great Britain before spreading through the Commonwealth countries; a tradition of wealthy people giving a gift to their servant right after Christmas which evolved into sharing left overs from Christmas celebrations and therefore putting things back into... boxes. Nothing to see with boxing, the combat sport! In countries celebrating Boxing Day it also became a sort of our American Black Friday, a day with big and now cyber sales.

I missed Mike's invite last year and was looking forward to participating into this year's run as we were in town for the Holidays. The timing was also perfect for Max who is leaving tomorrow night for a tour of the East Coast with his Yale a cappella group, the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus or SOBs. Beyond the running experience, it turned out to be the perfect group for Max to connect with many discussions around architecture and industrial design with such gurus of the disciplines in the Valley (Mike, Barry, Dirk, ...).

I had not planned on running today actually as I was 2 weeks in my yearly "maintenance" break and was going to make it 3 weeks, resuming with a very long run at the Coastal Trail Runs' New Year's One Day 12-hour event in San Francisco, running circles on the 1.061-mile loop at Crissy Field in San Francisco. Hopefully the weather will be nicer than when it ran for 8 hours during my first and only attempt at this ultra format, in September 2010. If you happen to be in town to celebrate the new year, please consider stopping by, I plan on running quite a few laps in 8 minutes or so.

Back to Boxing Day, it got really special as soon as I heard about Mike's recent adventure on Labor Day (September 5). Mike, a very experienced ultra runner was running in his neighborhood when he felt pain in his chest and left arm. He was able to jog back to his house, calmly, before his wife drove him straight to the hospital where the cardiologist decided to do a triple coronary artery bypass the same day, not leaving much time to even think and worry about it! The next day, Mike was back on his feet and walking. With an amazing will and discipline, he kept walking and jogging every day, adding a few minutes each day. And here we are, less than 4 months after such a major surgery, with Mike hoping to run the whole way from Portola Valley to the Ocean, about 20 miles! Because Max and I left the group at Skyline, at the time I'm writing this post, I don't know if Mike accomplished his goal but I can tell you that we left him in good company and he was in great shape running most of the 3 miles up to Skyline!

As Max had to be back home by 12:30 pm and I was technically in a running break, resting, we took left on Skyline and got on the Windy Hill trails. After starting the run in the fog down into the Valley, we were now above the cloud and the views were wonderful will all the emerging hills including Mount Diablo on the East side.

See a few more pictures in my Picasa album.

Clay was now leading the way and really picked up the pace on this trail he knows so well, living in Portola Valley himself. We had about 7 miles of running on the road up to Skyline and just above 7 miles to run back to the car, mostly on trails. This part of the loop reminded me of our monthly Saturday morning Windy Hill run which I used to do with Sophia, Brian, Charles, Mike, Chris, Greg, Craig, Ed, to name a few, and Pierre Tardif who still sends us the weekly email (I only do Rhus Ridge the weekends I'm not racing).

14 miles in perfect weather and trails in perfect conditions, I hope the running gods will forgive me for this temptation to run during my official yearly break. I was actually going to blog about an article Agnès and Greg liked in the November 2011 issue of Competitor, in which Scott Jurek share his wisdom about taking a break every year and the benefits, both physical and mental. I couldn't find the article on line ("Don't Run, Gain Weight, Hang out - You will be a better runner, seriously") but I had heard this tip from Scott earlier and you can read more from it in this post: Gimme A Break!

Speaking of hanging out, I attended a private projection of Unbreakable -The Western States 100 this week and I highly recommend watching this epic recount of the front competition at Western States 2010 (Geoff Roes, Anton Krupicka, Killian Jornet and Hal Koerner). And, while 99% of the movie is about these 4 amazing champions, plus great personal insights from Western States 100 founder, Gordy Ainsleigh. An inspirational and must-see DVD for any trail ultra runner, either experienced or aspiring, and an amazing technical fate from filmmaker JB Benna and his crew.

Now, back to the title, Santa dropped quite a few... boxes to my house and he must have great hopes for my 2012 running season! Cool pairs of shoes from Brooks (a special web edition of the super cool blue Green Silence and the newest PureGrit, the trail model of the PureProject product line). I also ordered a few books and DVDs at ZombieRunner and 3 boxes of Vespa CV-25 which should give me enough energy for a while.

Well, we are already discussing our Quicksilver Ultra Running Team plans for 2012 and it seems like I'll be running 5 ultras in a row in April-May, including a few races outside of the Grand Prix so I'll definitely need the Vespa boost indeed. Stay tuned, I'll share more in January after I have the opportunity to let you know about my New Year's Eve run and reflect back on the 2011 season.

In the meantime, have a great New Year celebration and all the best for 2012, on the trails, on the road, at work or at home! Talk to you next year then!

PS: while Max and I were running, Alex was on the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail which he completed with his friend Jeannie in 11 hours (a 28 mile-hike)! Quite a memorable and healthy Boxing Day this year... ;-)

PS-2: just talked to Mike who made it to the Beach, safely, phew! Great story to share with your cardiologist, Mike and inspirational for his other patients, congratulations!

5,000,000 meters: done!

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:20:00 +0000

Two things to make up for the lack of posting last weekend. 1. The passage of another milestone and first for me with 5,000 kilometers logged year to date and 2. an tribute to the trees bordering my neighborhood running loop.

1. 5,000,000-meter milestone

3 years ago, I put my name in one of the challenges posted in the UltraFondus forum. UltraFondus (which can be translated literally with "fans of ultra" in a sense of being mad or crazy about our sport) is both a super sleek and professional magazine about ultra and a community, mostly French-speaking and France-based. Several unofficial challenges are proposed such as 5 million meters of running in one year, 100 thousand meters of cumulative elevation in one year, or 1 hour/day of running. In 2008, I reached a peak in my running log with 4,560 km that year (2,834 miles). This year, I noticed that, by the end of June, I was averaging 63 miles per week which was right on target for 5 million meters for the year and decided to keep monitoring this KPI (Key Performance Indicator, something we use in business to mean a specific metric or number related to performance). The more we were progressing through Summer, and with the preparation for my yearly 100-miler in particular, the crisper the achievement of the goal became. However, I must admit that, certain weeks, keeping the 62-mile/week average was too much of a constraint and pressure, so much that I told Agnès I promised myself not to pout this goal on my list in 2012.

Anyway, last Sunday, I did pass the 3,100-mile mark and I'm actually at 5,087 km this Saturday, enough to take a few weeks off before my 12-hour race on December 31! From noon to midnight at the Crissy Field in San Francisco (Coastal Trail Runs' New Year's One Day)! Yes, while almost everybody else speaks about the end of the 2011 season, I still plan on adding a 18th race to my log on the very last day of the year, and at least 100 kilometers to reach 5,200 km in 2011, that is the symbolic weekly mileage of 100 km or 62 mile/week.

I've never ran that much in a single year and that probably explains why I also became stronger as I also managed to increase my mileage while increasing the average speed at the same (all these miles at an average of 8:01 minute/mile) as you can see on the following chart (kilometers on the left scale, min/mile on the right one):

Again, what a year 2011 has been so far and, with this late race on December 31, my yearly assessment will have to wait for January...

2. Fall in Cupertino: a tribute to our local trees

All these years, I thought that we really didn't have much of a Fall in the Bay Area, that this was a big differentiator with the East Coast and New England in particular. However, and it was time as we are really getting close to the Winter now, I was amazed to see such a variety of colors in the many trees planted on my neighborhood 3.1-mile loop. Tall, mid-size or small trees, conifers or leafy, lemon, orange, apple, apricot, plum, cherry trees, straight or convoluted trunks, decorative or even decorated trees, light and dark green, brown, yellow or red foliage, local or foreign species, oak, maple, birch, cypress, pine, several types of palm trees and cactus, too many species to identify and name them all! A picture is word a thousand words so here is a collage to provide you with an overview of this variety, in one shot. And you can see more in my Picasa album (76 pictures!).

So, too many species to name one by one, yet a special mention to the ginkgo, my favorite one for several reasons. First because that's the favorite tree of my parents and my Mom in particular. With my 5 siblings, we offered one to them when we moved to a new house near Tours in France in 1976 but it never grew as well as the many ginkgo trees we have in Cupertino. The shape of the leaves, their softness and tenderness, the nice green of the foliage in the Spring and the way it turns to a flamboyant yellow in the Fall, here are some of the characteristics which make this specie so special to us. And I could mention the therapeutic properties that our local Asian population must sink from this tree too.

Here you are with some musings about our rural neighborhood which has so many trees. I would not be surprised if we had one tree per inhabitant in Cupertino, another blessing of our area.

With that I'm ready to take 3 weeks off as my traditional yearly break and resume with a very long run on the 31st. To the risk of overwhelming you with numbers and statistics again, that's post number 51 this year, so I shall do one more to meet my other goal of blogging once a week! Stay tuned then, and very happy holidays to you all, whatever you are still logging miles or having a healthy rest too! So, the Brooks way, it time to say... Run (or Rest) Happy!!! ;-)

Silicon Valley Turkey Trot: back to (speed) work

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Pommier) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:21:00 +0000

After my blazing Last Chance 50-mile (I still have hard time fully realizing what happened... ;-), I went straight back to work with a 10-hour work day on Sunday to finalize a proposal for Saudi Arabia. I was able to blog about the race, late in the night and, after a 3.5-hour sleep, got swamped into another busy week at work, hence missing last weekend's blog (I'm trying to skip to a weekly rhythm). No blogging but some running still and building up of some speed. I actually ran every day after the race with an interesting progression of the average pace:

Sunday (post-race recovery run): 6 miles @ 8:44 (including 3 miles with Agnès!)
Monday (legs still quite sore): 6 miles @ 8:06
Tuesday: 9 miles @ 7:03
Wednesday: 12 miles @ 6:45
Thursday: 6 miles including 3 of speed work with Bob (400s in 82 to 75")
Friday: 9 miles @ 6:28
Saturday: 29 hilly miles (Rancho, Black Mountain, Foothills Park in Palo Alto, Rhus Ridge) @ 10:17 (social run... see pictures of Charles, Mike and Chris ;-)
Sunday: 27 flat miles (Cupertino to Shoreline and back) @ 7:34
Monday: 9 miles @ 6:59
Tuesday: 6 miles at Mountain View High School track @ 6:55
Wednesday: rest day, a one-day "tapering" before the Turkey Trot.

That was probably too many miles to really prepare for a 10K but I'm also working on my 100K/week average for 2011, and I'm on track with 64.03 so far, with about 5 weeks to go! At the top of Black Mountain last Saturday:

Back to the Turkey Trot on this Thanksgiving morning. First, it has been a huge success from a participation and fund raising standpoints. Last year we were 11,000 to run or walk, this year the organizers had set the cap to 17,000 before extending it to 21,000 and the event filled up! 90% increase, this is a huge achievement and momentum, especially in the midst of an economic downturn, which is very timely as the raised funds will be used to provide hundreds of thousands of meals for people and families who struggle in this environment. Congratulations and thanks to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and in particular to Carl Guardino, their CEO. Not to mention that Carl spent all morning on the podium, cheering on the mic for all of us, all that after being seriously injured in a car accident a few days ago (broken leg and hip). What an example of commitment and service! Here he is, interviewing the Elite 5K winner:

For me, it was my 38th 10K race since I arrived in the Bay Area 13 years ago, out of 194 races. And 17th race this year with 13 ultra marathons. As much as I like the speed and format of these shorter events, road racing isn't my specialty or focus anymore, but I like the variety that it brings in my year-long running season.

The start was delayed and we had about 10 minutes of wait as it started drizzling. Thankfully, the rain stopped before we even reached the first mile mark. After a few hundreds yards I was probably in 20th despite a 5:20 pace. My breathing was fine but I couldn't get my stride longer or faster, yet was able to maintain a 5:27 pace for the first two miles and passed a few runners in the 3rd and 4th mile. There were still about 6 very fast runners ahead. Right after the mile 4 mark, the course had an out and back on the right on Park Avenue. As I was approaching the turn, I saw one runner going right first, then quickly back on the course as we had to take left. He was with rising star Jose Pina Jr, in the lead of this fast race at only 14!

At this point, the other leaders were not to be seen in the out and back and I figured out that they had taken the wrong turn and would therefore be disqualified for not running the whole distance. Indeed, from my Garmin GPS track on SportsTrack, the out and back was exactly 0.5 mile (4:23-4:73) and it took me 2:52 to complete it. I could close some gap with the runner ahead of me, Jeremy Judge, but not much with Jose. I passed Jeremy before the 6-mile mark (Jeremy gave me a nice "good job" which I thought was very ) and he stayed close behind but I out sprinted him eventually in the last hundreds yards, crossing the finish line in 35:20. Not quite the 34 minutes I was looking for but not bad given the circumstances. With the snafu of the leaders, I expected Jose to have taken 2nd and me, 3rd. That was at 8:35, keep reading...

At this point, I jogged back to my car to grab my Brooks Jacket and my camera, then "swam against the current" of the 5K runners, looking for Agnès and Greg. They were wearing the superb and fancy red tech race tshirt, as several thousands of other runner were, so it required a lot of attention not to miss them. I finally found them, a quarter mile from the finish, they were having great fun!

We then gathered in the finish area and, in the middle of such a crowd, were able to see a few other friends (Luc and his family, Greg, Adona, Pierre-Yves and Adrienne, ...).

Most of the crowd then dissolved with participants joining their own Thanksgiving celebrations. Last year, I drove back home and came back with Agnes for the award ceremony (3 hours after the finish of the 10K...), this year I decided to stay to watch the elite races. I participated in that race and PA USATF 5K championship 2 years ago (16:34), but it's quite humbling to run with guys so fast (13 minutes...) and 20-25 years younger...

The elite women 5K started at 10am and I was amazed how a pack of about 10 gals was still together after 2 laps (out of 4). It did split in the 3rd lap but 14 runners finished in the same minute, from the winning time of 16:02 to 16:52! The top 3 were: Jackie Areson from Oregon (of course! ;-), Aziza Aliyu from Ethiopia and Kellyn Johnson from Arizona.

Moving to the men, also a very impressive pack of runners leading for a couple of laps and a record of 9 runners under 14 minutes. I had seen Alan Webb setting a course record last year and saw his course record broken this morning by an Australian runner with an amazing 13:33!

Top 3 were: David McNeill of Australia (13:33), Stephen Sambu of Kenya (13:37) and Diego Estrada of Arizona. That's respectively 4:22, 4:23 and 4:24 min/mile pace, this is speed! And, back to the title of this post, certainly a lot of work to get there...

Finally, around 11:45 and in the rain this time, it was time for a chaotic and expedited award ceremony. Quite some confusion on the 10K results with 2 of the top runners claiming that they were send the wrong way by race volunteers so were entitled the wins despite having run a much shorter distance. I went from 3rd down to 4th overall and 6th in the results published tonight on Race Central. Oh well, this is a fund raising event, not an official competition (the big guns were on the Elite races); it is a time for grace and thanksgiving, and I'm definitely thankful for such an amazing year, especially with my running, and for my supportive family and friends. Not to forget the organizers, sponsors and all the volunteers who made this fun run possible and such a huge success to support our local communities!

Hope to be in town to run this race again next year, and join such a joyful and healthy crowd!

PS: you can find a few pictures of the event in my Picasa album.