Diez Vista 50K: You've got hail!

Alarm clock woke me up at 5:00am, I get up and immediately regret it. Damn, this cold which is now turning into a flu is not going away. I had the runs the night before I was supposed to go for my big run. Showered, taped, lubed, dressed up in what is now my customary race attire: 2007 KK shirt, arm warmers, blue shorts with the big pockets, gloves and my brand mostly new, never been tested on technical trail, Montrail Streaks with my Dirty Girl Gaiters - codename: Burnout.

Alarm clock woke me up at 5:00am, I get up and immediately regret it. Damn, this cold which is now turning into a flu is not going away. I had the runs the night before I was supposed to go for my big run. Showered, taped, lubed, dressed up in what is now my customary race attire: 2007 KK shirt, arm warmers, blue shorts with the big pockets, gloves and my brand mostly new, never been tested on technical trail, Montrail Streaks with my Dirty Girl Gaiters - codename: Burnout.

Got to the start area at White Pines beach and narrowly missed sideswiping my car on the concrete divider. Made it to the parking area without further incident, picked up my race bib #85, got my black hoodie (yes!) and headed out to the nearest toilet for some unfinished business. Since everything came out okay, headed back to the car and said hi to my running buddies, Ed, Jess and Michelle, settled back into my car for a quick nap before the trail briefing.

Funny thing about this race, if you never trained on the course or were familiar with the area, you were essentially going in blind. The race details are fairly basic: 50km of mostly good trail, some hills, some flat, some mud, some rocks. That's it. No maps, no elevation chart, no pictures of the course. If I was going to add anything to the description, it would be: some roots. Some exposed, slippery, spiderwebbed, ankle twisting, toe stubbing roots.

My race strategy was to powerwalk all the single track hills, backwards walk the wider fireroad hills, and run the flats and downhills. My nutrition and hydration consisted of two flasks filled with 6 Gu's each, two flasks of water with Elite drops and a pro-bar in a baggie in each pocket for a grand total of 2000 cal and I pre-hydrated with a litre of Nuun. I'm also not wearing a watch. I don't want to be under any pressure which is kind of stupid considering I want to PR this race, but how will I know if I'm reaching my goal if I don't know what the total time is? Oh well, I'll just have to race by feel.

Hopped out of the car and walked to the trail briefing. The RD Paul Slaymaker confirmed that this year's start was like last year. Instead of going up the road, past Camp Howdy, thru the trail past the hatchery and going over the floating bridge, we'd be running down to the beach, looping the other side of Lake Sasamat and up to the powerlines towards the DV ridge. Also, since the floating bridge has still not been repaired at Buntzen Lake, the 3rd aid station and where we'd be accessing our drop bag was at the Equestrian parking lot, thus making it the 3rd and 4th aid station. Briefing over, got my fuel belt and noticed it was starting to rain. Lovely. Said hi to all the CFA's, the Fools were out in full force, somewhat fresh after Coyote 2 Moon two weeks ago. 3...2...1...Let's go!

As we were making our way down to the beach, I heard one of my Saturday trail group say, "So all this time, we were running the long way for nothing?" It's not for nothing. Okay, we ran more trail than was actually required. You should be stronger now and appreciate that we have more energy and will be less fatigued before the real fun begins. Speaking of which, pop out of the trail, cross the road and up we go towards DV. I immediately start walking, paying no attention to those who are running so early in the run. Noted that all the Fools have also started to walk but resume jogging upon reaching the crest. Like I said, no watch so I don't know how it long it took me to get up the initial two hills, but I made it to the forest section with seemingly little effort expended. I noticed right away that the Streaks which were so great when running on dry singletrack were really starting to slip and slide on the mud and the now slick rock faces. Whoops. Ran where it was bare, but walked when I had to. All too soon, made it to Aid Station 1, grapped a dixie cup of water and said thanks.

On my way up the switchbacks, the exertion of the hills was offset by the cold winds up top, followed shortly by wet snow! Since I was planning on powerwalking this section anyways, I maintained a careful deliberate pace through the ridge. Was passed a couple of times, but I didn't pay too much attention to it. Great views out on the vistas, but I wasn't here to enjoy them. Fairly uneventful descent, slipped a few times but nothing major. I was just scrambling up a rooty section when I heard, "I see that the best chinese buns are still on Baldwin." Sandra, who I've had a friendly rivalry with during training and on DV races, had finally caught me. She hadn't been training much but she rarely trains anyways and still kicks my fat ass so it was hard to have too much sympathy for her. Her strategy was to follow me and letting me pick the best line down the trail, so I had to do all the work for a change. So how is this different from all the other times, Sandra?

One section we were running down, we had to overtake two ladies, Sandra slipped past them, I made some comment on doing a suicide plunge, when my foot slipped (damn Streaks!) and I did exactly that. I braced my hands to take the impact and my left palm took all of the weight. I didn't break it, possible sprain. But no blood, so it doesn't count. I immediately started running downhill not giving my body time to react to the fall. Ran through the muddy sections to the fireroad, overtook Sandra as she was busy chowing down, didn't see her again till the finish. Here I noticed the advantages of the Streak from this point on. They weigh about 4oz less than my Hardrocks and they were very responsive to the trail. Took the opportunity to eat actual food rather than slurp down some more Gu. Hit Aid Station 2, saw Enzo Federico look alike Don Prince take off and I follow suit without stopping by, much to the outrage of Aid Captain Jacquie. Hey, I feel good and I got all the calories I need.

Catch up to Don and another competitor who is astounded by all of the scenery on trail. Briefly overtake them and go over the suspension bridge. I do a quick assessment and all systems are functioning.normally. I stick to my race strategy, run the flats, walk the uphills. We hit a section of the trail where some obvious work has been down, one second, it's rocky singletrack, next second it's a bike path! Coming up the next hill, I catch Sean who had initially passed me on the ridge and ask how he's doing, knowing that he's had problems with his Achilles. He was doing fine for his first ultra. Ran down some more "bikepath" and come out to Pumphouse Road. Take some more gel and start jogging. Come up to a hill and it's time for some backwards climbing. As I alluded to in my last report, I go backward to save my quads for all the downhills. It works for me and I'm not going to change, no matter how weird it looks. Go past the floating bridge, up towarde the entrance to Buntzen Lake and past the junction to Eagle ridge down to the Aid Station 3. It's here that I catch my first Fool, John Machray. He tells me about how he ran into an aid station at C2M wearing only a tube sock, there's an image that you really wanted to know about.... Heading down, we saw Tim and Ellie heading up.

Got my drop bag, kept my arm warmers, pulled on my new CFA shirt, drank a can of young coconut juice, took a flask of flat Pepsi and headed out. As I was leaving, I spied another CFA with his new CFA shirt. Ran to the trail on the East side of Buntzen Lake, more of the same old, same old: walk up, run down. Don was with me at this point, we hit the North Beach and turn on Powerhouse towards Academy. I do the backwards hill thing when I can but am settling into a more aggressive powerwalk now. Overtake a group of three guys which included Steve Zubick on the Academy trail. Donna Mazurkewich takes advantage of my backwards climb and motors past me. Head down towards Aid Station 4, grab some M&M's (my first food from any aid station) and refill a water flask, dump one gel bottle and balance out my fuel belt. Head up towards Eagle Ridge, say hi to David at the junction and make my way up the long switchbacks using RFM all the way up.

I passed Donna who commented that I'm not going backwards anymore. Make my way past the wooden bridge and into the trail, overtake Ken Wong and another Ironman triathelte. Get over to the Powerline trail but not before getting out of the way of Penny Plamondon who told me to enjoy my race, and I was, really. Ran some more downhill, still really impressed with the protection I was getting from my Streaks. Legs, especially the quads were starting to get heavy, so I switched to powerwalking. Passed Pete Zubick and Ron Adams, said hi to Chad Hyson as he was coming down the rocky trail. I had Dave Whitworth in sight, who was running without the sling so I guess he was feeling better. Weather was great, it was cool but not cold, not raining at all. This was about to change. Making our way down to Aid Station 5, I felt what I thought was the first raindrop, except it felt a lot harder. Uh-oh. Hail storm was coming down and it was a brief stop to get some more water and M&M's. Angie and Dave were very impressed that I was here so quickly. I thanked them for their support and headed back up the hill. I would've stayed longer but it was getting cold. One nice thing about the hail. It wasn't wet, or I would've been soaked and shivering. With renewed purpose I make my way back towards the junction. I spot Michelle and let her know that her hubby was waiting for her, but was starting to turn grey. About 5 minutes later (I think it was 5) I see Sandra running down as I was going up. Sandra said that I might encounter some hail. I replied that she might face similar conditions. Actually it didn't hail anymore, but the accumulated ice pellets melted and made it a sloppier trail. Ian, who only ran Chuckanut three weeks ago was powering up as I was motoring down.

I spot a line of ladies coming up the hill as I'm closing in. Groups of 4 and 2 are chugging up the hill, finally I see Tammy as she makes it out of the woods and sarcastically remarks how glad she was, taking off her jacket as it started to rain. Hoping to get Tammy out of her funk, I told her to "Suck it up, Princess." as I headed down. For some reason upon entering a forest section after a rocky trail section, my eyes seem to glaze over and I feel like I'm running through a fog. I shook it off as best I could and concentrated on a strong downhill pace. I was continually surprised on how well I was doing, and all too soon I was back at the junction where a barely recognizable Todd Ulriksen was manning the junction.

Heading left, I make my way back down to Pumphouse Road, catch another runner (Christine Suter) on the downhill, get my picture taken by the Aid Station 6 captain Eric and am now switching to flat Pepsi for the last 8km. This section of the trail is aptly named the FU George, but it barely registers to me as I hike up this part. Close in on Richard who notes that I made up some good time on the trail as he was 2 km ahead of me on the Westwood Plateau section. I take nips off my gel and water and Pepsi flasks. Finally hit the trail back to Sasamat, run briefly before hitting the uphill, I can smell the barn, but lets stay on the plan, eh?

Hit the rocks and I'm now looking for telltale signs of dirt so I can follow the footsteps and avoid slipping. A fall at this stage of the game could be costly. Manage to catch Gail and see Gillles' bright yellow jacket at the same time. I wanted to see if I could bag another Fool before the day was done. As I'm flying down, I had this song in my head that was on repeat, so I decided to sing it out loud, Big & Rich: "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." Yep, a bald Chinese guy singing a C&W song. Hit the downhill under powerline and in a replay of Chuckanut, Gilles sees me and notes on how strong I'm going to finish.

Make my way around the curve, bypass the gate, hit the stairs and try not to slip. Catch Gottfried for the first time ever, who's keeping pace, but he fades away. I can hear footsteps and I see a swatch of red, it's Ian Torgerson, also in his first 50k. We're both going hard and are still duking it out when we hit the dreaded 88 steps. He starts running up, but 5 steps before the top he slips and cramps up, I try to steady him and I cramp! Doh! He takes advantage of this momentary lapse and I waste valuable seconds trying to recover. I regroup and cross the street going all out to the last hill.

I briefly look at the clock: 6:36! I pr'd by 77 minutes from 2005, I pr'd by an hour from 2004!

I get congratulations from my peers at CFA, Runners Den. Whooo, I'm tired, I'm ecstatic, I'm...hungry. Start off with some chicken noodle soup, it's Campbells so no garlic. Forgoed the buns and just gobbled the patties. Got dressed into something more warmer like my DV hoodie, briefly spoke to Hal Koerner, last year's winner of Western States, who had made it up here from Ashland, OR. That was cool. Cheered the rest of the finishers in between times of stuffing my face. Never did go for a dip in the lake. Next time.

Full race results can be viewed here: http://www.diezvista.itgo.com/custom.html

Unfortunately there's only a little rest for the wicked, I have a 50 miler to complete on Sunday. I wonder if I'm going to be sick for that one too........