East Coast vs. West Coast Virtual 50K: Racing Against My Phone

We're living in crazy times right now and I think we all know that.  The bottom line is no one knows anything about anything, and everything is changing every day.  The sooner we can all accept that, the better off we'll be as we progress through this period and slowly return to normalcy.  Despite all the sanctioned ultras I had signed up for in April, May, and June being cancelled, the innovative minds of some cool race directors have conceived the idea of doing virtual races.  What that means is the race is done solo by each participant anytime and anywhere they wish, as long as they are following the local social distancing rules.  The run must be recorded using Strava, Garmin, or some other tracking system and the data must be uploaded to ultrasignup.com to receive credit for finishing the race and getting a finisher's prize.  I loved the fact that the ultramarathon world was doing what they could to keep people's motivation and spirits up during hard times, so I decided to sign up for a few virtual ultras in hopes of capturing at least a small element of the magic of running an actual race.  The first of these races was a virtual 50K that I decided to do entirely on a road in the mountains.  It went a little something like this:

I hit the road at 2:00 in the morning and once I left the Bay Area, I drove through the towns of Manteca, Escalon, and Oakdale, before making the left turn in Oakdale onto highway 108 and heading up into the dark mountains towards Sierra Village.  I love the beach but the mountains are my true happy place.  After a busy couple of weeks, doing a virtual 50K in the mountains seemed like the perfect way to unwind.  As I drove through the main intersection of Jamestown, I was caught off guard by a guy standing alone in the dark on the side of the road.  He turned around and looked straight at me as I drove by, and I thought I saw him extend his arm with his thumb up, but I wasn't quite sure.  "Yeah right, like I'm really going to pick up a hitch hiker in this small ass town at 4:00 in the morning" I thought to myself as I chuckled.  "I'm not trying to get murdered out here".  As I drove up the dark winding road, I turned on my brights so I could detect the turns more in advance.  As I approached Mi Wuk Village, I dimmed them when I saw flashing red lights in the darkness up ahead.  It was a group of cyclists making their way up the twisting road.  I felt somewhat relieved realizing that I wasn't going to be completely alone out here in the dark.  It wasn't long before I arrived at the turnout off the road just outside of Sierra Village where I always park my car during visits.  It was pitch dark when I parked and shut off my headlights so I switched on my headlamp to navigate around my car as I made preparations for the journey ahead.  I try to take a minimalist approach to running and I don't like running with a pack, but similar to last time, I was going to be running a self-supported fifty-kilometer distance that would take several hours.  In sanctioned ultras I only run with two handheld water bottles that collectively hold a quart of liquid and I rely on aid stations every five or six miles as a source of food and refilling my water bottles.  But in this instance, I had no choice but to carry all the food and water that I would need on my back.

I shut my car door behind me as I stepped out into the dark and stretched.  The volume level of the door shutting startled me, and I was reminded of how quiet and peaceful it is out here in the mountains, which is precisely why I love coming out here.  This particular area of highway 108 consisted of one side of the road lined with pine trees and mountain wilderness, the other side presenting an exquisite view of the mountains on the opposite side of the canyon that rested below.  It was shortly before 5 AM so the pre-dawn sky was still filled with shining stars.  I threw my pack onto my back, switched on my flashlight, and turned on my headlamp to the flashing light setting.  I knew that I wouldn't be running in the dark for long, but I wanted to make myself noticeable to drivers, especially on this desolate mountain highway.  With my flashlight, blinking headlamp, and the blinking red light that I had attached to my pack, I figured I'd be pretty hard to miss.  Once my Strava was queued up, I began running along the dark highway up a small incline.  The route I was running was an out and back with rolling hills, but an overall net gain in elevation towards the turn around point.  My flashing headlamp lit up signs and trees along the road as I progressed forward.  My music of choice was Motley Crue's Theatre of Pain.  The tone of that album to me is perfect for a run in the mountain wilderness in the dark.  About halfway through the album the sky transitioned into a pale dawn and the sun soon began restoring the green color to the tops of the surrounding pine trees.  After running uphill for what felt like a while, I approached an overlook to my right where there was a curve in the road and a large turnout that offered a stunning view of the High Sierra.  Despite only being six and a half miles into my run, I decided to sit on a rock and enjoy the view for a few minutes while I ate some trail mix.  This was a popular spot for cars to pull over and admire the view, and as I approached, I noticed a car with a girl lying down in the passenger's seat.  The sun had now made it's way into the sky and was filling the distant mountains with vivid color.  I was startled when I heard a guy's voice behind me say "hey" in an authoritative tone.  I turned around and saw that he was not talking to me, but to his dog, a colorful Pit bull who seemed friendly and curious.  He and the pup got into the car where the girl was lying down and continued along the road.  I did the same a few minutes later.  As I progressed further along the highway, I ran along the shoulder of the road and, when possible, off to the side of the shoulder, which was composed of packed down dirt, gravel, and bristles that had fallen from the pine trees lining the road.  This softer surface provided more cushioning, so I ran there as often as I could.  I decided I was ready for music again, so I put on the New York Dolls.  This choice was fitting because after all, this race was called the East Coast vs. West Coast Virtual Race.  Runners could complete their distance anytime throughout the month of May, and it was intended to be a friendly rivalry race (at least in my mind) for which coast could log the most miles.  Of course I was representing California, but I love the East Coast.  I love New York City and thought about how much I wanted to visit again once COVID clears up.  I've been there a couple of times and I love how much culture, character, and personality the city has.  I don't give a damn what people say about New Yorkers.  They are cool people.  In my experience, if they insult you that means they like you.  And if you insult them back, it's much more fun than taking it personally.  I look forward to the next time I can go there and eat delicious food at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, walk around the diverse neighborhoods, and visit local coffee shops and bars.  Of course, the East Coast also includes Boston, Philadelphia, D.C., and several towns in Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Georgia, all places that I'd love to visit eventually.  East Coast vibes drifted through my mind as I jogged along to Johnny Thunders' bluesy punk riffs and David Johansen's New York accented singing cranking in my headphones.

After the Dolls album finished, I decided to unplug for a while and just enjoy the peacefulness of the surroundings.  I passed through the small town of Cold Springs, which included a gas station, Mia's restaurant, and a ski and snowboard rental shop.  Other than that, the road had been lined with pine trees with the occasional meadow and vista appearing in an opening.  I had ridden my bike here a handful of times and driven along this stretch of road numerous times on my way to Dodge Ridge, so it felt pretty cool to be running for a change.  Even though it was still early in the morning, several cars were making their way along the mountain road, giving me plenty of room as they passed by.  A red pick-up track glided past me and made a left turn onto a road about a tenth of a mile up ahead.  As I approached, I saw the truck had parked.  The driver, a middle aged man, stepped out and walked towards the road as I passed by.  "How're you doing?" he called out.  "Good man, how are you?" I responded in a friendly, but somewhat skeptical manner.  "I'm good.  You live around here?" he asked.  Great.  This is what I was afraid of.  This guy had to have been either an off duty sheriff or an uptight local who didn't want visitors in his town during the shelter in place order.  I wasn't going to lie to the guy so I answered honestly.  "I don't.  I'm up here from the Bay Area".  I didn't think I was doing anything wrong by being out here, but I thought for sure I was about to get lectured by this guy.  Instead, he said "Ah, okay, yeah we're from the central valley.  We saw you running and thought you lived around here and wondered if you could tell us how to get to Beardsley Lake".  I laughed in relief and explained that the only lake I knew in the area was Pinecrest Lake, so unfortunately I wouldn't be able to help.  The guy seemed friendly and said thanks anyways before jumping back into his truck and continuing down the road.  As more miles were covered, I approached the turnoff in Pinecrest that led to the Dodge Ridge Ski Area and Pinecrest lake.  I ran down the road past several cabins and campgrounds for as long as I could until I was forced to turn around by a barricade in the road just before reaching Pinecrest Lake.  Strava indicated that I had run just over a half marathon distance, so I decided to go back the way I came, then click off an additional 4.6 miles when I reached my car back in Sierra Village.  What concerned me though, was my phone had dropped from ninety percent battery power when I began running to forty percent.  I put my phone on airplane mode when I took a break at the overlook at six and a half miles, so I hoped that my battery would last.  In order to receive credit for the virtual race, I had to submit my Strava recording to ultrasignup.com.  It would have been a big letdown if my phone had died while trying to complete the fifty-kilometer distance.

As I headed down the road back towards my car, my concern regarding my draining phone battery heightened.  Despite being on airplane mode, the percentage continued to drop at a steady rate.  Doing the math in my head, I established that my phone was either going to be depleted all the way down to less than five percent by the time I finished, or it was going to die.  At times I almost felt like I had to pick up the pace and race against my phone battery, so to speak.  The possibility of my phone dying continued to irk me for a few more miles until I finally came up with a solution;  I would be approaching my car at around 26.4 miles and surely my battery would last that long, even if it was running low.  I decided that at that point, I would take a ten minute break to charge my phone, drink some water, and regroup.  Once my phone had a little more juice, I would hammer out those last 4.6 miles and complete the distance.  Realizing that I now had an answer, my anxiety melted away and I ran with a more carefree attitude.  I felt like listening to some music again, so I took out my iPod and put in my headphones.   I was in the mood for some EDM, so I put on Calvin Harris.  The rhythmic songs carried me along pleasantly as I enjoyed the views that I saw on the way to Pinecrest for a second time.  Cars continued sporadically passing me on both sides of the road, and I would occasionally nod at the occupants of oncoming vehicles.  I thought more about the East Coast vs. West Coast context of the virtual race and thought about where New Yorkers would be running as an equivalent to where I was.  Maybe they would run in the Adirondacks or even through the city.  Either way, I was excited to be representing the West Coast and was thankful for my beautiful surroundings.  "California!" I cheered quietly to myself as I ran along.  When I finally arrived back at my car, I had covered 26.4 miles as expected, and I immediately opened the door, sat down, stretched my legs, and plugged in my phone.  I was tired, but not too sore, I had peed a few times which meant I was staying hydrated and the temperature had been just right.  As I sat there sipping from a plastic water bottle, I pondered the idea of downgrading to the virtual marathon instead of the 50K.  I had already covered that distance anyway, so what was the harm in doing that?  But then I remembered that unless I was having a major off day, which I wasn't, I needed to stick my what I originally had planned.  Because you're on your own during a virtual race, it can be extremely tempting to quit because you feel exhausted or sore.  There's nothing there to make you feel like you need to keep going.  No other runners, no volunteers, no finish line, etc.  There's no pressure and quitting doesn't consume you with the same level of guilt as a sanctioned race would.  My phone was now at twenty-three percent, which I knew would last the final 4.6 miles.  It was time to get this bad boy done.  The final stretch began with an uphill climb.  I was exhausted so rather than running, I slowed to a brisk walk.  Moving at a slower pace, the temptation to stop lingered in my head.  But I had no excuses.  I was no longer racing against my phone battery, I wasn't in excruciating pain, and I knew I was fully capable of going the remaining distance.  The question was did I want to.  My mental toughness was now being put to the test.  Those last few miles are always the toughest, psychologically.  I finally crested the hill and after running down the road for a few more minutes, I checked my phone.  To my delight, I only had a tenth of a mile before I needed to turn around to complete the full distance by the time I returned to my car once again.  When I eventually turned around and began the final 2.3 mile stretch, I kicked things into overdrive and ran harder than I had all day, knowing that I was almost done.  I returned to my car with 30.9 miles on my Strava.  "Are you kidding me?!" I thought.  I ran as fast as I could for perhaps another hundred yards down the road.  When Strava finally hit thirty-one miles, the 50K distance, I threw my fist in the air and let out a celebratory cheer.  Once I stumbled back to my car I clicked "finish" so my data could be uploaded.  Even though my phone was now at twelve percent, my plan worked and I was thankful that the run uploaded on Strava successfully so I could officially get credit for the race, meaning they would send me a finishers prize and a shirt.  Funny enough, I realized afterwards that the virtual race only offered the 50K, half marathon, and 10K option, not the marathon, so it was all or nothing anyway.  After spending a few minutes regrouping and putting myself back together, I promptly hit the road for the two-and-a-half hour drive back to the Bay Area.  As I drove along sipping from a huge bottle of Gatorade that I bought at a gas station in Escalon, I reveled in a beautiful morning road run in the mountains.  It had been a great day, but I was wiped out.  I couldn't wait get back home and knock out for a couple of hours, take a shower, and eat a nice filling meal.

Hitting the Wall...Badly

2018 Minnesota Voyageur 50-Miler

When most people think of Minnesota, warm weather is not the first thing that comes to mind.  But on this day in late July the temperature in the Duluth area was around eighty degrees Fahrenheit, about average for that time of year.  I knew ahead of time what the temperature was going to be like and that there was a chance of rain.  What I failed to take into account was that fact that Minnesota summers are more humid than the the dry summers I was used to in California.  So, because I didn't think about this ahead of time, of course I didn't start eating salty snacks and swallowing salt tablets until after I cramped up so badly that I was on all fours, crawling backwards down a hill, thirty-eight miles into the Minnesota Voyageur.  Once I'd survived this section of the race, I gobbled down pickles, chips, and potatoes dipped in salt at the aid stations and drank often which seemed to help mitigate the cramping a little.  I chugged along through a steady downpour for the next few miles, and by the time I crossed the swinging bridge in Jay Cooke State Park, the sun had come back out.  With only three miles left to go, I thought the worst was behind me and I was home free.  Dream on, sucker.  The course was out and back, and immediately after crossing the bridge I remembered that the first two and-a-half miles of the trail, which I was now retracing, had a lot of roots, rocks, and loose dirt.  The rain had essentially turned that section of the trail into a two-and-a-half mile mud puddle.  At one point, I ran down a dip that was about seven or eight feet down and back up.  I lost my balance on the slippery terrain during my descent, and came crashing down, ass first, into the mud in the pit of this trough.  The fall immediately triggered another round of leg cramps and I was once again in a world of hurt.  I tried to get up but it only made the cramps more intense.  I didn't know what to do so I just laid there.  I must have looked pathetic lying there in the mud not being able to get up.  I didn't know how the hell I was going to be able to finish the last mile-and-a-half of this race.  I couldn't even move, and I still had to slide through another mile of this muddy mess before the course left the trail and followed a paved bike path to the finish line for the last half mile.  After a couple of minutes I came to my senses and started thinking more rationally.  "They're just leg cramps" I said.  "It's not like someone broke your legs with a baseball bat".  There was no way this race was going to end with me laying in the mud and having the letters "DNF" (did not finish) next to my name in the results because of some cramping.  I was better than that.  I mustered what energy I had left and pushed myself off the ground and onto my feet with my arms.  I continued on the muddy trail with reserve, slowing my pace, grabbing onto tree branches to keep from slipping, and occasionally stretching my legs to ease the cramping.  Relief and extreme elation kicked in when the pavement emerged.  I hobbled down the bike path and finally made a right turn onto a residential street, where I saw the finish line at Carlton High School at the end of the block.  As I got closer I could see my dad and sister, who had come out from Michigan, on the sidewalk cheering for me.  After another hundred yards of hobbling, the Minnesota Voyageur was finally in the books.   


2019 Tahoe Rim Trail 100-Miler

It was approaching 3:00 AM as I climbed wearily up the dark trail towards the Bull Wheel aid station.  I was going on twenty-five hours without sleep and had covered seventy-two miles of the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, my first 100-miler.  Within the last hour or so, exhaustion had set in pretty hard.  After ten minutes of sitting in a camping chair at the aid station unable to slip into unconsciousness, I stood up, thanked the volunteers, and disappeared down the trail into the night.  It was a beautiful, cloudless night in Tahoe, and the moon shined brightly overhead.  But everything was beginning to look the same to me.  The sky, the stars, the trail, the distant mountains, the trees, it all looked like one blur.  Then bits of songs and movie scenes began playing in my head and my focus deteriorated.  I was plodding along, unaware of my surroundings, caught up in the dream like state that I was now going through.  Then things got real very quickly and I stopped dead in my tracks.  What I saw, hanging from a branch right in the middle of the trail about twenty feet ahead, was a shining bright orange ribbon, one of many that had been marking the course every half mile or so.  You would think this would be a good thing because it meant that I was on course, but the problem was I had already passed by this ribbon thirty minutes prior.  There were no forks or turns on this section of the trail, so this could only mean one thing; I somehow got turned around and I had been backtracking for who knows how long.  I was in trouble.  How far back had I gone?  And how come I hadn't seen any other runners for so long?  Something was very wrong.  I began walking forward very slowly, almost as if I were afraid to approach the ribbon.  After passing by, I continued walking for about another minute or so, trying to figure out what I should do.  I would have liked to have waited for another runner to come by so I could ask them which way I was supposed to go, but there were none to be found.  I felt helpless and I finally decided to just stop.  Then I saw something in the distance that instantly caught my attention; lights.  Lights from other runners.  And they were moving away from me.  I started chasing them down, running in their direction.  I slowly began to realize that I had not gotten turned around at all.  I was going in the right direction all along, but the lack of sleep and fatigue had brewed up a storm of hallucinations and temporary panic.  I looked up and the sky was once again filled with stars, the moon cast a bright glow on the trail, and the beauty of a gorgeous night in the mountains was again upon me.  My senses were firing and I was more alert as I came over the top of the hill and looked on at the lights of Incline Village resting below in the distance.  There would be more battles fought from that point to the finish line, but in that moment, I reveled in my victory in the hallucination battle as I began running down the winding trail towards Diamond Peak. "Twenty-three more miles to go" I said.

2020 St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra 38-Miler

It was an absolutely stellar night in the Minnesota wilderness.  The only sound to be heard was my sled being pulled through the snow behind me, and I was enjoying the tranquility of the midnight winter air as the snow glistened in the moonlight.  Lights emerged in the distance and I suspected this was likely the checkpoint at mile twenty-two of the St. Croix Winter Ultra, where I would be required to bivy down as part two of our winter survival skills testing. Part one was at the beginning of the race where we needed to show that we knew how to boil snow for drinking water using a camping stove.  After passing the bivy test, I got the okay from a volunteer and prepared to head back out onto the course.  Everything seemed to be going pretty well and I was feeling confident.  Until I heard a volunteer say that the temperature was seven degrees below zero Fahrenheit.  I let out a burst of nervous laughter.  "Are you shitting me?" I asked.  "Nope, my car thermometer said minus seven.  You guys are badasses!" Two miles down the trail I took out my phone to take a selfie, just for the fun of it.  When I looked at the picture afterwards I was shocked and, quite frankly, a little terrified.  In the movie Goodfellas, after the Lucchese Crime Family robs Lufthansa Airport, the mastermind behind the robbery, Jimmy Conway (played by Robert DeNiro) essentially murders everyone who participated in the robbery for fear of them becoming rats and turning him in to authorities.  There's a scene where the police find Frankie Carbone, one of the robbers, dead in a meat truck, frozen solid.  That's pretty much exactly what I looked like in this picture, except I was smiling.  Since I had been outside in the cold for several hours and generating a lot of body heat, the warmth that my body was giving off had crystalized with the frigid cold air and now a layer of frost covered my beanie, my eyebrows, my eyelashes, the buff I was wearing around my neck, and the collar of my jacket.  Reality had set in.  It was seven below zero and I was out here in wilderness at 1:00 in the morning on a winter night in rural Minnesota.  During the pre-race briefing, the race director advised us that we would likely be "questioning our life choices" around the time that we reached the check point.  He wasn't kidding.  Suddenly, this didn't feel fun anymore.  It felt scary.  What the hell was I doing out here? If anything were to happen to me out here it could potentially be hours before I reached warmth and safety.  I would have to wait until someone found me, then the only way I could be transported to safety was by snowmobile.  I decided to stop running and walk so I could get my head straight.  After a few minutes I was able to wrap my mind around this whole scenario, and  I reminded myself that panicking in any situation in life, especially in the middle of an ultra, is only going to make things worse.  "This is exactly why we were required to bring winter survival gear" I told myself.  "In case something goes wrong".  I also reminded myself that I was feeling good, physically.  In fact, despite the frigid sub zero temperature, I was wearing just enough layers to feel comfortable, and I was neither hot nor cold.  It was all in my head.  It can be easy to break yourself down psychologically during an ultra, and I couldn't let that happen.  I kept telling myself that I was fine, and eventually I just started laughing out loud about how insane this was.  And just like that, it was onward and upward another fourteen miles to the finish line.