One of my favorite movies in high school was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Even though that movie is almost forty years old, it still stands the test of time, even today. It's a true classic coming-of-age comedy film. One of the most memorable lines in the movie is in the beginning when Ferris says to the camera "life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it". He's right. Life has been moving pretty fast for me lately. Between being a dad, being a husband, and balancing a career with my own interests and taking care of myself, things have been pretty on the go. I would have loved to have written about my experience at the Newport Coast 50K sooner, but life happens. Better to do it five weeks later than never, I suppose.
There is always a story to tell after an ultramarathon, and this one was no exception. In fact, the experience was a first for me. This was the first race I ever participated in that was cancelled after it was already underway. I was climbing slowly up a hill along a wide trail in Crystal Cove State Park on race day. The next aid station was only about a quarter of a mile away. The heat had been quite brutal, so I was looking forward sitting down for a few minutes and regrouping at the check point before tackling the last ten miles to the finish line. When the aid station eventually came into view at the crest of the hill, a volunteer saw me approaching and ran down the trail towards me. "How's it going dude?" I called out as I waved. "Pretty good" he responded. "But, I got something to tell you" he continued. "And you're looking pretty fresh, so this might be bad news for you". I was confused. "What's up?" I asked. "The race has been cancelled" he responded with a coy smile. I burst into sudden fit of laughter. "Are you messing with me man?" I asked. He laughed too, but said that he was dead serious. I was caught off guard for a second, but considering the events of the day that I had experienced so far, it made sense why the race director made the difficult decision to call off the remainder of the event.
I knew even before I arrived that morning that it was going to be a warm day. It was mid-May in Southern California, so that wasn't super surprising. Heat has knocked me on my ass pretty hard during some of my past ultras. Who could forget my epic DNF at the Cool Moon 50-miler last year when I was lying down in the grass on the trailside, puking, while heat engulfed me? I was hoping today wouldn't turn out like that. A 50K is still a long distance, but I remained hopeful that I could grind my way through it despite the high temperatures, which were forecasted to be in the low eighties. I followed the crowd of runners on foot down the road from my car to the Lower Moro Parking Lot where the start line was. On my way there, I consumed some last minute electrolyte tablets to mitigate any cramping and dehydration. The race got off to a pretty good start at 7:00 AM on the dot. We had a powerful and uplifting send off from the race announcer, Andrea, a local running coach who is one of the founding members of the local kids running program, WeROCK. As we made our way up into the hills of Crystal Cove, the views of the beach and the ocean appeared in front of us as we headed to the first aid station. I could see the waves crashing on shore at the beach right across the street from the race start line several hundred feet below. Although the view was spectacular, the temperature was beginning to climb. I also learned ahead of time that this course was pretty exposed with very little shade. I was enjoying myself, but I wanted to get as far along the trail as I could before the real heat kicked in.
The plan was for Samantha and Aidan to come meet me in the finish area after the race, and the three of us would head to the beach together for a little while. Samantha has always been supportive of my ultrarunning, but she took a particularly strong interest in my participation in the Newport Coast 50K. She was born in Los Angeles, but when she was ten years old, her family moved to Irvine, where she attended middle school and high school. She knew Crystal Cove well, having spent lots of time at the beach and on these trails during her formative years and into her adult years. She thought it was especially cool that I was running a 50K on her stomping grounds, and her excitement was a nice energy that carried me along the way. I passed through the one somewhat shady spot of the course during a descent and ran past several tall mustard flower plants on single track trails. I was treated to some more beautiful ocean views, followed by some nice views of the canyons, and I climbed and descended for several miles along the rolling terrain.
When I eventually arrived at the aid station at the midway point of the race, I was delighted to discover that they had popsicles and ice bandanas. By then, the temperature was at least eighty degrees and I was drenched in sweat. I thanked the volunteers and headed out to take on the second half of the race. As the trail rolled on and the sun beat down, things started to get a little funky. I cheered for the oncoming runners who were behind me and on their way to the aid station, but most of them looked pretty wrecked. I was starting to feel a little wrecked myself from all the climbing and descending in the heat along the rolling hills. At one point an oncoming runner emerged over the crest of the hill. She was shouting into her cell phone and cursing out whoever was on the other end as she limped down the trail. Apparently she needed a change of shoes and some foot lube. Whoever was on the receiving end of that call was apparently responsible for supplying the items to her at the aid station. At some point before her ranting became audible, she must have learned that they weren't at the aid station like she expected them to be, much to her dismay. Emotions can run high during ultramarathons. I continued to pass more oncoming runners over the next couple of miles. Many of them were simply too exhausted and cooked from the sun to respond to my words of encouragement, other than giving a nod. When I arrived at the nineteen mile mark, I saw two helicopters circling above the course. That probably wasn't good news. My viewing of the helicopters was interrupted by a brutal leg cramp. It stayed with me for the next mile as I tried to shake it out.
As I climbed the hill to aid station at mile twenty-one, I knew I was going to have to stop and regroup. I felt as though I could still finish, but I needed to sit down, stretch out my leg cramps, and take in some cold liquid before I continued in this heat. That was the aid station where I was informed that the remainder of the race was cancelled. The volunteer explained that the intense heat was causing so much carnage along the course, the firefighters, paramedics, and medical staff who were onsite couldn't keep up. They were being stretched too thin, and scrambled to attend to the numerous runners who were suffering from heat exhaustion. I was told that at least two people needed to be airlifted off the course. The aid stations ran out of water and provisions for the first time in sixteen years, even after several runs to the grocery store. Unfortunately, we don't get to pick the weather on race day. Things can go pretty sideways when mother nature doesn't cooperate. The race director and staff made the tough decision to call the rest of the race off. That was the right move. It was better to go that route than to put the volunteers' and runners' safety in jeopardy. I can honestly say I wasn't particularly upset about that decision. In fact, I was kind of relieved. I felt like I could have kept going, but it would have been ugly and painful. We were routed down an alternate trail, which was a shortcut to the finish line. All 50K runners would instead get credit for completing the 25K race. The shortcut was about a mile from the finish line, so we covered twenty-two miles in total.
I called Samantha and told her the news so she and Aidan could head out to meet me. As I hobbled along the mostly downhill chute to the finish line, I chatted with other runners and inquired about how they felt about the race being cancelled. Some were indifferent about it, like me. Others were disappointed because it was supposed to be their first ultramarathon. I could understand their frustration. After I crossed the finish line and the dust settled, I rendezvoused with Samantha and Aidan. We spent the next couple of hours at the beach near Moro Canyon, just north of Emerald Bay. It was super nice. Since it was a hot day, the area was thriving and it was nice to have a family beach day. I later found out that the temperature on the race course that day was eighty-seven degrees. That's freaking hot when you're running on an exposed trail. It was unfortunate that the race was called off at mile twenty-one, but in my case, I didn't mind too much. I guess it's because I've been doing this for a while. There will be other opportunities to get my ass kicked on the trail in the heat. But on this day, I had a much better time getting twenty-two trail miles in, not being totally destroyed, and chasing Aidan around in the sand.
