Coyote Hills 2022 - now with hills!

The Brazen Coyote Hills trail race is a very popular, fairly flat (for Brazen) race in Coyote Hills park. For me, it's the closest race Brazen puts on. Additionally, it has had some of the greatest shirt and medal designs. 

I really like this race.

Except for two things:

• Since the race is so popular, there are not nearly enough parking spaces. So you end up parking in a nearby business park and ride a shuttle bus to the start/finish area.
• The Half course is two laps. (The Half course does have a short but fun hill thing that the other distances don't have, which nearly makes up for the two lap thing.)

Then something odd happened between the last time this race happened in 2020 (2021 was a virtual-only race) - most of the office parks were emptied and fenced off; there was no place to park any cars for the 2022 race. The race was on the verge of being cancelled.

Then an alternative start/finish option became available.

The park had added a small campground last year, and in that campground, they added a couple parking lots. Additionally, there is a lot of parking on the road that leads to this campground area. So this alternative option meant we didn't have to deal with shuttle busses. (It also meant that the dozen or so RVs that were camping there woke up Saturday morning to see a thousand or so trail runners show up. Fun thing - one of them gave out free pancakes to the volunteers early in the morning! Just because they thought it was fun to do!)

Since the campground is in a different part of the park than the normal start/finish area, Brazen had to come up with a new course. Cool thing about the new course - the Half was no longer a two-lap course. You still had to do that long out-and-back along the shore that nearly takes you to the bridge toll booths twice, but that was it. 

Not quite as cool a thing was that the course now had some hills. Even the 5K now had a significant hill. And the significantest (I know, not a word) hill of them all was near the finish line for all the distances, and was the talk of the post-race buzz. 

Does anyone else get Lagoon Valley flashbacks while looking at this?

As you can tell by looking at the above handcrafted course map (blame me for this), there was one area that was a bit gnarly, congestion-wise (I labeled it the Bermuda Triangle, although it's really closer to being a Bermuda Fiveangle, but I'm pretty sure that's not a word). The congestion mostly affected the Half runners, and there were a couple of course marshals there to direct traffic.

The fun thing was that we were going to be using trails this race hadn't used before. I tried to put together a comparison of the classic course vs. this new course, with respect to distance and elevation gain (based on Brazen published figures), but was hampered by not having access to the classic course details. But I did have data from the times I'd run the different distances, so I think this is mostly correct:

5K: Length went from 3.4 to 3.1 miles; the elevation is a mystery since I don't know the classic course elevation gain, but the new course at 242 feet is definitely significantly harder. So, shorter but more climbing.

10K: Length went from 6.3 to 6.6 miles; the elevation went from 231 feet to 404 feet. So, the course got longer and had climbing added.

Half: Length stayed at 13.2 miles: the elevation went from 675 feet to 861 feet. A bit more climbing, but that was likely worth not having to do two laps.

The Canadian traditionally picks up the It's-Its ice cream for each race, but had a conflict on Friday, so I was pressed into service to be Ice Cream Boy. My reward was a prime parking space!

"Old Timey?"

I ran the 10K, and soon we were off.

Keep the hills on your left. For a bit.

It was sunny and beautifully green. We basically started by heading to the classic course's start/finish area.

That's the classic start/finish area - it was weird seeing it so non-festive.

The first aid station was to the side of the classic start/finish area, at about mile 1.45.

After this aid station, we turned right and headed on some trails not used by the classic course.

Hey! I remember this boardwalk!

One interesting bit - I didn't think we would end up on the boardwalk as on the classic course,  but we did, going the opposite direction of normal! After the boardwalk, we wandered around for a bit and soon ended up on a familiar trail headed to a familiar aid station.

The second aid station was at mile 3.85. From here we follow the bay shore for a bit. This trail along the bay, especially when it's so green out, is one of my favorites.

Surely we will be taking the lower trail. Right? (Spoiler alert: No. First climb coming up!)

Which way do I go? Oh. I see. It's gonna be like that, huh.

Enough with the familiar course - time to attack our first of two climbs. What made this climb a bit odd was that the Half runners also went up it. And down the other side, then back up it and back to here where they turned left and started on that lower trail. 10K runners did not come back this way. That made me happy.

Way to go Oel, not your real name!

The fun thing at this point (for the 10K runners) was that we got to see all the Half runners heading back up that hill. (If you look carefully, you can see a course marshal up ahead. I could have hugged him when he said 10K runners got to make a right and not go back up that hill.)

Any guesses whether we go up that hill or get to turn right and stay flat?

I knew there was one more climb to go. And I had a pretty good look at it. I could dream of going right and avoiding it, but that was not the way to the finish line, and I was ready for the finish line.

Traffic control at the Bermuda Fiveangle. Half runners would come from the right to head to the finish.

Look. These climbs were actually not that big of a deal, especially compared to those on a traditional Brazen course. But, they were climbs on a course that normally only has fairly mild rollers. It was about one mile to the finish, and my legs were ready to be done - this was my longest race since a 10K on New Years Day in 2020. 

Going uphill gives you time to look at the views. WAY down there you can see Half runners on the out-and-back they had to do before they were able to go up this hill and storm the finish.

Picture by Brazen volunteer, taking pictures of runners climbing that hill. I ran exactly long enough for the shutter to click, then I switched back to a slow shuffle.

Eventually, I got to the top of the hill and was able to shuffle a bit faster on the downhill. I felt a nice breeze as Htebazile (not her real name) flew past me.

The finish. Finally.

I was pretty gassed when I finished. My "A" goal was to be sub 90 minutes. I did not make that. My "B" goal was sub 100 minutes, and I made that, with a 96 minute time. So I was happy. And I was about to be happier.

I got an age group medal! Even better, it wasn't by default! (The funny thing is that I'm in the 60-64 age group. If I had been in the 65-69 or 70-74 age groups, I would not have gotten an age group medal - old guys can be surprisingly fast!)

This race was a blast! I liked the new start/finish area, the new trails, and the efforts of all the volunteers. In theory, this will be the only year the race is held out of the campground, but that will depend on whether external parking can be arranged or whether the park rangers feel like this went pretty well and allow this to become the new normal.

I'm all about the new normal!

That's it - move along…