Getting scruffy on Diablo

Sunday was one of the first times I've done an event at Mt Diablo where the weather and trails were pretty much perfect. So naturally I downgraded from the Half Marathon to the 10K.

Starting Thursday, a cold moved into my body and knocked me for a bit of a loop. By Sunday I was feeling OK, but knew I wouldn't be able to handle the hills of the Half so I did something I had never done before - I downgraded to the 10K at the Brazen Diablo Trails Adventure.

Not that the 10K isn't without hills.

See those two pimples on the left? The 10K goes over them out to about mile four then makes a mad dash (or slow shuffle in my case) back to the finish. The two pimples add up to over 1200 feet of climbing though, and are much more challenging that this makes them look.

This race is known for its many creek crossings, although this time of year, you have to work a bit to get your feet wet. (I managed to do that.)

There was a large turnout for all of the distances which helped make this a lot of fun.

This is the what the 10K runners were dreaming of - a dash down this last hill, a left out to the turnaround, and then an easy run to the finish. No more pimples to climb!

Funny story number one about this race; this is Hteb (not her real name) who does a great blog thing (here is a link to her report on this race). I had passed her going up the last pimple, but as I had predicted, she blew past me on the downhill and finished well ahead of me. The funny thing was that, as she was heading in, she convinced a young guy to push a bit and finish hard. The guy asked her if "that scruffy guy" was her husband.

I asked her if she thought he was talking about me, and she thinks so, since I had talked to her several times on the course and made a point of getting her picture each time. This is WAY too funny and cool. (And how knicknames get started.)

Photo of a scruffy guy taken by a Brazen volunteer.

"YIKES! Get back and give the scruffy guy a LOT of room"

A cool thing as I headed to the finish was seeing all the family hikers on the trail. Part of this event was a non-competitive family hike, many led by Save Mt Diablo volunteers who explained the various things that makes this park so amazing.

Once I finished, I headed back out a bit so that I could pace Mrs Notthat into the finish since I figured she would be on her own and tired and in need of some perkiness. And then she showed up as part of this group and flew past me. "Pace her in." Right. (She has run this Half twice before, albeit under extreme weather conditions each time, and this time she beat her course PR by nearly a hour. She was more than up for this race!)

Funny story number two; my daughter, Weird Haired Mom (who more accurately should be Mom of Weird Haired Kids) asked me if I had been in any of the porta-potties yet. So naturally I spent some quality time going through them.

After a few hits and misses, I went into this one.

And saw this. For reasons that are not totally clear, if you Google "porta-pottie" you will get my picture. (Not really, but how cool would that be!) Someone at last year's race here left me a message. Even cooler, the Porta-Pottie Maintenance Professionals left the note there. Nobody has owned up to doing this, and the FBI was not interested in doing a handwriting analysis to try and pin it down.

This. Was. AWESOME! (And would have been missed without WHM's keen eye.)

And that's about it. The shirt and medal featured a famous Mt Diablo tarantula (which several runners saw on the course - this is the end of their mating season and the warm weather gets them active). The whole event was amazing - the course, the many enthusiastic volunteers (including about a dozen photographers - there are a ton of pictures up here), the great barbecue, the Save Mt Diablo people, and of course all of the fun runners and hikers.

And today I just saw a picture of a snow covered Mt Diablo - the weather has changed a lot in just a few days.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see a lot more of my pictures here.

Zombies + Darkness = Fun

When I first saw that Coastal Trail Runs was putting on a Half Marathon on a Wednesday night, I was a bit more excited than you would think. I'm not a night person and knew I would be finishing at about the time I normally head to bed. All this after being at work all day.

But I've done a night race in this area before (Palo Alto Moonlight Run) and remembered it as being fun. And since Zombie Runner was involved, there would be medals (and as it turned out, Zombie Runner hats!).

So I signed up.

There were quite a few costumes - many that looked highly inappropriate for a trail race.  Some that were burned into my poor brain forever.

Oh, and it was on Halloween.

Yes, that's someone in a Dodgers uniform wisely hanging close to a nun. On the same day as the Giants World Series parade. Ha ha ha ha.

It was just starting to get dark at about the time the race started. There was also a rain storm threatening the event, but forecasters (who weirdly turned out to be right) said the rain would hold off until the race was over. If only they knew how slow I was.

I loved that these two stood in the dusk with this sign at about the 2.3 mile point.

This was the first aid station. It's really starting to get dark now.

The course was marked with light sticks on each of the trail ribbons, which made following the course no problem. The course was also an out-and-back which meant it should look at least a bit familiar on your return.

The trail was fairly smooth, so finding good footing in the dark was not that hard. Many runners didn't have headlamps or flashlights, and seemed to be doing fine. There was a nearly full moon, and even with the clouds, it provided enough light to be helpful. (I used a headlamp since I figured otherwise I would stumble into the one pothole on the entire course.)

The Half Marathon turnaround, at a bit over 7 miles. Yes, this meant the course was an ultra Half Marathon.

I took some pictures on the way out to the turnaround, but quickly realized that they were not going to come out well. So I ended up taking no pictures from the turnaround back to the finish.

A cool thing was that I caught up with the Trekie at the turnaround and we stayed together all the way back to the finish.

Compared to the darkness of the trail, the finish line looked like Las Vegas.

The coolest bit of the race was about a mile from the finish - the Trekie and I managed to pass the Dodger and the nun. I was pretty tired, so I restrained myself from taunting or tripping the Dodger (the nun made me a bit nervous too - anyone that can run a Half Marathon with all that clothing on is someone to be reckoned with).

And that's about it. The race was a blast! The costumes were awesome. The weather was perfect - there were a few sprinkles over the last couple of miles, but nothing to worry about.

And I'm pretty sure the zombies went home hungry.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see more of my pictures here.

Stinson Beach comes through again

The thing about Stinson beach is that it's a long ways away (well over an hour for us) and a lot of the drive is on a narrow windy road filled with road bikes, and this time, with road construction equipment.

But then you get there, see the beautiful beach, and know that, for the next few hours, you are going to be on some of the most stunning trails in California. I've done one other race out of Stinson Beach and have been dying to come back and do another. The problem with this particular Saturday was that we had to be back shortly after noon, so Mrs Notthat and I decided to do the short distance (12K that ended up being nearly a 13K - BONUS!) of the PCTR Stinson Beach trail race and be happy with that.

This was also our first race with the newly reborn PCTR and I was anxious to see how it would go. (Spoiler alert: It went great.)

Looking at the list of pre-registered runners, I saw only one name that I knew - Ffoeg (not his real name). Ffoeg cannot resist a trail run in the Marin Headlands, so it wasn't a surprise to see him here.

A great surprise was seeing Anoda (not her real name) here too! Ffoeg did the 50K, so I knew we wouldn't see him again once the race started. Anoda was doing the 25K. I doubted we would see her again since we would have to leave soon after I shuffled across the finish line, and as slow as I am, I figured I would still be able to finish my 12K before she finished her 25K. Maybe.

The race started with an enthusiastic burst up a short paved road followed by a halt on Highway 1 while we squeezed onto the actual trail.

We spent most of the first half of the race going uphill on the aptly named Steep Ravine trail. The trail wanders along a noisy creek in an amazingly lush forest.

We had a bit of rain earlier in the week, but the weather seems to have little impact here. The trail was damp, but not muddy, and while the sun was shining brightly, in here you were drenched in cool shadows.

The Steep Ravine trail is infamous for its ladder. It's not a long ladder, but it does add a fun element to the course.

Yes - the trail goes right between those two trees.

After about three miles of climbing, you come out of the woods at the Pantol Ranger Station. Normally, this is where the aid station would be, but the Park Service has decided that it added too much congestion to this area (there are a LOT of people that come out and hike these trails), so a bonus out-and-back bit was added to our 12K.

The first cool thing about the out-and-back was that it meant I would get to see how far ahead of me Mrs Notthat was. The simple answer was "not that far"- the more correct answer was "it doesn't matter since she is going to blow me away on the downhill that's next."

I love that this aid station is at the  top of Cardiac Hill.

The second cool thing about the out-and-back was that we were rewarded with some great views. The weather was stunning - completely clear with very mild temperatures.

That pink loop of ribbon on the trail marked the location of a nest full of enthusiastic wasps. It was wise to give them a wide berth.

After making it back to the Pantol area, we crossed a road and then spent some time running along a ridge that was determined to distract you with gorgeous views.

The ridge is followed by going back through that forest, this time downhill on the amazing Matt Davis trail. This trail is steeper than the Steep Ravine trail, and has many switchbacks that are infested with steps. And roots. LOTS of roots. Anyone thinking they are going to make up a lot of time blasting down this trail is likely to be surprised (and maybe a bit bloody at the finish line). I had no chance of winning, so I took my time and enjoyed the scenery.

Before long I was at the finish line and my race was done.

Mrs Notthat beat me by a little over ten minutes. She also managed to become "one with the trail" (weirdly, during a relatively flat section - not the steep meat grinder part).

Just as I'm busy patting myself on the back for not getting beat by any of the 25K runners, in came the first place man followed closely by Anoda (I ended up beating her by a whole eight minutes. Sheesh.)

If you are a trail runner and have never done a race up here, you really need to add it to your to-do list (and hope really hard that the RD is able to arrange great weather like we had). If you aren't a trail runner, you still need to get out here and spend a day on these trails. Stinson Beach is a fun little town, there is a large parking lot and many fun places to eat.

The PCTR people and volunteers were all great and the course was well marked. We had a great time and are looking forward to coming back to do a longer distance.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see more of my pictures from the race here.

All this for a coaster?

The Brazen Rocky Ridge Half Marathon had nearly beaten me twice already. The last time, I swore I would join the wise runners and stick to the 10K distance.

Fortunately I will never have to figure out how to get one of these to fit in my car.

But Brazen knows marketing, and it knows the appeal of bonus hardware. So it came up with the Brazen Ultra Half Series. You only had to run four of their tougher Half Marathons (out of nine scheduled - I ran all of them but got a DNF at Drag 'n' Fly) and finish the Rocky Ridge Half, and you would get a bonus coaster to commemorate the accomplishment. Faster runners were also in the running for cash prizes, in the form of those huge checks that give banks nightmares.

So both Mrs Notthat and I signed up for the Rocky Ridge Half, but decided to do the early start to give us plenty of time to finish. (One of us ended up needing that extra time; the other is awesome.)

The Rocky Ridge Half course is memorable for a number of reasons: it's beautiful, has lots of great views, and has nearly 4000 feet of climbing. On this day, it had another thing going for it; weird fog/low clouds sticking their noses in random places.

"Tree Over" or "Over Tree"? I know of one rebel runner that actually crawled under the tree. Ytsirhc (not her real name) is not good at playing by the rules. 

At one point, I was faced with this - a vicious man-eating cow standing in the middle of the trail. As I was working up the nerve to try and sneak past her, two much faster sacrificial runners flew past me. They didn't have much meat on their bones though, plus they were fast and would be hard to catch, so the cow kept her steely gaze on me. So I slowly made my way up to her, whispering how much I loved  chicken. Somehow it worked, and I was able to continue on with the race.

DUCK!

The best parts of the course are spent in the trees, with the trees often actually becoming a part of the course. Cool temperatures made even the exposed bits of course quite pleasant (not counting the fact that they were almost always up a steep hill).

Mas (not his real name) is often the course sweeper, so seeing him come up behind you can be a bit alarming. But today he was not Mas the Sweeper. He wasn't even Mas - he ran as Pete the Awesome. Very few people knew that at the time, and it wasn't until well after the race when I was busy memorizing the results that I realized he had run with Pete's bib. Awesome is not a big enough word to describe this.

"Get up! You're killing the asphalt!" Only Occor (not his real name) would choose to take a nap at this point.

At mile 9.45 there was an 11:45 cutoff. Mile 9.45 is also where the last hill starts, with a long climb on pavement. I easily made the cutoff, thanks to my early start, and as it turned out, I would have made it (barely) even with the normal start.
 

Mt Diablo in the distance with the hills that make up the first two-thirds of the course in the foreground.

Up to this point, the weather had been perfect. Even when you were in the sunshine, it was cool enough to not be a bother. As we approached the top of that last hill though, the coolness was taken to an extreme as we entered the clouds.

Photo by Brazen volunteer Michael.

This was Mrs Notthat's first time on this course. All she had heard for weeks was how hard this course was. All she did during the race was fly!

Photo by Brazen volunteer Michael.

This is something you will rarely see - K-Dub and I running neck and neck this close to the end of a race. I must point out though that there are two pretty good reasons for this: I had an hour head start and  K-Dub had ran a 50 mile race a week earlier. Shortly after this picture was taken, she was out of sight and leaving me way behind. Like normal.

Photo by frostbitten volunteer at the fourth aid station.

Photo by frostbitten volunteer at the fourth aid station.

About the only thing Mrs Notthat and I had in common during this race is that we both arrived at the last aid station, mile 11.2, with our glasses in our hands. I've done nearly 90 races, some of which were very rain infested, and this is the first time I had to remove my glasses to be able to see where I was going.

The heroes at the fourth aid station. It was not nearly as pleasant out as this picture makes it look.

All along the ridge at the top of that last hill we had to run through a thick, ridiculously moist and windy fog. I was cold and soaked, but I got to keep moving. The volunteers at this aid station had to stand up there for hours, and then had to hike back out since their were no proper roads around there.

Coach Luap (not his real name) finishing just ahead of me. He was great on this course and had to be restrained from going out for another lap.

Finally, after over five hours (!), I made it to the finish line. Mrs Notthat had beaten me by well over an hour. I actually ended up with the longest finishing time of all the Half runners (several finished after me, but with shorter times since they did the normal start). DLF with an asterisk.

And I'm fine with that. This is a race that you just want to finish - the time is irrelevant (unless you've got your eyes on one of those huge checks).

The medal and shirt for this race were very cool, as normal. (There were also firecat tattoos handed out that many of the runners wore throughout the day.) And of course, there was the coaster. Ten pounds of fierceness that should have come with a warning label.

The back of the shirt shows the elevation charts. Note that their scale is adjusted for each distance, but still - those are some nasty elevation profiles.

I love that the coaster is challenging to use; miss by a tiny bit when setting your beer on it and the can will end up with numerous puncture wounds.

While looking at the coaster's teeth, it occurred to me that they actually matched the course's elevation profiles. I have since confirmed that that was indeed the intention. Way too much fun!

So I have survived my third Rocky Ridge Half Marathon. And posted my worst time ever. The odd thing was that I felt better at the end of this race than I did at either of the previous two (and WAY better than at the end of the two road Half Marathons I did the previous weeks) - I started the race determined to take my time and to enjoy it, and I was quite successful at that.

Last year I said that I was going to do the 10K this year. I now know better; I know that, as mean and torturous as this course is, it needs to be done.

So here's to next year.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see many more of my general pictures here. Because I ended up getting passed by nearly every Half runner, I was able to get pictures of most of them (yes, I'm the dork that took highly unflattering pictures of you as you climbed those hills). They are posted here.

PPS: Here is a link to the Ballad of Rocky Ridge thing I did before the race. I was FAR too kind to the race in that song. Thanks to Mr and Mrs Brazen for allowing me to do this race in spite of this thing.