May 13th 2006
Time: 12 hr 20mins
After HK 50 last year, I had wished to do American River 50 but due to some family emergency I was out of town fighting a different kind of race. In that race I was mainly the crew member, my brother was the racer and Dr Thompson was the race director. After a 30 mile long run with the big-sur gang, I decided to do miwok 100k, but race registration closed early so the next choice was local race Quicksilver 50.
Mental:
Muir beach 50k and Woodlands 50k were very good training runs, mainly because of the tough weather conditions, which proved to be a good training ground for my attitude during the race.
Physical:
Since most of march/april I was in
Pre-race dinner:
Arun and Soumya jee hosted a sumptuous pasta dinner for me and Rajeev. Arun was ready to do his first ultra.
Race day story:
Got a good night sleep, I was ready to go to race at 4am. In 2005, myself and Rajeev had done a 50k here and we got a 6hour overcast weather so we had very pleasant memories of the race. But May 13th didn’t seem that way.
(carol, myself, arun, rajeev)
Met some of our ultra-running friends: wini, carol, yuki and chiphing at the start, the race started promptly at 6am and myself, Rajeev and Arun settled into a steady pace, walking ALL the hills, after about 3 miles, I went ahead and followed my steady pace keeping in mind the first cut-off of 7 hr 50 mins at 50k, which I thought should be easy. My goal for this race was to do in 12 hrs.
Miles 6.6-9
This stretch was through the covered trails on new almaden trail, very pleasant running through and spent most of the time talking to fellow runner Jim Yee who was attempting for this first WS 100 mile race. Reached mile 9 aid station in 2:05 hr, Stevens creek striders managed Dam overlook aid station and were very supportive of runner needs, soon saw Rajeev running towards the aid station.
Miles 9-19
From this point we followed Randall trail to mine hill trail and back to dam overlook. Soon started feeling the heat of the day, which was hitting about 80's. Towards the end of this section we had a long downhill, most scenic part of the course.
(winding mine hill trail)
(Dam overlook)
Miles 19-23
We pass through Dam overlook for the 2nd time and follow gaudulupe trail for another 4.5 mile loop, ran with Wini for sometime, she is a amazing runner, going steady and smooth all the time. No one would tell she had done miwok 100k a week back. so had Rajeev, he was doing his 3rd long distance race in 3 consecutive saturdays.
(Wini Jebian: maintaining a steady pace)
Mile 23.3: 27
I continued ahead of Rajeev, was feeling great at this point, met Roger at this point who had done 25 k. He mentioned. “just a marathon more to go” I wasn’t sure if it was good news. Run towards Englishtown was unevent full, but the aid-station volunteers were very cheerful and pepped me up for next 4 mile tough section.
(With yuki at Dam Overlook , he was trainging for WS)
Mile 27- mile 31.3
Toughest part of the course, rolling hills, uncovered trails and peak time of the day made this a tough run, reached the finish point and saw Anu cheering and she was all set to run with me, but asked her to wait for Rajeev, who seemed to have some quad pain.
I took 5 mins off and had my ensure, clif bloks, and cap filled with ice to cool my body(excellent idea by famida and aid station volunteer) that kept me going for next few miles. At this point I was well ahead of cutoff by 30 mins.
Mile 31.3-35.3
This section started out with a constant climb I was doing ok, still fresh from the aid-station re-fueling but was not aware of the heat ahead and how I will feel later, met arun on one of the climbs, unfortunately he had twisted his ankle early and walked the last 12 miles in the race. That’s the spirit which pulls you across any ultra.
(Arun: Proud first ultra finisher)
