Distance: 55 mi (9,000 ft of elevation gain)
Finishing Time: 11 hours, 40 minutes
Place: 5th/ 127 (90 finishers, 37 DNF)
Race Lead-up:
It’s late June and I’m glancing through my inbox when an email from Ultra Sign Up catches my eye. Registration for Tahoe Rim Trail – Response required it reads. I’ve been selected off the wait list for the Tahoe Rim Trail 55 mile race, 2 weeks before it is set to take place. I’ve been itching to try an ultra that is a bit more mountainous, characterized by getting up at altitude, using poles for hiking, and trail that is a bit more technical (i.e. uneven changing terrain). This race seems like the perfect intro into this, taking place primarily on the Tahoe Rim Trail and getting up to a little over 9,000ft at Diamond Peak Ski Resort.
So what do you do when you’re 2 weeks out from a 55 miler? You bank on your fitness up until that point and look to dial in the details. The good news is I’m feeling strong after a great spring, highlighted by my first 50 miler at Lake Sonoma in early April, a 37 mile local race mid-May, and then an awesome 3 day training block at Western States Memorial Camp. I plan to use poles during this race so I’ll be practicing with those in these next few weeks, as well as dialing in my nutrition by practicing eating foods on training runs that I know I’ll eat during race day.
Race Day
I leave my Airbnb on the outskirts of Carson City a few minutes before 5am. I stop at Starbucks on the way to the race and order a latte, bagel, and protein box. Putting all that food down so early in the morning leaves my stomach turning initially, but I know I’ll need it before too long. I take a quick look at the weather on my phone and see the forecast for Carson City is reaching a high of 102 degrees today. I’ll be spending most of the race at higher elevation where it should be a bit cooler but still, heat seems like it will be a big factor for the race.
Miles 0-9
I’m at the start line of the race, which leaves from the baseball field of Western Nevada College, elevation 4,5000 ft. The beginning of the race involves spending the first 6 miles climbing up to 8,000 feet where you link up with the Tahoe Rim Trail. The climb starts on wide, jeep roads with the weather being mercifully cool here at 6am. I get out my poles and settle in to a nice hiking rhythm. The 50k (30 mile) started at as the same time as the 55mi race, so it’s hard to tell what race people are doing. Of the maybe 200 people who started, I seem to moving fine at this initial part of the race as I seem to be hovering around 20th. While my calves are picking-up a burn from hiking several thousand feet up, my breathing is steady and I feel strong.
I make it to the top of the initial climb and am greeted by two volunteers at a water aid station for runners. There are hellacious mosquitos buzzing around the water and the two volunteers are being relentlessly attacked. The mosquitos are so bad that I have a hard time even holding my water bottle still to have it refilled. Bless the volunteers manning that aid station.
The climb relents for a little and I’m running on smooth, hard-packed single trail. Another runner, my age with a nice pace and good looking stride, seems surprised by the initial climb and asks what I thought about it. I tell him I didn’t think it was too bad and ask if he has ever run this race before.
“No, I’ve never even done an ultra. I’ve run the Boston marathon few times and wanted to try this.”
I’m interested to see how he does as qualifying for Boston takes a fast runner, and yet this is a vastly different beast than running a road marathon.
Miles 9-29
I hit the first major aid station of Snow Valley Peak at mile 9 of the race and it has taken me a few minutes under 2 hours to get here. I grab big fistfuls of food at the aid station and ask a volunteer to dump ice on me.
After I leave the aid station, I hit a big patch of snow and start to lose the trail. I backtrack a bit until I find prints and a piece of pink ribbon tied to a down tree. After a historically large winter in Tahoe, it looked like snow on course could be playing a big factor until a heat wave came through over this past week. The course has been mostly clear thus far and the trails in great shape.
I’m officially running on the Tahoe Rim Trail and take it right into the next station at mile 16, Tunnel Creek. Leaving Tunnel Creek, I run into a runner from San Francisco who looks to be in his late 40’s. He has a bit of a laboring pace but something tells me this guy can, and has, gone the distance before.
I ask him if he has any goals for the race and he says to finish top 10. I think that sounds a little ambitious until he tells me, “You know, I checked back at Tunnel Creek and we are in 7th and 8th place right now, so we are on track.”
“Holy shit!” I exclaim. I had no idea we were top 10 and I’m excited by this news. He could have told me we were in 30th place and I would have believed him.
“Maybe I should have gone a little faster back at the aid station at Tunnel Creek,” I confess to him. I had a drop bag at Tunnel Creek, mile 14 of the course, where I picked up a change of shoes, socks, and replenished snacks.
“That’s way too early to be going for a drop bag,” he scolds me. Outside of that comment, he’s a pleasant guy and I keep his pace for a few more miles before passing him as I start to pick-up speed on a downhill.
It’s mile 23 and as I’m making a big descent on mountain bike trails, and I’m starting to feel really good. I pass another runner and make a mental note that if the information before was correct, that’d put me in 6th. I keep this positive momentum heading into Diamond Peak aid station at mile 29, a major aid station at about the halfway point of the race. A volunteer rushes out to greet me as I’m running in, only adding to the excitement. “Do you have a crew? What can I get you?” he asks, over the noise of people cheering and cowbells.
I hand him two flasks, and ask him to fill one with electrolyte and the other with water. This is probably the biggest crowd I’ve run through and I’m getting waves of adrenaline here at mile 29. Before I know it, I’ve got my liquids refilled, ice in my buff, and have taken some big bites of different foods. I start to head out from the aid station and almost immediately see the Boston marathon runner that I talked to earlier in the race. He’s walking towards me, away from the course direction, surely not a good sign for him.
“No good?” I ask as he approaches.
He gives me a little shake of a head and without breaking stride says “No good. I’m dropping”. I feel bad for the guy and wonder what’s causing him to drop. At the same time, I recognize with him dropping that pushes me up to 5th place.
Mile 29-55
Although I’ll never know for sure, I shortly after find out what could have been the final straw in his race- an ungodly steep climb straight up a ski hill to the top of Diamond Peak Ski Resort. I’m stunned at how steep the grade is and think surely, this can’t be part of the course. I look around but but there’s no where else to go, so I begin the climb.
It’s not long before I’m suffering, completely exposed to the sun in 95 degree heat at 1 pm, 30 miles into the race. Yep, I think, this is being in the box. Being in the box equates to a challenging place, where the discomfort becomes more intense, and I’ve been working on not resisting it when that moments comes. All things shall pass.
And eventually they do. I’ve crested this beast of a climb and find that my legs are happy to run downhill to the aid station at mile 34. Here is where I have last access to my drop bag and I do one last change of shoes and grab a few snacks before heading out for the last 20 miles.
Miles 34 to 40 pass slowly it features a large amount of slightly uphill grade that seems tantalizing runnable, but it’s a real struggle to generate the needed power for uphill running. I power hike a lot of it and remind myself the real key is to be able to run downhills. My legs aren’t loving the pounding and physicality of downhills, but they are still very functional on descents and I’m feeling good that they will hold out for the last 10 miles, miles 45-55, which is all downhill as we descend into baking hot Carson City.
I keep hoping to reel in another 50 mile runner or two, a top 3 finish would be so sweet (!), but the only runners I pass are 50k (30 miles) runners who started an hour after our race. On the opposite flip side of that, I see a runner above me on the switchbacks who seems to moving well, at mile 52 of this 55 mile race and I step on the gas a bit as I hate the idea of being passed this late in the race. It’s absolutely scorching coming down the exposed mountain into Carson Valley, and I’m just trying to get that finish line where I can get off my feet and sit at last.
I glance at my watch which reads mile 54.5, meaning I only have half a mile left in the race. I turn my head to take a good, long look back and see if I can spot the runner that looked like he or she was closing in on me. There’s no one in sight and with that knowledge, I plop down and take a seat on a rock near a creek where I dunk my head and sit for a minute or so. It feels a little strange to be doing this so close to the finish, but I’m beyond caring about losing a minute or two on my time, as long as I don’t get passed. Finishing is inevitable, so I grit my meet, get up, and jog in the last half mile to make it to the finish line.
Post-Race
The runner who was closing in on me was the first overall female who ended up finishing a mere 2 minutes behind me. It’s good I didn’t know how far in front the top 4 were from me because it was significant- 4th place was nearly an hour ahead. Ignorance can be bliss because as the race got deeper, I was motivated by the possibility of catching someone ahead of me.
Follow-up
Immediately following the race, I had an awesome weeklong family vacation in Mammoth Lakes. It was great to unplug up in Mammoth and spend time with family. It was a tiny bittersweet as I was in no condition to do any running in one of the most beautiful and best places for hiking and trail running in America. My recovery felt like it was going well, however, I ended up going on a 4 hour e-bike adventure with my family only five days after my race and ended up tweaking my lower back. That concerned for me about half a week, but I ended up getting some massage work done when I got back home and that seemed to be the ticket to fix me up.
Only 8 days after the Tahoe Rim Trail race, and right after my family vacation, I put in arguably the best two weeks of training in my life. I had the chance to house sit and train up in Bear Valley, my old stomping grounds which sits at 7,000ft in the Western Sierra. I put in a 72 mile week, followed by a 65 mile week, putting up some PR’s in the process. This brought me to the end of summer and the start of work again, as an elementary school teacher. A very encouraging Tahoe Rim Trail race, followed by a great mini training block has me excited for the Fall.
