TrailStompers.com: San Francisco Bay Area Trail Running

What is the Quicksilver "55k", you may ask?  Is it a new event?  Well, sort-of.  Let's just say that today I unintentionally ran the longest distance of my life because of two unicyclists...

The day started out quite early.  I woke up at 3 am and, realizing that I had get up at 4 am, couldn't get back to sleep.  So I hung out in bed until NPR started blaring at 4 am.  Some interview with Craig (from Craigslist) and another guy trying to educate women around the globe.  Admirable.  I got up, went through the morning ritual, and ate some PBJ.  Out the door at 4:50, I headed down to Almaden to meet Bill at 5:15 a few blocks from Almaden Quicksilver.  We made it to the park a little after 5:20 and managed to snag the third-to-the-last parking spot.  At this point, there was only the faint glow of morning on the horizon.  We picked up our numbers and then I set off to wait in the bathroom line.  Seriously, who only puts one stall in a bathroom?? It was soon 5:45, and time to get ready.  We lined up at about 5:55 and then 10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1..GO!

The first few miles of the race are brutal.  You run up about 1000 feet very steeply, and then descend almost all of the way back to the car.  But, it wasn't too bad as Bill and I held a pretty easy pace.  It was then on to the New Almaden Trail, about 6 miles of challenging rolling singletrack.  I soon found myself alone and cranked up the iPod.  I was just starting to get a queasy feeling in my stomach and question why I was doing this when I happened to start listening to a new episode of RadioLab.  Coincidentally enough, the topic was people who push themselves to their limits.  They interviewed some IronMan finishers, Race Across America (3000-mile bike race) finishers, and other six-sigma people.  Needless to say, this gave me just the kick-in-the-butt that I needed!  I had soon reached the end of the New Almaden Trail and the other end of the park.  The stomach was still a bit queasy but just then I remembered the TUMS that I had brought along.  This was my first time trying TUMS during a race and just let me say, I'm hooked.  I popped one or two every 30 minutes or so for the rest of the race to keep the stomach under control. Highly recommended! After a moderate climb, the race then turned onto the Randol Trail, which is one of the flattest trails in the park (comparatively speaking, that is) and I was soon at the halfway point.  My time was well under 3 hours, and I started getting excited for a decent finish.  The race then turned up to begin the next climb.  Sadly, this is where things went terribly wrong...

As I was climbing up the trail, I came up behind two mountain-unicyclists.  Yes, you read correctly.  These two people apparently felt that having two wheels was for pansies and were unicycling up one of the harder climbs in the park.  As I continued up the trail, I was gawking at the unique sight along with another runner, who I later found is a serious ultra-runner named Donald who was doing the 50-mile.  He pulled out his camera and snapped a couple of pictures of the one-wheeled-weeble-wobblers.  Soon after, we passed by an aid station that was just being set up.  Hmmm, that was a bit strange, but - oh look - another arrow on the trail so I guess everything is OK.  The arrows then guided us onto the Yellow Kid Trail which I again throught was strange because I didn't remember seeing that on the map.  After a few-hundred foot climb, the trail flattened out by the old ore furnace.  At this point the conversation went something like this:

Donald: "Have you run this race before?"

Carl: "No, but I've run here a lot.  Why?"

Donald: "I think they changed the route this year.  I don't remember this from last year."

Carl: "Well I know that we don't go by Bull Run until later so this is probably right" (Man am I dumb)

Donald: "Oh OK".

We continued descending for another 5 minutes or so, then started climbing.  At this point Donald uttered the amazingly insightful words:

"There are no runners anywhere!"

With these words I actually stopped, looked around, and yes, even though we could see for miles in every direction, there were definitely no runners anywhere in sight.  Oh $#%^, we're on the Hicks Road out-and-back, which the 50-milers would do later in the day.  This explains the aid station that was just being set up!!  There was no choice but to turn around and backtrack.  As we backtracked, I was at a loss as to where we could have gone wrong...  I was attentively searching for arrows the whole time... except...  OH NO!!!  The UNICYCLISTS!!!  Sure enough, after about 10-15 minutes of backtracking we saw the turn at the exact spot where we were gawking at the one-wheelers!!  (I blame all unicyclists for this and will never attend another circus.)  

The rest of the run was rather uneventful: a 1000-foot climb here, a GU there, some water here, a descent there, a TUMS here, a 1500-foot climb there.  Miles 28-30 (31-33 for me) are a series of very steep climbs, followed by a steep downhill to the finish!

The result: 34.5 miles in 5:45.  At that pace I would have done the 50k in 5:15.  GRRR!  When's the next 50k??!?

-c