Mountains Have Mercy on Me

My last blog, I was so pumped up about trail running and the Western States 100 mile trail race documentary I’d just watched. I sure could have used some of that enthusiasm and energy going into the Malibu Creek 22k trail race on Sunday. Last year, I ran the Malibu Creek 22k after spending the previous years running the 6k. I felt like it was time to move up in distance and I wanted to challenge myself to do something different and out of my comfort zone. Well last year, I was pretty uncomfortable in the race at mile 3 and felt that way up the mountain until mile 6. That part of the trail at Malibu creek is known as bulldog and there is a reason why. You feel like a bulldog is biting at your calves, hamstring, quads and everything else. I remember last year thinking it was one of the most miserable events I had ever done beside the Filipinotown 5k but I finished the trail race in 3 hours and 2 minutes. I was not happy but finishing was the goal. I had my sights on returning this year and I wanted to improve my time by over 20 minutes. The goal was to finish around 2:35 or 2:40, which to me seemed reasonable but Sunday, my body and my mind had other plans. Before I could catch my breath and stretch a bit, they were sounding the horn for the race to start. If you know anything about running, you at least want a few minutes to warm up before climbing upwards for more than 5 miles. I had no rhythm to start the race. I ran as slow and conservative as I could because I knew that we would have a modest hill to deal with before dropping downhill for a mile then back to the climb of doom. I felt pretty good but as we passed by site where the television show Mash was filmed, this feeling of déjà vu came over me. I knew what was coming. That mean old bulldog was just around the corner and whether I wanted to deal with him or not, he would be there. As the slow climb started, I just felt like I had no life. My energy seemed all but zapped. This is only 3 miles into the race and there were 11 more miles to go. We all have moments, days, weeks, where there is just something you absolutely just dread having to do and even though you know you have to do it, you procrastinate and you make it that much harder. Well, that is how I felt at that point of the race. The sun had decided it would shine through and boy did it. I felt my left leg get heavy as the climb started. Then my right calve felt a little tight. At this point, I had begun the battle with my psyche. I didn’t’ want to walk but I had 3 more miles to the somewhat relief point on the trail but that just means a little bit of downhill before going back up. In any case, I started walking. Once you start walking, you have pretty much made up your mind on how the rest of the race is going to go. I knew right then and there that I was in a dogfight for the second year in a row at this race but this time I was really in no mood. When we hit mile 4, it seemed like it got hotter and the incline became steeper. My legs were slowly tiring and my mood and confidence was ever so shaky but I kept on climbing. I would someone gather up the mustard to run to try to get something going but that would last all but a minute if that. I started cranking up the sound on the ipod but that did absolutely nothing. I kept thinking how in the hell could this trail be this brutal. By mile 5, I was walking slower and slower. I was slouching more and that started to aggravate my back. I was like a wounded soldier who had been pinned down and each of his weapons were out of ammo. I had nothing left. No drive, no spirit and just when I wanted to throw in the towel, we got to mile 6 where there was a brief sigh because we have some downhill ahead of us but I had run into another dilemma. I used everything I had to get up that hill and my legs were almost deadlocked. I could barely pick my legs up to run downhill and when I finally began to get in the groove, I felt my left calve twinge and I knew that could only mean one thing. I had already lost way too much in fluids and the cramping would be just around the corner. It was just not my day but I knew I had one goal, and that was to make it to mile 9 where the trail basically shot downhill until mile 12 where you then had to go back uphill for a mile. We rolled up and down from mile 6 to mile 9 and when mile 9 came, I had one mission and that was to show every single person who had passed me uphill that they would never see me again once the downhill started but I had my work cutoff for me because immediately my legs started to cramp but I ignored them and the pain and I just let go and down the hill I went. Downhill running is one of my favorite things but it is also damaging for your quads and shins. Too many people run downhill like they have their foot on the brake at the same time. Too be successful at downhill running, you have to let go of the brake otherwise you are pulling up while trying to run down and that just kills your quads and kills your shins. It is not easy to just let go especially on a trail like Malibu because the downhill is treacherous and relentless. At some point you feel like you are running downhill for an hour and for me, I was running at least a 7 minute mile at that point. I blew past people who I had not seen since mile 5 or 6. I was in such a groove but I knew one thing and that was at mile 13, we would be going back up a nasty climb so whatever I spent on that downhill would come back to bite me and it did. I was all by myself for a while and when I hit mile 13 every muscle imaginable cramped up including my damn glute muscle. At this point of the race, my body had nothing left. I spent everything I had and now I was in danger of being caught by all those people I zoomed past on the way down but I gritted it out to the top and somehow I managed to finish essentially alone. I worked my ass off on Sunday and that 20-minute improvement I was hoping for did not happen. I finished 4 minutes better than last year. Something I am not extremely happy about but I know it is a positive so I will take it for now but the mystery of trail running still remains. I know there are a lot of things I need to improve on and one is going back out and really training on the hills. Trails are great and fun but the hills can be miserable. I know that I pride myself on being a great downhill runner but the truth of the matter is, that has made a me a bad overall trail runner because I have relied on making up the difference in time on the downhill so I am not putting in the same effort on the uphill portion of the race. Achievements never come in halves so I have to put in the extra work in order to be a complete tail runner. For now, I will take a deep breath and get ready for the next hill that comes my way…