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A Little Taste of What’s in Store

Months ago when I was trying to decide what 100 mile race to sign up, there were a few things that made the Angeles Crest 100 really stand out. One of the biggest factors for me was that it was local, which meant that I would have a lot of opportunities to train on the actual race course. Unfortunately, primarily because of road and trail closures due to last year’s fires, I had never made it up there for training. That all changed yesterday.

A group of us – Jimmy, Pam, Shannon, Tommy and me – met in Wrightwood at around 7am. We first dropped water off at a few strategic points along the course and left one car at Eagle’s Roost, which is about the 30 mile mark on the course. We drove back to Wrightwood and started on the course at about 8:30. I’ll just cut to the chase: nine hours later, we finished our training day!

It was awesome. For a ton of reasons. Obviously, it was great to finally see part of the course. The course is beautiful – sweeping views in all directions, a bunch of terrain changes, steep, long climbs, fast descents, a few (but not many) flat-ish sections where you can stretch the legs out a little bit. Also, it was a fun, fun crowd of great athletes to run with. And I felt great until the very end, when being a little low on both calories and electrolytes (again) caught up with me.

(The sign at the top of Mt. Baden-Powell at around mile 16.  This is the top of the second big climb on the course and the highest elevation we’ll reach.)

After a really long first seven hours, everyone else decided to call it a day and I continued  for another few miles, mainly to check out the Mt. Williamson climb. I missed a turn near the top and probably went about a mile too far (which included some great bonus climbing) before turning around and finally finding my way down. It was at the top of that extra stuff where I started to struggle a bit. I mostly worked through it, but learned another good lesson about fueling and salt intake – namely that I need more of both!!

In addition to getting the chance to run on the course, I learned a ton about the race from Jimmy and Tommy, both veterans of the race. (Tommy’s run it a ton of times and even won the thing in 1999 and 2000!) It was great to get tips on race management and pacing while being on the course.

I always knew that this was going to be a tough race – the toughest I’d ever attempted – but until I got out there yesterday, I definitely didn’t appreciate just how tough it’s going to be. Fortunately, that really only makes me more excited!

Now, I’m hoping to get out there at least one or two more times before race day to see other sections!

Five weeks to go!

p.s. Fast thoughts to everyone racing Ironman Lake Placid and the San Francisco Marathon tomorrow!!