The G Running Diary

A Tale of Two Skylines: 8/10/03

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So it's kind of fun to do back-to-back 50Ks. I mean a week apart. Last week Don and I ran the Skyline 50K, which is in Castro Valley. This week we ran Skyline to the Sea 50K, in Big Basin park. What a difference a week makes. Although Skyline has the history and tradition, Skyline to the Sea is by far the winner on scenery. I don't know how you can beat the grandeur of the redwoods, views of the ocean, and running over the tops of mountains and along creeks in the valley. Both races had friends of ours working or running. Both had good food after, and a chance to hang out with people we liked. That part of it makes an end to a perfect day.

I was really still too tired to be running a 50K last Sunday. Although I thought I was recovered from Badwater (nothing seemed to hurt), I obviously was not because my quads soon died on me. My right hamstring was not happy either. It seemed like a hard effort and my finish time was the slowest ever--7:02:04! And this is an "easy" 50K. It's nice that there is always a good bunch of people running their first 50K. It was the first one Don and I ran, back in 1999 (so long ago). I thought it would be a good idea to run it this year to keep in practice for our Ridge Trail run coming up, and since the course was so familiar (we had run it 3 times before), we wouldn't have to concentrate too hard or worry. Well, maybe the practice idea was good, but the course was modified, so the end section was a little confusing. Not hard to follow, just hard to predict when it would end. And of course, when we were approaching 7 hours, we were definitely ready for it to end. But as soon as I was done, I was happy and in love with running again. This feeling was a great contrast to the thoughts out on the trail of, "What was I thinking? How on earth will I run 50 miles a day? Why would anyone do this anyway?" And now I have all those answers. You just do it. The rest of it doesn't matter.

Skyline to the Sea had another difference: we mostly ran along in a clump. Don talking with this person who has run over 500 marathons and ultras, and two other guys, Bob and Tom, who we met at a previous run put on by Wendell and Sarah. It was quite a social experience. I'm not always talkative when I run though. There were some tough hills, but you were always rewarded at the top of the climb with such great scenery. I was in love with this run the whole way through. Even the last 9K loop after hitting the start/finish area was neat to run on. When the downhill single track with a perfect soft running surface appeared before me, I wanted to yell, "Yippee!" and gallop or skip down it. How great is that? I realized also that I was in pain. But that didn't matter. After running so much, you can tell the difference between injury pain and tired pain. Injury pain would matter and scare me. Tired pain is just all part of the experience. It is not good or bad, it just is. And after we were done, we got our chili, as usual with Wendell and Sarah's runs. And I think Bob got his Carl's Jr. burger on his way home.