The G Running Diary

Yo-Yoing with the Yo-Yo Man: Ohlone 50K: 5/17/04

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What a great race. It's races like this that keep me smiling all week long. The course is tough. I didn't remember it being this hard. It's two years since Don and I ran it. We drove to the finish in Livermore and then caught the bus to the start in Fremont. If we'd just driven straight to the start we could have slept two hours longer! No matter. We needed our car at the finish anyway. The bus delivered us with plenty of time to hang out at the start. We could talk to everyone we knew, so that was a good thing. I also had time for a bathroom stop, and that was a very good thing.

The start happened, and I was on the all too familiar climb to Mission Peak. I had joked that Don and I better remember not to just turn around and come back down. We have done this climb many times. I started slowly. I kept thinking about all the times I'd run up there starting too fast and wheezing too soon. My favorite times were when I started off walking, so that's what I did. This put me very close to the back very soon. That was fine because after all this uphill there would be a lot of downhill. And then more uphill and more downhill. I would have plenty of time to pass people.

Even though there were 100 runners out there, I was running alone. When I caught up to people I said "hi" and asked how they were doing, but then continued on by. The one person I kept passing and having him pass me was Roger Jensen, the Yo-Yo man. He is identified by his bright shorts and top, matching the orange wildflowers out on the course, and the two yo-yos he carries on all his runs. He does a lot of runs--I've been seeing him all season. He's entered in Western States. So we chatted a little each time we saw each other. Eventually, he pulled away from me because he stayed strong on the downhills and ran most of the uphills. At first I wasn't alone. Dave Wright and I were talking away for the first part of the ascent. Running, shoes, and feet--my favorite topics--were what we chatted about.

So the first aid station stop was on the way down to Sunol. I got to see Hollis and Jeffery for a moment as I refilled my second bottle with CLIP. I wanted to make sure I kept drinking that stuff. I'd already had one bottle by this point. I kind of wanted to just hang out with those guys, but I continued on. At Sunol, I joked with the photographers about their setup on a flat area where they would actually get "running" pictures instead of walking ones. After the aid station, it was uphill again. It was at this point that the flies started bothering me. There weren't just a few flies. It was a swarm, and I seemed to be carrying this swarm all the way to the finish. I wondered what they were so attracted to. Boy, was I annoyed. I tried thinking of other things, but all I could think was how much I hated these flies. I hoped the next aid station would have some bug spray. They didn't have it as a regular supply item, but one of the volunteers went to get some out of his pack when he saw how bad off I was. I was convinced that no one else had such bad flies. The bug repellent seemed to help a little.

The other thing I needed from the aid stations was electrolyte capsules. Somewhere along the way, my little baggie had fallen out of my pack. I ended up taking only 4 Succeed! Caps through the whole race. It seemed to work out ok. If I'd had them with me, I would have taken more. Don said afterwards that he took more than 3 times as many as I did. I didn't eat a whole lot, and I'd say I did average to poor on water consumption. But still, I felt fine through most of the run. The only problem was that my legs got tired. The final downhills were hard on my left knee, and I realized at about 9 miles into the run that I needed new shoes. I could feel the ground on the ball of my right foot.