Orcas Island 50k

4th time's the charm!

I have been knocking on the door of six hours at the Rainshadow Running Orcas Island 50k for some time and finally managed to get there. I was not the fittest I have ever been but we had a super day and my pacing definitely is much better than it used to be so today really was a case of (my more) experience(d) (self) triumphing over (my more) youth(ful) (self).




Thanks to James Varner for doing what he does so well!



Here is my history at this race.

2013 - 6:04
This year I (re)sprained my ankle pretty badly early on which cost me some time as I slowly recovered and accelerated.

2015 - 6:02
No physical ailments this year, but it was really wet and muddy which slowed everyone down.

2017 - 6:07
I fractured my fibula one mile from the finish! That cost me 10-15 minutes.

2019 - 5:49
Yessssssssss!

My previous efforts indicate I had a sub-six run in me all the time so it's super satisfying to finally pull it off. Showing up healthy and finally having an incident-free day sure helps. :)

Pacing has been my mission ever since the beginning of last year. I know, I know, why not all the time? Well as anyone that competes knows, it can be hard to actually execute a plan. I always thought I was okay at pacing myself but the truth was I needed to start even slower. Last year I finally began to walk the talk. and it has paid off big time.

What changed? Two things.

1. I got older. Seriously, I knew I was not getting any faster so I tried to focus on the things I could improve like being more efficient at aid stations, my fueling, and pacing.
2. I got a Stryd running power meter. I have used power meters for years racing bicycles but until recently there were no good options for running. Stryd is great! It's incredibly consistent (much more important than accurate - but it also appears to be very accurate), super easy to use, and power is the most objective and reliable indicator of how much work you are doing. I wear it for pretty much every run and race.

The start was very chill. I got there early, picked up my number, and relaxed in my car. With about 15 minutes to go I walked over, did a light warmup, listened to James' pre-race announcement, and we were off.

Speaking of pacing, it always surprises me how many people appear to be gunning for a 10k PR in an ultra. I started near the front just to try and avoid getting mired in the herd but at least 80 people passed me in the first two miles. On the other hand, only one person passed me between mile two and the finish.

Once I had been running for a few minutes I switched my watch to the screen with heart rate and power. Whoops... looks like I had forgotten to put on my heart rate strap. Oh well, that data is nice to have but I really only use my Stryd for pacing so tried to not let it bother me.

Based on an excellent run at last year's Chuckanut 50k, I guessed I could average 285 watts today. Proving that I'm not perfect at pacing, I made two mistakes. Last March I was fitter than I am now (and last year I already had a race under my belt come February) and this race starts with a big climb and I let my power sneak up a little too high. On the paved climb, I kept seeing 300-320 watts and on this day that was just a little too much. It always feels easy at the beginning of an ultra, right? In the end, I averaged 260 watts and faded a bit in the last six miles. My climbing felt pretty good, but my flat running (lack of fitness) and descending (lack of strength) was not the best it has been. Kind of a bummer too because I love to run downhill!

Looking at the aid stations in advance I figured I would only need to stop twice. I usually run with two 24 oz bottles which is a lot of fluid on a cool day so figured I only needed to stop at mile 13 and 20. Turns out that was perfect.

Ever since I switched to liquid food as my primary fuel aid stations have gotten much easier. I just pull up with a bag of powder in my hand, dump it in an empty bottle, and get it filled up with water. Done. Both times I showed up at aid stations today they were not crowded so I was even able to ask a volunteer to do this for me and was able to calmly eat a gel while getting serviced. Nice!

Another thing that has let me run worry free and focus on my pacing has been my shoes. I can't overstate how important comfy shoes are. They should not rub or bind, they should not impact your toes on descents, and you should feel like you have control. My Topo shoes do all that.

I dressed perfectly today. I had on a little more than some other runners but these days I don't run very hot and it worked out. I was warm at the top of the first climb but it cooled off again on the Power Line climb so no problem.

Here are some highlights.

• Orcas Island is so freaking green! There are several, long sections of this run where the trail or road is totally surrounded by fields of vivid moss. It looks like the trail has been cut through a big, fluffy, green quilt! So beautiful.
• I felt good on all the climbs. Even on Power Line and the subsequent climb I was still doing okay. I love trekking poles!
• I ran for a while with this guy in sandals that would burst into song every so often. The first number I heard sounded like an original as it was about descending too fast and needing to recover. Later on he sang Macho Man by the Villiage People. Twice.
• I was hoping to see some of my friends during the run which didn't happen. But I saw a ton at the finish! So cool to be a part of this community.
• On the Power Line climb I caught this 20 something named Chris. After just a few seconds of hiking together, he spouts off with, "I thought I was going to be the only Clydesdale in the front of the pack." I gotta say, Chris was super game. He was running all the flatter sections and smoked the descent after Power Line. And he was a huge talker. You know, all the stuff someone who is running their first ultra would say.
• "Boy, I sure am thirsty!"
• "Man, this climb is hard!"
• "Wow, I am so psyched!"
• "My friends aren't going to believe this!"
• On the Power Line climb I heard this one guy say to another behind me, "If your ass was any tighter, you would split your tights." I'm pretty sure that he meant it as a compliment (and in retrospect, I'm pretty sure it was Chris that said this), but at the time I almost laughed out loud. Truth be told, the guy the talker was referencing did have a very athletic ass.
• About one mile from the bottom of the last descent (that's about 2.5 miles from the finish) this guy in a bright orange shirt passed me. I saw him behind me for a couple of miles but could not hold him off. To his credit, he was very polite and told me I had a good chance of going sub 6. Until then I had not dared to look at my watch, after he told me this I glanced down and saw I had about 22 minutes to get to the finish. With only about 1.5 miles to go that was a real morale booster.
• I think I set a personal record for least calories consumed during a 50k. I sort of wanted more but every time I tried to drink in the second half of the race I would start to burp. I figured less was more on this day. Luckily it worked out.
• My weight is the heaviest it has ever been since I started running ultras and this was my best time on this course. Take that body image.
• It's only the beginning of the year but even after running this race my toenails were perfect.

Here are all my pictures.

Results

• 2nd - Men 50-59
• 17th - Overall
• official results

Nutrition (before)

• water
• one Hammer Gel 10 minutes before the start

Nutrition (during)

• 4 Hammer Gels
• 3.5 24 oz bottles each with 1.5 scoops Perpetuem, 1 Race Caps Supreme, 1 Anti-Fatigue Cap, 1 Endurance BCAA+ Cap, .5 scoops Fully Charged, 1.5 scoops Endurolytes Extreme Powder

Nutrition (after)

• 3 scoops Recoverite, 2 Tissue Rejuvenator Caps, 2 Xobaline Caps, 2 Hammer CBD Softgels
• 3 beers
• 4 pieces pizza
• 3 cookies

Gear

• Topo Athletic Terraventure 2 shoes
• Stryd running power meter
• Stance Socks
• Old Navy compression boxer briefs
• Dynafit knickers
• Craft long sleeve undershirt
• Hammer Nutrition long sleeve running shirt
• Orange Mud buff
• Nathan TransWarmer convertible gloves/mittens
• Salomon ADV Skin 5 Set
• Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z Trekking Poles

Here is my Stryd power file.

Metabolic test at Real Rehab Sports + Physical Therapy

Nerds love numbers! And when it comes to training/nutrition/gear/bike fit I am a huge nerd.

In the past, I have performed a VO2 Max test and when I heard about this Metabolic test from my friend Aaron Ostrovsky it sounded really interesting. Seems many of my friends like to geek out on the same stuff that I do (go figure...) so after learning about this, I had to do it too. What is a Metabolic test? According to Real Rehab where I had the test, "Active Metabolic Profile Testing provides insight into your efficiency in utilizing fat stores as energy during exercise."

Remember when every coach and sports nutritionist only ever talked about carbs? Well in case you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years, using fat as fuel and optimizing your bodies ability to metabolize fat is all the rage now. Not to mention Paleo, Keto, etc., etc.

If nothing else, you get some cool pictures when you do one of these tests.



Why this fascination with your body's metabolism and metabolic efficiency? It's pretty simple really. An average, healthy person can store about 500 grams of carbohydrate. Roughly 400 of these are stored in your skeletal muscle (frequently referred to as "muscle glycogen"), about 100 are stored in your liver, and the rest (25 grams or so) are stored in your blood and circulate through your body as glucose. These 500 grams are about 2000 calories of carbohydrate. The math is simple, one gram of carbohydrate contains about four calories. Protein is roughly the same by the way.

Fat, on the other hand, contains about nine calories per gram. Even a very "lean" athlete has at least 5 lbs of fat stores in their body, usually more like 8-10. Since most athletes (or people) are not super lean, let's assume 10 lbs to make the math easy. One pound is about 450 grams so that means each of us has a minimum of 40,500 calories stored in fat.

Let that sink in.

If we could burn fat as efficiently as carbohydrate or instead of carbohydrate, we would not need to eat for a very long time. That means as long as your body is able to metabolize fat, and you have fat to spare, it's pretty much impossible to bonk.

That, in a nutshell, is why so many endurance athletes are all talking about optimizing their fat burning engine/system. And a Metabolic test measures just how efficient you are at doing this.

I was told 70% of your fat burning efficiency is determined by your diet and only 30% is due to training. My takeaway from this is it confirms my belief that going for a run or ride without food to "train" your body to burn fat is dumb. Better to fuel your body while exercising and to eat properly when not exercising. If you do want to train your body to burn fat, exercise at an effort level that is conducive for this. For most folks, this is zone 2.

Here is how this test went down.

• The test was explained to me.
• I got fitted for the mask.
• I took the test.
• 10 minutes of warm-up which consisted of walking on a 2% incline at 3 mph.
• Roughly 50 minutes of walking/jogging/running, every five minutes the tester would increase the speed and/or the steepness of the incline.
• 5-10 minutes of cooldown to see how fast (or slowly depending on your perspective) my body recovered and was able to use fat as fuel again.
• The results were explained to me and I got to ask questions.

GOALS

• I wanted to know how efficient my system was! As you get older you get slower but I had some of my best ultra trail running results ever in 2018 at age 54 due to better pacing and fueling. If this test could help me net an additional gain it would be awesome to stay the hands of time for another year or two.

RESULTS

Here are my complete results, and here is a great article from Uphill Athlete that will help you interpret the results.

Here is the Reader's Digest version (assuming I'm always running on a treadmill with a 2% incline).

Test duration: 50 minutes

Start: 2% incline, 3 mph (20:00 pace), 72 bpm
At 6.5 mph the incline was increased to 3%.

Finish: 3% incline, 7.5 mph (8:00 pace), 149 bpm

Crossover Point: RER (Respiratory Exchange Ratio) = 0.85

Metabolic Efficiency Point (same as crossover point): 144 bpm, 7.0 mph (8:34 pace) at 3% incline

• This is roughly equivalent to a 7:51 mile on flat ground.

Zone 1: <83 bpm, <3.4 mph (17:38 pace)

Zone 2: 84-134 bpm, 3.5-6.4 mph (17:09-9:23 pace)

Zone 3: 135-147 bpm, 6.5-7.4 mph (9:14-8:06 pace)

Zone 4: >147 bpm, >7.5 mph (8:00 pace)

My recovery was slow. Within one minute of passing the crossover point/starting my recovery, my body was burning 100% carbohydrate and it took a full five minutes before it slipped under the crossover point (50% fat, 50% carbohydrate utilization).

TIME
This took two full hours from start to finish.

COST
$250

RECOMMENDATIONS

No big surprises here...!

If I run at 7.0 mph (8:34 pace) for an hour with a 3% grade my total calories burned is 1137 so I should consume 110-300 calories of carbohydrate-based snack every 1-2 hours. This supports my practice of "less is more" when fueling as I rarely consume more than 200 calories per hour during a race and even less if it's a 50k or shorter. Another way of looking at this is you should only consume 10-30% of your caloric expenditure per hour for a given effort.

Because it took my body a long time to recover and because the spread between my fat and carb consumption lines is not so great close to my crossover point, I should train more intervals. Basically, my body is used to churning away at a steady state and when I up the tempo, it has a hard time adjusting and I have a hard time recovering.

Interestingly, this is very much the same advice I got when I took my VO2 Max test. I guess I need to trust the science!

My recommended training week looks something like this.
- 2 days of zone 2/3 (5-10 minute intervals with 3 minutes of recovery)
- 1 day of zone 3
- 1 day of short zone 4 efforts with 5 minutes of recovery
- the remainder of the week should be no more than easy running/recovery or zone 2

THOUGHTS and TAKEAWAYS

• Perceived effort is tough to convey. The tester kept asking me to rate my perceived effort on a scale of 1-10 after every 5-minute interval. I started at 1 and ended up at 7 for whatever that's worth. I think wearing the mask made it feel harder than it really was.
• Running with a mask (that is attached to a very short tether) is rough. Turns out I bounce a bit when I run and I'm taller than most people they test. I also like to look around a lot. In this situation, you can't turn your head very far at all and you need to stay in just the right spot on the treadmill. Not so easy for me.

• I was told my body is pretty efficient at burning fat! Considering how much my diet has been supplemented by chocolate and beer lately that is awesome news.
• Once again these zone numbers confirm that my zone 2 matches up perfectly with the Phil Maffetone 180 Formula. You just can't prove that shit wrong. To burn fat, spend more time here (meaning in zone 2).
• This test was another great reality check. Most athletes, including me apparently, spend too much time in zone 2/3, the "junk miles" zone. Instead, more of us should spend more time in zone 2 with occasional, short forays into zone 4. You need to mix up the pace in training to teach your body to go fast, move efficiently and to recover fast. And you need plenty of recovery in between these faster workouts.
• Training by feel, except in very few cases (odds are you are probably not one of these), is not going to work if you want to maximize your potential. It will work just fine if you are only trying to maximize your fun or are just trying to live a healthy, active lifestyle. To really leverage this kind of data you need to use a heart rate monitor and/or a power meter.

Here are all my pictures.

Here is my not so accurate Strave file. For some reason, it appears my watch tried to use the GPS even though I selected indoor run so the distance is way short but the time is pretty accurate. The blip in the middle of this run is when I accidentally hit the emergency shutoff on the treadmill. :( We started it back up as fast as we could.

pacing Lucca at the Seattle Marathon

Wow! For three reasons.

1. 2018 is the SEVENTH time I have run the Seattle Marathon with Lucca.
2. Somehow I frequently manage to injure myself several weeks prior to this event so end up running a marathon essentially "off the couch". Ouch.
3. Lucca doesn't seem to be slowing down so this isn't getting any easier!

Thankfully (surprisingly?) I managed to get the job done and not so surprisingly Lucca keeps logging Boston (and New York, etc.) qualifying times. Way to go Lucca!

I'll get the Martin stuff out of the way stat so we can talk about the real star here, Lucca.

In my early years of running, I would routinely get overuse injuries. This was in part because I was overusing my body but also because I was not wearing the best shoes for me and because I did not know how to take care of myself. This year my injury was a real accident and not related to running at all. On October 20 I was riding home on my scooter when it slid out in a corner and I landed on my ass. Hard. Say hello to soft tissue injury! This injury was bad enough that I couldn't do anything for one week and could only do light gym work the second week. The third week I was able to ride my bike to work but I couldn't actually run until a little later. This left me just a few precious days to get in some miles and to taper/rest.

Hahaha...

Okay, the first thing I abandoned was the taper. After a couple of super duper cautious and short treadmill runs I ventured outside, my progression went like this.

Oct 21 - I try to ride my bike before I realize how serious my injury is and abort and hit the couch, sideways, because I can't actually sit on anything
Oct 22-28 - go stir crazy
Oct 29-Nov 11 - some light gym work + walking
Nov 12 - 3 miles on a treadmill
Nov 13 - stair workout
Nov 14 - 3 miles on a treadmill
Nov 15 - 6 miles on pavement
Nov 16 - 2 miles on a treadmill
Nov 17 - 6 miles on pavement
Nov 18 - 10 miles on trails
Nov 20 - stair workout
Nov 21 - 6 miles on a treadmill
Nov 22 - 10 miles on trails
Nov 23 - 6 miles on pavement
Nov 25 - Seattle Marathon

Now for the real story.

Lucca's official 2019 Boston qualifying time is 4:00 but because this race is so darn popular, her "improved" time is 3:55. So we set out with a goal of 3:55 and a dream time of 3:50. Lucca's Marathon PR is just sub 3:45 but she was recently coming off of a three-week break from running so didn't have the luxury of ideal preparation either.

Some numbers:
3:55 = 8:57 pace
3:50 = 8:46 pace

We both agreed that as long as we were seeing an 8:50 pace on our watches most of the time we should be good.

Ready, set, go!

As in years past, I carried all of our nutrition. Not needing to stop at aid stations in ANY race reaps you big rewards and hey, there is no rule that you have to use the nutrition supplied by the event so as usual, I was about the only person looking like I was heading out for an all-day adventure in the woods instead of like someone running a supported marathon.



I had two bottles up front and an extra one in back and I was carrying enough gel for both of us. I was also carrying my wallet (which contained my bus pass) and phone so I wouldn't be stranded in the event of a worst-case scenario. One real benefit of wearing a vest is you can use it to stash your clothes and as it happened, we had a freaking perfect day for running. It was a little cold (for me anyway) at the start but by the finish, neither of us were wearing gloves, Lucca had ditched her Buff and I would have been more comfy with one less shirt. Not too shabby for late November in Seattle! Another bonus of carrying your nutrition is you always get to eat/drink exactly what you want. And yes, I'm looking at you Hammer Nutrition, this stuff is SO good.

This year we got into the runner's corral a bit too far back. You would think it's easy to pass people on a four-lane road but not so much when it's this many people. At the very least you need to expend some extra energy weaving in and out of the crowd and it took us all the way down 5th Ave where we finally turned onto the I-5 Express Lanes before we saw the 3:45 pacer. Whew, now we could relax and slowly let them get out of sight again. :)

The course for the Seattle Marathon was new again this year. Gone is the iconic, scenic stretch along Lake Washington Blvd and instead we got to run a big out-and-back along the Burke Gilman Trail. And then another out-and-back on the Burke Gilman Trail.

First, some history.

Last year, because of Link Light Rail construction, the promoters had to abandon the out-and-back on the I-90 floating bridge. To make up for the lost miles they added some (hilly) miles in the Arboretum and to get to Lake WA Blvd from downtown Seattle you had to climb up and over a ridge. I guess some people complained about the extra elevation gain?! Anyway, this year they kept pushing the Burke Gilman route as a good thing.

"That's 25% less elevation gain on the half marathon course and 21% less on the full marathon! You're welcome."

Road runners... sheesh.

When I first heard that we were running on the Burke Gilman Trail I was 1) horrified (so flat, so boring) and 2) worried that this relatively narrow stretch of pavement would cause real safety issues with running traffic going in both directions. On a trail that is super popular on the weekends! Thank goodness my fears were mostly unrealized. When we saw the lead trio of runners, they only had one lead bicycle in front of them which I thought was insufficient but everyone else was spread out enough by the time they got to the trail to avoid any serious issues. The turn around on the Burke was kind of tight tho...

The route took us from Memorial Stadium south down 5th Ave as usual which is pretty cool. You are running under the Monorail so if you don't watch out, you might run into one of the concrete supports for the track. :)

From 5th Ave we turned onto the I-5 Express Lanes and headed north. On most any other day this would have been a highlight since these lanes are covered and it's usually pissing rain in Seattle this time of year but on this day it was just a few miles of running on really worn out concrete. Not that exciting. Until you pop out into the open, then you have a great view of Lake Union and Gas Works Park. And the race course is FIVE LANES WIDE. We took the 42nd St exit, dropped down one block to the trail and headed north on the Burke Gilman.

Lucca was doing great so far! And luckily, so was I! Our main concern here was just not going too fast. We still had the 3:45 pacer in sight but it's tricky to slow down just a few seconds per mile, especially since our GPS watches were telling us we were running anywhere between 8:00-10:20 pace. Not so helpful.

Running on the Burke was thankfully not nearly as bad as I anticipated. I was predicting a massive, soul-sucking experience mixed with chaos from all the race and recreational traffic but luckily my imagination was (as usual) overly active and running along with Lucca was pretty fun. We sipped, snacked and chatted our way out to Magnuson Park and then back to Fremont. On the way it was a thrill to see David Papineau who was running his 50th marathon on his 50th birthday. Boom! He was easy to spot due to the pointy, sparkly birthday hat he always wears at this event.

Lucca was stellar. I kept track of the elapsed time and whenever I handed her a bottle or gel, she took a sip or gulped it down. And when we had drained our first bottle, she even managed to pull the full bottle out from my vest and swap it with the empty one while we ran. Awesome. I guess I hate taking my vest off while running...

After rolling through Fremont we ran the second out-and-back which takes you a little further down the trail toward Ballard. This section was dull and had it not been for the Hale's Brewery aid station - WHERE THEY WERE HANDING OUT ACTUAL BEER - it would have been hard to muster much enthusiasm. As we ran past this aid station table, I saw some growlers out of the corner of my eye and reflexively my body swerved right toward the table.

Me: "Woah... are you guys handing out beer?"
Hale's Volunteer: "Yeah, but hurry up, they're kinda trying to shut is down..."

By this point, my body was fully and completely locked into our 8:50 ish pace. And I was exceeding my fitness by a LONG shot. In fact, I had not run a road marathon since this time last year and I had not run this long period since the Pine to Palm 100. Yikes!

After stopping to drink that tiny cup of beer I set off to catch Lucca. Oh. My. God. It was everything I could do to run at an 8:00 pace for the quarter mile or whatever it took to catch her. I'm just glad I was able to!

When we got to Fremont we turned left up Stoneway for what I thought was the last hill. We climbed up Stoneway for a few blocks and then turned left to climb up to Aurora and then climbed the gentle hill that is the Aurora Bridge. So far so good.

I had purposefully not been obsessively checking my watch every 30 seconds so when I glanced down near the top of the bridge with just over one mile left to go and with about 10 minutes to go before we hit 3:50 I got pretty excited! As we started to descend I tried to calmly tell Lucca that I thought we could make 3:50.

If you have ever been close to your limit you know it's easier said than done to increase your pace. But I wasn't worried, I figured if we just didn't slow down 3:50 was in the bag! I just wasn't going to advertise that fact too loudly since it's never over till it's really over.

Then we turned right off Aurora. And we were faced with a 3-block climb. Oh no...

Lucca dug deep. Eating and drinking were not going to help at this point so it was just a matter of pushing harder and gutting it out. We did slow down but we did not walk! And boy was it nice to finally turn left and see the entrance to Memorial Stadium ahead instead of the traditional last hill the old course had.

I tried to gradually ramp up the pace on the descent and Lucca was totally game! As we entered the stadium I was moving about as fast as I could and Lucca was right in front of me. I could see the clock above the finishing arch and right then I realized we were going to be a few seconds short of 3:50 but only seven!



You want proof that Lucca pushed hard? Here you go. Magically, her husband Bil caught this on camera.



But as soon as Lucca threw up (and it wasn't much at all) she was fine. Way to go Lucca!

What an awesome/amazing tradition! These past few years I have just been signing up for the Seattle Marathon as soon as possible because that is the least expensive price but more importantly, I'm 99% sure Lucca and I will be on the starting line again. Even if I get injured.

After the race, Lucca and I limped around for a bit and soaked in the relative warmth. It was a spectacular day! Then Lucca and Bil walked back to their hotel to get cleaned up and to take the train home to Leavenworth. I put on some warm, dry clothes and walked over to Feierabend to meet some friends for beers and brats. Yes, that walk felt good. Oh yeah, so did the food and drink.

Here's to another year of running with my sister! And here's to Lucca for being so darn rock solid throughout and being willing to dig that deep at the end. Did I mention we had consecutive race numbers? That was fun. And hearing the race announcer mention both of us as we approached the finish - while pronouncing "Criminale" correctly - is so cool.

Here are all the pictures and videos.

Results

• Another year of bonding with Lucca. Priceless.
• official results

Nutrition (before)

• water

Nutrition (during)

In total, the two of us consumed the following.

• 2 large bottles each with 2 scoops HEED, 1 scoop Endurolytes Extreme Powder, .5 scoops Fully Charged, 1 Race Caps Supreme, 1 Anti-Fatigue Cap, 1 Endurance BCAA+ Cap
• 9 Hammer Gels

Nutrition (after)

• 3 scoops Recoverite
• 3 Tissue Rejuvenator Caps
• 1 Floyd's of Leadville 50mg CBD Softgel

Gear

• Topo Athletic Ultrafly 2 shoes
• Stance socks
• Brooks undershirts
• Dynafit knickers
• Old Navy shorts
• Craft long sleeve undershirt
• Topo Athletic team shirt
• Hammer Nutrition trucker hat

Moran Constitutional Relay

Way back in 2015 I got invited by some friends to participate in the Ragnar Northwest Passage relay race. It was a blast! So when I heard about the Moran Constitutional Relay, I immediately plagiarized the Ragnar team name (Whistle Tips) and invited those same friends. #doneanddone



First things first. I didn't know what "Whistle Tips" meant until this weekend, here's the scoop.



Hahaha... Kids.

This relay race had 12 legs and our team was six people so we each got to run twice. Eight legs were held on Saturday and four on Sunday so two people had to double up on the first day (but then they were didn't have to run on Sunday). Leg length was about 3-8.5 miles but the shorter legs usually had much more elevation gain so the time it took to run each leg was roughly equivalent. Case in point, three of the shorter legs gained about 2.000'.

When we chose our legs I told everyone I didn't care what I get. Guess what legs were left over, the two with the most vertical gain. :) I got to run up the Power Line Trail climb on Saturday to Little Summit and on Sunday I ran up the Cold Spring Trail from Cascade Lake to the top of Mt Constitution. Go!

One trick with relay races is coordinating transportation to transitions. Ideally, it's an exercise in hurry up and wait. You get there a little (not too much) before the runner shows up so you have time to warm up but not so early that sit around and cool down. It can be hard to predict when each person will finish their leg, that's part of the excitement.

I have run these trails several times during the Orcas Island 50k. The climbs I was supposed to "run" up are pretty much 95% hiking during an ultra so I was a little psyched out but freshness makes a HUGE difference. On this weekend I ran every step of both climbs. Yes! And being able to do this was an enormous confidence booster, it made the climbs much less intimidating.

I'll cut to the chase.

• My time on the Power Line Trail climb was 51:01, that was almost four minutes slower than 1st place but about 50 minutes faster than last place.
• My time on the Cascade Lake to Mt Constitution Summit climb was 43:50. 1st place baby!
• It's hard to estimate your finishing time, I ran up to the Mt Constitution Summit so fast I beat my teammate I was handing off to by almost 10 minutes! Good thing we were not hyper-competitive. :)
• Our team took a wrong turn. Twice. That cost us about 15 minutes in total.
• Our team was great! We had some beers the night before, after the first day, and after the second day. That's my style.
• Rosario is THE place to stay. And the spa is included.
• Island Skillet in Eastsound is awesome! But they are not open late so don't delay.
• A co-ed team is the way to go!

I recommend this race! It was well organized, most meals are included and the trails are all amazing.

Here are all my pictures, too bad no one got any of me actually running...! :(

Results

• 4th - Overall leg #4
• 1st - Overall leg #10
• 9th - Overall Team
• official results

Gear

• Topo Athletic MT-2 shoes