Waking up on race day morning, I focused on slipping into a pre-race routine. I dropped off my aid bags. The race organizers recommended an AM drop-off because bears had been coming into the race site and messing with food and aid bags the night before.
I also needed to eat, pick up my SPOT device and gear up – fill my backpack with water, nutrition and make sure I had all the necessary gear – rain jacket, rain pants, warm shirt, headlamp and everything else. I knocked off the drop bags first which gave me a sense of completion – there was nothing more to prepare for what was ahead, just get myself ready to start.
I walked back to the van, dressed and ate breakfast – sweet potatoes, walnuts and a banana. Lena boiled water for coffee and then I only had my SPOT device to pick up. I headed over, did that, and everything was set and the waiting began. We had about 20 minutes before the start, and I felt nervous energy from everyone. I tried to stay calm and tell myself that I was ready but really, I was nervous.
From the race briefing the day before, there seemed to be a lot of first-time 200-milers – I guessed about 60% of the runners were tackling their first 200-miler, which gave me some confidence knowing how much more experience I had having done this distance before. I’d done it two years ago, and I knew I could do it again.
As I walked to and from the bathroom and back and forth to the van, I felt a combination of nerves but also a sense of belonging – that the race was here, and I was here, and this was my place. I knew I did my very best to prepare for the race and thought about everything I’d put into my training and preparation over the last nine months, and since July, I put in three months of very good training designed to improve my fitness and strengthen my resolve.
Even so, life at work had be hectic, especially over the last six weeks as I made several changes to the company based on how we were doing and the new directions that I needed to take the business. This was stressful. I was working most evenings and leaving the house by 6:00am most mornings for weeks on end, fitting in my training mostly during the day – I’d break from the office in the afternoon to do 7-10 mile runs, or head over to campus for what I called my “UC-Davis Day” – a Cross-Fit style workout that included 10×10, 11×11 and 12×12 workouts – sets of pull-ups, push-ups, jumping squats and then either 200-yard sprints or stair climbing. These were both physically and mentally exhausting, necessary both for training and stress-relief.
On the weekends, I did my long runs on Wednesday or Saturday mornings, and was able to fit in a couple of solid trail runs along the way. I did three-mile repeats at Pena Adobe – once doing five rounds and another time doing three rounds while wearing a 40-lb weight vest. I headed out to Stebbins Canyons to get in some climbing miles on technical terrain. I did a 24-mile trail run on PCT about six weeks before the race. I had planned to run the Mt. Diablo 50k as a final race prep about four weeks before the start, but I was feeling tired and opted for family time instead that weekend.
Most Fridays, I did lifting workout in the garage – usually shoulder presses, kettlebell swings, squats and occasionally some burpees followed with 5-7 rounds of 600-yard sprints around the block. On Sunday mornings, I did another garage workout of pull-ups, deadlifts and box jumps followed by a two-mile time trial around my neighborhood.
In Portland back in July, I ran as many hills as I could, frequenting Forest Park. I did all of my training without food or nutrition, even my 4-5 hour trail runs. Going all the way back to the start of the year, I slowly built up my endurance engine in January, February and March with longer, slower miles, then focused on speed work in April in preparation for the Bryce Canyon 100 in May. I ran three local 50ks early in the season – the FOURmidable in February, Ruck-a-Chuck in March and the Napa 50k in April. I had a solid race at Bryce Canyon – a 30-hour trudge that tested my mettle. I thought I’d take a longer break after Bryce Canyon, but found myself back into a training regimen within a week feeling antsy and ready.
I had a couple of nagging injuries throughout my training – my right hamstring has had a knot in it since last year that won’t go away. One of the muscles high on my right leg – the iliacus, pectineus, or psoas major (not sure which) – had been strained years ago and healed last year, but I was feeling it again. The tendon on the outside top of my left foot was sprained – I felt a sharp pain if I landed unevenly whenever I ran on the trail, which is kind of a problem because one tends to land unevenly often when trailing running.
About three weeks before the race, I bonked during a 10-mile midday run – I just simply lost my legs and had to jog-walk back to the office for three miles. From there, I wound down my training, calling it an extended taper, just working on getting back my legs and staying fit with garage workouts.
But even with the physical maladies and the extended taper, I knew my cardio engine was really strong, muscularly I felt great and my body was fat-adapted for fuel. In the weeks before the race, I fasted each day until lunch and stayed away completely from sugar, carbs and alcohol, except an occasional small glass of red wine on Sunday night with dinner.
This race was a quest that started back in November – nearly ten months ago when the idea first came to mind that, for whatever reason, I wanted to give the Tahoe 200 another go. When I finished in 2017, I was so elated with my race that I thought I wouldn’t want to run the race again for fear of doing worse or having a bad experience. I wanted nothing to spoil that accomplishment, but even after that race as friends would ask me about it, I would say that if I ever did go back, I’d want to see if I could break 72 hours – a full ten hours faster than my 2017 finishing time of 82:00:16, two hours ahead of my stretch goal of 84 hours.
Since the 2017 race, I’d become a much stronger runner with two 100s under my belt (Zion and Bryce Canyon), the Mt. Hood 50-miler and several 50ks. I was much stronger and even more fit than two years ago, and looking at my 2017 race, I knew there were hours I could chop off simply by moving more quickly through aid stations and sleeping less. Combining those “free” hours with running faster made me feel like I could get down to 72 hours if I had the perfect race.
I purposely waited until the race was full to register so that I would be on the wait list and have more time to decide if I wanted to do the race. I jumped on the wait list in December and it wasn’t until May 1 that my name cleared. When I got the email notification, I was in the lobby of a hotel San Francisco in the middle of a three-day client event. I texted Lena:
After all of that, there I was, standing at Homewood Mountain Resort feeling nervous and anxious, but knowing that I’d done pretty much everything I wanted to do in my training and preparation. I knew I was as ready as I could be.
Per usual with me, I was scurrying to the starting gate with little time to spare before the start, even with two hours since waking up to get ready. (I don’t know why I do this every race…) As the starting time crept closer, I made a couple of bathroom runs, including once during the national anthem. I could hear it in the background and was sorry to miss it because it was a wonderful rendition, but when ya gotta go…
Candice led us in the ultra-runner’s oath, taken from Micah True (a.k.a. Caballo Blanco) – “If I get lost, hurt or die, it’s my own damn fault.” She gave the countdown from ten and we started.