TNF SF Trail Championships : 13.1 - Dec 2nd 2012
Marin Headlands, CA
I had been looking forward to this race for over a month, so
when I heard that rain was forecasted for the event I was a little bummed. Being new to the Bay Area and the fact that it
actually rains here, I have zero experience running on muddy trails nor did I have
any clue what to wear. While there was nothing I could do about the first part a
quick trip to sports basement solved the second. 100 dollars later I had a new
Brooks running jacket & shorts. Perfect. The rest of the day I fell into my usual pre
race routine. 10PM hit, I got ready for bed, set my alarm for 5AM, and checked
my work email one last time before going to sleep. That’s when I saw the email. Race cancelled.
F*CK. Oh well.
The rain came down hard the whole night. No reason to wake
up at 5am so I slept in. Woke up at 10am, and had a leisurely breakfast with my
parents. Still raining. Finished my coffee. Now what? Well, I took the last couple days off from
working out for the race, and I had a new rain jacket … What the hell, I might
as well run.
I started off with the intention of only running 6 miles or
so along the bike path in mill valley. Curiosity got to me and I decided to run
to Tennessee Valley to check out how bad the trails really were. By the time I got
there the sun had come out and there were several other groups of antsy runners
who decided to get out and run on the course anyway. My competitive spirit got a hold of me and I decided
to try my luck at “The North Face San Francisco - Sunday Segment Run Challenge” While I didn’t go all out ( I had already ran
5+ miles) I put a solid 180bpm effort up the 1.4 mile 9% grade Marincello Climb.
I couldn’t wait to get home and upload it to Strava to see how I stacked up against
the likes of Galen
Burrell, Chikara Omine,
and Lucas Agricola
who’s names plague the strava leaderboards for most of the marin country trails.
Running up Marincello, I was surprised how good of shape the trails were in. Going down was a different story though. I looped down bobcat and there was literally a river running down that trail. I almost fell several times and it just felt sketchy going down. I couldn’t imagine trying to race down something like this. Luckily I made it down in one piece, picked back up my jacket, drank some water and ran home.
I ended up running 13.3 miles, climbing 1325 ft and holding
a 7:45 pace. I also made it up
Marincello in 11 minutes 50 seconds, which was the 6th fastest time
ever up the segment, and the fasted time for the Sunday segment run
challenge. Not bad. Galen of course had the KOM, but I was able to
edge out Chikara and Lucas. I think if I
hit that segment a little harder I could probably move up to 2nd, but Galen’s 10
min 27 sec is slightly insane.