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2018 PA USATF Across the Bay 12k Race Report (Sausalito-SF, CA)

2018 PA USATF Across the Bay 12k Race Report (Sausalito-SF, CA)

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In early June, along with many of my Wolfpack teammates, I ran the 35th annual Across the Bay 12k, put on by Represent Running as the second event in their Run the Bay Challenge. While this race is actually older than me, this year was the first time I got to run it. Typically, the race isn’t until later in the summer, when I’m out of town, but for whatever reason, this year’s iteration was earlier in June. Bonus: it was newly put on the PA Road Series schedule, which meant that the race would be an opportunity for my team to compete and earn points. Bonus bonus: since I am a social media ambassador for Represent Running, my race fee was comped (which is always nice). Bonus bonus bonus: I got to see many other SMA buddies before or after the race, in addition to many other Wolfpack, Arete, and other friends. It was going to be an excellent day.

Going into the race, I knew very little about the course — just that it started in Sausalito, climbed up and over the Golden Gate Bridge, and ended in Aquatic Park in Crissy Field — and that it had a couple good climbs at the beginning and end. I’d only ever run one other 12k before, the 2014 Bay to Breakers, but I thought that I could possibly post a better time at ATB than what I had at BTB, notwithstanding the hills. I figured it’d be a scenic experience and that much of the course would coincide with that of TSFM that I’d be running in a couple months’ time. More than anything, it was going to be a training run and a bit of a litmus test to see how SF training was shaping up.

I knew when I woke up on race morning that I wasn’t feeling very springy, but I quickly dismissed the reality (denial can be helpful sometimes, right?) and just focused on doing what I could for the day. ATB race week was just another week of TSFM training, without any taper or anything like that, and I had come into race day after having a “hearty” workout (coach’s words) earlier in the week. No matter. In my view anyway, marathon training is often about navigating accumulated fatigue, so it’s rare that you’ll show up to a race that’s in the thick of marathon training actually feeling close to 100%. I don’t think this view is cynical; I think it’s more indicative of the reality that is 26.2 training. It’s both part of the challenge and part of the fun.

My teammates and I carpooled up to SF in the wee hours on race day (and I caught a little more sleep in the process, fortunately, since I slept pretty poorly the night before), and pretty much right off the bat, I started running into people I know, beginning with Connie, Meg, and Brian. After a quick bus ride over from SF/Ghiradelli Square to Sausalito/the race’s staging grounds, many of my teammates and I began a couple mile warm-up. The weather was pretty perfect — nice temps, amazingly no fog to speak of (affording us beautiful views of SF and the GGB), and no wind — and before too long, we were corralling ourselves into the first group and awaited for go time.

waiting for those magic words in the starting corral with some teammates (PC: WRC)

The course was interesting insomuch that it gave participants lots of opportunities (or challenges, depending on your disposition) to change gears. Literally steps off the starting line, we began a massive descent that hurtled us down virtually underneath the GGB. Of course, to get back over into SF, we had to get ourselves up to the bridge, so that massive downhill and subsequent flat first mile quickly transformed into what felt like a straight-vertical second mile to get us up to the bridge. The bridge is about two miles long and a “false flat,” so it wasn’t until about mile 3 or so, when we were over the bridge and onto the SF side of the race, that we really began (heartily) descending again and wound our way on flat lands through Crissy Field. There was a little out-and-back action at one portion around mile 4/4.5, if I remember correctly, but for the most part, once we got over into SF and off the GGB, it was a continuous trek east. Roughly miles 3.5-7 were flat, and at the very end, we passed Fort Mason and crested one last good-sized hill that would spill us over to the finish line on the other side, right back at Ghiradelli Square, where we boarded buses just a couple hours earlier. A 12k translates to about 7.5 miles — you’re welcome; I didn’t know either — which doesn’t sound like all that much longer than a 10k but in the thick of it, holy hell! What a difference! Everything is more intense when you’re trying to run fast.

don’t mind the cheese

If I say nothing else about this race, I’ll say this: I found it an excellent exercise in patience. Clearly I’m not the best at pacing short stuff, but right off the starting line, surrounded by tons of very, very fast PA runners and teammates, and on a downhill, it took a LOT of self-control to not fly. I remember looking down at my watch for a second to find that I was around a 5:55 pace — and yes, on a downhill, and right at the start, so it’d understandably be faster than what I had any business to be posting — but I quickly pulled back because I knew that’d bite me tremendously later. I have enough experience to know from racing in these uber-fast PA races that I’m doing well for me if I finish in the 50th percentile. That said, I knew right off the line about where I should be.

I tried to anticipate these big climbs that I had been warned about, and I think pulling back in that first big downhill mile helped me feel strong getting up to and over the GGB. I slowly began reeling in and passing other runners who had smoked me off the line, and I was surprised at how strong I felt as I was ascending and descending. Thanks to the stroke and the subsequent time off and fitness rebuilding this spring, I haven’t raced a lot yet this year, which simply means that I’m relying on workout data to give me a glimmer of an idea of my fitness and endurance right now. By this time last year, I had PRed — repeatedly — my 5k and 10k times, but of course, this spring played out very differently. Getting comfortable and feeling confident in a racing atmosphere again will only come when I put myself out there and go for it. I mean, that’s kinda how it works; you get comfortable with racing by racing. (Magic, right?). Even as I was toeing the line at this race, I felt zero — absolutely zero — race day nerves. ATB was feedback, pure and simple, an opportunity to see what my body could produce in a fatigued state and after slowly building back fitness, speed, and endurance since beginning in mid-March.

One of my highlights from ATB was seeing so many other teammates and friends on the brief OAB around mile 4; I did Chicago runners proud by the number of beautiful mid-race side-5s I threw down. For the final couple miles of the race, I could see Meg’s little ponytail whipping around maybe thirty seconds-a minute in front of me, and I tried so hard to catch up to her. Imagine how fun would it be to finish alongside a dear friend?! Ultimately I didn’t — and I sorta wished I had taken an SiS mid-race, either in addition to or instead of the one I had taken beforehand, wondering if I would have finished more strongly — but I posted 52:45 (52:48 officially, since PA rules are antiquated and go by gun time, not chip time), around a 7 minute pace for what Garmin says was just shy of 700’ of climbing. And yup, my predictions were pretty spot-on for PA placement: 19/58 women, 12/18 AG, and and 67/140 overall. Cool. 

your friendly harriers (PC: WRC)

 

Shortly after finishing, my teammate Leilani and I shared some cool-down miles before I circled back for more (after having a piece of birthday cake to celebrate my teammate, Anna’s, 35th); fueling a cool-down with delicious birthday cake can’t be beat. It ended up being a gorgeous morning in SF, punctuated with a fun race, great competition, and a lovely meet-up with friends whom I don’t get to see nearly as often as I like. Many teammates did really well, posting wonderful PRs and high placements, and it was super fun to share in their successes.

also fun: sleeping both THERE and BACK (PC: Jason)

I’d definitely recommend this race if you’re local or local-ish to SF. Running over the GGB is fun, and provided you don’t have an aversion to some urban climbing, I think you’ll have an enjoyable experience. Of course, I’m partial to anything that JT and his crew at Represent Running produce, but it has been my experience, anyway, that as far as races go, they’re as fun, competitive, locally-focused, and well-organized as they come. I was so happy that I was actually in town for this year’s race, and I’m excited to run it again in the future, perhaps on fresher legs this time around. (But honestly, probably not. I always consider really training for, and racing, shorter stuff in substitution of marathon training, but I really like the long stuff and prefer to throw in the short stuff as periodic checks. Never say never though, right?). Even though I missed breaking my BTB time by about 70 seconds, I had a lot of comfortably-hard fun and valued the opportunity to get some feedback on my TSFM training seven weeks out.

bottle opener! (PC: Represent Running)
North by Scott and Jenny Jurek: a book review

North by Scott and Jenny Jurek: a book review

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So much good stuff has come out recently in the running lit world, as I think I’ve said many times already this year, and adding to the already robust canon is Scott and Jenny Jurek’s North. Recently released in early 2018, the book chronicles Scott’s attempt at notching the FKT (fastest known time) on the northbound Appalachian Trail, starting in Georgia and ending in Maine, back in 2015.

If you’re a regular reader here, then it’s a safe assumption that you’re probably a runner and thus already know some of the background to this quest. If not, here’s a primer. Scott Jurek is one of the most fabled ultrarunners of all time. You can quickly scan his Wikipedia page to get a bird’s eye view of his many accomplishments, but suffice it to say that this guy has serious talent and the apparent drive to improve. A few years prior, he released his autobiography, Eat and Run, that allowed him to share his upbringing, how he came to the sport, how and why he came to veganism (which is a huge part of his life and identity) and the like. If you haven’t yet read Eat and Run, by the way, I’d definitely recommend it.

So, North. I won’t delve too deeply into the story and details here because it’s worth discovering for yourself, but it was a somewhat predictable and understandable storyline: professional ultrarunner, aging and beginning to think that his glory days are behind him, decides to do this utterly crazy-ass and grueling thing. Urging and supporting him along the way is his wife, Jenny, an accomplished climber and athlete in her own rite. Aside from Scott’s own personal reasons for taking on this enormous undertaking, it was a herculean effort from Jenny, too, to handle all the logistics and crewing to support her athlete (who happened to also be her husband, a combination that can compound an already tough effort into something far more complicated). Right before Scott’s FKT began, he and Jenny experienced some harrowing medical issues that made this already meaningful and life-centering act even more so. (No spoilers).

Even if you’ve never done an ultra before, if you’ve ever read stories and tales from the ultra community (or have seen any of the many documentaries about them), you know that ultrarunners are a completely separate breed of runner. It’s routine that ultrarunners will bring themselves to the brink repeatedly during the course of the race, and there are stories out there about runners who all but bring themselves to pounding on death’s door (with some ultimately actually doing themselves in). It’s with that knowledge in mind, then, that reading Scott’s and Jenny’s stories about the FKT makes comprehending this even more eye-opening and jaw-dropping because Scott was doing shit like that all day, every day, for more than 40 consecutive days. Maybe it’s heroic, or maybe it’s dumb; either way, it makes for some interesting reading.

Along the way, Scott introduces us to the key players in his FKT journey, and some of them you may recognize from Eat and Run. The personalities and friendships roll deep, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement while I was reading, thinking about my own running-based friendships and knowing how different people serve different roles: some as the always-optimistic cheerleader, others as the hard-ass drill sergeant, the guy who has all the answers, and the like. One type isn’t inherently better or worse than the other, but when you’re working hard toward realizing your goals, it’s helpful to have the variety at your disposal. I felt like I knew some of the characters by the end of the book, which is a testament to Scott and Jenny’s storytelling.

North is a quick read, and I think part of what contributes to its speed is the authorial voice of both Scott and Jenny. Scott is the primary storyteller in each chapter, but Jenny’s voice is also in the mix, typically at the end of each chapter (and briefly). Usually it plays out in such a way that Scott recounts his experiences for an almost-entire chapter, and then Jenny chimes in at the very end, sometimes elucidating and elaborating and other times refuting Scott’s memories. There’s always more than one side to every story, as we all know, and I can imagine that this is especially true when it comes to enormous endeavors like a FKT record. Scott’s experiences are going to inherently differ from those of Jenny (or Speedgoat, or whomever else), but the other voices still contribute in a meaningful way to the overall story. Honestly, I only wish that I would have heard more from Jenny since she played such a huge role in the effort.

For what it’s worth, I saw that Scott reads the audio version of the book, and while I think that’d be cool to hear — just like Deena did with her own book — I think I’d actually dissuade people from listening to the book simply because you just have to see the pictures from his adventure. The hard copy of the book includes probably close to 20-30 pictures of Scott, Jenny, and the gang at various points in the FKT quest, and the pictures really give credence to Scott’s descriptions of the varying and (sometimes horrifically) challenging terrain at different points in the AT. It’s one thing to read his description about grappling over huge slabs of rock or squeezing through narrow tunnels, but it’s another thing to actually see a picture of him actually doing it. Same goes for seeing his apparent devolution on the FKT; you can take him at his word when he describes how emaciated he became, but when you see it for yourself, I feel like we as readers can get a much fuller appreciation of how exhaustingly he taxed every ounce of his being to do this crazy-ass thing.

An aside: why. Why, why, why, why, why would someone do something like this? It’s a question that all of us runners can relate to, at least on some base level, because it’s a question that we’ve probably asked of ourselves and/or one that others have asked of us, too. As a hobby-joggin’ mom to two young kids, it’s basically unfathomable to me to try to imagine putting my life on hold for many weeks to go all-in on a running-related goal for which truly nothing is at stake but pride and ego. There are many times in North when shit hits the fan so hard, and flies so furiously, and I’m on the edge of my seat awaiting what will happen next, when I all but want to throw the book against the wall because I can’t understand why Scott would put himself through this “stuff” that was obviously hurting him (sorry for the vaguesauce; no spoilers here) … but I think that’s part of what makes this story so compelling and interesting.

The only comparison I can make, the only way I can even kinda-sorta understand it, relates to a gift someone gave me before my first marathon, a print-out of a quote from a professional marathoner. In it, the runner answers a reporter’s question about the marathon distance, and his response is basically along the lines of “if I have to tell explain the marathon to you, you still won’t understand. It’s beyond you and me.” It sounds like a cop-out answer, sure, but at the same time, when you’re undertaking some huge endeavor that seems to take on a life of its own, every rational part of you — or of others, who care about you deeply — may urge you to stop or to at least question your motives and intentions. You don’t, of course, and instead “keep showing up” — a la Des Linden — and you trust that your Holy Grail is worth it. I guess this is all to say that the fact that the Jureks even attempted to write about their FKT AT experiences is somewhat laudable in my book because we — people who weren’t there, people who didn’t do it with them — will never “get it.” Criticizing and questioning will forever be easier than understanding. I think if we at least try, however, we can be better for it.  

answering “why” is hard. training partners make it easier.

I really enjoyed reading North, and to be honest, I was dubious that I would. I knew the ending because I had passively followed along when they were in the throes of it, so I didn’t think there would be much more to glean from their experiences. Dude. I was wrong. I would have liked to hear more about their life post-FKT quest (no spoilers), but I guess since the purpose of the book was to document their journey, it wouldn’t make sense to include much of a postmortem. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for some follow-up podcast interviews instead.  

My opinion? North is an excellent summertime read because it’ll likely leave you feeling both empowered and inspired — what crazyass thing can I do?! — while also sucking you in to a man and woman’s adventure that became so much more than what they intended. Running, in general, is good for that, isn’t it? We start running for one reason, and then things change, and the miles become more than miles. It’s a pretty cool transformation. You may find yourself cheering for them (even if you know the outcome, as I did), celebrating their highs and damning their lows — of which there are many — and anxiously turning the page to find out what happens next.