Every race is its own unique experience/animal. This race was no exception.
We decided to make this a family event and add a few additional nights and explore Yosemite. This would be our first time there.
We arrived at the expo the day before the race. It was located where the race finishes at a lovely spot on Bass Lake. We got a little lost. GPS took us in the opposite direction. Fortunately, we found a little general store and asked directions.
This poster had all the runners names on it. I am pointing to my name. A few other women from my run club ran it as well.
Got up at 3 AM and left for the shuttle at 3:40 AM from Tanaya Lodge. It was a touch over a 20 minute drive. When I arrived there was no traffic. I was able to immediately park and waited in the car for about 10 minutes before going to the shuttle.
We were told that parking would open at 4 AM. It was clear by the almost full lot that they had opened it earlier. We were also told that the shuttles would be loading at 4:30. But it was clear they were immediately loading the shuttles.
It was 54° at the shuttle. I decided to leave my fleece jacket there. Big, big mistake. As the shuttle was taking us to the destination, I noticed that there was a huge, and I mean really huge, back up of traffic. The back up was so large, some of the runners almost missed start time.
My first erroneous assumption was that the temperature at the shuttle was going to be the same temperature as at the starting line. But we started to ascend and did not stop for about 25 minutes. The start line temperature was 37°.
My second erroneous assumption was that we would be able to stay in our buses until it was time to start. Nope. They kicked us off the bus and went back down to pick up more runners. This meant I had to stand for 2 1/2 hours in 37° weather, wearing just my technical short-sleeved ‘Run The Mile You’re’ in T-shirt and my running skirt.
The start line had coffee, hot chocolate, bananas. After about a half hour they also lit up three little bonfires. 2500 runners all gathered around these three little fire pits to try to keep warm. We all crammed up against each other to try to keep warm and stood like that for over two hours. The people closest to the fire took their time and did not want to leave because it was so cold.
Oddly enough, they also positioned the start line right alongside all of the Porta potties. Since this race started in waves., and I was in wave six, I was smelling everyone’s poop for a solid 15 minutes at least.
The first 5 miles is located on a trail/dirt fire Road. It was extremely dusty, and I did not have a buff or bandanna to help with dust control. Some runners were having issues with getting dust in their eyes. Fortunately that was not an issue for me. I could not feel my feet for the 1st mile and a half and had to be really careful with how I placed my feet due to the uneven terrain. Fortunately, I had no issues with that either.
The next 6 miles was all paved down hill road running. Even at the higher elevation, my lungs felt great, I think because we started so high and as we were working our way down, it just worked well. I am so grateful for Hill training though because it was harder on my body than I expected. The road was a solid down hill pitch, and much of it was cambered. I was definitely using some muscles that had not been used yet.
The last 2 miles was through the cute little town of Bass Lake. It was great to see all of the locals come together along these main roads that were closed to cheer us on. It was also neat to see the sheriffs standing in the road and giving us high-fives.
-because of all of the downhill, I was able to PR by two minutes!
We spent the rest of the day relaxing in our room, then the next day driving through Yosemite. So beautiful. These photos do not do it justice.
Genna volunteered with me. She is a seasoned ultra runner and I learned so much from her. She is in my running club. She and her daughter served with us.
