(Note: This is August 28, 2004 50K (give or take) race that Chuck Sohaskey, Leticia Duncan (her first 50K) and I attempted to run. A not-so-funny-thing-happened on the way to the forum…)
Chuck: So I guess it was the week for messed up races. Some wacko runs out and knocks down the lead man in the Olympic marathon. After my experience at the Bulldog 50K ,I suspect that same wacko has relatives living in the Malibu area because that is the only way to explain all the problems this race had.
The start was perfect. 6:00 in the morning and nice and cool. I was ready for 31 miles of trails with climbs up to 2,500 ft. About 1 mile into the race, we head up our first little hill. Trail races tend to be small events, out away from roads so there are few spectators and the runners quickly spread out.
Therefore courses are usually marked with a combination of chalk/flour arrows and yellow ribbons tied to trees. I have run poorly marked courses and made wrong turns but never one that was maliciously mismarked. So there we were, all 125 of us running just as the sun was coming up. Up the first hill and down the other side. Suddenly we come to a road (a road in a trail race??) and I see the pack in front of me hesitate and stop. The only marks are across the street on a single track trail with arrows, but they are pointing the wrong way. We mill around a bit as the complete race gathers on the road at the bottom of the hill. No one has a clue where to go. Emmett and one group take the trail with the arrows in the wrong direction. Some go right. Some go back. The leaders go left. I follow the leaders. About a half mile I am still on a road and convinced I am going the wrong way. But then the rumor starts that someone who marked the trail said this was the correct way. So we continue. About a mile later I am convinced that I am lost so I turn back Fortunately someone had run back to the start and told the race director about the problem. She sent someone to direct us back up the hill and a car to chase down the leaders now quite a distance down Mulholland road. I ran up the hill (again) to the top where there was a large group of people standing at a fork in the road. There were marks clearly indicated which way to go but it was the way I had just came. I knew that was not right so I went the other way. A mile later I was back on the correct trail.
Emmett: Since they told us it was “out-and-back,” the backward arrows had to be right. My friend, Black ’n’ Blood (sorry, no one I know calls him William), agreed with me and we set out in that direction, and there were a consistent amount of arrows in that direction, but it didn’t seem quite right, since we were paralleling some road (I thought Los Virgenes, the road the start Park was located on.) and not really heading for any hills, but being as that it was a new course… who knows. After about 20 minutes (yay! We’re in the lead!), I have serious misgivings about this. Black says it’s just a training run, but I wanted to run it for time, if not competitively. I turn around and head back for the last correct mark. When I reach the crossroads (where the mismark was made), there is a volunteer with a sack of flour who has re-marked the course correctly, and I now join the 30K runners (who started an hour after us) on the correct course. I have now officially covered 1 mile in 1 hour, 5 minutes.
Chuck: According to the race director someone had changed the course markings, erasing the correct ones and adding wrong ones, between 5 and 6 that morning.
But what is a few miles in a 50K? I quickly got back into the spirit and ran a fun single track loop. Then there is a long uphill to the top of Castro Peak. The race was so messed up that at this point I was in second place. After an aid station there is about a mile over bare rock. The trail disappears in places because you are running on just a solid rock. After It was during this time that the eventual winner passed me like I was standing still. And then the lead woman. It is a bit discouraging to be given about a 30 min head start and still be passed so quickly. Why are hills always longer on the uphill than down? And now it was starting to get hot on this long relentless brutal hill. I saw Emmett at this point and silently snickered that he ran even more out of the way than I had (hee hee hee).
Emmett: What annoyed me most at this point was that I was hitting all the worst parts of trail in the heat of the day, whereas I could be an hour further along the course, instead of running 5 additional miles.
Chuck: Eventually I came to the final aid station. I knew from the map that the way back was 2 miles shorter than the way back because we were not going to do the two side hills. So it was only 4.5 miles to the finish. And the people at the aid station told me it was all downhill or flat. So I headed in. But again there seemed to be problems with the course as race people directed us up both hills. Ok that was an unexpected and not entirely pleasant experience. At the top of the final hill there was a really good view of the parking lot where I knew the finish line was.
I have no idea how far I ran that day but I finished in 5:30. It was probably close to 35 miles. Despite that problems I managed to beat my time from last year. And the T shirt is pretty cool.
Emmett: No one knows how far it is to the end, and after seeing Chuck, making the turnaround, and heading back up a 15% grade hill (imagine Hill Street only on dirt, 5 miles long, and after running 20 miles), I am extremely tired. The one saving grace was a 30Ker giving me a calf massage and salt as I climbed the hill. (Thanks, “Scout.”)
My scant bit of motivation are three people behind saying, “We can catch that guy walking…” (Nope, you can’t.) As far as “Out-And-Back” goes, when we got back to the start, it was another 5-10 minutes of walking before I actually got to the finish line, but I was gratified to beat Laura Chaides’ time from last year, even though I ran 36 or 37 miles.
Two parting shots: One, my friend “Black,” didn’t turn around with me. He ran a few more miles, got to Los Virgenes, ran back to the start, started over again, and still beat me by 25 minutes. Two, the shirt reads, “Bulldog Trial Run.” What an appropriate misprint!