Maria's my SoCal ultrarunning fairy godmother. A grandmother in her late 50s whose 5 grandkids all sleep in the same room as she does (which leads me to believe that they all live in a giant shoe), I met her in Chino Hills State Park while on a training run before this year's Leona Divide 50K, which was only my second ultra. She, on the other hand, has a long history of ultrarunning. Outgoing, energetic, garrulous, with plenty of advice to give out, she can't remember my name but we fell in to the same easy conversation that we have each time we bump in to each other on the local trails.
Seven o'clock hits and the pack starts shuffling forward. The night before saw winds of up to 75 miles per hour and the race director, Keira Henninger, who puts on a series of locally much-beloved races, had alerted us in her brief pre starting-gun talk that the winds were still very strong, and to look out for downed trees. Given the fact that forecasted temperatures that day were supposed to hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit - by the Pacific Ocean, mind you - she'd also given us the option to drop from the 50K to the 30K distance if we'd wanted to. Despite these warnings I was ready to put a third ultra under my belt in preparation for what I hoped would be my first 50 miler in April, and at 07:00 the group started padding down the trail.
Only to encounter the first pace-destroying part of the course. Not because it was a steady ascent, but because it was an ascending single track with a steep drop off to the right which made passing a dangerous chore. At the trailhead, which served as the bottleneck, I saw Maria quickly bypass the line, so I yelled, "go get 'em!" In the queue, one guy in red appeared to be leading a group of members of a running club, and his pacing was veeeerrrry... cautious, would be the generous way to put it, but by not hanging back to allow the faster runners to hit the trail first his little brood of runners made it difficult for everyone to space themselves out to their preferred pace. One runner in front of me grumbled that even though he was annoyed, red-shirt guy (ooh - hope that's not like the Star Trek red shirt) was probably doing us a favor by keeping us from going out to fast, but by not starting further to the back where their speed would be more natural this herd was keeping the rest of the runners from hitting their paces.
The winds gusted and blew up dust, making my lungs feel weak and wheezy. The fact that most of the run was uphill and into the wind didn't help - at least that volume of air dried enough sweat to keep one cool.
The views were pretty spectacular. Out to the ocean you could see the Channel Islands and Catalina. Inland looked like what you'd imagine the dinosaurs had once roamed.
The first aid station, which also served as the second and third aid stations in this clover-shaped course, came quickly at 4.9 miles. I felt pretty good, well-rested, just starting to feel a little bit of the distance but an appropriate amount, and in high spirits. They had the standard fare, PB&Js, generic cola, etc., but they also had a bunch of what looked like must've been leftover Halloween candy. A couple of fun sized Snickers were somehow a lot more satisfying than the organic trail sport bars that I've always wished I liked more. This was the race for new equipment because, of course, consumerism was going to make me a far better runner. New shoes (Hokas, 'cause that's what most of the ultrarunners at Western States used and must therefore be superior), a race vest but with the two bottles and one handheld in preparation for the heat, a FitBit Zip for FitBitting (I'd destroyed two Charge HRs this year - maybe from all of the sweating? - and my wife had this Zip she wasn't using since receiving a Flex from her workplace so I thought I'd give it a try. I clipped it to the front of the vest, and it was kind of cute, like my own little R2D2, and I couldn't wait for someone to ask about it so I could use the line, "that little droid and I have been through a lot together!" but of course this race was our first together), a waterproof iPhone case for the picture taking, I even remembered to bring a bandanna, but for goodness' sake, I'd forgotten to apply BodyGlide in the morning, so all of this new stuff notwithstanding I'd lapsed on the basics, of not chafing.
I grabbed a couple of gels in deference to the Central Governor and started down the hill towards the first loop of the clover. Overall, still feeling good, but noticing the starts of twinginess in my hamstrings, which I tried to ignore. I started taking a lot more walking breaks towards mile 8, 9, and 10, and by the time I arrived back at the aid station at mile 11.3 or so I was definitely feeling it. In the middle of mile 12, in the midst of a bunch of really nice downhill switchbacks, which usually would have been so much fun to bomb down, became the start of a shuffling agony as various leg muscles began to cramp. My hamstrings were where it began, but my inner quads (vastus medialis, for those interested), hip adductors, and then most severely of all, in my calves, all joined in a chorus of agony, a protest demanding a sit-in by me, the thing they were protesting, a coordinated refusal by the Central Governor to allow these muscle groups to relax. I was spending a lot more time walking than running now, desperately hoping that the cramps would subside, like watching a group of people on the verge of forming an angry mob.
And then we came upon a runner who'd fallen and hit her head. A young woman and her male running companion stopped, but the young woman was the one voicing concern, taking the lady's name and bib number, and then calling out for her from the switchbacks below as she continued to blow through the course, way faster than I was going. Which brings me to the point about this post, which is in part my reflections on this race, but also, wait for it, a bigger point about gender and ultrarunning: it's one of the few sports where there's parity between the sexes, or at least more than many of the other sports.
There's apparently an expression in running where "getting chicked" means you, a male and therefore dominator, suffers the shameful emasculation of having someone without swinging male genitalia actually pass you in a race. However, in this race, like the other two ultras I ran, I found myself in the midst of packs of women runners, many of them 5, 10, maybe 20 years older than I, and since invariably some (or many) of them were going to be faster than I, it wasn't unusual enough to be passed by a woman to have to note (to some imaginary running bro) that I was "getting chicked," I was just getting passed, as I had been all along.
Yeah, I'm a middle-to-back-of-the-pack runner which could surely explain some of the people around me, but it's remarkable to notice the total numbers of women who participate in these trail races, like Mitt Romney's binders were actually just full of ultrarunners like Maria. So during the entire thing, while I was suffering, I was passing women, or being passed by them, they'd encourage me, or I'd encourage them, everyone relentlessly upbeat, one woman saying, "hey, you all match!" meaning my outfit was entirely color-matched, which, of course, I meant to do while I was getting dressed at zero-dark-thirty, but hey, if I can't be fast, I'll at least be fashionable. And sure, while the fastest runners still tend to be men, at the really, really long distances the difference in speed between men and women apparently begins to narrow and the ladies even become competitive, but again, for the vast majority of us in the middle and the back, there's no contest, the men and women are participating as equals, or even with the advantage tilting towards the women. At the finish line I sat and chatted with several men whose wives were the real runners in the household and were racing the longer distances, with these husbands running the shorter ones so they could still be there to support their spouses.
Which is one of the reasons why there was an outcry, albeit brief and small, about Udo's Oils' recent ads in Ultrarunning magazine. The first of the series included their "ambassadors", ultra royalty like Sage Canaday, Max King, and Rob Krar, all walking barefoot down a trail in their running togs like the badasses they are, only to follow up with ads featuring top women ultrarunners Krissy Moehl, Stephanie Howe, and Anna Frost standing, STANDING and striking poses, all wearing - get this - little black dresses. Not only do these women ultrarunners not get to move in these ads, they don't even fucking get to be individual human beings, they're reduced to things wearing the most generic of cultural symbols of womanhood, the LBD. It's bullshit, enough to get this father of a young girl furious enough to forswear Udo's Oil - um, even if I'm not really sure if you're supposed to ingest it or, I dunno, rub it on the creaky parts of your legs? I can tell you, though, that my unsolicited solution (which undoubtedly will never actually get back to Udo's) for fixing this thing that's not just a gaffe but a gigantic gender blindspot is a simple one: first, do an ad with these women with the same dignity that the men had, resplendent in their victory gear, and then make another ad in which the men are all wearing little black dresses - just to prove that they're game, have a sense of humor, and most importantly, know that they stand as equals. And if all of this discussion of critical theory and gender equality is making you feel queasy, not to worry, because the literal barfing is coming up.
Because naturally, appeasing the Central Governor means giving it what it wants. I'd taken a gel around mile 12.75 or so which miraculously seemed to tamp the cramp down, so around mile 14.5 I took another one, which was why at around mile 15.5 I found myself pausing by an unwitting group of mountain bikers (of which there were a ton that day), bent over, hands on knees, feeling a funny scratchy feeling in my throat I chalked up to the winds. One of the women I'd passed earlier approached and asked if I was feeling okay, and I said I felt fine, I just needed a minute, and she moved on. A few seconds later the scratchy feeling got worse and then I threw up - for the very first and probably not the last time.
It was funny, because I wasn't nauseated, I felt a scratch in my throat, but nonetheless, barfing seemed to take care of the problem. Perversely, I was actually happy to have upchucked because I now felt like I'd been initiated, jumped in by vomit, in to the culture of ultrarunning wherein ralphing is a normal thing, but the best part was that I really did feel better.
I rounded the corner where the woman who'd paused and asked if I was okay came jogging back - "here, take this, it's ginger, it'll help with the nausea - suck it a bit, chew it every so often." My eyes were still watery from throwing up, and I thanked her and took the piece of ginger candy she'd proffered to me, chewing on it as we started up a big, steep hill back towards the aid station.
That sucker was hella steep. An older man in a blue shirt was staggering ahead of me, and a park ranger driving down stopped to check in on him, giving me an opportunity to finally pass the geriatric runner who'd been outpacing me. About a tenth of a mile to the top a woman in her 50s came rounding the corner with a jug of water in her hand, asking if I'd seen puking guy. I raised my hand with a smile and reported that I was he, and that I felt fine having barfed - it seemed that the aid station was trying to gather in all of the runners they'd heard reports of distress on.
I staggered in to the aid station when my legs decided that it was probably a good time to start cramping for reals, since I was so close to assistance. My calves, as usual, were the loudest offenders, and when I asked if I could sit down a kindly volunteer surrendered her chair to me in the shade, which was when the concert of cramping began in earnest.
"Where are you cramping?" the aid station volunteer asked, to which I responded, "my body," with a chuckle, but it was kinda true.
Bless these volunteers. Each successive race, my cramping's been the worst it's ever been. This time, my left calf spasmed in to this tonic activity with a bit of fasciculation on top - one of the aid station volunteers later confided to me, in hushed, awe tones, that it was the worst cramping she'd ever seen, which for me means, hey, at least I'm the best at something! The pain was exquisite - I explained to one volunteer that it was the funniest thing, that the pain was accompanied by the funniest endorphin rush. But despite my disheveled, sweaty, grimy, stanky state, the volunteer who found me swaying up the hill stayed with me, taking my trash, encouraging me to take salt (even though salt and electrolytes aren't the reason why we cramp, but what position was I in to argue that? Hells to the no, I just said thank you, bless you), stretching my salt-caked leg in her hands, handing me salted potatoes to eat.
These cramps really were the worst I've had yet. But there was, at this point, still an option to drop to the 30K, and between a DNF and a drop to the 30K, I chose the latter. The kindly aid station volunteers - most of them women - sent me off with a couple of handfuls of chews, and I began to walk the last of the 4.9 miles to finish the 30K.
I kept getting passed by the speedier 50K runners, but no matter, I was going to finish a distance. Not making the 50K was disappointing and in some ways felt like a DNF, but on the other hand I'd still learned a lot, barfed my way in to the ultrarunning community, and was going to return to the finish line on my own two feet.
I began to feel like I could trot a little, and eventually ran in to the finish line where I told Keira, who, bless her, was personally handing out medals, that I'd dropped to the 30K, and then sat down at a picnic table where I found Maria again, who'd run the 30K as training for the Chino Hills 50K in a couple of weeks. This grandmother had again smoked me, but I continued to learn from her, and from my own experience. Now I've gotta do another 50K before I feel like a 50 miler is within reach, but I'm going to learn from my big sisters first.
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| Still a beaut of a day. |
