Tahoe Trifecta - Race Report

On September 27, 28, and 29, 2013, my running partner Andrea and I ran the Tahoe Trifecta, part of the 18th annual Tahoe Marathon Weekend. Here is a quick blow by blow of the races we participated in, and extra info on the events:

SUMMARY OF EVENTS

The Lake Tahoe Marathon Week is an annual South Lake Tahoe celebration of all things marathon. This includes over 30 different races that athletes can mix and match. For example, I had dinner at the Thursday night pasta feed with two other athletes who participated in the following events: Jennifer form Chicago ran one marathon Friday, one marathon Saturday, and three marathons Sunday. This combination of events is dubbed the "Lake Tahoe Super Triple - 26.2 M + 26.2 M + 72.2 M". Her last route circled the entire lake. Her running partner Janet participated in an Ironman, where she swam 2.5 on Friday (in the freezing cold lake), cycled 72.2 miles on Saturday, and ran 26.2 on Sunday. My partner and I participated in what is called the "Tahoe Trifecta", in which you run 13.1 M + 13.1 M + 13.1. My brother Carl did a cycle event, 72.2 cycle ride around the lake. There are many other events, such as stand up paddleboard (SUP), a 5K fun run, and then non-race events, such as pasta feeds, lectures, a gear expo, and plenty of chances to make friends.

This was my second time at this marathon, and I will definitely be back next year. I think next year I will up my miles by another 13.1, and attempt 13.1 M + 13.1 M + 26.2. Eventually (unless my age and bad reconstructed hip says otherwise) I will eventually go for the "Tahoe Triple", which is three marathons in three days (26.2 M + 26.2 M + 26.2 M).

THE TRIFECTA

As stated above, the Trifecta is three half marathons in three days. Friday the race route begins at Inspiration Point, on the west, California side of the lake, and heads south into South Lake Tahoe, and ends at the beach near Stateline (the Nevada/ California borders, near the casinos). This half is primarily downhill. The first part is on the lake and is gorgeous. The second part is in South Lake Tahoe and is urban, cars, traffic etc... It is also starts at 7:00 am, so at the start of the race the temperature was 30 degrees Fahrenheit, -1C. This was my least favorite of the three races. But it was my best time at 2:30:00.

The second race begins at Spooner Lake, NV, and heads north on Nevada highway 28, ending at Incline Village. This half is more scenic, and all but the last three miles of the lake has panoramic views of Lake Tahoe. Again, this weekend the weather began at -1c, and only warmed up to 12c.

The third and final race was my favorite. The last race begins on the west side of the lake on highway 89 near Rubicon Bay, and heads south, ending at Pope Beach. This run can only be described as EPIC. This race has the best scenery, including Emerald Bay, as shown int he above photograph. In addition, the route has the most elevation gain/loss, which makes it more fun on the runner, and better on the body. Around mile three there is a hill that ends at 6800 feet. What goes up, must run down, giving the runner a roller coaster run. My favorite! (Since I am running Big Sur marathon next year, I am loving the hills. Good for the quads!)

AWARDS AND SWAG

The Lake Tahoe Marathon week is run by one guy, Les Wright, and his crew of volunteers. It is a very "mom and pop" event, even though it is so big in scope. This is not one of those "Rock and Roll", "Disney" etc... events. With all the gossip in the racing community about the for-profit race director companies, it is refreshing to run a race that is still about community building and sports, instead of about making a ton of money and gouging the runners with high entry fees.

Les personally e-mails all the runners every week before the event, answering questions. His heart is in promoting running and the Tahoe community. He also gives all the runners cool free swag. The free swag I collected included a racing singlet (so you can wear it all 3 days and not destroy your shirt with pins), a long sleeve tech shirt, designed by a local Tahoe water color artist, a sports duffel bag (they only gave those out to the runners doing difficult multi-day events), 4 medals (representing the three races and a big one commemorating the fact you did a trifecta or a triple), a free past feed the Thursday before the race, and free hot dogs and $1 beers at the finish line.

The downside to a small operation is that it can be a bit disorganized. His website is a bit cluttered and low tech, making it hard to navigate (too much information, and lots of TL;DR due to the clutter on the pages). The Expo itself is a small affair, not very many vendors. But most of us runners are sick of vendor expos anyway. The basics are covered, so if you forgot your compression socks, there is a vendor there that has you covered. The volunteers can be a bit confused - they have over 30 events, so the volunteers may or may not know about your event. But they are happy to hunt down Les, and he will gladly straighten out the issue. He loves what he does and that makes up for any chaos.

RUNNERS

Both last year and this year I met runners from around the world and many USA states. I met folds form England, Germany, Japan and Brazil. I also met runners from CA, NV, TX, MA, MI, OH, FLA, IL, MN, and I am sure there were folks from many other places. What I do find odd is that I met people from all over the country, but hardly met anybody from the Bay Area (San Francisco/Oakland). You would think that tons of bay Area runners would flock to this event, since it is so close to the Bay Area, and is not too corporate, and has EPIC scenery. But, no, I did not meet hardly anyone who drove three hours to this amazing weekend of running. Bizarre.

ACCOMMODATIONS

Both last year and this year, we rented a whole house for cheaper than staying at one of the hotels. This way we got to eat our own home cooked food, drink beers, watch cable TV, and just kick back. Since this is a ski destination, there are hundreds of empty house and condo rentals and off season prices. Why stay and a hotel when you can have a whole house! This year we found a 3 bedroom on airbnb.com that was 20 minutes from the Expo and race headquarters. And since we drove up, transportation was not an issue. The casinos have tons of free parking.

POST RACE

The great thing about running three half marathons back to back to back is that the lactic acid gets released ASAP. I woke up Monday after the races and felt great. No stiffness, no pain, pretty loose. However.... I did loose my toenail. The toenail was already black before the race, due to trailrunning all summer. But three days of road running just popped the thing off. Tomorrow I plan on going to the nail salon and getting a gel placed over the nail bed. I know it sounds weird, but it works great. First, it makes your foot look better, and second, the gel fake nails act very well as a real nail does and protects the nail bed from trauma. (my salon will do it for free, since they know me well.)

CONCLUSION

I love the Lake Tahoe Marathon. I will be back next year, and will do it all again, if not adding some more miles!!!

Tahoe marathon week!

Only 4 days until the Tahoe Marathon Weekend! Over 30 racing events! I will be running the Half Marathon Trifecta - 3 half marathons in three days - 39.3 miles! Our family is spending the weekend and running/biking a mix and match of events.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:South Lake Tahoe

RRCA Running Coach

It is Official. I am now a certified running coach!

Baby Steps!!!

This year I get to be one of the Ambassadors for the First Berkeley Half Marathon! I have to give them my favorite running quote. There are so many to choose from, but I think I may use "Baby Steps" from "What About Bob", since it is relevant to all runners, at any time in their training. And it's Bill Murray, a personal hero. Kill gophers. Damn gophers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4

Ragnar - The Red Loop Pt 2

Ragnar Running Report - The Red Loop Pt 2

The first time I ran the Red Loop was at 10:00 pm. I knew that a waning moon was going to rise at 10:48 pm, but it was dark, pitch black, blacker than a Vin Diesel movie. I was prepared - I had a head lamp and two mini mag lites. I was ready to go... except I was told there would be coffee.... I was already bouncing off the walls of the transition tent. This was going to be the best leg, in my mind, working on my strengths, long, slow downhills.

The trail begins with a ride up a ski lift to appx 9000 ft, the top of the ridge. I loved the ride - it was like flying over a sea of blackness. I imagined bears frolicking in the dark beneath me, hiding behind the boulders. 

At the top, I saw a handful of other runners, bobbing up and down in their headlamps, but they all passed me until I was alone in the dark. The trail markers were relatively easy to spot, however, where the path twists and turns you could not see any marker, with no clear path or fire road. I would pause, get my bearings, and then shuffle onward. Shuffling was my safety speed. 

About two miles into the run, a girl started using me as a pacer, borrowing my illumination to push forward. I didn't want to break my rhythm, so for awhile we ran in silence. But after another half mile we started small talk. Her name was Michelle, and she was from Texas, unfamiliar with Tahoe trail runs, much less in the dark. We hit the downhill fire road and picked up a little speed; I set an 11:30 pace, so that we would not trip, or burn out our quads. This lasted for about three miles straight down.

At the five mile point, the trail narrowed into rocky single track, and I was suspicious that the deadly creek was around the corner. Squish. I stepped right in the middle, but fortunately did not slip or hit and rocks. Then the trail veered up and up, and down fast on the single track. And then back to the start.

Back at camp, I enjoyed a Rolling Rock and another piece of pizza, under the (almost) full moon. The night was mine, all mine. This is why I run. 

Ragnar Running Report - The Red Loop Pt 3 - hit repeat

I got a solid five hours of sleep, and woke up ready to run. Sadly, J got altitude sickness, so our team was down a second runner. Our legs were down to 6 pairs. All of us would have to volunteer to pick up a leg. I quickly volunteered to do the Red Loop a second time. I wanted to see the view I missed at midnight, and wanted to see the bears spawning ground from the chair lift. The catch was I would have to do the Red Loop back to back with my already assigned Yellow Loop. The work on the street was that the Yellow Loops was the toughest of all three loops. And I would have to run both, essentially a half marathon. Since J did it the day before, there was no reason not to man-up and do it. Especially since the reward is the views. I was stoked. 

The Yellow Loop

I liked the yellow loop. It was not as bad as everyone said. It started off with rolling hills on the same trail as the green. After about a mile, it sharply turned into the mountain and took you straight up a winding fire trail up the mountain. The reward for that effort was miles of single track through a pine forest and sandy boulder fields. At mile five, my endorphins kicked in hard, and my head started buzzing with runners high happiness. Which was good, since I was not even halfway done.

Red Repeat

In the transition tent, I teamed up with the Red Rolling Rocks, our mini team! Ragnar had underestimated how long the race would take. This was not a surprise since they asked teams their road times rather than trail times. To solve the problem, teams were allowed to double and triple their runners up. And our team needed to pound out three red runs! This was going to be even more fun that I thought!

 On the way up to the top of the Red Loop - sub team The Red Rolling Rocks

The Red Rolling Rocks are almost done!

Times: 

Green 00:37:55

Red 02:03:00

Yellow: 01:43:00

Red: 02:15:00

Ragnar Tahoe - The Red Trail

A photo of the Red Loop at night

Ragnar Running Report part 4 - The Red Loop

After I finished our team's first leg, The Green Loop, our Wisconsin native, runner C, was up for the first trip on the Red Loop. This is where our Team came together as a unit, a well oiled, sweaty machine. 

C started out the run looking good. Since she was our second runner, we, the team did not know what the route would entail and could only guess as to what her time might be. But we were all at the finish line two hours into her run, waiting to cheer her over the finish line. But we waited, and waited. No C. 

Finally the news was in. 

C had broken her foot/toe on the second stream crossing, and had finished the course walking, and went directly to medical.  I was shocked. I have broken my left foot/toe a couple of times, and know that this is no fun, and the last thing you can do is run two more legs. One casualty on the Red Loop.

My brain was shutting down from lack of sleep and knew the best thing I could do to help the team was be ready to run a few extra miles. I took a nap. Our team leader R went into overdrive, and with the help of J, started to rework our running schedules and times. J picked up a double loop, a Yellow and a Red back to back (average 13 miles). She would be on the trail all afternoon, and the rest of us needed to be ready to run the night shifts.

After my nap, I decided to get a lucky pizza. It can't hurt. 

I was up for the deadly Red Loop at 10:00 pm, attacking that stream in the dark. I was full of pizza and ready to run.

Ragnar Running Report - The Green Course

9000 feet!

Running Report Pt 3 - The Course

After a fitful night's sleep, (but no visit from bears) our team was up and fueling with bagels and bananas. Ragnar had promised coffee, however, apparently this coffee was to be served at 10:00 pm at night. Thankfully, I had brought Nescafe. Registration and bib pick up was to start at 9:00 am, and runners were to begin their relay in small waves of about 15 runners at a time at 11:30 am. I thought that was a little late to start a race, especially one up in Tahoe, above 7000 feet, in July. 

The Lake Tahoe Basin was formed (according to Wikipedia) 2 million years ago, by a series of different geological events, including faulting, the scouring of the land by glaciers, and an eruption by Mt. Pluto. This unique landscape contains the second deepest lake in the USA, and peaks higher than 10,000 feet, such as Mt. Rose. As to climate in July, the Basin at lake level traps heat, and can average in the 80-90 Fahrenheit during the day. At higher elevations, the thin air allows some of the heat to escape, and is a little cooler. However, the thin air allows the sun's radiation to bake human flesh to a nice crisp. At night, the thin atmosphere allows all that heat to dissipate, and night temps drop down to the 50-40's.

Our team was to start at 12:30 pm, and I volunteered to be the first runner. My logic was to burn off some adrenaline and get my legs moving, and to finish my least favorite route first, so that I could kick back and enjoy the rest of the runs.

THE GREEN LOOP:

According to the Ragnar website, the race was to consist of three different routes, and each of the eight team members was to run all three routes once. The routes were designated by color: a three mile green route, a six-seven mile yellow route, and a seven-eight mile red route. The team leader was to assign each team member a position, and then the team would cycle through that order three times. Which order you ran the routes would vary per team member, so if you sat down and figured what your favorite/least favorite route would be, you could approximate what position you wanted. I wanted to get my weakest leg done first - the fast green three miles. 

I also was the only Ragnar virgin on the Team. Running first would give me a chance to make up time later if I needed to pick up the pace. My mental plan was to go slow and scout out how the relay was set up, what type of trails were being used, and how accurate the website portrayed the routes. I felt that even with the disadvantage of being a virgin, it was offset by my past experience running in Tahoe. Two weekends prior to the relay, me and members of my trail running club had run 20 miles up at Mt. Rose, to test acclimation and trail conditions. This year there had been almost no snow, and the trails were very dry and clear - perfect for running. In other years, there had been snow cover at the peaks, and rivulets cutting down the mountains. But not this year. 

My team cheered me on as I lined up in the starting corral with fifteen other runners. The start was a simple countdown and "Go". I did not sprint out of the gate - I shuffled my way to the back of the pack, and started my GPS. The first half mile was a simple rolling hill single track, dusted with pine wood chips, soft and easy, flanked by California pines. The single track emptied out into a fire road next to a ski lift, and for the next half mile the route went up a grassy meadow, that in wintertime would be a bunny hill ski run. I began catching up with the sprinters who walked up the bunny hill. 

After the bunny hill, the route veered right, cutting back toward the parking lot. This was a deviation from what was published online. I was expecting  a mile of hard running straight up the mountain. But that was not to be. The route twisted down a short, sandy hill, and leveled off on an actual road, not a fire trail, for the next mile. Half mile out from the finish line, the course turned right again, and lead back into a single track up, and back to the start line. Total mileage = 2.7 miles. My time was a slow 37:55. 

Green done.