RIO DEL LAGO 100

After Miwok this year I was looking forward to running Pikes Peak Marathon but I was also looking for an opportunity to accumulate the points to qualify for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) in Chamonix, France, in 2013. I wanted to run the AC100 but it  sold out very early and they don’t seem to want too many runners on the course since they don’t have a waiting list. It sold out for 2013 by the way… But here is the Rio Del Lago 100 Race report. 

A friend told me that the Rio del Lago Hundred miler was a qualifier (I had to get 3 or more points before the end of the year and I would rather run in California). 2011 NFCE gave me 2 points, Miwok also two points (which seems abnormal but that is an issue that I will examine later) and a runner needs to accumulate 7 points in 3 races. Too afraid that it would sell out I registered right away. According to the web site, it looked like a very feasible 100 mi run with reasonable elevation gain (2700 m I think) and a generous cut-off time (34 hrs: what could go wrong? I could probably walk the whole thing and qualify for UTMB). The scenery looked nice and I heard that the course shares some trails with the WS100… legendary stuff, right?

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PIKES PEAK MARATHON

I have been wanting to run Pikes Peak Marathon since I heard about it which must have been for at least the last five years! The problem is that, unlike those road/city marathons where they will sign up 25,000 people or more, there are only limited slots at Pikes Peak (for the same reasons WS100, Miwok and all the cool trail races have a limited amount of spots: the park and forest service doesn’t let hordes of runners ruin the wilderness and it’s great that way).

Most limited edition races have lotteries but Pikes Peak doesn’t which means that one has to be clicking on the online registration when it opens and before the servers get congested. I have tried to register for Pikes Peak for 5 years and I never had any luck.

So on March 15 at 12pm PST I was at my desk – clicking, clicking, clicking. The first two attempts led me to an active.com overload page but I tried a third time and BINGO! I got in,  paid my fee and all I had to do was show them that I was a sub 3:30 marathoner and I was in! Ecstatic! A dream come true! Pikes Peak here I come!

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ANGELES CREST 100

Here is a race report from Yanco Javier who finished 8th at the 2012 Angeles Crest 100 miles Endurance run . Congratulations Yanco!

Liz and I drove up to Wrightwood on Thursday afternoon, getting one last look at Hwy 2 and the aid stations along the way. Friday I had to weigh in, get my blood pressure taken and sit through the pre-race meeting. After the meeting, we had dinner and got back to the room by 6. Getting to sleep before a big race is always difficult. I finally crashed out around 9:30.

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MIWOK 100k

Right after the  North Face Endurance Challenge  I signed up for the lottery to participate in the Miwok 100k which is a race a little longer than the NFCE but not by that much (100K is 62 miles – only 12 miles extra!) so I felt it was within reach if I kept my training about the same and even built on the acquired endurance leading to NFEC. What really attracted me to the Miwok ultra is that it was in the same area as the NFCE. I was enchanted by the Marin Headlands in December and I wanted to go back.

And one week after NFCE I received an email stating:  “Congratulations, you have been selected to participate in the 2012 Miwok 100K.” I feel pretty lucky this year with race lotteries (I also got into Pikes Peak Marathon which is not really a lottery but it’s pretty random as the online registration gets clogged).

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North Face Endurance Challenge 2011

In 2011 I haven’t raced much. I think I was a little burned out from all those Ironman events. I engaged in other things, mountaineering and trail running (see previous Trans-Sierra-Express post). It was nice to stay away from the crowds and the commercial buzz of all races. I had signed up for the San Francisco marathon to run with a friend but he broke his foot so I skipped.

So I really entered only two events this year but they were truly unique. One was the Amsterdam Marathon that I ran with my son and the second was the North Face Endurance Challenge 2011 50 miles trail run. Both runs were truly special. I wrote about the Amsterdam Marathon previously. Here’s the NFEC race report!

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