Training and Racing in San Diego: Race Report

This was the second year I've run the Noble Canyon 50k. My first was last year, when the course was closer to a 55k, and I finished in just under 6 hours (5:57:35). The race takes place on the trails between Mount Laguna and Pine Valley in the Cuyamaca mountains east of San Diego. This year, the start / finish area was moved up to Mount Laguna (last year, the start & finish were at the bottom of the Noble Canyon trail, at the Pine Valley Bible Camp). I train out on the course periodically and I just figured it made sense to sign up for the race again. It's put on by the San Diego Bad Rats, a group of Southern California ultramarathon runners. Several of my running friends were signed up for the race as well.

The Bad Rats do a good job with the event and the race is relatively inexpensive - good suffering-per-dollar quotient! The elevation ranges from about 3,700' in Pine Valley to 6,000' at the highest point on the trail in Mount Laguna.

Last year, the heat was definitely a factor. We did catch a bit of a break as the brutal heatwave somehow spared us on race day, but even with highs "only" in the upper 90s, it was still a hot day. This year, we were all keeping an eye on the forecast and were pleasantly surprised to see the race day high posted at 71°. At least it didn't seem like the heat would be a factor this year. Still, there's distance, terrain, elevation gain and altitude to overcome - it would still be a challenge. Add in the fact that I had just finished Ironman Louisville three weeks prior and I knew it wasn't going to be the most pleasurable experience ever. But I wasn't necessarily looking for a walk in the park - that's not why I signed up. I've found that long trail races are a good test of mental toughness and a great way to get in a very hard workout. It's tough to simulate the experience in training. It's just too easy to quit. There were several times during the Louisville run that I called on some of my trail running training (from these very trails) to get though the tough patches. Those long days on your feet really help me keep moving forward when things start to go south. I've learned that I really can suffer on through to the end.

Anyway...I rented a room in the Laguna Mountain Lodge for the night before the race. I opted to extend the stay for a second night. It's only $80 a night in the "motel", although, I would have prefered one of the "cabins" that line the property - more privacy. The accommodations are sparse, but they do offer a small refrigerator and a microwave. I took Friday off of work (the race is on Saturday) and spent the morning packing up and making some pasta and salad for pre-race dinner. I finally loaded up and drove out to Mount Laguna, arriving just after 3:00 p.m. for check-in.

The view out the back door of the motel room. All of the cabins were booked.

Coming off of the Ironman, my endurance training was a bit limited - considering taper / recovery and then taper for Noble. Through the summer, I made several trips out to run on the course, but the last 3 times, I had only run the 10-mile upper loop. I did do a couple of down-and-back 20-milers (6 and 7 weeks out), to get used to the new course, but there was A LOT of walking going on up the steepest parts of the Noble Canyon trail on both of those "runs." I figured that, at worst, this race would be a good training day, but I still wanted to give it my best shot and try to cover the distance as quickly as possible.

I ate an early dinner of tofu spaghetti and salad and got to bed as early as possible. I set the coffee maker for 4 o'clock and my alarm for 4:30.

Trying to keep warm at the start.

Staying at the Lodge made for an easy drive to the start. After a banana, coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, I headed out around 5:45 and was parked and registering by 6. It was cold! 42° at the Al Bahr Shrine Camp, the new start/finish of the race. After picking up my bib, t-shirt and goodie bag, I sat in the truck with the heat on and waited for the race briefing to start.

The first part of the race meanders out of Al Bahr, through the El Prado and Mount Laguna campsites, and then across the meadow along Big Laguna Lake before dropping into Penny Pines and the top of the Noble Canyon trail. I followed a friend, Brian, through this first part of the race. He had also run the race last year and we had met up for one of the down-and-back training runs. The pace seemed easy, but we were running right around 8-minute miles and I didn't really think I should be going any faster in the early stage of such a long race. It should feel easy. I had told myself that I would treat this race like an iron distance triathlon. The first 4 miles would be the swim, the down-and-back along the Noble Canyon trail would be the bike (2 loops, 2nd much harder than the first), and then the last upper loop would be the "run." The swim went just about as well as it could go. I still felt great and I was running somewhere around 15th place.

This course offers some pretty amazing sweeping vistas of the Anza Borrego desert below.

After hanging a left on the Noble Canyon trail, starting the first loop of the bike, I slowed down a bit. There are two climbs in the first two miles out of Penny Pines, and there are rolling hills to the Big Tree aid station at mile 3, but mostly, it's down, down, down to the canyon floor and Pine Valley. My bottles were still pretty full when I got to Big Tree, so I didn't stop, but I knew a friend from our running group, Rachel, would be there volunteering, so I was looking for her. She was the first person I saw and we exchanged a quick high-five as I passed through. I really wanted to take the steep downhill section easy. I knew there was going to be a lot of climbing coming up - most of it from mile 13 to mile 26 - and I wanted to save something for that. I tried to keep Brian in sight, but he was moving much faster than I wanted to, so I let him go. I was worried about what the pounding was going to do to my quads so I backed off as much as I could. I met a few people on the way down (all of them were passing me). There was Dan, who was going to be riding his single-speed mountain bike through the canyon the next day, Dave, who seemed to be keeping pace with Brian, and Jeff, who was also on Team Odwalla (and with whom I had traded wetsuit zips while in swim staging at the Oceanside 70.3 in March). Another bigger runner came barreling down the hill and said he needed to make up time on the downhills and that I would see him again when the trail started going up.


The view from the turnaround in Pine Valley.

Sure enough, I made up ground and passed the one runner on the uphill to the old Pine Creek aid station (not in service with the new course layout) and started to make up ground on Brian and Dave through the rolling section into the turnaround. I was keeping an eye out for the leaders as I figured they should be coming my way anytime soon. This was the start of the part of the race that I had been dreading - passing 200 runners on tight singletrack. Before long, the first runner passed me and I checked my watch so I could give my friend, Chris, a split on the leader. Chris came past in 5th and I told him he was 4½ minutes back. Chris finished 4th last year, despite getting offtrack - ironically, on the same section of trail where we passed each other this year. I started passing more runners coming the other direction and before long, I cruised on into the aid station at the turnaround, by my count, in 22nd place.

The trail makes it's way up the canyon.

Monica was there with my supplies and she helped me fill my bottles. I was still good on Shot Bloks, so I was soon off and running back from where I had come, starting the second loop of the bike.

I ran out of the aid station right behind Brian and Dave. The trail was starting to get pretty crowded coming the other direction and it was tough to get past people at times. Both Brian and Dave let me go past and we started the climb up the canyon.

I missed the turn to the first creek crossing (not the first time I had done this), but there were mountain bikers coming down the trail and they let me know where I should cross. I backtracked a bit and let Brian and Dave cross first. I tucked in behind them, but I started struggling just then - not coincidentally, right where the trail starts the steepest sustained climb. About 3 miles up to the Big Tree aid station. I walked most of it.

Like a panting dog, I reached the road crossing just below the aid station and ran in to Big Tree, happy to see Rachel and the wonderful volunteers. I had long lost sight of Brian and Dave, but there were two new runners here - one just leaving and the other looking for pain killers. They both beat me out of the aid station, but none of us were moving too swiftly. I caught the first gentleman within the first half mile, but it took quite a while to reach the second. I only caught him because he stopped to work out what looked to be cramps. The three of us played our little game of suffering leapfrog all of the way into Penny Pines.

Heading into the Penny Pines aid station at mile 22 - Photo by Dax Ross.

There, I was again greeted by Monica and my bag of treats. Chris' girlfriend, Kathleen, was there, too and she said that Chris had come through about a half an hour sooner. Sounded about right. I stocked up on my Powerade Zero / Carbo-Pro drink mix and Shot Bloks and was off and running again shortly. The "bike" was over and it was now time to slog through my Ironman run. Fortunately, this "marathon" would be only 9 miles!

The view from Penny Pines towards Monument Peak (miles 22-26).

The first mile out of Penny Pines is mostly downhill, but you have to climb right back up to the same elevation - and then start the long ascent up towards Monument Peak. You never reach the actual peak, but the trail still tops out right at about 6,000' before dropping into the last aid station, Rat Hole. I did quite a bit more walking through this stretch. The first female passed me about halfway up the climb and there were a couple of others that went past, moving well. Well, better than me.

I recognized the cramping runner as a veteran ultramarathoner that has finished some of the most brutal events on the planet, including Badwater. His name is Iso and I had the pleasure of running with him for most of the last 9 miles of the race. He reached the crest of the PCT trail before I did, so I followed him down into Rat Hole. this was a no-crew aid station, so we just stocked up on what was available and headed out together. The first 3/4 of a mile or so out of Rat Hole climb up to a flat fire road section. Iso stopped on the uphill and I went on past. I had something in my shoe that started bothering me so I stopped at the top where the trail spills out onto the road. I emptied my shoe (found a nice sized rock and a ridiculously large twig) and waited for Iso. The last 3 miles were pretty uneventful. I got away on the fire road, but he caught me as I was basically walking the technical descent down to the meadows. We didn't say much, as we were both obviously struggling, but at one point he did ask me what was wrong with my leg. I told him "nothing, I'm okay. Just tired." And then I remembered that I was stopped just as he had made it up onto the fire road. He must have thought I had stopped to work something out. He said he had been battling cramps since mile 15. I told him that I had salt, but figured he had picked some up at Rat Hole. He had. We ran together, jockeying back and forth and I followed him across the meadow, alongside the fence and over the wooden bridge to the right hand turn to go back the way we had come 5 hours earlier.

Heading for home!

The last 9 miles of the course, from Penny Pines to Al Bahr, is basically the same finish as the San Diego 100 Endurance Run. I had run this section as a pacer the last two years, but this was the first time I was going to be able to run it for myself. From the turn at the bridge to the finish was about a mile and a half (1.62 is what I had on the Garmin on the way out in the morning). Iso stopped again and I went past. There were random people along the course at this point, cheering and offering encouragement. I ran until I tuckered out again and checked my watch. 5:14 and change. Probably just a little under a mile to go. I told myself I could walk until it hit 5:15 and then I would run to the finish. The last stretch was familiar, but still a little confusing. I concentrated on the orange flags used to mark the course and ran through the campgrounds, both on paved and gravel roads. I finally made into Al Bahr and followed the flags to the finishing chute. I crossed the line in 5:22:13, kissed the rat and got my medal.