LA Marathon

I wanted to type out briefly what it was like to run my first marathon.  You know, so I won't forget.

Expo

There was no bib or packet pick-up at the start of the marathon on Sunday morning, so we were required to make the trek out to the LA Convention Center on Friday night or Saturday.  There was no way we could make it Friday night, so off we went on Saturday.  Since there were no parking options under $15, Libby and I elected to make a day of it and use public transport.  We drove to Norwalk and took the Green Line to the Blue Line to the stadium. We got to see a lot of the less glamorous parts of LA this way!  It took about an hour and cost $14 for the two of us to make the trip.

The expo itself wasn't very exciting.  It took them awhile to find my bib because it was filed upside down.  There were quite a few booths, but we aren't really shoppers.  They didn't give out a whole lot of free stuff, and the places that were giving out free stuff had huge lines.  We're not really into lines.

Ryan Hall was there signing autographs, and it was cool to see him.  He's a very slightly built person -- which isn't surprising considering his profession.  We decided not to stand in line to talk to him.  One cool thing was that they had Asics' mobile marathon treadmill out front of the convention center.  We got to watch someone run a 4:50 pace for 11 minutes.  He looked pretty good!

Marathon

The Start: Logistics

The course of the marathon ran from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica through Hollywood and Beverly Hills.  Libby was great and came to see me off and then drove down to Santa Monica to meet me at the finish line.  Couldn't do it without her!

It was scheduled to start at 7:30, and we planned on getting there 90 minutes early.  We left home at around 5:00 am to give ourselves plenty of time, and it was a good thing that we did.  Unfortunately, the time sprung forward overnight, so we lost an hour of sleep the very day of the marathon.  We dealt with this unpleasant reality by switching the clocks that evening as soon as it got dark, and then went to bed at 9:00 pm PDT.  We set two alarms because, although our bedside alarm clock is designed to change automatically to DST, we didn't trust it.  Turns out it worked!

It was a breeze driving through LA until about a mile before the exit.  Then it stacked up and we crept forward sluggishly.  I don't exactly remember how long it took, but I think it was after 6:00a when we parked.   After one false start at the security gate, and a trip back to the car, we were through and looking for the porta-potties.  They were on the other side of the starting area.  So, we had to walk a long way to the bathrooms and then wait in a long line.  By the time we were all done, it was after 7:00 am.  I wasn't warming up because I was going to do so on the course to spare my knee, so that turned out OK.  I crammed myself into the middle of the open corral and waited for the start.  Of course, after the official start, it still took five or more minutes to reach the timing mat.  Then we were off!

The Start: My Knee & Training

After my half marathon in January, my goal had been to have one recovery week, and then to return to 40 miles per week training weeks.  I wanted to do one long run per weekend of 2.5 hours, one medium run on Thursdays of 1.5 hours, and three other runs in the 45 min to 1 hour range.  On the third week of the half marathon, on my medium run on a Thursday evening, I felt a twinge behind my knee while running downhill.  It wasn't a pain, just a twinge, but for the duration of the run, I began to feel pain.  It crept up on me and by the end of the run it was constant.

Afterward, it hurt.  It hurt all the time, and it hurt overnight.  I iced it that evening, and the next day we went to California Adventure with my cousin Sierra for a full day.  I wasn't feeling any more pain by the end of the day, so I went for a short run to feel it out that Saturday.  I came home with a little tightness behind the knee, but since there was no pain I figured I'd dodged a bullet.

The next day I went for my scheduled long run.  I felt great for the first half of the run, but then the pain came back.  I was a long way from home at that point, so I kept going and finished the full run.  The pain came back the same way it had the first time: in waves that got worse and worse as I ran.  Otherwise, I felt great conditioning wise on this run. 


Since the pain was worse this time, I knew I had exacerbated the injury.  I was very frustrated.  For the rest of February I did very little running (40 miles total for the rest of the month).  I did do some cross-training, but not a lot.  On most of the runs I did do, I felt some tightness behind the knee.

The result was that I missed about 5 weeks of training.  And it meant that my only realistic goal in the marathon was to finish.  I'd dreamed of running a 3:30 or a 3:45, but that was clearly going to be impossible.

The Race

I decided to warm up on the course.  Normally, before a race, I will take 15 minutes to slowly bring my heart rate up to its aerobic thresh-hold of about 145 bpm.  This gets my muscles loose and relaxed and ready to go.  It makes a big difference in how easy it is to hit race pace from the get-go.  Today I would do the same thing, but on the race course itself.  Since my only goal was to finish, I could afford the extra time.

After crossing the mat, I couldn't help but break into a slow jog for a minute or so.  You just get swept in a sea of excited humanity.  I checked my heart rate and saw it had jumped far too quickly, so I made myself walk.  The course goes up briefly from the start line, and then plunges down a steep hill.  I love running downhill, but today I walked it.

At the bottom, we turned left and it got a lot flatter, so I started jogging slowly.  There are so many people on the course that if you have to be weaving around people constantly.  I imagine that this is the case for pretty much everyone.  I think you'd have to be in a seeded corral to avoid this, and it is frustrating.  People drift around on the road and form groups, and stop suddenly in front of you.

However, the fun thing about a big city marathon like this is the community support.  People line the course and cheer for the whole way.  There are some areas with more people and some areas where there only a few people, but there was a lot to look at the whole race.  In the early going, Chinatown hosted dancers in their dragon costumes.  In downtown, there was a Taiko drum group keeping the rhythm.  There were bands set up along the course, and impromptu refueling stations, cheerleaders (literally), and it was all a lot of fun.

By the time I was approaching the halfway mark, I stopped walking down hills.  I had no knee discomfort, and I had a sense that I might finish without any knee pain.  However, crossing the 13 mile marker, I saw that I had finished my first half marathon in something like 2:05.  That's slower than most of my training runs, and I was a little disappointed because it meant that a sub-four hour marathon was probably going to be out of reach.  Still, I knew that if I ran the whole second half, I'd put up a strong negative split, so I let myself go at a pace that felt comfortable.

After Hollywood, there's a steep downhill section.  There were no bands on this section, and no one around me was talking.  It was interesting just to listen to the sound of hundreds of feet thump-thumping down the hill.  A little later on the descent I saw someone running the race barefoot.  I congratulated him!

The third 10K of the race was the best for me.  I was running at a comfortable pace and had stopped worrying about my knee.  I was getting refreshment at every water stop.  I had to start pouring water on my head during this stretch, though, as the early morning high clouds had cleared and the sun was becoming intense.

At mile twenty, we turned north and started up the last hill in the heat.  It was probably over 80 by then, and pouring water over my head only seemed to cool me down for about two minutes.  The Veteran's Hospital is LA's heartbreak hill.  It isn't that steep, but it is long and sustained.  It saps you, and leaves you very tired and drained at the top.  From there, it's a dull long and gradual descent to the beach through a residential neighborhood.  The last 10K was the hardest run I've ever done in my life.  My legs felt sapped, I was hot and cold at once, and wanted to finish so badly.  I focused on my form, relaxed my arms, and just tried to flow along.  That helped, but deep down at this point I just wanted it to be over.

I was still stopping to walk through aid stations, but it had become difficult to walk.  It was also difficult to run, but actually less uncomfortable.  That helped me keep going, but in mile 24/25 I started getting a sharp pain in my lower quads.  It felt like a cramp, and I decided to try to walk it out.  When I started walking, the other leg's lower quad started cramping in the same spot.  I gingerly walked to a tree to steady myself, and tried to stretch it out.  However, when I grabbed my ankle my hamstring started cramping!  I just had to laugh at that point.  I shook my legs a few times, then started running and the pain was gone.  I was grateful because I earlier I had seen a young runner rolling on the ground in pain at one point from cramping in his legs.

The last mile was the longest mile I've ever run.  I kept telling myself that a mile isn't very far, but this felt so far.  I really didn't have anything left to put out more effort.  I was very pleased to see Libby waving at me from the side of the race near the finish line.  It took a few moments before I was sure it was her through my mental haze, and I started left to high-five her.  However, I only took one step and then decided I couldn't.  I felt at that moment like I had only enough energy to finish, and no more, so I struck on for the finish line at my slow pace.

I crossed, stopped my watch, and started hobbling.  It's such a surreal feeling to be so exhausted.  You can only walk in slow motion.  I grabbed some gatorade, a bagel, and a water bottle.  The bagel was very hard to eat.  I forced half of it down and threw the rest away.  Then I made my way to the family reunion area and waited for Libby.  She had found parking a long way away, maybe another mile, and that was good because it kept me moving and my muscles got some active recovery in before sitting in the car.

Final Reflections

I am so grateful to finish this race. I feel like it was a miraculous intervention by God that my knee didn't hurt for the whole race.  I'm so grateful to him and to those who prayed for me.

My official time was 4:03:11.  I wish I could have gotten under four hours, but I just wasn't fit enough to make up the deficit from early in the race.  The marathon is very long.  You have a lot of miles to cover, and I think training volume has got to be key to a successful race.  You need a lot of aerobic fitness to complete that last 10K, and I'd like to take another go at it with a better base of fitness.

Day 5: Blackcap Basin

I wish we could have spent more than one day in Blackcap Basin.  It's quite large, and there is a lot of it that we didn't have time to explore.  We focused on just the southernmost corner of the basin on this layover day.


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We got a lazy start in the morning, and were disappointed to wake up and see a pall of smoke had descended on the mountains while we were sleeping.  Eventually, the breeze did clear it out a bit, but it made the morning hazy and a bit smelly.

Libby in camp on the smoky morning.

Our dayhike was through an alpine wonderland of meadows, rocks, sand, and the occasional stand of limber or whitebark pine.  Most of the time, Finger Peak picturesquely framed our views.

Pearl Lake

We visited Pearl Lake, which is quite large and easy fishing for decent back-country rainbows, then hiked up a cross-country trail to Chapel Lake.  Chapel Lake was surrounded by little frogs, so we stopped to check those out for awhile before moving on across broken faultlines to Cathedral Lake.

Chapel Lake

Each lake brought us progressively closer to the foot of a spur of Finger Peak.  When we finally got there, we were right up against the mountain.  Cathedral Lake is right in the cirque of the divide and is beautifully deep and clear.  The country around it is quite broken, but it has sandy beaches, springy meadows as well as talus along its rim.

Cathedral Lake

We spent awhile fishing for rainbows there before heading off and away from the divide and down the outlet stream to Midway Lake.  Midway is in a shallow glacial scoop, so it's a less spectacular lake than Cathedral.  We then headed up a low rise to the south and looked down into Crown Basin.  While we were up on the ridge, we also found a cool marmot skull!

Crown Basin

From there, it was simply a matter of walking back to camp via Pearl Lake, again.  Libby and I fished our way along the east side of the lake that evening for dinner.  We then had a lazy evening watching the sunset.  I regret that a bit because I forgot that we had talked about making the short walk up to Regiment and Battalion Lakes.

More pictures at Flickr.

Day 4: Blackcap Traverse

On our fourth day, we hiked from Guest Lake to Blackcap Basin via a high traverse.  Secor has a route that stays at about 10,400', but we worked our way quite a bit higher.  In fact, we ended up climbing the mountain, dropping our packs maybe 500' below the summit.  Still, Secor's route is class two, and we stayed class one the whole time.


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One surprising feature of the traverse was that we would come across the occasional little meadow along the creeks hanging off the side of the mountain.  We took lunch in one that was right at the origin of the trickling stream seeping out of the rocks.

Libby in high meadow

From that meadow, we straight up the mountain after grabbing some cool water straight from the source.  Without packs, the walk up the will was fine, and the view from the top was rewarding.  We could see from the peaks around Whitney in the south to Ritter and Banner in the north (and beyond).

Ritter and Banner

After leaving the summit, we picked up our packs and headed for Blackcap Basin.  After traversing a few ridges, we headed straight down to Lightning Corral Meadow.  It was great cross-country hiking across dry grassy swards and granite ledges.  The meadow itself was very lovely.

Lightning Corral Meadow

From the meadow, we hiked up to Division Lake to camp for the night.  The path from the lake was interesting.  There were lots of shallow fault lines running across our route, a couple of which were filled with slow flowing creeks.  The view from our camp at Division Lake that night was very lovely.

Finger Peak from the shore of Division Lake

It was a very nice day, and you can see more pictures at Flickr.

Day 3: Bench Valley Dayhike

The third day of our trip was dedicated to exploring Bench Valley.  The goal was to drink in the sights, and it turned out to be a lovely place to do that.



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 That morning, we took our time in camp and then headed out through the moraines north of Guest Lake.  A Sooty Grouse was booming in Guest Lake's valley, but we never made an effort to find him.  It was amazing, though, to hear him as we hiked through the basin.  You could hear him for at least a mile, and he sounded about the same distance away all the time.

These lakes are all very nice to look at, their sparkling blue waters framed by high altitude meadows spotted with vividly colored alpine wildflowers, fringed by whitebark, lodgepole, and limber pine forest, and rimmed by white granite cliffs, boulders, and the peaks of the Le Conte Divide.

Libby at Horsehead Lake

The lakes have fanciful cowboy names like Horsehead, Filly, Wah Hoo, and Six Shooter.  I carried my fishing pole and found fish in all of them easy to catch.  Most of them had Eastern Brook, but a few of them had Rainbows.  I found Rainbows in one of the Twin Buck Lakes and Bullet Lake.  I thought I saw Rainbows cruising amongst the Brookies in Schoolmarm, but didn't catch any.  The rest of the lakes I fished had small Brook trout.

Libby took some time practicing her casting, as well.  This is at Six Shooter Lake.

One highlight we were anticipating was checking out Schoolmarm Lake.  You know, since Libby is kind of a schoolmarm, herself.  So we took a picture of her doing her best schoolmarmy pose on the banks of the lake.  What do you think?

Schoolmarming at Schoolmarm

It's worth mentioning we wandered through a little meadow between Filly and Twin Buck Lakes that was absolutely choc-a-bloc with frogs.  I mean, it was hard to walk without stepping on them!  They were tiny little dark frogs, just newly not tadpoles.

From Schoolmarm, we looped east and up into the lakes draining into it.  We made it up to Bullet Lake, and then climbed the low ridge south of that lake for a view further up the drainage toward the divide, and then again back south at Filly and Horsehead Lake.  It was the rightmost notch in the picture below.

Bullet Lake and an unnamed peaklet

From the notch, we dropped down a steep fault full of mint, paintbrushes, bees, and butterflies.  It smelled fantastic, and was pretty cool.  The hike back to Guest Lake was lovely, and I stopped at Colt Lake to pick up some dinner on the way back.  That afternoon we went for a swim at the interface of the meadow and moraine at the base of Blackcap Peak, which invited us to jump straight into deep water.  It was deceptively deep because of how clear it was, and it was unnerving to drop deep into the cold blue and not be able to feel anything beneath your feet at the deepest point.  Of course, after getting out of the water we shivered like mad until we had sufficiently air dried.  No warm granite slabs above 10,000' like there were at 8,000' two nights before.

That evening after dinner, we hiked up to a little knob above our camp and sat and watched the sun set over the low mountains to the west while mosquitoes whined around outside of our head nets, and bit Libby through her socks.

Dogtooth Peak (far right) and the mountains of the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness area

There are more pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157634834858133/with/9390813630/

Backpacking Day 2: To Bench Valley

The second day of our trip took us up out of the North Fork valley to Guest Lake, in a hanging valley above it.


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There are two ways up to Guest Lake from the river. You can either take the established trail, or you can use the old trail, which has been abandoned for many years. The old trail goes straight up the hill, and the new one requires a three mile or so dog-leg upstream on the river. We opted to try the old route.

After hiking for a few miles, along the river valley filled with big lodgepoles, aspens, red fir, and douglas-firs, past calm pools and across narrow tributary streams, and past a water survey cabin, we finally made it to the turn-off.  It was a bit hard to find, though, and we walked past it the first time.  We then doubled back and saw the nails in a tree that indicated there used to be a sign there.

From then on, it was usually just find-the-duck, and we worked our way up the hill steadily but slowly.  In some places, the path was still obvious as a track in the dirt, but in other places there was no sign of it at all. It gets a bit confusing in switchbacks, but it probably saved us time to go this way in the long run.  We also got good views back down the valley.

The North Fork valley

After lunch, we topped out into a splendid verdant collection of forest, meadows and wildflowers, the trail becoming very clear as it wound its way through the low understory of the forest.  Then we met up with the maintained trail, and had an enjoyable walk.  The last few hundred feet up to McGuire Lakes are a very steep set of switchbacks, though, and we had to grunt our way up.  Those lakes were very pretty, but as soon as we got there big swarms of mosquitoes descended on us.  We stopped to take pictures, anyway, before moving on to Guest Lake.

Smaller McGuire Lake

Guest Lake has some meadows around the outlet that were very buggy, and our camp at the foot of Blackcap turned out to be the buggiest of the trip.  Curiously, there were two well-established campsites with fire rings here (despite the elevation: over 10,000'), but we didn't use one of the big camps.

That evening was one of the few we did not go swimming, but I did go fishing.  Guest is the sort of lake where you catch a little Brookie with every cast.  So, we had fish for dinner and then for breakfast the next morning.  The rise was pretty spectacular as there were both lots of fish and lots of insects for them to eat.

Most of these ripples are from fish, not the wind!

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157634830824622/with/9380125535/

Backpacking Day 1: To North Fork King's River

Last year, I never finished writing up our backpack trip on this blog, but this year I'll try again, anyway.  It's a nice way to record the memories while they're still fresh.

The first day of our trip this year we hiked from the Maxson Meadows trailhead at Courtright Reservoir over to the North Fork of the King's River.  This was the first time Libby and I started a trip out of the west side of the Sierra, so it was interesting to have a first day that wasn't over a pass.  We only gained about 800 feet this first day, but it was more than 10 miles, so it was a bit longer than we normally do on a first day. It was also the first time we started a backpack trip on Libby's birthday!



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It turned out to be a pretty memorable day. A few miles into the hike, we took off our packs to apply DEET. I had started the day with sunscreen, but there were mosquitoes attending any damp and shady spot in the forest. These spots weren't uncommon, despite the dry winter, and after entering one of these areas, I'd soon attract an attending retinue of the bloodsuckers -- with a flock focusing on each elbow. The wisest route was clearly chemical, so out came the bug juice.

As we were applying, we heard a strange noise in the distance. The first mile or so of the trail starts out on a multi-use four-wheel drive trail, which we had only left a short time before, so my first thought was that a noisy jeep was bumping down the road. But, this was too chaotic of a noise for that, so it was one of those nagging curiosities in the back of our minds. Dad looked down the trail the way we had come, and suddenly exclaimed, "Run-away mules! Get off the trail!"

So, we scrambled for high ground!  Sure enough, here came two mules tearing down the trail toward us with a riderless horse in their train. I split east, and Dad and Libby split west, and here they came east of the trail straight toward me! I had the new-to-me experience of seeing their bright white terror-filled eyes as they galloped just around me off the trail, before circling back and plunging through a fallen tree to regain the path. They were dragging their lead lines and their loads were jostling, undoubtedly compounding their panic. The horse took an even wider birth before following suit.

Just a half a minute later, their wrangler came loping down the trail after them, a little dog trailing behind him. This was really a new experience! Mule trains are common sights on backcountry entrance trails, but we'd never seen one out of control before. Later, as the wrangler came back down the trail with the horse and one mule (he got all of them eventually), he explained that his client had gotten off his horse to use the bathroom without telling him, and that I guess one thing led to another.


The hiking itself wasn't bad. Our packs were heavy, and the day was long, but it was nice to be at 8,000' for the first day of the trip. We crossed Post Corral Creek at lunch, and soaked our feet there. We saw quite a few people coming out, but after lunch we didn't see anyone else for five days.

 Our campsite was fantastic. We found a few granite benches in the warm sun and went swimming in the creek. It was cold, but not chillingly cold, and the granite surrounding it was beautifully warm to lay out and dry on.

 

Our swimming hole on the North Fork Kings River

That night there were some high clouds that caught the moonlight and were very beautiful. To celebrate Libby's birthday, we had a Mountain House stew and some instant pudding before walking down to a lovely waterfall downstream from our camp.

The birthday girl and the waterfall

More pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157634798418531/

Movie Notes: The Grand Illusion

La Grande Illusion (1937)
Director: Jean Renoir

The first prisoner of war camp escape movie ever made, and the best.  This is a really fantastic movie.  Its fully framed characters typify different types of people of the time, and their interactions open up windows into the things that divide and unite humanity in general.

It's not only profound: it's also witty, lively, and beautiful.  This is a great movie.