Certainly life is not made of roses and chocolate, especially for those who choose to run endurance trail runs and ultras, but somehow, life seems more precious and sweet to those who can appreciate it by the pain we choose to endure for some awesome and very-rewarding trail runs.

This was the first race when I realized to a fuller degree that it's not about GETTING to the next aid station, although that was on my mind for most of the run. Really what makes a trail run is so much more than that - it's an experience that's impossible to adequately describe to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Isn't this gorgeous?

MOUNT DIABLO MARATHON - 7,950 feet elevation gain- this trail took us to Eagle Peak, the Summit, Rock City and beyond, BACK to the Summit, UP UP UP to North Peak and up the technical slope to Mount Olympia, and down.

Still, that doesn't describe it adequately... what can I say... it was 8 hours 53 minutes of running that were absolutely indescribable. Rolling green hills seen far below us, wildflowers and California poppies all around us, huge peaks and immense boulders, and technical slopes that were either too gravely or too steep to run down at any good pace. The course consisted in lots of uphill, as we expected, and possibly the hardest part was not the climbing but the heat. The steepness of the course and the mileage of extremely technical trail that was hard to maneuver without skidding down uncontrollably also contributed to the difficulty in the last segment of the course. It was steep enought to get me to use both hands and feet and sit all the way down just to get down portions of the trail!

Here's a picture from last year at the 25k Diablo Race in June 2007.

April 12, 2008 PHOTOS:

The start/finish aid station at 6:30 am:

Jasper Halekas & Scott Dunlap in a serious pre-race conversation :)


Counting down to the start. Some cheery faces. Apparently not too worried about all those thousands of feet we're about to climb!

As I was pulling out the iphone and taking a quick snapshot back at the runners who stayed in line on the singletrack, someone shouted in a joking manner, "Hey, get out of the way, I'm trying to break my PR!" putting some smiles on the faces of those who understood how that wasn't too easy to do in the crowded first mile or so of the race
climbing the first hill:
see the switchback above:

Having past Eagle Peak, Juniper Campground and the Summit, we headed for Rock City, which was more beautiful than I imagined! And farther, too! I asked at the summit if it was a mile and a half from there and they said it was (I had mistakenly thought the summit was mile 9.5 instead of 7.5), but it turned out to be 4.2 miles away... though disappointed about the distance, it ended up being a very rewarding experience seeing the other side of the mountain, so different than the side I'd seen before! This side was greener and the trails were different. At one point there were very few trees, and just open grasslands and wide reddish firetrails. From there the trail turned to a sandy yellow color, and lead into a foresty region like this:

Haven mistakenly thought Rock City was named for some gravelly rocks we encountered on the trails a few miles before we arrived there, I soon found out the real source of its name! look at this rock!

I really meant to take pictures at Rock City aid station and other aid stations, but my mind was preoccupied with changing socks and drinking some cold chocolate milk from our dropbag, mmm!

Having reached Rock City, we were told to continue for 3/4 of a mile and turn around to come back. How smart it would have been to give myself a rest and take my Gregory Pack off! But good training to keep it on, I kept telling myself, once I had realized I should have taken it off.

From there we returned to the Summit along the Lower Juniper Trail to Juniper Campground, grabbed some food and got some precious ice in our bottles (thanks to the aid station crew!) and then the Upper Juniper Trail to the Summit. From Mt. Diablo Summit we could look across to where we were heading - North Peak & Mount Olympia.

A not-so-hot snapshot at the summit. Not too happy to be there again! As if we hadn't climbed enough :) we had to climb the stairs up the observation deck, squeezing around tourists and getting a glimpse of the next peak we were heading to! Down the Observation Deck stairs.
Here we lost some time due to confusion about the trail markings.

The Summit marked mile 18 and as we headed to the next peak, all that was on my mind was getting past mile 21, since from there I knew it would be all downhill. Little did I know how technical and steep the downhill trail would be.

At mile 20, heading up the steepest one-mile fireroad I've ever climbed, called North Peak Road. Not looking too hot, but wanted a picture taken anyways. A memorable moment... I guess...

A view from North Peak of Mount Olympia. I think I took this picture with the intention of showing how VERY technical the trail was! The Zippe Trail certainly did NOT live up to its name. Although it wasn't a good downhill trail for speed, the technical challenge was a lot of fun. Some rockslides and fallen trees nearly kept us from continuing forward... it was the wilderness like I've never been in before... you could stop moving for one second, all would be quiet, and you could feel totally isolated and lost... Trying to capture how hard this trail was! Thankful I wasn't a 50-miler taking it down in the dark!

Finally! Having traversed the last four miles of trail that was too steep or too gravelly to run on (for all but the top runners!), the last mile and a half was a pleasant singletrack downhill through Oak forests.

Right after. Time was 8:53.

AND NOW ANNOUNCING: Eric Skaden& Graham Cooper! Tied for 1st place in the 50 mile! Came in JUST after we did having run 50 miles, not 26!

resting in the grass before driving home and taking pictures since I couldn't sleep...

Three Saturdays previous was the Pirate's Cove 8k, 20k, 30k and 50k with Pacific Coast Trail Runs in the Marin Headlands just this side of San Francisco. The 30k course, though gorgeous, is somehow super tough for me, maybe because I just don't know it well enough. That whole race I didn't have a single mental high moment - it was all down, down, down for me- but, don't get me wrong, lots of uphills! I've never had a race like that before... maybe it helps to have a mental outline of each portion of the race, which I didn't have here. Breaking past the misery of a two-mile stretch uphill and an empty Camelbak, I noticed wildflowers blooming on every side, and awesome views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco skyline all around (this was on Conzelman Trail). The runners were friendly - there we met Annie & Mike - who also participated with us in the Mount Diablo Marathon this past Saturday, April 12.

going up from pirate's cove

sooyeon and I had some fun on the beach afterwards...