Race 11-130 New Years Day 24/12 Hour run

45.623mi. - 11:54:08 - 23rd/57
Garmin Tracking here.

I wanted to have an aggressive schedule to finish to the year so I entered the Coastal Trail Runs New Year’s Day 24 Hour race. There are 6 and 12 hour options in addition to the 24 hours option and I chose the 12 hour race. I watched part of this race last year and there were quite a few people there that I knew and I hoped that would be the case again this year. The course is a 1.061 mile loop at Crissy Field in San Francisco. It is 60% dirt and 40% pace with 2 feet of elevation gain per loop.

One thing I didn’t plan on was having a pair of shoes I’d be comfortable running in for this long so I packed several pairs thinking I may need to change every few hours. Since the race was almost directly across the street from Sports Basement I stopped to look around before the race. I immediately found a pair of Nike Air Pegasus which I’ve had very good success with recently so I bought those to run in.

My race started at noon but the 24 hour racers had already started at 9AM. I knew Chikara Omine was out there and found out the Amy Burton was as well. I saw Jean Pommier (who seems to get better with age) at the start of my race and tagged him as the eventual winner. I should be able to run 70-75 miles in 12 hours but given my recent races I was hoping to get at least 100k in.

I started with Jean and a couple other guys running mid 7 minute pace for a mile before backing off a little. "A little" turned into "quite a bit" which turned into "quite a lot". I was having a difficult time with my feet being sore probably from running too many long races recently. The excessively flat surface doesn't play to my strengths either for such a long race. I felt a bit lethargic due to my non-existant dinner the night before.

By mile 11 I had slowed down to 9:40 pace which was bad enough, but the next 2 miles were 11:05 and 10:34. As I had run abuot a half marathon I noted to Wendell Doman, the race director, that I was already running my Double Dipsea pace. He said "At least it's not my Quad (Dipsea) pace" to which I replied "Just wait a couple more hours". My overall pace went up to the mid to high teens per mile, but I maintained a moving pace in the 13's to 16's - the difference being that I stopped to eat frequently in order not to run out of energy.

I hit the marathon mark in 5:18:26 and was ready to be done with it. I pressed on keeping up the same moving pace but not making my normal effort to move out of the aid station quickly. A couple of times I took an extended rest up to 10 minutes. The "finish decent" goal of 50 miles went out the window and turned into a "don't get embarassed" goal of more than 44 miles, since 44 miles is my 6 hour PR.

Somewhere in there Chikara went from looking OK to struggling. Erika Kikuchi ran a couple laps with me for a couple of laps. She was in the 6 hour race and not doing so well herself. Barry Smith kept passing me as he had started a lap late but eventually won the 6 hour race. After lap 40 (42.44 miles) in 11:09 I figured I could do 2 more laps in about 18-20 minutes each. I ran a 20:49 but then was able to squeeze in 2 laps after that in 12:22 and then 11:24.

I was a bit concerned for Chikara as he was struggling mightily and had hardly moved along the final straightaway to the aid station from where I passed him on my 2nd to last lap to where I passed him on my last lap. At that point my race was just ending and his had another 9 hours. After midnight hit starting the New Year I went to go find him and carry him in but by that point he had just made it to the aid station. It turned out he just needed a 7 hour nap in order to get up and get some more miles in.

It was a clear night so we had watched the full moon rise all evening and after the race we could see the fireworks by looking over Fort Mason. I rested a little in a tent that I thought belonged to Noe Castanon who was working at the aid station. Then I went home with no intention of waking up in time for the morning DSE 5k at the same course location.