All coming together at Miwok

Top 3: Hal, Tony, and Biener (with RD Tia B) photo by Ted Knudsen



You know, I didn't really want to run Miwok again.
The last time I ran it was, at that time, my best race. It was a good field, I came in 4th and even had legendary Scott Jurek behind me. I have run it four times and just wasn't sure if I could improve on my time there. Plus, I just wasn't feeling recovered after American River 50 miler. I jumped right back into training and just did not feel like my legs were responding. I took it easy the next two weeks but still was worried that running a 100K three weeks after a hard effort at American River wasn't going to give me the results I wanted to achieve. But, after a massage and making myself get in a better head space, I gathered up the entire family and we headed south to spend the night in Redding. My wife was a total champ in taking all the pressure of "family duties" off of me and encouraged me to focus and get ready to race. We got into Mill Valley early on Friday, got some lunch and caught up with my sister and brother in-law and their family. Once getting to packet pickup, I was pretty freaked out at the field that was running. Once again, another stacked field. This could go on and on but the big guns were: Anton Krupicka, Hal Koerner, Michael Wardian, Nathan Yanko, Gary Robbins, Lewis Taylor, and Erik Skaden. ALL of those guys have won major races and there is another whole wave of guys who I'm sure could kick my butt on any given day. I had a hard time thinking how I was going to squeeze into the top 10. My wife asked me how I thought I would do. I said (honestly) that if I had a really good day, I would probably be somewhere between 6-9. If I had an average day, I would probably be somewhere between 10-15. So, I just decided to focus on NOT racing ANYONE and focusing on my splits. I had Scott Jurek splits for a 8:35 which I thought was pushing my ability level but what the hell, might as well go for it.
The race started hot and heavy of course with the contenders and the pretenders mingling together for a good 10 miles or so. I always have to settle myself down and not worry about some of the people in front of me. Once the initial pecking order was sorted out.... it was Michael Wardian and Zach Gingerich up front, Anton K was right behind, and then a chase group of Hal Koerner and Gary Robbins. I was in the next group back with Erik Skaden, Nathan Yanko, Lewis Taylor, and a guy who seemed pretty fit. I love seeing Skaden at races. Seriously, who is tougher then that guy? He cracks me up and truly is one of the toughest bastards at the races. Erik and I settled into a pretty good groove and he would pull ahead on the downhills and I would reel him in while heading uphill. I was also trading places with Nathan a lot. He definitely had more leg speed then I did on the steep, firetrails but I was able to catch back up when it got a little more technical so we kept swapping places which I actually enjoyed since he was hoping to run sub 8:30 which was 5 minutes faster then I was hoping for so I was hoping to keep him in sight for as long as I could.




Biener and Skaden. I'm sure Skaden was talking trash. Photo by Ted Knudsen

As we dropped down to Muir beach, Erik Skaden backed off for a bit and I tried to keep up with Nathan. As we headed through Redwood Creek trail, I could feel Nathan surge a bit and he put a few more seconds between us. I decided to save it up a little and get ready for the long climb that was approaching. I knew that my strength in running is in "grinder" uphills and I wanted to be ready for it. As we started up the hill, Nathan continued to be strong and maintained his distance from me. I was a little surprised that I couldn't keep up but I didn't stress about it at all as I realized he was a very strong climber. Soon enough though, we dropped the other guy who had been running with us and saw someone up ahead. This was Zach Gingerich who had been running up front but was now slowing way down. We passed him and I was surprised to see Gary Robbins come into view. Once again, I wasn't actively racing against anyone except for the clock so I just stayed steady until we hit the Pan Toll aid station. It was great to see Topher Gaylord cheering us on up there and I saw I had pulled pretty much even with Gary and Nathan. I have always felt that Miwok is won and lost on the two 7 mile sections on the costal trail. They are rollers and if you are running well, they can help you make up time. If you are hurting then they are some long ass miles... As soon as we jumped on the costal trail, Nathan had slowed down a touch and leap frogged him again and saw Gary about 15-20 seconds ahead. I caught up to him and tried to encourage him to keep battling out there. He is an amazing runner and I wanted him to have a kick ass day out there. I told him to hang on and he'd come back. Unfortunately, he ended up dropping at Pan Toll but was out cheering the rest of the day. Class act.
At that point, I realized I was all of a sudden doing pretty well, was hitting my splits, and a time of 8:35 seemed like it was in the cards. I even got some good glimpses of Anton running along the costal trail which made me think that I wasn't that far behind the top dogs which was cool. I kept on as I love the style that you need to have on the costal trail. I was comfortable with my pace and effort. Nearing the Bolinas Ridge aid station, something funny kind of happened. I saw I was reeling in a guy wearing a bright Green Brooks top. He looked very much like a guy that lives in Bend who I knew I would be racing against and he is a solid runner; Tim Monaco. But wait, I hadn't seen him all day and I had looked for him. Was it possible that I didn't see him and he had been ahead of me all day? I couldn't believe it but the closer I got I realized IT WAS Tim. WTF? I knew there was no way he could have been running the hills faster then me so this really got my heart charging and I put a little too much effort into reeling him in. "Tim", I yelled. "Where the hell did you come from?". He then explained that he had stayed in the hostel, slept through his alarm, started the race late, got lost again, and now was just out having a fun run. Man, that had my heart racing... but he did let me know that I was in 4th place now. He also let me know Hal Koerner was just about a minute up on me. As I dashed into the aid station, Hal was still there and I picked up some GU's and headed out. Hal kept his lead on me and kept me just out of reach. I figured I had covered a lot of ground on him at this point and that if I stayed patient, maybe I could secure 3rd place.
The rolling ups and downs along Bolinas Ridge are really pretty damn boring. They are kind of hard to get into a rhythm on and I was feeling a bit of the effort that I had just thrown down on the costal trail. I have a dumb little mantra that I say to myself to stay relaxed and try to feel as if I am floating and I tried to do that as I cruised along the ridge. After a while, I hit the gate that marked the downward freefall to the turnaround. I ran the downhill well and was surprised at how far I was towards the aid station when I finally saw Tony and Mike Wardian heading up. When I hit the aid station, Hal was just heading back up and I gave him a slap in the ass, filled my bottles, and sadly turned around up the big ole' hill. Well, I lost my race to Hal over the next 7 miles. I couldn't seem to get my mojo on the big hill out of Randall. I hiked more then I would have liked, especially when I saw that I had opened my lead up a little bit on Nathan. At the top, I had some crap in my shoe that I figured I should get out of there, so I did that and headed back towards Bolinas Ridge AS. I ran really lame here and just couldn't seem to bring it like I wanted. It wasn't horrible but I didn't run with much enthusiasm. As I got back to Bolinas, it was cool to have Jurek fill up my bottles and literally kick my butt out of the aid station! I picked up my pacer, Brian Wyatt, and we hit the trail. Straight up, Brian was an AWESOME pacer. He jumped right in and started timing my intervals between taking gels and salt tabs and did exactly what I asked him to do beforehand; push me on the hills! We got on the ridge trail and right ahead of us was Michael Wardian. Crazy. I told Brian we'd stay nice and mellow and then haul by him when we got close. We did that and tried to put some distance on him immediately. We made it back to mile 49.7 in 6 hours, 33 minutes which was almost 5 minutes faster then Jurek's split and I felt solid and strong and happy to be running. We bombed down the long hill running at about 6:30 pace which I was happy with having over 50 miles on my legs and headed towards Deer Park and where everyone misses the turn towards HWY 1. I totally would have missed it but Brian caught it and up we went. I told myself just to relax on the long, grinding climb and we didn't walk any of it. Brian kept reminding me that Nathan would be running everything and that I had to keep pressing. For some reason, I didn't think Nathan could be closing on me so I didn't stress too much about it at that point but did like the extra motivation. The next section is another that I could live without. Another long dirt road that grinds uphill. I saw Hal far in the distance and was discouraged by how much time he had put on me. That race was over unless he bonked. Now, my goal was to stay in 3rd place and break 8:35. As we began the brutal descent into Tennessee Valley (I call it the Western States killer), I tried to summon all I had left in my legs but one of my toes was blistering badly and was bugging me quite a bit. Well, suck it up princess, not much time left. The 1/2 mile on the roads to the Tennessee Valley aid station were hot, filled with tourists, and a great motivator to get moving. I also saw that Nathan was not that far behind me as I saw him bombing down the hill. Shit, just what I need. Now I needed to bust my ass to the finish. My wife was at the aid station and she and Gary Robbins were awesome support and "shooed" me out of there for the last climb. Brian and I pushed the last climbs pretty well. I made him look back for Nathan about, oh, I don't know, 50 times on that climb. The last couple grunts on Wolf Ridge are tough and reduced me to painfully slow hike as we finally crested the climb. Every other year, I have taken a moment to soak in this moment; the views, the fact that it is just a short 1.3 miles downhill to the finish, etc. Not this year, we busted our asses to the finish. I was bombing down the stairs on the brink of being out of control but not wanting to give back the lead at mile 61. No, if Nathan was going to pass me, I was sure as hell going to make him earn it. Finally with about a 1/4 mile to go, I realized that I was going to be in 3rd place at Miwok. Awesome.... Emotion hit me pretty hard. The anniversary of my dad's death was just a few days before and I had thought of him often during the run and asked him to help me out. I crossed the finish line in 8:29. Definitely one of my best performances and things are definitely clicking for me this year.


Hoping my dad was watching. Photo by Ted Knudsen

It was awesome to have my wife, my kids, and friends at the finish line. Another busy year with two businesses, three kids, 2 big dogs, and trying to believe I can compete with these young, fast dudes with tons of talent. I'm proud of my accomplishment and am already looking forward to the "big boy" races coming in June and August.
A huge thanks to my wife, Katie as she was such a help pre and post race and just for letting me do these races! Also a huge shout out to Brian Wyatt. He became a valued friend during this process and sub 8:30 would not have happened without him. And to my brother and sis-law, Matt and Hope for hosting us for an amazing meal at their pad in Mill Valley. On the way home, I was jonesin' for a nice steak and that was on the menu. Great weekend.