Michael: Choices

In the sea of white
Dark angels are whispering
Sirens to the lost.

Monday, September 17, 2018

At this stage of the game choosing a race is looking for what’s local, what’s interesting, what haven’t I done before, and what haven’t I done well in before.

For example, although I finished fifth in the 2nd annual Valencia Trail 50k, because I got lost for a decent amount of time, when I received an email from that race for an early bird special I was strongly considering signing up. I just wanted to make sure I’d have enough recovery time from another revenge race, the Sycamore 100k, to compete decently. The Sycamore is at the end of February and the Valencia race is at the end of March, so case closed.

But when I went to sign up the sign up server was down. Out of curiosity, I thumbed through what other races were occurring in SoCal at the end of March. Turns out the Nine trails 35 miler is in that time frame. I’ve never run a 35 miler before, at least on purpose, so I decided to look into it.

Turns out it seems like both an old and formidable challenge. It wasn’t run this year due to the Thomas Fire, but the director promises to have it up and running again next year.

Outside of a new challenge, what I find intriguing about this race is the spread between the best time of 5:35 and the best time in my age group (60+) 9:18. And that 9:18 has stood since 1991. A record where there’s almost a 3 hour time difference between the gazelles and the old goats calls for a reckoning. So Valencia’s going to have to be put off for another year.
I’ve got to sign up for this Nine Trails race as soon as registration opens and see which one of is more ornery. I haven’t DNFed since 2014, and I plan on keeping it that way, but Nine Trails must be a real butt kicker.