The Cuyamaca Three Peaks 50k is a small mountain Ultra
located just outside of San Diego in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The course
boasts over 6000 ft of climb and is just within range to get to by car. This
makes it the perfect place to go for a race during the hot hot Arizona summer.
I headed out Friday night and camped in my car about 2 miles from the start the
night before the race. Some people might say that camping in your car is weird,
but, it is cheap, it lets you stay close to the start line, and my Outback is
exactly the right size if you put the back seat down…so it was great. Sunset the
night before the race was beautiful and after the sun went down the stars were
out in force. In the past I have almost always been nervous the night before a
race. In this case I wasn’t. I knew I had trained hard but most importantly I
had finished a 50 miler before so 50k just didn’t seem as daunting. I knew
whatever the course threw at me I would be ready and be able to finish. Anyway I had talked my buddy Korey into running this race...Korey is a speed demon and we both knew he was going to do really well. I love it when I know other people at the race it makes it more fun....even if they are miles ahead of you!
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| I'm stoked lets go! |
Stonewall Mountain 1 (0-6.5 Miles)
The race started out at a pretty good pace as the sun was
rising. We looped out around the lake past a bunch of horse stables and toward
the back side of Stonewall Peak. We started climbing the peak, everyone started
to slow down a little bit as we climbed up. The girl in front of me told me to
pass her whenever I was ready but I told her “I don’t want to do anything
stupid this early”. This turned out to be a great choice as the current pace
ended up being perfect. After climbing the peak there was a great run down a
series of switchbacks to the first aid station at the Paso Picacho Camp Ground
at about 7 miles. I grabbed some food and then took off back into the woods.
Middle Peak (6.5-13 Miles)
The next section started out pretty flat but pretty quickly
started the climb up and around middle peak. One or two people passed me here
but I felt like my pace was right. I also remembered that we still had over 20
miles to go so I decided to just keep it nice and steady. The climb up the peak
was almost all single track mostly through some awesome tall grass. This
section of the trail was beautiful and it was still nice and cool. After the
climb the course turned down a fire road for a nice easy descent back toward
aid station two which was located at the start. On the way down I saw my buddy
Korey coming back up I yelled out to him that he was in second place and to
keep it up. At the aid station I grabbed some more food and a little ginger ale
to calm my stomach down. The volunteers helped me refill my water pack which
was awesome because even though we were only 13 miles in I had already drained
it. I had looked at the next section on the course map earlier in the week so I knew what was coming and I braced myself.
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| As you can see 13-19 is a bit of a climb |
Middle Peak (Again) then Cuyamaca Peak (13-19 Miles)
I’ll just be up front about the next section. It was hard,
it was hot and it took a lot out of me. After aid station 2 we turned around
and re-climbed middle peak up the fire road. The sun was finally out in force, so
this area was hot, and my stomach was not co-operating. At the top there was a
short descent and then we were all faced with the daunting last climb of the
day to the top of Cuyamaca Peak. The
trail up the peak is pretty rugged and due to burns in the past is fairly
exposed. Me and Jeff (who had been running with me since about mid way up
middle peak) slowly made our way to the top. It seemed like this trail kept
getting steeper. About half a mile from the peak the trail dumped out onto a
road which just progressively got steeper.
We finally got into aid station three (19 miles) at the top
of the peak. I was tired but this aid station was like a shot of adrenaline. The
aid station was manned by women in bikinis and they had fresh strawberries,
watermelon, and ice pops. I’ll admit up
front (and if you ever run an ultra with me you’ll find out) that I act like a
complete idiot at aid stations. I’m always excited by the food and the cold
drinks. I also usually end up calling
the aid station workers “My best friends ever” or “The coolest people in the
world” or something like that. In this case since we were over half way through
this was my first chance to drink Mountain Dew of the day (In general, I have a
rule that I don’t drink caffeine during the first half of the race).
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| Life giving frozen goodness! |
I drank
two cups of mountain dew, ate a mountain of strawberries some watermelon….some
more food that I don’t remember…there was also a bucket of ice water and I may
have dunked my head in it….it was wonderful….everyone laughed at how excited I
was. Anyway after aid station goodness I headed out with another full water pack
as the climb had depleted mine.
Down to Cold Spring (19-26 miles)
The next section of the course was almost entirely downhill….yes…..it
was great. We all bombed down the hill for the first couple miles and everyone
who I ended the climb with eventually spread out again. Three miles into the
section it flattened out a little bit and I started to hit the wall. I slowed
down and got passed by about four people. I worked through the wall but it was
a little hard. At one point I was going down some single track that was
overgrown and brushed a plant out of my way….it was totally covered in nettles….it
was awful….I swore….but luckily about 5 minutes later I broke through the wall
and started running again. I passed some park rangers on horses on the way down
the trail, flashed the hang loose sign to some guy taking pictures and rolled
into aid station 4 at like 26 miles.
I got a band aid for my nettle sting from the plant, ate
more food, refilled my water pack (empty again), grabbed a couple more GU’s and
headed out.
Cold Spring to Finish
The next couple miles were a slow uphill section. I decided
to go for a 7 hour goal and I knew I had plenty of time so I decided to take
the uphill section slow, knowing that the last 3 miles were downhill or flat
and I’d be able to run. My thought was if I saved my energy I’d have enough
energy left to run it in strong to the end. Anyway a good deal of walking up
hill here. For such small hills they were really tough, I was physically and
emotionally drained and just didn’t want to climb anymore. I’m not ashamed to
say that I just lost it for just a minute or two. In past races when I have
come close to breaking down like this there has always been someone around, but
this time I was all by myself so I just let it out (I totally cried a little...so what). After a few minutes I
gathered myself up and pushed forward as the hilly section was ending. After I hit the top of the hills I finally
started running again. I could see a couple people out in the distance and my
competitive side kicked in. I knew they had passed me while I was hitting the
wall and I really wanted to gain on them again. I eventually passed all four
people who had passed me earlier and ran it in toward the end. One runner did
pass me in this stretch, but he really was killing it so good for him! The
trail looped back around the lack in reverse of the route at the start and in
no time I popped out onto the road and ran it into the finish area closing out
my race in 6 hours 52 minutes placing 27 out of 84. Korey had finished long ago
(coming in fourth) but he and his wife held up at the finish line and cheered
me in. Afterwards I drank like 3 bottles of water and ate a bunch of food to
get my energy back. Overall I felt pretty good considering I had just knocked
down a tough mountain 50k.
I’m really happy with how my race turned out, while I’d
always like to be faster I kept a good smart pace and for the most part didn’t
pass or get passed by many people….This usually means you aren’t doing anything
stupid! I’ll remember a lot of things about this race, the awesome sunrise and
the breeze blowing on me running through the tall grass. I’ll remember how
happy I felt to be out running in the mountains and how liberating it was to
push through the hard parts of this race. After the race I hung out for a bit with Korey and his wife, they are great people. That night I drove back as far as Yuma before getting a hotel and crashing. It was really a great weekend….I
would totally run this race again.
