99th Dipsea
I ran the practice Dipsea two weeks ago, and did an over-and-back with my friend Victor about ten days ago, so I felt like the course was fairly familiar. I'd remembered sunglasses, more for the dust than the sun. I planned on power-walking the stairs and keeping it reined in until after Suicide, saving the energy for Dynamite and passing people on the Hogsback.
My practice Dipsea ended up being 1:06:12, so even without the quarter-mile at the beginning and quarter-mile at the end to add a few minutes, I felt like I was in good shape for breaking into the top 750 slots, which would qualify me for the Invitational bracket and guaranteed entry next year. Last year to finish 750th I would have had to run 1:12:11. The first part of the over-and-back took us 1:17 which felt easy and sane. The only unknown I couldn't take into account was the crowd of people I'd have to pass. How much would they get in my way, and how much would the acceleration and deceleration in the pack take its toll?
I felt really good heading up the stairs. By staying mostly to the left, and weaving when we needed to, I was able to pass a lot of people who were huffing and puffing. For the first bank of stairs I managed to keep up the two-at-a-time except when it got really crowded. Between the banks of stairs there were some of us who were able to kick it back into a run and pass a few more winded runners before hitting the next staircase. I hit the top of Windy Gap in 14:10, averaging 12:04 miles.
It felt really good to open it up on the downhill, and I was still able to keep up the passing on the left most of the way to the footbridge, which I hit at 21:01. 7:56 mile pace on the way down, which is mostly due to the steps and the crowd -- I was significantly faster in the practice Dipsea -- but still reasonable since I wanted to save something for the big uphill.
From the footbridge it's 2.1 miles to the top of Cardiac. Even though the hill continues up from Cardiac to the highest point of the race, the incline after Cardiac is so much easier it doesn't feel like a hill in the same way. Dynamite was the biggest slowdown on the course for me, with so many people walking. My heartrate was high, but once we got past Dynamite I was able to start running again, albeit slowly, and start passing people on the fire road and the Dipsea trail. I saw Halfway Rock for the first time. I passed one of my nemeses from the DSE races. One more walk break right before the top of Cardiac and then push push push to get my pace back. I hit the top of Cardiac in 49:21, averaging 12:01 miles so far in the race. For the practice Dipsea I hit the top of Cardiac in almost exactly the same time, but the practice didn't include the sprint through Mill Valley to the stairs.
On the way back down I averaged 8:02 miles through the Swoop and to the finish. I did look down at my Garmin on Insult Hill and saw 191, which is much higher than I should be seeing! Once again I feel like the crowds on the course kept me from flying down the stairs and Steep Ravine. I wonder now what The Moors is like with crowds, but the sections of highway on the other path made it my choice. I kept trying to run perpendicular to the roadway to minimize the braking effect, and mostly succeeded.
In the final push I really wanted to catch this Italian guy who'd been yelling "ON YOUR LEFT!" and careening down the hills dangerously, only to get caught by half of us on the next uphill. But he careened past too many people before the Stile, and I didn't want to risk life and limb on those narrow trails, so he had too much of a head start. I did catch two guys and finished neck and neck with a third, but it looks like in the preliminary results his chip registered before mine did.
Preliminary stats:
6.88 miles.
1:11:25 (chip time).
Average HR: 182. (Yikes.)
Peak HR: 197. (Double Yikes! Right at the finish, sprinting to catch that threesome in front of me.)
Place: 729/1416, which puts me in the top 750 and gets me an invitation for next year!
113 in the Runner Division, out of roughly 750...