ITR 2013 Marin Ultra 50k - Brotherly Love
Back when I was 13 years old, my older brother, Sonny, who by the way, will always be older, got into cycling. It was 1980 and cycling was definitely not cool. It was a fringe sport in much the same way that ultrarunning is now. Sonny rode a 100 mile ride up the mountain. I think the Sea to Summit ride is still held today. That ride intrigued my feeble idiotic teenage mind and I made that ride a year later in about 7 and a half hours.
Fast forward a few decades, and this time, I'm the greater idiot. I was doing "insane" runs up mountains, up Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, nearly getting stuck in snowy passes near Davos, Switzerland, and running 50k in the Santa Cruz mountains. So naturally, the lesser (and older) idiot follows and wants to run a 50k, too. We picked the Marin Ultra 50k because the schedule was nice, overlooking the fact that with ~7,000 ft of climbing, it's about as hard as 50k runs go. What a pair of dolts.
This is not a course I would recommend as a first 50k, although it's also not that bad either. Although it has a lot of climbing, it forces you to walk. And the scenery will distract the type of feeble minds that would enlist in these endeavors.
We reached the turnoff where the 50 mile runners would take the climb up to Cardiac. After the turnoff, we realized that all the "chicks" had taken the 50 mile turn-off, and it was just us "men", the pansies, that were doing the 50k. Depressing.
The turnoff also takes us up Coyote Ridge. I hate this hill. It's late in the race, it's hot, and it's not so close to the finish that you can will yourself over it. But you get over it and over the next hill to Tennessee Valley, and pretty soon, you're on the final climb, distract by the views of Sausalito and Tiburon across the bay. The descent down to Fort Baker under the Golden Gate bridge was hard on our tired legs and feetriding minmal shoes, but we sprinted across the finish line together, holding hands, like two brothers very comfortable in their masculinity.
Good times.
Fast forward a few decades, and this time, I'm the greater idiot. I was doing "insane" runs up mountains, up Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, nearly getting stuck in snowy passes near Davos, Switzerland, and running 50k in the Santa Cruz mountains. So naturally, the lesser (and older) idiot follows and wants to run a 50k, too. We picked the Marin Ultra 50k because the schedule was nice, overlooking the fact that with ~7,000 ft of climbing, it's about as hard as 50k runs go. What a pair of dolts.
This is not a course I would recommend as a first 50k, although it's also not that bad either. Although it has a lot of climbing, it forces you to walk. And the scenery will distract the type of feeble minds that would enlist in these endeavors.
We reached the turnoff where the 50 mile runners would take the climb up to Cardiac. After the turnoff, we realized that all the "chicks" had taken the 50 mile turn-off, and it was just us "men", the pansies, that were doing the 50k. Depressing.
The turnoff also takes us up Coyote Ridge. I hate this hill. It's late in the race, it's hot, and it's not so close to the finish that you can will yourself over it. But you get over it and over the next hill to Tennessee Valley, and pretty soon, you're on the final climb, distract by the views of Sausalito and Tiburon across the bay. The descent down to Fort Baker under the Golden Gate bridge was hard on our tired legs and feetriding minmal shoes, but we sprinted across the finish line together, holding hands, like two brothers very comfortable in their masculinity.
Good times.
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