A Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Leap Day 50k

March 02, 2020

A Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Leap Day 50k - No Dumb, No Fun

Dogmeat?

Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and i’m not sure about the former - Albert Einstein

Leap Day, 2020. Most people will only experience three or four Saturday leap days in their lifetime. That more than 20 people were easily guiled into spending one of those days climbing a steep fire road all day proves Einstein was right. Well, relatively right. 15+ people who signed up came to their senses before start time and did not show up. Maybe if I’d taken their money and promised a t-shirt.

Depends on if my wife is included

This is the third year I organized this fatass event. As usual, start time is flexible. While a few hearty souls started at 5am, I elected a more gentlemanly start time of 6:30 am. The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 50k is unsupported. As such, one must bring all their supplies, food, water, etc. While the main event is a series of hill repeats on Dogmeat, the bottom of the hill is actually 2 miles and 1,000 ft up from the parking lot. So, a fun little hike, with 2+ gallons of fluids, food and a chair. My trip up was shared with Jim “I’m here for the AG award” Magill, Jason “defending DFL champ” Chan, and Erica “I’m not Shrina” Hubbard. I’d like to say we made quick work of the initial ascent, but let’s just say that we made work of it.

The only clouds we would see all day

Already sweating from the warmup, we got to the “saddle” - a topological description of the bottom of the Dogmeat trail and a figurative description of where we wanted to just sit our asses down all afternoon. After unpacking, we were soon met with the first group of early runners finishing a descent, Ram and his band of merry men. I waited a few minutes for my trail mermaid, Antonya, to regroup and hiked up most of my first ascent with her. I think that was her first time down Dogmeat; would not be the last, even if she never steps on this trail after today. Which is highly likely.

Ram and his merry men

Misery is a communicable disease - Martha Graham

The THNGVBD (worst acronym ever) 50k is made of of 5 or 10 hill climbs, out and back, on a trail of ill repute in the Bay Area - a mostly exposed fire road, steep, averaging 16% gradient, climbing 1,000 ft in about 1.4 miles. One of the joys of this course is that you get to see everyone else up to 20 times. It’s like walking the switchbacks of the airport security line. Ramiro, Jessi, Miriam and Johnny were already out on the trail tearing it up - both pronunciations of “tearing” are apropos here.

Jessi coming in for landing

Runners are free to switch from one to the other, especially if they are bad at counting. Jessi took no risks and placed rocks at the summit on each visit. Clearly, years of watching The Flintstones paid off.

Julie got peer pressured into a double ascent

True, i am in love with suffering, but i do not know if i deserve the honor - Saint Ignatius

Not to be outdone, my wife came up for a mini, Puppymeat run of her own, one and a half ascents. FOMO clearly got to her (Fear of Missing Out). She told me to lighten up and enjoy the day. Hah! What’s so funny about doing 10 ascents of Dogmeat? Really, I’d like to know. She in her usual modus operandus ran socially, while I mostly suffered alone. Misery may love company but company does not love misery when I smell this bad.

Jim, ashamed to even be here, hiding from the papparazzi

He who has not the spirit of his age has all the misery of it - Voltaire

One of our standouts of the day was Jim Magill, who clearly outclassed the rest of us by showing that both age and IQ are just numbers. He probably had the best time out there, as reports are that he climbed with a different woman each of his five times. I don’t know how they understood him. The more tired he gets, the more Irish his speech becomes. I had to estimate his time, as he doesn’t use Strava. I think he still navigates by sextant.

Step 1. Insole, Step 2. Foot, then steps 3-50,000

And I can’t believe I have to put this in our race instructions, but for the benefit of at least one of our Mensa members, here goes. Insert insole into shoe, then foot. Doesn’t work too well the other way around.

The only way to slow Sylvie down was to make her carry a turtle

Johnny was in a league of his own, tearing up the fun run and then the back half for the 50k. He didn’t have any competition until he almost did with Sylvie clipping his heels. She, a woman being of sound mind and body, stopped at the fun run though. In the previous two years, we did not have a single female finisher of the 50k. This year, we had four idiotas finishing 50k, led by the incomparable Miriam!

Larry, pacing Antonya, one limp at a time

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing - Hunter S. Thomson

The rest of us plodded as long as we could, and more than we thought we could. A trail angel posted a welcoming sign at the top of the summit, along with a dummy tit (Jim’s Irish slang for pacifier) in case we wanted to cry. Yes, yes we did but we were too tired. Shout-out to Christy, the first to convince a couple of dummies to crew her on this fatass.

Spot the climbs ahead

Sobbing aside, a huge accomplishment for all the fun run and 50k finishers. I don’t want to run at all right now. That should keep the FOMART at bay (Fear of Telling MARTha I signed up for another race). At least until Wednesday.

Wall of Shame

50k, 10 Summits (Dogmeat time only)