Saturday’s Mt. Tamalpais 50k race was an experience, to say the least.

I have trained for, and raced, enough of these endurance events (road marathons, specifically) to know that at any given time, in the throes of the race, I should anticipate experiencing what feels like the totality of the human experience: mighty highs, killer lows, and everything in between.

My racing and training experience has also taught me that just because I feel a certain way at a certain point in time during the race doesn’t mean that I’m going to feel like that forever. This reality is what allows me to enjoy the exuberant moments and take comfort, or solace, if you want to think of it in those terms, in the recognition that the bad parts won’t last forever.

And yet.

On Saturday morning, when I was making my way up, through, over, under, and all manner of prepositions all over Muir Woods and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), I experienced what I can only describe as a volatile whiplash of emotions that whole aforementioned “totality of the human experience” thing in ways that I 100% did not see coming.

The race began at 7:30, which meant a 4am wakeup at home to be out the door and to begin driving the ~80 miles to Stinson Beach from SJ by 5am. The earliest runners could arrive was 6:30, so that was what I planned for, to give me enough time to get my bib, use the bathroom, and do all the final last-minute race stuff.

I knew the race had sold out amongst its 10k, half, 30k, and 50k runners, with 500 participants total across all distances, but I figured it was still sufficiently small that it’d allow me to do everything I needed to do in those last 60 minutes before the gun went off. It was a super chill race morning, by all accounts. I wasnt nervous about the task at hand as much as I was just excited to finally be doing this thing for which I had worked my tail off for the past several months.

As I was standing around at Stinson Beach with about 20 minutes before the gun, I ran into Michael S., whom I knew from TSFM ambassador program several years ago; it was delightful to see him and catch-up for the first time in what felt like forever. Michael was running the 30k for fun and knew the trails well, so it was great to spend some time with him before we began racing and get some not really “insider knowledge” about the beautiful and challenging trails we’d soon be tackling.

And without much fanfare, the race began. It felt “California crisp” at the race start, but by a mile or so into the race, I had warmed up enough that I shed my long-sleeve and just ran in my sports bra and crop, with my hydration vest over it. From the very start, we began climbing and spent a fair bit of time in the woods, with beautiful tree canopy, bubbling streams, the whole bit. The beauty was ridiculous.

I know that people come from all over the world to run these trails in Marin County, and good grief, I can see why. They are next-level gorgeous and challenging (think: lots of stairs to ascend and descend, a 10’ ladder to ascend early in the race, downed trees to limbo under or hurdle over, some muddy and wet spots, tons of rocky and rooty and technical patches… basically everything you can imagine). I 100% got my money’s worth. I didn’t take any pictures mid-run, but these websites give you a good idea of what various parts of the race course looked like.

Aid stations were situated about a 10k apart, which was just fine since I was wearing my UD hydration vest and was carrying 50 ounces+ of water at any given time. I stuck to my plan of taking an SIS every 4 miles, alternating between ones with electrolytes and ones without, and I also hydrated early and often with SIS hydrate tabs to keep all my levels “topped off.” I was thrilled to not have a single GI issue for the entirety of the race; seriously, that’s a victory in and of itself.

I arrived at the first aid station, about 3.7 miles in, at the top of Cardiac Hill, and quickly moved through it, grabbing some slices of watermelon for the road. That early into the race, I felt really smooth and strong and was keeping the effort controlled, with the idea being that I’m not out there to break any land speed records. Plus, realistically, I had a lot of race left to run. Better to be conservative early. Im not determining my races success by how the first 5k goes.

Between the Cardiac Hill AS and the next, at Deer Park (about 6.3 miles away, circa mile 10), a 50k male runner passed me and piqued my interest really fast with his drive-by commentary about the race cutoff times. The what?? He mentioned how he usually chooses his 50k races with “generous” cut-off times but that he was concerned about this one, since it was only 8.5 hours.

Dubious and probably a touch cocky I responded that that seemed doable, provided that we cover at least 4 miles an hour. He didn’t respond in kind, so it was after he dusted me that I looked at my watch and realized why he was concerned; like him, I, too, appeared to be cutting it pretty close.

I had no idea of what the AS cut-off time was going to be for the next AS near mile 10, but when I arrived, there seemed to be 30k and 50k runners everywhere! I was incredulous and thought surely, we’re all not going to have to DNF or drop-down in distance!? An AS volunteer and I chatted while she was refilling my water, and when I asked what time it was, her answer made me realize that as of that moment in the race, I only had a 4-minute buffer. Four minutes! And I was only at mile 10 of a 50k! How in the world was I going to do this?!

And herein began the biggest low I have probably ever experienced in an endurance race setting. As I left the mile 10 AS with my body feeling strong and ready to roll, with no aches or niggles at all, I began resigning myself to what felt like the promised likelihood that I’d have to DNF or drop-down in distance for the first time ever in a race.

How did I screw this up? I thought I had trained really well for this.

What am I going to tell A? That sometimes you take a risk, think everything’s ok, and that you can still fail? It’s all part of the learning experience?

There must be a mistake… I’ve been moving this whole time! I haven’t lollygagged, stopped to take pics, nothing!

And on, and on, the self-flagellation went, for a good ~6.5 miles until the next AS at Muir Beach.

At one point, after I had written my mental obituary on this race and figured out how I’d be able to frame this whole experience to A, I decided to go ahead and drop the effort down even further because if I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race I had started, why bother?

Why overexert myself when I know at the next AS, I’d be told to either stop running altogether or to drop down to the 30k distance? Crucifying myself didn’t make sense.

Another runner near me, Heather, who was running this 50k as her first (which blew my mind!), was in the same predicament, and we both simply remarked that we’d keep on, keeping on, until we were advised otherwise. At that point, there wasn’t much else left to do.

Descending from the woods into the beach treated me with some otherworldly-gorgeous views as well as what felt like the entire population of Marin County out and about at the park and the beach, making getting to the AS a bit of an exercise in dodge ‘em (and necessitating copious amounts of patience).

I couldn’t shake the sadness of knowing that I was moments away from having to DNF, even though it wasn’t really my choice, or dropping down in distance, also not particularly my choice, so naturally, this was when a race photographer popped out of the woods to capture my existential malaise. (Naturally). (I looked forward to what surely was a ridiculous pic, but I havent found it anywhere. All good).

Anyway. For the 6.5 miles between AS 2 and AS 3, besides the aforementioned existential handwringing, I tried to convince myself that really, at the end of the day, everything was fine.

Even if I had to drop to the 30k.

Even if I had to DNF.

The silver lining would be that I could possibly make it back to SJ in time to catch the girls’ swim meet that I was missing, so that would be lovely.

I convinced myself that I didn’t really care all that much about finishing, and that if I really wanted to, I could come back and re-run all these trails on my own time, at my own pace, without course limits mandating my speed.

I convinced myself that really, I wasn’t feeling it all that much anyway, and my body felt kinda bleh, and who does 50ks anyway, all of that.

My mental hole was getting profoundly deeper by the second, and I was on track to be the world’s fastest shoveler.

At long last, I arrived to AS 3 at Muir Beach, fairly dejectedly, waiting for the volunteers to tell me what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go with my DNF or distance drop-down.

You can probably imagine my massive surprise, then, when the AS volunteers said that I was about 45 minutes ahead of the cutoff and that I should keep doing what I was doing because I was looking and running strong. (!!)

The totality of the human experience, my friends. There you have it.

In a matter of minutes, I went from being convinced my race was over (and convincing myself that I didnt care) to being all game on, lets do this, no-questions-asked-Im-gonna-finish-the-thing.

I scurried out of the AS like a child on Christmas morning, completely FLOORED by this realization and again having no real idea of WTF just happened between AS 2 and AS 3. I didnt anticipate that I had made up much or any ground, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear otherwise from the AS volunteers.

Just as quickly as I had dug and buried myself in that mental hole, I had catapulted myself out of it with the love and encouragement of an AS volunteer and suddenly, I had the second half of the race to run ahead of me.

As long as I’d make it back to Stinson Beach by 4pm, I’d be golden… and at the rate I was going, I *should* be ok. Other runners in my vicinity, like Heather and Joe, were similarly elated at this revelation as well.

I had spent so long, nearly all of the past 10k, convincing myself that I didn’t really care about this race, and that I was fine if I had to quit, and that my impressionable children wouldn’t care if I had to alter my goals on the fly, but the reality for all of it was completely the opposite.

The rapidity and breath-taking realization of coming to accept this opposing, much more favorable, reality I can’t even.

The whiplash was stunning and unlike anything I have ever experienced in a race setting before.

As I moved from AS 3 to AS 4, at Cardiac Hill (5.6 miles later, mile marker 22.1), Heather and I split since she was making good on her promise to herself to whip out her music/headphones after the half-way mark. Along the way, I connected with Joe, a pharmacist from Tucson who had interned in SF in the 90s and who had come back to see friends and go on a north-south California road trip. We spent several miles together chatting, running, and hiking, and it made miles 16.5-22.1 fly by.

I felt fantastic in this section and slowly began to pick-off other runners, one at a time, easily fifteen-plus in total, whom had passed me earlier in the race. I think every runner will acknowledge that it sucks to be passed late in a race, yet at the same time, if you’re the person doing the passing, the feeling is effing exhilarating.

Between AS 3 and AS 4, I also had some fairly uncomfortable, very close run-ins with mountain bikers who were descending veeeeeery fast, relative to how quickly I was ascending. These trails brought with them all types of topo challenges for sure but also those of the weekend warrior variety, as well. There was never any time to space out, else you’d risk tripping on a root or a rock or coming head-to-head with a cyclist.

Between AS 4 at Cardiac to AS 5, still at Cardiac, runners got to post another 6.4 miles of dense, forested descents before some final long and slow ascents, the fifth final hill of the day. As I was beginning my descents, I saw the men’s and women’s leader beginning their final ascents, which was wild because they were easily hours ahead of me. Talk about unfathomable trail speed, dear lord!

For most of the 6.4 mile section between AS 4 and AS 5, over the final of five big inclines of the race, I was in no-man’s land. I only focused on following the colored ribbons on the trees to help ensure that I was going in the right direction, since there was no one in front of me, as far as I could tell, nor anyone behind me, either.

I encountered several groups of hikers whose thoughtful “you’ve got this!” remarks buoyed my dopamine levels a bit (THANK YOU!), and by the time I hit AS 5, back at Cardiac, I was at mile 28.5 of the race, had only a mostly-downhill 3.1 miles to go, and still felt freaking fantastic. I had maintained my buffer ahead of the cutoff from mile 16.5 onward (from AS 3) and knew (or rather, hoped) that my 35-45’ buffer would hold out for the final push homeward on the fabled Dipsea trail.

Another woman popped up to AS 5 and left shortly before me, so I hoped to try to give chase for the final 5k homeward. Alas, she was flying, and my jets couldn’t match hers. A race photographer appeared at mile ~30, and it took everything I had not to hug him and scream that I was doing it! I tried to hammer on the final mile downhill made harder by all the Dipsea Trail stairs punctuating it but it was thrilling. Tourists and hikers exclaimed, “YOU’RE SO CLOSE! YOU GOT THIS!” more times than I could count, and I felt like I was on top of the world.

And then I made a wrong turn.