Dipsea Dipsea Dipsea Dipsea - Quad Dipsea Race Report

Well, I made it. I finished the Quad Dipsea on Saturday. The race is a double out and back on the famous Dipsea Trail in Marin County, CA between Mill Valley and Stinson Beach. You run from the start at Old Mill Park in Mill Valley to Stinson Beach and back, and then you do it all over again. All told, it's 28.4 miles with about 9,300 feet in cumulative elevation gain, and includes somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 stairs total, including these right at the beginning.


It really is a beautiful trail, everyone should at least hike at once (and run the quad if you're feeling up to it!). Here's the typical shot of Stinson Beach coming down a section of the trail called 'The Moors':


Here's the course's elevation profile, with some handy markers for the main landmarks along the course (note the finish is not really the finish, since this image is for the single Dipsea, which is only 7.1 miles).


It wasn't too bad, I didn't really hit a marathon-like wall, though I was out there for almost 7.5 hours. 3 days later, though, my calves and quads are still fairly sore. This was my first ultramarathon (i.e. any race longer than a marathon - 26.2 miles), so I was really happy to just finish, though my last leg was really slow. Here were my splits:

Leg 1 (Mill Valley to Stinson Beach): 1:43

Leg 2 (Stinson Beach to Mill Valley): 1:47

Leg 3 (Mill Valley to Stinson Beach): 1:55

Leg 4 (Stinson Beach to Mill Valley): 2:01

Total: 7:28:38

Preparation

I would have liked to get a few more miles on my legs before my first ultra, but I had some foot problems about a month out that limited my training. At any rate, though, I was fairly confident that I'd be able to finish, as I'd done the Silicon Valley Marathon about 5 weeks before, a training double Dipsea about 3 weeks before the race, and a 30K (about 18 miles) on the same trail system 2 weeks before the race.

Also, I had been doing a decent job at losing a few pounds, which I thought would help me during the run. On race morning, I weighed in at 194.8. As a reference, I was at 203.6 for the SF Marathon on 8/1/08, 201.6 for the Silicon Valley Marathon on 10/26/2008, and 200 even for the Stinson Beach 30K on 11/15. So, I lost a little over 5 pounds the last two weeks, which also included the holiday week.

Meal-wise preparation was the same as always, with toast and PB&J and a banana the morning of.

Gear-wise, I brought 2 hand-held water bottles and a waist pack to hold gels and other gear.

The Race

I was definitely nervous at the start, but felt pretty good overall. I saw a couple of famous runners, which was kind of cool and helped pass the time. The weather was absolutely perfect for running (about 55-60 at start). Before I knew it, the starting siren went off and we started up toward the stairs.

My initial goal was to do even splits of about 1:45-1:50 per leg with a finish around 7:00 - 7:15. As you can see with my first 2 splits, I was basically on target for the first half of the race. Unfortunately, I had a couple of issues.

First, I started feeling a little queasy about 2.5 hours into the run, so I slowed down a bit to settle my stomach. The discomfort lasted for about 45 minutes but eventually calmed down. But, that cost me a few minutes.

Then, I made a big mistake by ditching my second water bottle at the halfway point. I felt like I wouldn't need it, since there was a water fountain at Muir Woods (2 miles from Mill Valley) and a full-blown aid station at Cardiac, as well as the aid stations at the start and finish. I underestimated my fluid requirements, though, and basically spent the entire 2nd half of the race thirsty. You have to drink water when taking energy gels, which used up a lot of my water (I took a gel every 30 minutes). It got fairly bad on the last leg at about 6 hours into it when I felt my left calf cramp while going up a switchback coming out of Steep Ravine. When I felt the twinge, I decided to walk from there to Cardiac, where I could refill water and take a salt capsule. That definitely cost me some time, since I walked for about 1.5 miles straight. Oh well, that's a lesson learned for next time.

One thing about the course - everyone always talks about the Dipsea stairs as being brutal. These are the initial 3 sets of stairs (671 total) at the very beginning of the course. They are definitely tough, but I think the trail stairs coming out of Steep Ravine (about a mile from Stinson Beach on the way back to Mill Valley) are the toughest part of the race. I was dreading these steps for 3 hours after going up them the first time. Really, all the way up to cardiac on the fourth leg is pretty nasty. Here's a pic of some of the stairs I'm talking about:

Overall, I'm happy. I think without the stomach/fluid issues, I could have probably done 7:10-7:15. I am really just getting started with this long distance running thing, but I am going to shoot for under 6.5 hours next year, maybe even 6. I think with decent training, that should be doable.

Food/Drink

I like to keep track of what I eat drink during a race. Here's the shopping list:

14 Accel Gel Vanilla (100 calories each)
2 S Caps salt tablets (341 mg sodium, 21 mg potassium per tablet)
10 Nuun Orange Ginger Active Hydration tablets (added to my water bottles - 6 calories, 360 mg sodium, 100 mg potassium per tablet)
3 handfuls pretzels
3 small pieces of watermelon
1 handful Mike & Ike candy (original fruits, of course)
Roughly 220-250 ounces of fluids (water or water with Nuun)