Pier to Peak 1/2 marathon race report (long) (Read 868 times)

This is a race report. No apologies for it being long. I like reading other people's race reports and I am not going to be capable of doing much else today. Sometimes billed as the world's toughest half marathon, the Santa Barbara Pier to Peak half marathon is certainly the toughest race I've ever done. I'm sure there are tougher trail races but for a road half marathon 4,000ft of elevation gain is pretty tough. It takes you from the wharf, up a gentle 4 miles past the mission, and then hits the foothills for 9 more miles of relentless climbing at about 350' to 400' per mile, finishing at the top of the highest peak. The race is entirely road, although once out of the downtown area the road is very quiet with most of the vehicles on it supporting the runners. I did the race last year, shortly after we moved from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara. I was aiming for a 2 hour finish and missed that by almost 6 minutes (2:05:49). I died pretty badly in the second half, actually in the last 3 miles. I kept running, but barely. Despite missing my, admittedly arbitrary, time goal I was pleased to have run all the way and finished in the top 10% (23rd overall out of 298 and 12/60 in the tough M 40-49 category). This year that 2 hour mark was a big juicy target. Everything was going well, I'd got some good mileage in lately (200+ miles for each of the last 6 months), had a lot of success at 5k this year, had got in quitre a number of good hill runs in preparation, and had a plan for where to find those extra 6 minutes. It was looking goodl until 10 minutes before the start of the race. Isn't this just the perfect announcement if your only goal is to beat last years time?: 'The course was a bit short last year so there's an extra 0.4 miles added into it at mile 11, you turn right and head uphill for 0.2 miles, and then return down the same way.' Quick calculation, I probably need to find an extra 3 to 4 minutes somewhere if I'm going to still finish under 2 hours. But the weather is great. Foggy and cool at the 6.30 am start. Yeah 6.30, that sucks for us non-morning people. Sunrise was at 6.31. Okay, caution to the wind, I decide to go out at the maximum pace that still feels comfortable, rather than keeping the first 2 miles down to 7.30 as in my plan. Not sure if this is the greatest idea but for the first 2 miles I'm running comfortably with a nice little group of 4 or 5. First doubts creep in at the 2 mile mark. First the time is 14:06, or 7 minute pace which is possibly a little fast since the elevation gain, although not yet steep, is still about 200' over these two miles. And second, I look around me for the first time (yeah I'm not very observant) - oops, I'm running with a lot of younger and faster runners that I recognize from local races (16 and 17 minute 5k runners). Doesn't mean they have the endurance for a longer race but it is a little worrying. Oh well, I'm prepared to reign it back a little but I decide to see how the next couple of miles go before the steep climb begins. Mile 3 with a more substantial elevation gain is 8 minutes, exactly according to plan. I miss mile mark 4 and the steep climb begins. I'm still running with the same small pack at mile 5 which we go by in 39 minutes. Hmm, I'm now 2 minutes ahead of schedule. I know the mile markers were often a bit off last year but on the other hand I know this is a course that will kill you in the final stages if you run out of gas, The weather is still great, we are still in the fog and it is wonderfully cool. Probably somewhere around this point we start to leave the fog and emerge into the sun. The negative aspects of this are offset by fabulous views down onto the top of the fogbank. Mile 6 goes by in 10 minutes, which seems a bit slow so I think the mile 5 mark might have been early. So approaching the halfway point I'm a minute ahead of schedule, but have an extra 0.4 miles to run AND I arranged my plan so I made up all the time over last year in the second half. Was this going to work? I seem to remember I was still confident at this point but I'm not sure why, I must have been feeling good. You'll probably be relieved that I now need to skip over 4 fairly agonizing miles since I missed a whole bunch of mile marks - 1500' of elevation gain over those 4 miles including the steepest mile on the course, probably over 500' on the last of the 4 miles alone. Last year I never recovered from this steep mile. Was it easier to know it was coming? Some of the switchbacks on the road are so steep that even running up them feels like walking. I was still around some of the same runners. Several of them had car support passing them ice and water. I was kind of amused because my wife had gone to get breakfast and was going to meet me at the finish. Absolutely fine with me, I'm sure she would have helped if I'd asked but the water stops were enough for me. At the end of these 4 miles I was at 87 minutes, a couple of minutes up on my plan and 5 1/2 minutes up on last year. I remembered mile 11 from last year. I was suffering really badly at this point after that steep mile but this year it just felt tough, not impossible. I think the elevation gain on this mile is about 400'. Last year at the survival stagger it took me 12 minutes, this year I managed a little under 9. So I'd gained 3 more minutes. If I could just get past the 'extra 0.4 miles' sub-2 hours was still possible. At this point the race comes out onto a ridge. Instead of turning left towards the finish the race now turned right, uphill, for 0.2 miles, around a cone and back down. My legs were screaming on the way down as I forced them to open up some. 0.4 miles later I was back at the same point, it took 1.38 going up and 1.17 coming down so the extra distance only cost me 3 minutes. Mile 12 is the only mile on the course with much downhill although it still has a 200' net elevation gain, and then the last 1.1 miles are steeply uphill to the peak. Mile 12, which includes the detour, went by in 9:29, another minute up on last year and 30s ahead of target. It felt really good to see the total elapsed time at 1:44:57 at this point. Even if the mile 12 marker was off, even if the last 1.1 miles were uphill, even if the last 0.1 mile was the steepest on the course, surely I could do it in 15 minutes? I did the last 1.1 miles in under 10 last year but I now realize that if the course was short that's where it was short. That makes a lot of sense and explains why I 'sped' up over the last steep uphill mile. This last mile sure dragged on (curse those 'real' miles). I turned into the small park on the peak where the race finishes, onto some steep switchbacks at 1:55. Only about 0.1 miles to go, maybe a little more, I was going to be able to enjoy the last bit. Except on the first switchback I saw a person close behind me and gaining. It looked like they might be in my age group and they were close enough to have me in their sights. No rest for the wicked. I pushed it in to finish in 1:56:54. Provisional results had me 20th overall, and 2nd in my age group out of 41 (and yes, the person finishing 14 seconds behind me was 3rd in my age group). FYI, the winner, a 1:09 half marathon runner, finished in 1:33 almost 10 minutes ahead of second place. Curiously running 9 minutes faster on a course that was almost half a mile longer was about an order of magnitude easier than the year before. It was a tough race and I'm tired but I felt I ran it well, I went out fast but still within reason, I pushed hard on the tough parts and wasn't intimidated by being around better runners. I never expected an age group award so I lucked out a bit there. If you'd like to see some pictures of the race there is a whole album of them here: http://imageevent.com/sb_galleries/runningraces/jakespiertopeak You can get a nice feel for the course just by looking at some of the thumbnails. I think most of them were taken around the 8 mile mark. John

Wow!!!! Congrats on a great race! Enjoyed the report and pics

Thanks for sharing that! I too love reading the reports. You all amaze me.

John, you crushed it! Great job, man.