Snow, Rain, Mud, and Pain - Rattlesnake Ridge Half Marathon
The forecast was for minimal rain, and it was wrong. I wasn't demotivated by it as much as I normally would be. I was about to toe up to my first real race event, the Rattlesnake Ridge Run, a Half Marathon held in the foothills of the Cascades that traverses the entire length of, you guessed it, Rattlesnake Ridge.
Rattlesnake is a popular spot to hike, but I didn't know that the first time I went up it with a couple of locals in the middle of the night years ago. Somehow just about every time I've been, it has rained, and it's kept people away. As I drove up to the trailhead at 7:30 am, true to form, it was coming down pretty good, by Washington standards anyway. Usually precipitation comes as a light mist that you can be in without a shell, but for race day, it was in the low 40s and raining fairly steadily.
Warren, who talked me into it was there, one of the few folks I know who runs half marathons semi-regularly to train and who also has run an Ultra. If it wasn't for him, I probably would have missed the chance to do this race, as I wasn't looking to do anything of the sort so soon. It was nice to have someone to line up with, even though he was gone in less than 20 seconds. I saw him once just before the turn around point at the beginning of the racecourse, and then I found myself alone.
That was how it started. About 150 people packed onto a small patch of grass before we set off towards the Snoqualmie valley trail. Rattlesnake ridge, not being long enough for a full half marathon, required us to run away from it. Part of me wanted to keep up with the pack, but I knew there was no way to do so without burning way too hard, too soon, which would endanger the rest of the day. I had been sitting on a couch 2 months previous, I wasn't there to do anything but finish. I settled into a slow 11 minute mile pace, jogging along as easy as I could. I ended up near the back of the pack, and it was there I would stay until the end, which was fine. I wasn't going to start mixing my ego up into the dumb competitions of "I need to keep up" "I need to beat these people" and so on. There was no reasonable way I would even be remotely competitive. I was there for me, and the support that inherently comes with an organized event. Someone has to come in last anyway, and I was fine with the prospect, so long as I made the race cutoff, and the last shuttle back to the start, which was a generous five and a half hours after they sent us off.
I hit the first aid station near the bottom of the ridge, and my legs were already a small a problem. My calves were oddly lactic for such a slow, flat 2.5 mile jog, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was hydration? I don't know. I was rushing though, and made a mistake. I had finished my flask and forgot to refill it, and the next aid station was a grueling 5+ miles along the trail, and on the other side of 90% of the 3000ft Rattlesnake had to throw at me. I've done a lot of hikes with low water, a lot of dehydrated exercise, because, I am an idiot about drinking water. I figured it wasn't worth the time to run back to the station. Thankfully this wasn't a fatal flaw, but it did make the suffer-fest to come a bit worse. Being 220 lbs and hauling up 4 miles and 2700 ish feet in an hour and a half was bound to suck without hydration, and it did.
I felt good up until the upper section of the mountain. Well. I guess by good I mean I felt like I was going to be ok. I didn't feel great. I tried a "Gu", for the first time, on raceday, because it was all I found at the aid station for calories. I don't have a race day strategy, I didn't, I still... don't... but I had heard "don't try anything new on race day", and I'm not sure if it was a true mistake or not, but I felt pretty rancid after the fact. In retrospect, I should probably have brought my typical long-hike and mountaineering snacks, namely, goldfish, because I will never stop eating those cheese crackers no matter how I feel. Gu is: gross. Maybe I will change my mind, try a different flavor, vanilla bean is nasty any day of the week, but maybe I just hate what may as well be pure spoons of sugar in paste form. No offense, but how do people even.... anyway I am getting off topic. I had a Gu and I then felt like ass inside for the rest of the climb, but I had energy. I would have been hurting without that little sugar boost all the more, so, at least it got me up, and in decent time. That said, I was walking slow near the top as we got into the snowy sections. I needed a boost, or a change, or something.
I grabbed my headphones and turned on some music. Music, for me seems to give me energy. I don't know why, but it kicks off the right switches in my brain when I hear the songs I love. Once I got my music on, I was back in the groove, and soon, I started the downhill. It was a snowy beginning to the descent, but the path had been packed enough that I could fly down it. I slid and hopped through the next mile, at times absolutely elated. It was full-on fun, not the fun 2.0 that most of the day insofar had been. But that only lasted so long as the snow did, and it was over all too soon. Not only that, but I had a few awkward steps, and over-cooked it. Those small tweaks became major pain points many miles later. My Strava record says that's when I did a sub-8 mile, but I am not sure how much I believe that. But I was moving, and it was pretty much the only time I passed people. I guess playing in snow my whole life finally paid off.
Snow gave way to a logging road detour. Tons of blowdowns forced the course off the main trail and onto forestry land. At this point the mountain was enshrouded in a cloud, and the big open spaces of clearcut around the logging road were eerie. Large, dead trees rose up, fuzzy and grey in the fog, 100ft tall monsters, looming, appearing slowly as I ran towards them in the somewhat apocalyptic landscape of the clearcut. I don't mean to make it sound negative, as this was a really enjoyable part of the race for the environment alone. Call me weird, but I enjoyed it. Then again, I was riding the highest high I had, and moving well downhill, until I started to feel the first real wall creep up as my body started telling me that I should go die for what I had done to it. I was probably 8 miles in, and on the cusp of running further than I ever had before. "Where is the aid station?!" I started muttering as I felt myself really falling off in energy and strength. I was well out of water, and I needed a drink.
Slowly, out of the fog and icy rain, I saw a small table with people standing around it. They had dragged up a decent supply for us. I wasn't thinking about food, and probably should have been. I didn't eat anything, all I wanted was water, and gatorade or whatever they had with electrolytes. I drank a few cups of each, filled my flask and popped a flavored electrolyte tab in it, and slowly got back on the course. Now everything hurt, but I had some new life in me as my body rehydrated. Most striking to me was that my hands had been warm, right up until I stopped. By the time I was trying to clip my vest back on they had nearly gone numb. I knew that, if nothing else, I had to keep moving. Hypothermia was definitely going to be an issue if I stopped or slowed down too much.
The downhill went ok for a while. I kept up a decent pace, for how much things hurt, and I just kept going. I got a little delirious, I was absolutely past the point where a rational person would just stop, and walk down, or sit down and take a break, but I wanted to finish, I wanted off the mountain, and I wanted to be done. I sincerely questioned the quality of my decision to set off on the run in the first place, but I kept my music going, put my head down, and at least tried to jog. I had joint pain, my legs didn't burn anymore, they just felt like robotic parts, totally depleted of energy. My ankle that I had tweaked in the snow was really starting to flare up. It was great. And by great, I mean it sucked. But therein was the challenge, and that last section was what I had signed up for, in reality. That was what I had to push through to finish, and part of me really wanted not to phone it in entirely, and hobble down slowly only to barely make it down.
I hit the wall about 3 miles from the finish. I kept a good pace going downhill for as long as I could, but I wanted it to be over. I was mad for doing such a thing to myself, but I was determined to do my best not to walk it in the rest of the way. It was a mix of limp-jogging, walking, and taking slow, large pained steps when the trail dropped. My muscles could handle jumping and landing anymore. I was obviously in over my head, but I was still on pace to finish in under 4 hours. At one point a rock found its way into my shoe and I just sat down on the ground next to the trail to fix it. I didn't want to get up, but I didn't want to just lay down and curl up in my emergency shelter. By that point I was within a mile of the finish. I got up, filthy, and kept going.
There are few times in my life I've been in so much pain. All of them have been coming down off of mountains. This wasn't new, but this was the first time I was trying to run through the pain. The last mile or so stretched on for what felt like an eternity.... but then I saw a large trailhead board, pavement... I was there. I picked up my pace as I knew I was about to finish with enough energy to run it in. The finish was relatively unceremonious, but the small group of folks at the finish cheered me in as I came down the last little hill into the Snoqualmie Point parking lot. That meant a lot. But the pain in the moment masked the fanfare. I was proud, but miserable. I had finished in 3hrs and 42 minutes, beating the 4 hour mark and coming in well before the 5.5 hour cutoff.
Now a couple of weeks after, I am about ready to really get out and run again. My joints and tendons don't feel like horrible broken parts anymore. It is absolutely inadvisable to do what I did. In retrospect, I was on the edge of really injuring myself. Even training, I had over-done it and had to take a step back for a week or so. I've done that again. But My next goal is to be ready for the American Discovery Trail marathon in Colorado on Labor Day weekend. I think I will be ready. I am a lot stronger than I was in February. Rattlesnake is, in my mind, just the first step. It was a good one. I know I can do a tough half marathon with 3000+ ft of elevation gain after only about 2 months of training. I wonder how much more I can do.
Rattlesnake is a popular spot to hike, but I didn't know that the first time I went up it with a couple of locals in the middle of the night years ago. Somehow just about every time I've been, it has rained, and it's kept people away. As I drove up to the trailhead at 7:30 am, true to form, it was coming down pretty good, by Washington standards anyway. Usually precipitation comes as a light mist that you can be in without a shell, but for race day, it was in the low 40s and raining fairly steadily.
Warren, who talked me into it was there, one of the few folks I know who runs half marathons semi-regularly to train and who also has run an Ultra. If it wasn't for him, I probably would have missed the chance to do this race, as I wasn't looking to do anything of the sort so soon. It was nice to have someone to line up with, even though he was gone in less than 20 seconds. I saw him once just before the turn around point at the beginning of the racecourse, and then I found myself alone.
That was how it started. About 150 people packed onto a small patch of grass before we set off towards the Snoqualmie valley trail. Rattlesnake ridge, not being long enough for a full half marathon, required us to run away from it. Part of me wanted to keep up with the pack, but I knew there was no way to do so without burning way too hard, too soon, which would endanger the rest of the day. I had been sitting on a couch 2 months previous, I wasn't there to do anything but finish. I settled into a slow 11 minute mile pace, jogging along as easy as I could. I ended up near the back of the pack, and it was there I would stay until the end, which was fine. I wasn't going to start mixing my ego up into the dumb competitions of "I need to keep up" "I need to beat these people" and so on. There was no reasonable way I would even be remotely competitive. I was there for me, and the support that inherently comes with an organized event. Someone has to come in last anyway, and I was fine with the prospect, so long as I made the race cutoff, and the last shuttle back to the start, which was a generous five and a half hours after they sent us off.
I hit the first aid station near the bottom of the ridge, and my legs were already a small a problem. My calves were oddly lactic for such a slow, flat 2.5 mile jog, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was hydration? I don't know. I was rushing though, and made a mistake. I had finished my flask and forgot to refill it, and the next aid station was a grueling 5+ miles along the trail, and on the other side of 90% of the 3000ft Rattlesnake had to throw at me. I've done a lot of hikes with low water, a lot of dehydrated exercise, because, I am an idiot about drinking water. I figured it wasn't worth the time to run back to the station. Thankfully this wasn't a fatal flaw, but it did make the suffer-fest to come a bit worse. Being 220 lbs and hauling up 4 miles and 2700 ish feet in an hour and a half was bound to suck without hydration, and it did.
I felt good up until the upper section of the mountain. Well. I guess by good I mean I felt like I was going to be ok. I didn't feel great. I tried a "Gu", for the first time, on raceday, because it was all I found at the aid station for calories. I don't have a race day strategy, I didn't, I still... don't... but I had heard "don't try anything new on race day", and I'm not sure if it was a true mistake or not, but I felt pretty rancid after the fact. In retrospect, I should probably have brought my typical long-hike and mountaineering snacks, namely, goldfish, because I will never stop eating those cheese crackers no matter how I feel. Gu is: gross. Maybe I will change my mind, try a different flavor, vanilla bean is nasty any day of the week, but maybe I just hate what may as well be pure spoons of sugar in paste form. No offense, but how do people even.... anyway I am getting off topic. I had a Gu and I then felt like ass inside for the rest of the climb, but I had energy. I would have been hurting without that little sugar boost all the more, so, at least it got me up, and in decent time. That said, I was walking slow near the top as we got into the snowy sections. I needed a boost, or a change, or something.
I grabbed my headphones and turned on some music. Music, for me seems to give me energy. I don't know why, but it kicks off the right switches in my brain when I hear the songs I love. Once I got my music on, I was back in the groove, and soon, I started the downhill. It was a snowy beginning to the descent, but the path had been packed enough that I could fly down it. I slid and hopped through the next mile, at times absolutely elated. It was full-on fun, not the fun 2.0 that most of the day insofar had been. But that only lasted so long as the snow did, and it was over all too soon. Not only that, but I had a few awkward steps, and over-cooked it. Those small tweaks became major pain points many miles later. My Strava record says that's when I did a sub-8 mile, but I am not sure how much I believe that. But I was moving, and it was pretty much the only time I passed people. I guess playing in snow my whole life finally paid off.
Snow gave way to a logging road detour. Tons of blowdowns forced the course off the main trail and onto forestry land. At this point the mountain was enshrouded in a cloud, and the big open spaces of clearcut around the logging road were eerie. Large, dead trees rose up, fuzzy and grey in the fog, 100ft tall monsters, looming, appearing slowly as I ran towards them in the somewhat apocalyptic landscape of the clearcut. I don't mean to make it sound negative, as this was a really enjoyable part of the race for the environment alone. Call me weird, but I enjoyed it. Then again, I was riding the highest high I had, and moving well downhill, until I started to feel the first real wall creep up as my body started telling me that I should go die for what I had done to it. I was probably 8 miles in, and on the cusp of running further than I ever had before. "Where is the aid station?!" I started muttering as I felt myself really falling off in energy and strength. I was well out of water, and I needed a drink.
Slowly, out of the fog and icy rain, I saw a small table with people standing around it. They had dragged up a decent supply for us. I wasn't thinking about food, and probably should have been. I didn't eat anything, all I wanted was water, and gatorade or whatever they had with electrolytes. I drank a few cups of each, filled my flask and popped a flavored electrolyte tab in it, and slowly got back on the course. Now everything hurt, but I had some new life in me as my body rehydrated. Most striking to me was that my hands had been warm, right up until I stopped. By the time I was trying to clip my vest back on they had nearly gone numb. I knew that, if nothing else, I had to keep moving. Hypothermia was definitely going to be an issue if I stopped or slowed down too much.
The downhill went ok for a while. I kept up a decent pace, for how much things hurt, and I just kept going. I got a little delirious, I was absolutely past the point where a rational person would just stop, and walk down, or sit down and take a break, but I wanted to finish, I wanted off the mountain, and I wanted to be done. I sincerely questioned the quality of my decision to set off on the run in the first place, but I kept my music going, put my head down, and at least tried to jog. I had joint pain, my legs didn't burn anymore, they just felt like robotic parts, totally depleted of energy. My ankle that I had tweaked in the snow was really starting to flare up. It was great. And by great, I mean it sucked. But therein was the challenge, and that last section was what I had signed up for, in reality. That was what I had to push through to finish, and part of me really wanted not to phone it in entirely, and hobble down slowly only to barely make it down.
I hit the wall about 3 miles from the finish. I kept a good pace going downhill for as long as I could, but I wanted it to be over. I was mad for doing such a thing to myself, but I was determined to do my best not to walk it in the rest of the way. It was a mix of limp-jogging, walking, and taking slow, large pained steps when the trail dropped. My muscles could handle jumping and landing anymore. I was obviously in over my head, but I was still on pace to finish in under 4 hours. At one point a rock found its way into my shoe and I just sat down on the ground next to the trail to fix it. I didn't want to get up, but I didn't want to just lay down and curl up in my emergency shelter. By that point I was within a mile of the finish. I got up, filthy, and kept going.
There are few times in my life I've been in so much pain. All of them have been coming down off of mountains. This wasn't new, but this was the first time I was trying to run through the pain. The last mile or so stretched on for what felt like an eternity.... but then I saw a large trailhead board, pavement... I was there. I picked up my pace as I knew I was about to finish with enough energy to run it in. The finish was relatively unceremonious, but the small group of folks at the finish cheered me in as I came down the last little hill into the Snoqualmie Point parking lot. That meant a lot. But the pain in the moment masked the fanfare. I was proud, but miserable. I had finished in 3hrs and 42 minutes, beating the 4 hour mark and coming in well before the 5.5 hour cutoff.
Now a couple of weeks after, I am about ready to really get out and run again. My joints and tendons don't feel like horrible broken parts anymore. It is absolutely inadvisable to do what I did. In retrospect, I was on the edge of really injuring myself. Even training, I had over-done it and had to take a step back for a week or so. I've done that again. But My next goal is to be ready for the American Discovery Trail marathon in Colorado on Labor Day weekend. I think I will be ready. I am a lot stronger than I was in February. Rattlesnake is, in my mind, just the first step. It was a good one. I know I can do a tough half marathon with 3000+ ft of elevation gain after only about 2 months of training. I wonder how much more I can do.
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