Miwok 100 km

Miwok was everything I expected it to be; beautiful trails, views of the Golden Gate Bridge (above), and gorgeous ocean. Not to forget, great people and fantastic aid stations (thank you volunteers!) It was great seeing so many familiar faces at the race start; people who I recognize from either the ultra magazines or from blogworld.

My friend, Angela, from Calgary. A kick-ass runner who I met at the Western States training camp last year. We were both loving the sunshine, especially as Calgary had just been blitzed by a severe snow storm the day before!

Beautiful trails that go on forever!
Local wildlife - turkeys!
Hmmm, just smell that ocean air.
Miwok is a fantastic race and makes me want to spend more time in California! The trails are fun. I knew it would be a hilly course but it wasn't as bad as I expected. My lower legs were paining me partway through the race so I popped a couple of Advil at the 80 km mark and that seemed to do the trick. I ended up feeling pretty good for the last few kilometers and even broke out into a full-on sprint for the last 500 meters and finished by leaping over the finishing line. I'm not sure who was more astonished; me or the race officials! I think the sprinting also helped to flush out some of the lactic acid as I had no stiffness at all afterwards which is pretty amazing, especially considering I was scrunched up on planes the next day, flying home.

Many thanks to Tia Boddington and all the people who make Miwok work like a well oiled machine. And congratulations to the winners: Anton Krupicka in 8:02 and Kami Semick in 9.10 hours. I did it in 14:33 hours and wasn't quite at the back - there were about 50 people behind me. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to get into Miwok again and who knows, maybe I can knock some time off that 14:33!!