The purpose of this trip was to visit the Auburn / Cool and surrounding areas, see and run some of the WS trail, and decide if I want to set my sites on WS as a goal and, if so, use that as motivation to get ready for a qualifying race for the WS lottery. A side bonus was that I got to stay with Cougar Snack and her lovely family, including her three young, delightful kids!

On Thursday I flew from NY City to Sacramento, via Dallas, rented a car,and drove to Foresthill. Once I got a bit east on I-80, the scenery opened up and quickly became beautiful open rolling hills. CS was getting home from a cross-country meet with her kids, and we all had excellent pizza from a local pizza parlor. Yum.

On Friday I drove to Squaw Valley (start of the WS 100 ) and then on to Lake Tahoe, my first time at both places. I had lunch at a restaurant in Tahoe City, right on the lake, just beautiful, a huge pristine lake ringed by the Sierra Nevadas.

By Friday evening a cold CS had was getting much worse, quickly, and spreading from her head to her chest. I said "You know, if you're feeling really badly tomorrow you don't HAVE to run the marathon?" and was quickly told in no uncertain terms that she was going to run, and fixed with a steely glance that told me the topic was not debatable.

Saturday morning we discovered we are both compulsive early arrivers at races, so we drove to the start and got there in plenty of time. Regisration was quick and uneventful, and CS introduced me to a few locals.

There was a race briefing right before the start, and then the RD said "who thinks they've come here from the furthest away?" I raised my hand, figuring Hyde Park NY was going to be the furthest unless someone came from Maine, southern Florida, eastern Canada, or crossed an ocean. No one else raised their hand, so as my prize I got to start the whole group in the singing of the national anthem. Neat. We sang as a group as we walked to ths start line.

The first two miles were an uneventful out-and-back across open meadows to even out our 26.2 mile distance. After a bit more on some wide path and some single track, we started our descent into the canyon, miles 3-6:

http://www.redwoodtrails.com/final/maps/auburn-profile.jpg

Now, take a look at the scale of the above profile. Every quarter inch on the horizontal axis is about two miles, and on the vertical axis 250 feet or so. So what looks like a nightmarishly steep descent from this profile was really a wonderful, gradual (but long) downhill.

I have to say I don't beleieve I have ever enjoyed running any 3 miles more than these. Everything was perfect, like a runner's dream come true. A long downhill single track, just technical enough to keep your attention but not so technical to force you to lose downhill momentum. Perfect cool temperature, no humidity, alternate shade and some sun. I could have run this section forever.

When we got to the canyon floor there was another out-and-back across No Hands Bridge of WS fame, just so we could see it. Then 6-7 miles on a gravel path running alongside the American River, with the canyon walls on both sides of us. Beautiful.
As I was luxuriating on the downhill, a tiny voice reminded me that there was payback coming between miles 13 - 16. Fortunately, as with the downhill, the climb out of the canyon was long but not horribly steep, just a long hike for me.

With one exception. Take a look again at the course profile. From mile 21 to mile 22 we went up a local favorite called Goat Hill. In this case the profile is not deceptive, this was the steepest trail I've ever ascended. During this stretch I was seriously questioning the RD's lineage under my breath.

Two miles generally downhill, then the last two miles uphill again to the finish.
6:40 for me, a bit slower than I hoped but not horrible. I don't think I took DFL, but I'll check the results when posted. All finishers got belt buckles, but I think I might feel like a bit of a poser wearing it, not sure, we'll see. I'm proud of my 100K and 100M buckles, but after all this was "just a marathon". :)

Yeah, one that kicked my butt pretty well. I had used up all I had by the finish. It's really hard for me to believe that only 8 months earlier I had persisted through nearly four times today's distance.

The local runners were great, as I expected. A few asked me: "did you really travel out here just for this race? You were out here on business anyhow, right?". After all, this was the first running of a pretty low-key local race. And I said no, I flew out just for the race, and for the following day's (today's) back-to-back. Besides, we don't really have many trail races close to my home in NY state.

Back to CS's house where we celebrated with some champagne and then went to a lovely dinner where I got to meet ekeynp, norcalrunner, mburton,and westside, lovely people all.

Bottom line on my original quest, will this trip leave me hungry for WS? Too soon to tell :)