Running With The Bears
Yosemite Half Marathon 2022 - Race Recap
The story starts back in mid-April when my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. This has been a running issue (no pun intended) in our household because neither one of us ever truly says how we want to spend our birthdays and then we get upset that it’s not awesome. After a birthday party with friends & family this year, my wife had decided to spend hers in New York city with an old friend. She flew to New York for the first time by herself and had amazing experiences, but I’ll let her tell her own story.
After days of deliberating, I had decided that I wanted to go to Yosemite National Park for my birthday, which by the way is May 13th. Since my wife, kids and I had never been, I thought it would be perfect for a family trip. We could get out in nature, snap some pictures of waterfalls, meet Yogi Bear’s cousin, the whole experience!
My wife loved the idea, but added a component that I had neglected to realize. She reminded me that every year around my birthday for the past 4-5 years I had been trying to run a race called the Yosemite Half Marathon. This race is put on by a pretty awesome company called Vacation Races who travel around the world putting on races in vacation destinations (according to their website and LinkedIn, their not currently hiring, but I’ll be keeping an eye out). Every year the race sells out in hours/days. With all the Boston Qualifying preparations, training and planning, I hadn’t even checked this year. Being that the race was about a month away, I figured it was probably sold out, but it couldn’t hurt to check. I immediately jumped on the website and discovered what I feared to be true; It was sold out, but I scrolled on.
As I continued to comb through the race’s website I came across a link saying that they were still accepting charity bibs for 2022! A charity bib is an entry into a race based on a commitment to collect donations for the charity of their choosing. It’s a way to get into a race that you other wise could not and to raise money for a worthy cause. For this race, the charity of choice was the Wander Project. The Wander Project is a non-profit entity that raises money through events and works with the event coordinators and leaders in the area of the event to put the money towards the needs of the community where the event takes place (sounds confusing, but let me give you an example). In 2020 the Wander Project used the funds collected from the 2019 race to improve the trails in Yosemite National Park. You can read more about it here.
For me, this meant that I had a chance to run the race. All I had to do was raise $1,000 by race date. Oh, and this is important for anyone thinking about running under a charity bib. When you commit to raising money for a charity in exchange for a race bib, you are entering into a contract with that charity. If you have not raised the funds in time, you will be expected to make up the difference. For example, if I had raised $999 for Wander Project for the Yosemite race, I would have owed $1 to them to fulfill my commitment of $1,000 to be allowed to run the race.
Thanks to many generous donors including family, friends as well as total strangers, my commitment amount was raised in less than 2 weeks. Thank you again to everyone who donated. You are the heroes that made everything that I’m about to share possible. As I announced on Social Media last month, all of the donators will be receiving a free gift from Actively Pursuing Goals in gratitude for your generosity, support and for just being awesome in the coming days. Be sure to check your emails.
Leading Up To The Race
Being that I ran a PR marathon in March 2022 and because I’m in the middle of a training plan for my next BQ attempt, I looked at this race as a training run. In the week of the race, I had just started reintroducing speedwork back into my training. On Tuesday I did a tempo run with some low impact downhill training. On Thursday I did an awesome speed workout at U.C. Berkeley with the Strawberry Canyon Track Club.
While there, I had the opportunity to speak with the legendary Coach Carl Rose about my upcoming goals. He asked me what time I expected to run the Yosemite Half Marathon in. I humbly expressed to him how this was just a training run for me. He didn’t buy it. He predicted a huge PR of 1:25. This would beat my best half marathon by over 3 minutes! The past few years haven’t been focused on the half marathon. My last time running a half was in 2018 and my last PR of 1:28:46 was in February 2017 in San Francisco, CA at the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon.
So here I was, 5 years after what would be considered as my prime, preparing to run a half marathon in celebration of my 42nd birthday on a course that I had never run before. Let’s see how this goes…
When I first signed up for the race, I admit that I didn’t fully think things through. The race was on Mother’s Day weekend. The store that my wife & I own was going to be inundated with shoppers and events celebrating amazing women, including my own. I was sad that my initial concept of making this a family trip wasn’t going to come to fruition, but it was too late to change course. A lot of amazing people had donated funds to get me to this race. I had to go. I asked a couple of my closest friends to join, but they had other plans, leaving me to take this journey solo.
Travel Logistics
At 10am Friday morning the journey began. My father took me to pick up the rent-a-car. I had packed my things the night before because I couldn’t sleep due to excitement. I transferred my suitcase into the truck of the rental and hit the road.
The expo for bib pick up was from 10am-6pm so I had plenty of time to make it down there. I stopped for road snacks before leaving town, then went on about a 2 /12 hour binge of listening and singing along to to PJ Morton’s new album Watch The Sun, which is a phenomenal album by the way. As the elevation increased, the number of bars on my phone decreased. After stopping a few times to make phone calls and bathroom breaks, I made it to the Race Expo with two hours to spare.
Days earlier, Amy from the Wander Project reached out to inform me that my race bib would be at their tent. I had read reviews from prior racers with a few complaints about the length of the lines at the expo so this was a plus. After stretching out from the drive, I began wandering around until I found the correct tent. I received my bib, perused around expo then returned to the car to head to stop #2.
The race is a point to point race with shuttle service taking you to the starting line. There were 3 possible shuttle pickup locations. After reviewing them all, I chose the one at Yosemite high school. When I left the expo, I drove directly to the high school to see it in daylight and to make sure there was sufficient parking. The high school was about 15 minutes away from the finish line. Parking seemed more than sufficient so I left satisfied. Next stop, the long trek to my hotel.
Since I booked my hotel so late, I ended up staying about 30 minutes away from the finish line in a city called Mariposa. I grabbed some room snacks from a local grocery store, a subway sandwich and hit the room to get some rest…or at least I thought.
It’s about 6pm by this point. The goal was to get to bed as quickly as possible because the next day started extremely early. The logistics go like this:
4am parking lots open
4:20am shuttles begin taking athletes to the starting line
6am race starts
In order to reach the parking lot in time to catch the shuttle, I needed to leave my hotel by 3:30am. This was about to be the shortest hotel stay I’ve ever had. After devouring a sandwich, showering, setting my alarms and repacking all non-essentials, I laid out my race outfit and tried to go to sleep. Like most nights before race day, I struggled to get to sleep. I alternated between staring at the ceiling, the TV and my watch. All of them were telling me that I should have been sleep hours ago. It was now 10:30pm. Finally, I put on some meditation music, turned off the TV and meditated until I fell asleep.
Race Day Logistics
My alarm was scheduled to wake me up at 3am. I woke up just about every hour in an utter panic thinking that I had already missed the race. I fought my way back to sleep repeatedly. Finally, at 2:22am (exactly) I gave up the fight, turned on some music and began getting dressed.
By 3am the car was packed, I had force-fed myself a muffin (I have trouble eating when I’m nervous) and was ready to go a half hour earlier than expected. I decided I’d use the time wisely. I prayed, meditated, wrote out affirmations and wrote down my race predictions.
Although I hadn’t done speed work in about a month I knew that with all the marathon training that I had been doing that I was in good shape, so anything less than a PR in a net-downhill course would be disappointing. For my race indicators, I wrote the following:
GOOD: 1:28:00 ( a 46 second PR)
GREAT: 1:26:00
STARS: 1:25:00 (Carl Rose’ prediction)
I left the keys to the room along with a thank you note and some crystals for the hotel staff and began the 30 minute drive back into town to get picked up by the shuttle.
It was a cold morning. I prepared well by wearing thick sweats over my race outfit (thanks for the loaners Pops!). I was one of the first runners to arrive at the high school, but not by much. Soon after I arrived runners began pulling into the parking lot from every direction. By the time I finished singing along to the last song on the PJ Morton album it was time to start lining up for the shuttle.
I was certainly glad that I wore the sweats as the shuttle loading process took longer than expected. Once loaded, I stared out the window quietly visualizing my race and searching for bears as we climbed the mountains to the start line. The shuttle driver in front of us was obviously lost. I’d implore Vacation Races to do a test run with their drivers for this race. It’s a difficult trip without GPS access and stopping a bus full of runners in the middle of the dark forest is what horror movies are made of. The runners on my shuttle remained in good spirit mostly cracking jokes about it which lightened the mood and hopefully quieted the Freddy Krueger music playing in some of our heads.
After the terrifyingly hilarious bus ride we were dropped off in an area resembling a séance. There were already about 200 runners walking around and warming up in the middle of the forest. The darkness was broken up by several bright lights that looked like spaceships scattered around. There was 90s rap music playing, free coffee and hot chocolate available (big win), porta-potties supplenty and a few tents and trucks for gear check and last minute bib pickups. As I perused the land searching for the morning essentials, our emcee for the morning was shouting out raffle numbers. The time now was about 5:15am.
As I sipped hot cocoa by one of the UFO lights I cracked jokes with some of the other runners. This is a rarity for me, because pre-race I’m normally very recluse. I stay to myself and am exceptionally focused, but I was feeling pretty social. I even danced to some of the 90s music. Let’s loosen up and have some fun.
Time To Race!
About 5:45am the sun had started to peek its head over the horizon. I removed my sweats, threw them in the trash bag (literally) that I had written my bib number on and chucked it into the back of a U-Haul van in hopes that they weren’t moving to Florida. The dark forest around us became illuminated as we all lined up for the start. I, uncharacteristically wiggled my way up towards the front.
*sidenote: the walkers and slow joggers started the race at 5:45am. In my humble opinion, this was a bad idea. Keep reading to find out why.
At 5:55 the Star Spangled Banner was sung and at 6am on the nose we were released into the wild (literally) to begin the race.
The pack was out! We each were out on our own journey, but collectively trying to navigate through the poorly lit treacherous path. The race brochure and website had mentioned that the first 5-6 miles were on dirt, but I didn’t expect what I was currently experiencing on many levels. This wasn’t a smooth dirt trail with little pebbles. This was a full all out trail run with boulders, tree roots and debris to jump over to avoid. Runners were bumping into each other just to avoid disaster. I couldn’t maintain any rhythm of steps because I was constantly staring at the ground avoiding ankle twisting terrain in racing flats. By the end of the first half mile, the cool guy shades came off and I went fully into survival mode.
By mile 1 I realized that I was gasping for air. The race starting position was almost at 5,500 feet elevation. I hadn’t run this far above ocean level in years and had neglected to factor this in to the race plan. With this amount of struggle so early in the race, I honestly began to panic. Did I come all the way down here to quit only a few miles into the race?
I powered on. The early miles were a series of rolling hills. This combined with the lack of oxygen at high altitudes turned my early miles race plan into trash. I did my best to stay calm as I looked at my watch and saw my pace slowing while just hoping that I was going to be able to finish the race.
In addition to these issues, the walkers that they had released 15 minutes before us were additional obstacles that we had to weave through as we traveled through the first few miles.
After the first 3-4 miles, the elevation began to drop drastically. I was thankful, because I was struggling to maintain even a 7 minute per mile pace. By the time we descended below 5,000 ft I was able to breathe normally and calm down enough to find my rhythm. By mile 5 the trail had turned into a road race and I was ready to go.
The race course is downhill forcing you to either let the hill take you or stay on the brakes for the duration. I had trained to use the hills and prevent injury by practicing a few techniques that used gravity’s momentum in my favor. Most important thing to me in this race was to not get injured.
In miles 4-7 I averaged about 6:30 per mile. The elevation change for each of these miles was about 200 feet. In miles 8-10 the elevation drops became steeper. We were now plummeting around 300 feet per mile causing my pace to drop to to under 6 minutes per mile.
The scenery around us was beautiful. I spent most of the time searching for bears and wondering if I had remembered to lock the car. The water stop situation was unique to me. In respect for the National Park we were running through, the course didn’t offer the little paper cups that we all know, love and toss haphazardly all over the road. Instead they instructed us to bring our own hydration or to use the refillable collapsible cup that they provided. At each water stop I came to a complete stop, filled my cup with water or Gnarly Fuel2O. When I read this in the racer’s guide, I was concerned that this would cause mayhem but as far I could tell, it happened pretty smoothly.
I didn’t know it at the time, but at this point, I was running amongst the top 25 racers. The rest of the course was relatively flat and travelled through the local neighborhoods. The physical toll of the hills and distance had caught up with most of the runners including myself causing my pace to slow. In almost every half marathon that I’ve participated in, this is where the wheels fell off. Calf cramping, walk-run breaks, Uber rides…etc. but for some reason the pain wasn’t as severe as usual. I was able to maintain about a 6:50 pace for miles 11-12 and even had a kick at the end to finish mile 13 in about 6:30! In hindsight, I attribute it to the amount of marathon training that I’ve been doing over the past couple years. 13 miles could be a Tuesday morning workout at this point while my long runs are closer to 20.
When it was all over, I looked at my watch to find out that I had achieved a new half marathon PR of 1:25:43 beating my previous PR by over 3 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised.
The Aftermath
After the race, I walked around talking to other runners for awhile. Finally found the gear check people who had brought all of our items from the top of the mountain to here. After putting my sweats back on I meandered over to the shuttles that would take us back to our cars. I didn’t realize how sore I was until I tried to get my foot up onto the bus. As I let out a loud grunt the entire bus laughed in empathy. We had all made it down the mountain. We were all walking gingerly as if the ground was frozen and we didn’t want to slip.
There’s a certain comradery amongst runners. We choose to face these challenges to find out what we’re capable of. It’s challenging and sometimes painful but euphoric at the same time.
Once I reached my car, I sat for awhile in awe of my surrounding. After responding to a few congratulatory text messages and calling mom (promised her I would), I got on the road heading home, which in hindsight was a terrible idea after running 13+ miles, but hey. It’s all part of the journey.
After reaching home, evaluating my performance and reviewing the race results, I discovered that I had left a little too early. I had won an award! I was the 19th person to cross the finish line out of over 2,500 runners and according to their count, I was the 5th fastest Masters Runner in the field. Apparently, I was supposed to stay for the awards ceremony, but I had never won anything at a half-marathon so I had no clue. I contacted Vacation Races and had them mail me the award, which arrived yesterday. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.
Once I could walk a little bit more like a human and a little less like a penguin it was time to get back to marathon training!
Next blog I’ll announce when and where my next BQ attempt will be. Stay tuned and thank you for reading Running On Ayers.
