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| Sun Rising Over The Headlands |
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| Looking toward Mt. Tam |
MUC stands for Marin Ultra Classic which is a race put on by Inside Trails every spring. Shaun, Ram, and I were signed up for the MUC 50 in March of 2020. Shaun swears this is the best 50 mile course in the Bay Area and he does the race every year. We had just completed the
Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day 50K two weeks before the event. After the Bad Day 50K my quads were completely destroyed. I had no idea how I would be able to run a 50 miler just two weeks later. Well, I never really got the chance to find out because between these two events COVID-19 starting sweeping through America and everything was getting shut down in a hurry. They made the decision to cancel MUC 50 just a few days before the race as no large group gatherings were allowed. I was kind of glad that fate made my decision for me however I was not feeling good about the reasons it was cancelled. Shaun and Ram decided to
run the course anyway but my quads were not allowing me to join the fun. Fast forward a year later and unfortunately the Bay area has not been fully reopened yet so the MUC 50 was cancelled again for 2021. This year however I agreed to run the 50 mile course with Shaun and Ram on the same weekend the race would of been held.
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| Shaun with the Pacific in the background |
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| Looking through Tennessee Valley |
We started at first light so we could see the sunrise coming up over the Headlands. The course took us up the coastal trail out of Rodeo Beach and we did a loop through the Headlands. It was nice to do this part early in the morning as the views were awesome and hardly anyone else was out. Then we ran through Tennessee Valley and through the Pirates Cove trail to Muir Beach. From there we made our way to Mt. Tam on the coastal trail via Heather Cutoff trail, better know as Donkey Kong because there are a ton of switchbacks on the trail and when a bunch of runners are going up at the same time it looks like they are ascending the levels in the video game Donkey Kong. We made it to Cardiac Hill in the Mt. Tam area and then descended down to Stinson Beach via the famous Dipsea Trail. From there we went up our hardest climb of the day which comes right in the middle of the race. It's called Willow Camp and it was brutal! Very steep and tough climb when the heat of the day was starting to rear it's ugly head. Persistence was the key here and eventually we made it to the top of Willow Camp. From there it's back to Cardiac Hill and then a loop down to Muir Woods where we come back up the steep climb of the Ben Johnson trail.
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| Ram power hiking up the trail |
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| View from the top of Willow Camp! |
That was our last really difficult climb even though we had a few climbs left to do. This course can be divided by nine different climbs. It's kind of fun to countdown that way instead of paying attention to the mileage on your watch etc.. Then we made our way out of Mt. Tam and back into Tennessee Valley for the last climb of the day up Old Spring Trail into the Headlands where we took the coastal trail back to the start. With about two miles to go I got dared to run up a steep hill and I followed through on that. I am not sure where I got the energy to do that but I made it. I was going to be close to setting my 50 mile PR so Shaun and Ram told me to keep going without them. I hustled as hard as I could back to the car and set my 50 mile PR by probably 15 or 20 minutes. I was pretty proud of that because this was not an easy 50 mile course since it had almost 11,000 feet of climbing! All in all it was a pretty good day. Ram was running really well as he would get ahead of us and have to wait most of the time. Shaun and I pushed each other along most of the day. It was fun running this course with these guys as they always push me to do better than I think I am capable of. I am such a relaxed runner that I often don't push myself like I should.
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| Pushing onwards |
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| Enjoying the day |
The course was as promised. It incorporated all of the best trails in Marin into one 50 mile run with very minimal repeating trails. Beautiful views the whole way kind of take the sting out of doing a 50 mile run, not completely but almost! I will definitely sign up for the actual MUC 50 when they put it on in 2022! Can't wait to do the race with a bunch of other Bay Area runners.
