I ran the Carkeek 12hr today in Carkeek Park, Seattle. Race Directors Brock Gavery and Sam Thompson have been organizing the fun run for six years now and all proceeds go to charity. Couple that with it being a Halloween run where plenty of people show up in costume and it's one fun day out on the trails.

It's a looping course and at just 1.93 miles it might not sound like much but checkout their website and know that their claim to it being one of or indeed the hardest 12hr out there is legit.

Each loop has 430 feet of climbing and descent, and on this day in particular weather was a slight factor as it was rainy, windy and freezing to start in the dark and though the rains eventually subsided the trail became slightly more slick with each passing loop.

I never thought I'd draw this comparison but it really does run like a mini HURT course, though it certainly lacks the level of technicality that HURT has become famous for. The similarity starts with the fact that it's a looping course and continues with the fact that there are pretty much three climbs over the 1.93 miles, and of course the first is the longest, exactly like HURT. In fact if you were to complete a hundred miles on the Carkeek course you'd end up with 22,278 feet of climbing and descent, which is pretty damn close to the 25,000 that HURT presents.

The 12hr starts at 6am. We were late getting outta Tacoma and ended up arriving at 6:03am, which of course meant everyone but the RD's were gone, and even they were still setting up camp.

Given that we were in our Halloween costumes and not 100% ready to run anyways we were quickly sucked into the fire to help sustain our falling body temperatures. After a good thirty minutes and watching the lead crew come through I realized that if I didn't get my ass in gear that the nasty weather was gonna win out and I'd be ridden with guilt at cowering to our standard fall precipitation.

At 6:45am I headed out with the intention of simply trying to warm up sufficiently enough so that I could kill another mug of coffee by the campfire pit after one loop before actually getting on with my run shortly thereafter. Of course once actually running everything starts to make sense again, the body heats, the rain seems like a compliment rather than a hindrance to your day and the mind settles into a relaxed state that makes you wonder how you ever could have considered not running because of a few measly rain drops.

With one lap down I knew stopping would be a terrible idea and I found my groove and started to roll. Roxy was along with me and of course in costume herself. It wasn't going so well for either of us and after numerous stops to address her outfit I ended up stripping it off and carrying it along (she ran the rest completely naked).

After lap two I changed out myself and will point out for sake of accuracy later in the post that I in fact paused my watch for the few minutes it took me to switch outfits. Carkeek doesn't keep times, just laps, and I had a time goal in mind as a test of where I'm truly at right now.

After lap three I passed off Roxy to Linda as she was also running and typically Roxy prefers Linda's pace on long runs.

Lap four and I was on it, I felt good. I was on top of my calories, my electrolytes, and my fluids. I decided I would in fact shoot for my pre-race goal of the equivalent of a sub five hour 50km run. Due to the looping nature though it broke down to attempting to run 17 laps or 32.81 miles or 52.8km as a 16 loop run would only equal 49.7km. Blah blah blah

Over the next 13 loops I was really happy with my consistency. There were obvious highs and lows but a few other things I really wanted to test out on the day were my mental game, and my ability to really fight for something I had set out to achieve on the day. This race toughness has been lacking for me lately. I've fought hard to reach numerous finish lines this year but most of those were made more complex by my mind being months ahead of my fitness levels. I never set out to just finish the CSP115 in March, but that's what it ended up being. I never set out to finish 53rd at UTMB in early Sept, but that's all I had in me. Obviously Carkeek is a fairly low key event and for me I desired nothing more, for if I blew up at least I'd know where I was at right now. Heading into Mountain Masochist 50 miler in Virginia next weekend and then finally returning to HURT Hawaii again in Jan, I was really setting out to hopefully confirm what I'd been sensing as of late. This is the best I've felt since pre-crutches, since August 2010.
(Managed one slip during the race. Never suffered from road rash in a trail race before)
The highs were so beautiful. I was forced into a reminiscing phase that lasted hours. The repetitiveness of the terrain and the certainty that an aid station was always less than a few miles away allowed the mind to wander while the body did it's job.

One year ago at Carkeek I very tentatively walked two loops, a mere 6km, and it was a victorious day. I'd been out of a walking boot but a few weeks and off of crutches just over five weeks. The doctor advised that it was potentially doable but to stop at the sign of any pain. Every step was a struggle and yet I refused to stop because the only thing that scared me more than potentially breaking my foot a third time was having the inability to walk six bloody kilometers.

It was January before I was allowed to run ten kilometers. I have spent far too much time this year staring off into the distance at where I want to be with my running and racing, longing to simply match where I was in 2010. I've forced my body to do things it wasn't conditioned for and then been frustrated by my lack of ability to achieve my racing goals. I've never been completely fair with myself throughout this process and I've never properly celebrated what really boils down to some of my best race results when the entire journey is put into perspective. I had completely lost perspective on this, and thankfully today it hit me full force...of course the fact that today was the first time in this lengthy journey that I felt like I had glimpses of my previous running levels certainly helped the positive mindset and awareness along.

2012 has been one of the best years of my life and it's been capped off by asking the love of my life to marry me while we were in France AND she actually said yes!
I have nothing to complain about and I know this. Today was still an extra special day though as although I just missed out on my sub five hour 17 loop goal, running 5h01m24s, I was well over 50km by five hours as I closed out the 52.8k version of my own personal race today.

Splits
18.49
18.41
18.03
18.30
16.42
16.40
17.16
17.23
17.12
17.30
17.02
17.23
17.13
18.59 (Roxy left Linda and caught up to me. I had to hold her up:-) )
18.08
17.57
17.58

Gear

GR

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