Embroidered logo on the “5 year finisher” jacket.
This past Friday I headed up to Blackhawk to run in the 13th annual Golden Gate Dirty 30, a tough 50K race in Golden Gate Canyon State Park that makes for a perfect spring training tune-up and excuse to dive from ski season into running season. It was my 5th time running the race, which made for a cool milestone and came along with a special bib and “5 year finisher” embroidered jacket. Megan’s attention to small details like these is what makes Dirty 30 a great race and one that’s easy to return to year after year.
It was a good day out there for me. Snow season in the Vail Valley ended awhile ago below 10,000 ft so I was able to log several long runs with decent vert heading into race day. Each year the course seems to get slightly easier too, mentally if not physically as well. The weather was also nearly perfect this go around, even for 8am starters, as things stayed nice and cool in contrast to the 80 degree heat of the past few years. Most of us were even treated to clouds and some rain on the way up and down Windy Peak near the end of the course, a phenomenon that I had always hoped for but never experienced until this year finally.
At the starting line with the small 8am crowd. The race starts in 3 waves at 6am, 7am and 8am based on runners’ expected finishing times.
I once again opted for the 8am start as it’s the encouraged time for sub-7 hour finishers to ensure crews can get aid stations set up before runners arrive. Not to mention I’ll never complain about an extra hour of sleep these days.
Things started off well on the now very familiar course as I chatted with a few other runners for the first 10 miles or so.
Starting the descent down the rugged Black Bear Trail.
This year I took the Black Bear Trail descent intentionally pretty slow as I’m not convinced there ends up being much benefit to bombing down this section and thrashing your quads this early into a 50K race. The ascent out of aid #3 was hot, as always, but passed quickly and I was still feeling great more than halfway through the course.
Ascending out of aid #3, there’s still a lot of race left at this point in the day.
Eventually I came upon aid #4 and took a few minutes to cool off and reload for the final push. Next up was Windy Peak which is always in the back of the mind of anyone running the Dirty 30 all day long. But as I already mentioned, on this day some rain clouds rolled in at just the right time to cool things off, making for by far my most enjoyable ascent of the race’s final challenge I’ve had in 5 tries.
Pretty much sums up my motto in life.
With a slight drizzle coming down for the final few miles of the race, I crossed the finish line in 6:38:15 which was good enough for 14th place and 6th among runners over the age of 30 (full results are here). In the end though it was only my 3rd best effort in 5 tries, and I ranked lower in both races in which I finished faster, so there’s definitely some waxes and wanes going on with the overall field as the years pass by. More importantly though I felt great pretty much all day, which bodes well for my upcoming races as they are only going to get more difficult.
On the descent of Windy Peak looking at the oncoming storm clouds.
Thanks once again to all of those who organize this race year after year. It really is one of the best out there and having gotten to know it more intimately over the years has only increased my appreciation for all of the details and preparation Megan puts in to make this thing happen. I have no doubt I’ll be back.
Cheers and happy summer running season!