The BIG Alta

I have a tendency to fall in love with just about every place I visit for various reasons, but wow – Marin County, California is just about as dreamy as it gets! The Big Alta delivered in a BIG way with perfect weather, perfect trails, amazing race coverage, and amazing community vibes.

When I heard about the Big Alta months ago, I was intrigued to come race in the area and wanted to support the inaugural event, knowing it would be stellar if Freetrail and Daybreak were involved. The Bay Area is a short 3.5 hour drive from Reno, so how could I not? I already had Chuckanut on my mind as an early season 50k but figured the 28k could be an amazing training effort for longer goals later in the year. Pure speed is not my super strength given my lack of track or cross country background, especially compared to my competitors. Of course, it’s worth mentioning the caveat that yes, relatively I’m able to run pretty “fast” but to put it in perspective, many of my competitors have mile, 5k, or 10k PRs that I probably could never dream of. It doesn’t mean everything though, as this is still trail racing where uphill strength, downhill legs, and running efficiently on technical terrain play a major role. 

Nearing the top of Loma Alta, with Mt. Tam in the backdrop!

Photo by Ryan Thrower

For the month or so leading up to the Big Alta, I’ve been dealing with some tibialis posterior pain. I dealt with this same issue last spring and was able to get over it by mid April, but it was a long process. The good thing about minor tendon injuries is they typically don’t require full rest or time off running given the pain is manageable, but they can be finicky and very, very persistent. Admittedly, I was very stubborn when I felt the first signs of the post tib pain pop up in January. In hindsight, I should have just taken a few days off of running right away but instead I just kept training as usual until it reached the point where I knew I needed to take steps to really address it. At the time, that meant swapping out my afternoon uphill treadmill doubles for cross training and occasionally swapping an easy recovery run for cross training. I also had some shockwave therapy done on it, which I’ve had some success with in the past. The first session of that seemed to help and I had a pretty good training weekend in Phoenix during Black Canyon weekend. The following week I had another session done where the intensity was bumped up a bit. The day after I did a workout and was hobbling by the end of it. The rest of that week I chalked it up to the shockwave therapy giving it a bump in inflammation that would calm down, but the increased pain lasted for several days which brought me into Big Alta week. The Tuesday before Big Alta, I did a light workout and it felt great, but later in the day even walking around campus was pretty painful. My coach and I decided to cross train the rest of the week before a short shakeout run on Saturday, after which we’d decide to race or not. Saturday came along and the shakeout run felt pretty good, but not 100%. I had the opportunity to see bits of the course spectating the 50k that started to make me very nervous about how fast some of the trails and especially the downhills were, so I became concerned that the impact of racing would be too much for the post tib. At the finish line of the 50k, I had pretty much come to terms with the fact that I was going to sit this one out. But serendipitously, I ran into my coach, Megan, and after talking things through we decided I could try to race. If the pain crossed a certain threshold during warmup or the first half of the race, I would stop. 

Second climb up to Big Rock Ridge. Photo by Tony DiPasquale

That’s a long way of getting to the point that, yes, I raced! And yes, it felt great! I was so excited to be on that start line and get to wear my new, all pink TNF kit. I was also VERY nervous about how things would go with the ankle. The gun went off and things started out HOT. I quickly fell into second behind Tabor as we charged up a very gradual road before getting onto trails and slowly making our way up toward Loma Alta, the first high point of the course. I felt great and the ankle was feeling great, so I was happy. I soon found myself alone but could see Tabor up ahead almost the entire race due to the exposed (and beautiful!) nature of the course. Nearing the top of Loma Alta, I saw Tracen at the top who said he’d be waiting for me if I needed to pull out of the race at that halfway mark. Thankfully, I felt good so just gave him a smile and started cruising down the first major descent. About halfway into that descent, one of the lovely guys helping with the livestream started running behind me with a camera. I didn’t expect to be able to hear the livestream commentators but I could clear as day. Thankfully Tim and Corinne were purely hyping me up and complimenting my race kit. The pressure of having the camera on me definitely gave me some extra juice to really send it on that downhill. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that strava tells me I ran my 2-mile PR during that section – can you tell I’ve never raced a track race? 

Another one by Ryan Thrower!

After that aid station it was another big climb up to Big Rock Ridge, followed by some steep little kickers, before sending it down to the neighborhood and the finish line. All in all, I’m super stoked with the time on that course and know it was an amazing effort to have in my legs going into the rest of the year. Although I feel like my strengths and interests are trending in the direction of longer distances, I never want to shy away from competing at short and spicy races like this one. They’re amazing training opportunities and sometimes it’s fun to be done well before lunch time?! I can’t say enough good things about the first year of this event – Daybreak and Freetrail did an amazing job and it was so, so cool to see such stout competition across all the distances at the inaugural event. I think it’s an instant classic that I’ll definitely be incorporating into my future seasons – next time maybe the 50k! Speaking of 50ks, future race goals for the spring are a little up in the air as I’m really taking things one day at a time with this pesky little injury. I could write many thoughts about the emotional rollercoaster of injuries, but perhaps that’s all for another time! 

<3 

Klaire