Race Report: Broken Arrow 46K, June 2024

Reno

Sunday, noon

At the beer garden by the Truckee River

Friends!

A few of you asked how my race went. (None of you specifically asked to not hear about it.)

The headline is that the Broken Arrow 46K was brutal. But I didn’t DNF! And I finished really strong!!! I ran it almost an hour slower than last year, but was about the same place/percentile.

It was hot. 90 degrees in the valley by the afternoon. The leader set a course record. But that dude was done by 11 am. The rest of us mortals had to roast in the rising heat. I didn’t finish until almost 4. It was harder than last year. But with a very different cadence.

So the course is two loops around Palisades Tahoe. Base up to the ridge, along the ridge, back down to the base, and then the whole thing over again. Base to summit is like 3,000 feet vertical (as the oil derrick drills). But with all the ridgeline ups-and-downs, and the two loops, the race totals almost 10,000 total feet of vert. Which makes the 28 mile horizontal distance seem like NBD by comparison!

In principle it’s gorgeous. The full spectrum of the Sierra Nevada, from cool forests to exposed alpine ridges; snowfields and peaks; singletrack over dirt and talus and snow; views of mountains and of Lake Tahoe. (The first bit is even along the Western States trail!) In practice one is either a) too focused on footwork, or b) too miserable to enjoy the views. Oh well.

I don’t like repeating myself, so the main reason I decided to run it again this year was because I felt I could have done better. For the second year in a row I again feel that way! Go figure. Last year I did fine, but I didn’t do great, and I thought that if I trained more diligently (work harder, you lazy SOB!), I could get a time I was really proud of.

So… that’s again my goal for 2025.

Last year I felt great on the first loop, and then completely crashed starting the second loop. Two problems: I bonked hard, and I had the worst cramps of my life. My adductors mutinied. I was out of water the the aid station was miles away. I wasn’t sure I’d finish. But I managed to pull it together, eventually, and felt OK the last quarter of the race.

This year the narrative was different. I finished so strong and so great. I’m still just thrilled about how that went. The very last pitch, from the final aid station down to the finish, three miles and 2,000 vertical feet of singletrack, I just flew down. Exhilaration, exhaustion, no pain. Gorgeous Sierra Nevada singletrack snaking and switchbacking down the canyon wall.

That was in contrast to the first half of the race, which… sucked. I felt really weak, muscularly. Uphill movement is my strongest ability, and has been so since I was a teenager. But yesterday my quads and hammies just didn’t consent. I think they weren’t fully recovered from climbing/skiing Shasta last weekend. (“Only” 7,000 vertical feet). I knew that was the risk I was taking, so it’s fine. Not really the recommended taper! (Last year I also did Shasta and the Broken Arrow on consecutive weekends, but in the opposite order.) Still. Cardio was fine. (All that interval training!) And my knee felt fine. (That’s what I was most scared about. Actually, my knee felt way better than last year. Thanks, PT!) No other musculoskeletal issues.

But the first loop I just felt slow. I was getting passed constantly. Psychologically demoralizing and athletically unnerving. (Are you pacing yourself that badly, Andrew?) By the second loop the group had spread out enough that my race-neighbors were consistent. So it was more of a communal race feel. Mutual commiseration about the heat and about which part of the Bay Area we were from. (The Sierra locals were way ahead of us.) The climbs were even more awful. And never-ending. Fully exposed. Don’t look up! Don’t look up! But at least I knew I wasn’t going to DNF. That’s what I worried might happen during the first loop. During the second loop I knew finishing was entirely a psychological matter. I wasn’t going to finish well, but I knew I could force myself to finish, however slowly.

I had multiple ice-water sponge baths at each aid station.

I didn’t bonk! That was an improvement over last year. Last year I was obsessive and deliberate about fueling. But apparently not obsessive and deliberate enough. So this year I was even more obsessive and deliberate about fueling. Gel after gel after gel. Disgusting, but functional. Like last year, I bought a Safeway sandwich and put it in my drop bag in case I needed something substantive. Like last year, it went to waste. (Damn! And it looked so tasty, too: a London broil with cream cheese wrap.)

The course changes somewhat from year to year depending on conditions. It was really fun to run something that was familiar mostly, but not entirely. (Continuous change; linear perturbations.) Last year the entire top half was covered in snow. This year there was only a little bit. So there was no glissading. Sad! And only a couple short snow climbs, versus multiple long steep snow climbs last year. The upshot was that there was way more singletrack! Last year, the final descent pitch (2000’ descent over three miles) was along the access road. 33% snow, 33% gravel, 33% asphalt; 100% unaesthetic. In the winter it’s a green run and so there were EASIEST WAY DOWN signs mocking us. This year, the final descent was entirely on singletrack, clinging to the walls of the canyon and switchbacking down. Totally the best part of the course. (Maybe just because it was unexpected?) On the first lap I wasn’t in a place to appreciate it as much as I wanted, but the second lap, as I ran to the finish, it was just great. I passed like half a dozen people. The only time the entire course that I passed people. I just felt so great. What a great finish.

(Actually, I was having such a great time on the rocky singletrack that I stopped worrying about my footwork and wiped out. Luckily the bloody gash on my calf wasn’t a race-ender!)

I finished in 8:39, compared to 7:58 last year. This year I was 267th out of exactly 500 finishers (53.4pctile); last year I was 293rd of 583 finishers (50.2pctile, literally ONE PERSON AWAY FROM BEING IN THE TOP 50PCT AGHHH). But, tbh, there were the about same number of registrants this year, but so many more DNFs (94 vs 56), so I’m going to say that comparatively I did slightly better than last year.

Maybe I should count up the total DNFs from last year to be more obsessive about metrics? Yeah, let’s do that. Last year I was 293/639 starters (~45.8pctile); this year I was 267/594 starters (~44.9pctile).

But I still don’t feel that I trained as diligently as I should/could have. I was whining to P. this week, as we were going on three-hour nighttime walks through San Diego (there’s the taper!), about how this is all a metaphor and symbolic of having just enough inborn (inbred?) talent to skate by without diligence and persistence, throughout all domains of my life, ET CETERA. So just making a training plan and sticking to it, completely, is something I want to do, for its own sake, more even than how it’d improve my race outcome. Maybe I could register, and then train, and then deliberately not even start the actual race, just to emphasize that!

(Also weight. I’m chunkier than last year, and last year I was chunkier than I wanted to be. Running, like climbing, is very sensitive to weight!)

Actually, you know what I should do next year? I should volunteer! The volunteer crew is giant and made mostly of runners on their off days. (The Broken Arrow is a really big production, with like half a dozen events over three days, all locally run/organized/created.) The whole weekend has such great energy. I mean, I’ve done zillions of races, and the energy is always good, but this energy is especially great. (Have I really lived in California long enough that I am talking about “energy”?!?)

Everyone is in the unisex uniform of short shorts, sun hoodies, polarized sunglasses, and technical hats. A clone army of extraordinarily attractive people.

There are last place prizes! Well, they don’t call them that, but the two last runners before the cutoff get “Most Grit” awards (and like $1500 of cash/swag/comped entry for next year). The announcer was really hamming it up the last hour of the race: these are the people who’ve been out there the longest! Twelve hours on the course! They deserve the most support and cheering! The last 15 minutes they had everyone who was hanging around come into the finish line and make a human cheer tunnel welcoming the last few runners back. So much fun!

Last year J. came up with me and got to experience all this energy. (She managed to avoid the running aspect by biking around Lake Tahoe instead.) Yesterday definitely would not have been the day to bike around the lake. So maybe it’s for the best that she’s in the Trinities with her dad. My colleague A.’s husband T. was also running the 46K, so we got to hang out afterwards. He finished an hour behind me. A brutal day for him, too. Last year he ran a 100-miler, despite being 45, and a big guy, no svelte runner body. Inspiring. (A. has been encouraging me to join his group of Half Moon Bay ultrarunners.) And, when I looked at the leaderboard, I realized that the dude who finished directly before me (a minute ahead) is a friend of a friend who I climbed with in New Hampshire in 2017 and who now lives in SF. So we messaged afterwards about what a brutal day it was. The never-ending exposed climbs. The running-out-of-water. Etc.

I maintain my longstanding complaint that the Sierra Nevada are too hot.

The non-running-related highlight is that I went fishing the night before my race and it was great!!! Not great in the “did I catch any fish?” sense, but great in the sense of I had fun. For the last few months that’s been my top fishing goal. (J. saw too many of my dramatic frustrated fishing outbursts last year, shouting expletives and storming off like an angry tennis player throwing his racket or a golfer snapping his clubs.) But this was fun! I just waded up the Truckee River for like two hours, enjoying the cool water and the evening light and feeling like I was casting competently. I got like half a dozen bites! Maybe that’s bad, insofar I was never able to set any of them, but it felt good in that I was at least doing something right, however partially! If nothing else, it was an excuse to cool down and play in the river for two hours.

Ok. That’s all.

The A/C in my car still doesn’t work (that’s next week’s project!) so I’m going to wait until the sun goes down and drive back to the Bay. Going to have another beer and read for a bit.

Andrew