Top-10 Finish and an Age Group Podium at the Berkeley Trail 35K

By Nills.

You generally don’t remember easy days, you remember hard days. And I remember a very hard day last year: I raced after having been sick all week but felt fine the day before and the day of the race.

I decided to try that race again, now not being sick!

Welcome to the Berkeley Trail 35K.

By the Numbers #

Distance: 34K (~21 miles)
Elevation Gain: 1338m (~4400ft)
Finish Time: 3:31:32
Overall Place: 7th Overall
Gender Place: 5th Male
Age Group: 3rd in Age Group (Podium 🥉)

Goals & Mindset #

Berkeley was my final training event before the Sunset and Cider 50K, coming up in 4 weeks. Going into this race, my goals were:

Race without brakes: A 30-35k race is ideal for being a little more carefree when racing. No heart rate alerts, no set paces, just go out and do what feels right.
Execute nutrition: Eat and drink like I plan to do at Sunset and Cider 50K. About 80-90g/carbs per hour, and hydrate well.
Finish strong: Put in a little extra on the final climb, and crush the final descent.

Start to turnaround point #

I joined my fellow InsideTrail team members at the front of the chute, and was soon overtaken by a lot of runners. The start of the 35k and 50K was combined, and a lot of fast people flew past me. That was fine, I knew it was going to happen, and I just did my own thing.

Immediately on the first climb I felt like I had better legs than last year. Not surprising given I hadn’t been sick all week. It was a steep-ish climb, so I tried to keep the effort a little controlled, but I didn’t panic once I noticed my HR was in the mid 160s. That was part of the plan.

Reached the summit, and then went down a pretty technical section towards the first aid station. Had my gel on the descent and finished my first bottle of Skratch. Refilled at the aid station and started climbing again.

After that climb came a super nice and gradual descent. I got passed by 2 guys who were BOMBING downhill. If this had been a 10K I would have joined them, but I was a little more cautious. Maybe I’m racing with some brakes anyway?

In the middle of this descent, a dog jumped out of the bushes out of nowhere. It started barking, and I shouted at the owner to leash their dog. A couple of minutes later, I noticed my ass was a little painful and thought the dog had actually bit me, but I didn’t notice. Nothing to be done about it now, let’s keep running. (if this was training, I would have turned around and found the owner to make sure the dog had had his shots)

Reached the second aid station after a very runnable 5% climb. That felt good. I was controlled, I was running, and I didn’t feel like I was burning matches. During that last section I had consumed my full bottle of Skratch and about half of a bottle of water I was also carrying.

Now we hit a section of paved trail, about 2.2 miles to a turnaround. Rolling hills, mostly runnable. And this allowed me to count my position and where I was. Saw 3 women ahead of me and 5 guys, making me 9th overall. 1 woman was very close to me, and the 5th place guy was about 0.5 miles ahead of me. Let’s see how strong we can close!

Hammering to the Line #

We had about 8 miles to go to the finish. I pretty quickly passed the woman who was close to me, but soon after was passed by another woman. She looked so relaxed, she was running with a friend, having fun, and I was starting to get fatigued.

Hit the aid station again for more Skratch and kept going. We hit a short climb, which I took as the first clue to start pushing the pace a bit. Goal was to close strong, let’s see what these legs can do.

After a short descent, we hit the final aid station and had only 4.5 miles more to go. 1.5 mile steep climb, 3 mile pretty steep descent. And I attacked that climb, hard! On that climb, I got a glimpse of 5th place male and kept that woman who passed me in sight. I was making all these plans in my head about how I was going to do a Lauren Gregory: Catch up to them, stay on their tail for a bit to recover and then make a sweeping pass that they couldn’t recover from.

Well, they made it easy for me: when we reached the top of the final climb, the woman and the guy both stopped to take pictures. I passed them, shouted “good job” and started hammering the descent.

During the final descent, I kept looking behind me. I wasn’t running scared per se, but I was always happy to see they weren’t close to me. I had to push myself multiple times. Anytime I wasn’t paying attention to my form and pace, my body just relaxed into an easier pace and my mind had to push my legs to go harder.

And they did. I had a strong finish, really left it all out there. I ran over the line, laid down and started cramping. Same thing as last year. Cramps didn’t stay long though, and soon after I could stand up and chat with friends at the finish line.

Oh yeah, and the woman and the guy? They finished 6 and 8 minutes behind me. That pass was a legit pass and I did make it stick. I’m proud of that.

That pass itself felt a little anti-climatic. It also felt a little like cheating: they were ahead of me and the only reason I passed them was because they were taking pictures. If they had been within 10 seconds of me at the finish, I had already decided I would let them go. I like winning, but only if it’s fair.

Review of goals #

Race without brakes: A+: I really got everything out of my legs today.
Execute nutrition: A-: Nutrition was great, but I should have had a bit more hydration on board
Finish strong: B+: I finished strong, certainly on that last climb. But on the descent I caught myself relaxing one too many times.

Comparing to last year #

Oh yeah, one fun thing to do is compare efforts across the years. In this race, I ran every single Strava segment faster than last year, except for one, where I had the exact same time. I cut 20 minutes of my total time, and had the same average heart rate.

Plus, after the finish, I feel less wrecked. I cramped up, but the cramps quickly dissipated. I feel like I raced hard, but I don’t feel weak.

Great confidence builder!

Key Takeaways #

Need to drink more. It’s that simple, during Sunset and Cider 50K it will likely be warmer and the race will be at least 90 minutes longer.
50K race pace will require some brakes: I can’t imagine running 10 more miles after this race pace. During the upcoming 50K, I will need to be a bit more conservative early on. Maybe I take 1 or 2 risks early on, but not as many as today.
This course is beautiful, but bites you in the ass: In my case literally. All kidding aside, this course is fantastic. It has a bit of everything, technical singletrack, wide fire road, some asphalt road, steep climbs, less steep climbs. It is a heavy course, but that’s what makes it fun! Highly recommend!

And if you’re curious: I got a tetanus booster to be sure - and am trying to get in touch with the dog owner to verify the dog has a recent rabies vaccine.