Thanksgiving weekend - Quad Dipsea

Super fun weekend! Spent a little bit of time in Seattle with friends for the holiday, and then flew to California with Dagan on Friday for the Quad Dipsea. This race has easily earned the status of cult classic in my book. John Medinger celebrated 25 years of the race this year and most in attendance have been along for many of those races; I counted at least three that completed their 10th Quad Dipsea.

The race is a double out and back over the 7.1 mile Dipsea trail. In the 28.4 miles my Suunto T6 register about 8300 feet of climbing. With roughly 250 runners gunning for that first flight of stairs I'm sure mine was not the only elevated heart rate. The first out and back went well, quick bottle swaps in the aid stations thanks to Dagan and iPod shuffle kept me entertained along the way. I really enjoyed the views of Stinson Beach and ocean as well as the stairs, trees and traversing. A highlight was getting to see the entire field of runners multiple times. In 7 miles there is a ton of varying terrain to keep one entertained.

Heading out for the second out and back I counted myself in 5th woman. Feeling good I decided to see what I might be able to do and tempted myself with the promise of taking the next month off. I have needed some down time from running for a while and have decided to take all of December off. So in that last out and back I worked my way up through the field, and in spite of the comments from other runners that I would catch her, the first place woman continued to run strong and keep a solid lead. At the finish Beth beat me by 13 minutes; a minute for every year older than me she is. John informed me as he handed me my age group winner's sweatshirt that I won my age group, but got beat by an old lady. I hope I am beating 30 year old butts and setting course records when I'm in my 40s!!! Congrats Beth - awesome race!

Eric Skaggs had a phenominal run and missed the mens course record by a mere 38 seconds. I heard different chatter about this course being a bit slower than the one the record was set on. The results are posted and there is a bunch of information about the race on their website.

Super fun event, highly recommended! Just don't eat too much on Thanksgiving :)