Violet Sky

Back in 2019, I decided to sign up for a trail half marathon to give myself a new challenge. I picked the Tulip Trail Run in Woodburn, Oregon, which was set to be run in late March of 2020. I started training twelve weeks in advance, and dutifully progressed through the training in the cold and rain here.

Well, you can probably guess by the date of the race how it actually went. I distinctly remember when I got the email saying that the event date was cancelled – I was due to run a 5 mile mid-week run, and immediately scratched it because I didn’t feel optimistic that I was going to be running the race any time soon. The race was postponed a month due to COVID, then postponed to 2021. In 2021, I decided to postpone the race again for myself, and transferred my registration to the 2022 event. I attempted training for the half marathon distance, but found that I had too much going on in my life to devote the time to that level of training, and ended up downgrading myself to the 10k a week before the race.

My husband was going to be running it with me, so we booked a hotel down in Woodburn, drove down, spent the night, woke up, lined up at the start, and finally ran that race that was due two years back … and I kind of hated it. March is pretty soggy around here, and we were running through tulip fields, so it was less of a trail run and more of a mud run. My shoes were street running shoes, which would have been fine in dry conditions, but I spent a lot of time gingerly stepping through mud. I finished the race and concluded that trail running was not for me.

Fast forward to early 2025. I once again have gotten the itch to run a half marathon, and I peruse the usual local suspects without finding anything that looked interesting. I decide to expand my search to the larger west coast, and end up finding a half marathon in my hometown of San Jose, California. It says it’s a trail run, but the course essentially takes you up to the top of a mountain, drops you off, and you run down the hill. How hard could it? How trail-y could it be? I decided to sign up for the Top Down Trail Race.

I once again use Hal Higdon’s Novice 1 half marathon training plan, and I mostly hit all of my runs. I miss a couple minor runs for work trips, and I basically didn’t run the last week of the program, instead using my limited time to do some weight lifting instead. I felt like I came into the training less athletic than usual, because during the last couple weeks of heavier running, I just felt weak. I felt tired. I was sleeping well for the first time in my life, but mostly because I constantly felt wiped out. I did do a good job lifting weights one day a week, which successfully kept me from injuring myself during training. I had one truly awful long run, the 7 mile run, but 8, 9, and 10 miles all went well afterward. My whole family accompanied me on this half marathon, because nobody wanted to miss the opportunity to see home and eat some of our favorite foods during the short weekend trip.

About two weeks before the end of training, I looked at the elevation profile of the race for a second time. This time, I notice that there were some pretty significant uphill sections of the race that I had somehow missed in my first review. It was a little late to do anything, other than doing hillier routes in my final few long runs.

We arrived in San Jose and immediately went to El Pollo Loco, which was the only restaurant on our list that could be reasonably eaten without any sort of dairy. Since the race was in Almaden Quicksilver county park, we chose an Airbnb fairly close to the entrance. I had been eyeballing a running vest for 6 months, so even though you’re not supposed to try anything new on race day, I somewhat impulsively bought the vest and decided to use it during the race. Thanks to a supercharged latte I had at the Portland airport, I struggled to get to sleep that night, but eventually got a reasonable 7-ish hours of sleep.

The location of the Airbnb was excellent. It took us less than 20 minutes to get to the start of the race, where we milled about for a while. Eventually, the race director started giving us a talk, partially to tell us details about the race but also seemingly to kill time. During this talk, he got a phone call – the shuttle they had arranged to move runners to the top of the mountain had gone to the wrong park entrance. Originally, the shuttle was supposed to have enough time to make two trips before the planned start of the race, but with this development, they had to ferry some of the extra runners up by car. I managed to get the last seat in the shuttle, however.

At the top, it was windy. So windy! Also freezing, and after everyone cycled through the two public restrooms, most of us scurried back to the shuttle to wait until the start time. Eventually, we all agreed that we would start the race half an hour late, at 9:30 a.m., and took off right on the dot.

The trail was definitely a trail, but the first three miles or so passed by really quick, both because they were persistently downhill and also because I was nicely distracted by all the beautiful spring Bay Area scenery. I passed a few people, but since I had started about halfway back the pack, I wasn’t entirely sure how many people were in front of me. The first aid station, a folding table with a cooler of water and some granola bar scattered on it, showed up just after the third mile, at which point I was informed that I was the first place female at that point in the race. Exciting!

The fourth mile featured the first real uphill. Myself and the guy in front of me both walked this part, as it was at this stage I decided that I would walk any uphills that felt too tough to run. Spoiler: most of the uphill parts were significant enough that I walked them.

I continued my pattern of walking the uphills, running the downhills for the next 7 miles and felt pretty good about. I waffled with myself mentally as I ran. I’d have the thought that being first female would be really neat! But then I’d hit another uphill and remind myself that I was not trained for a hilly half marathon, but for a frankly probably uncompetitive road half marathon, so imagining myself getting first place for my gender was getting ahead of myself. I skipped the aid station at mile 5, then stopped to drink some water and eat a caffeinated Gu gel at the aid station at mile 8. It was during this stop that another woman passed me, which was a little disappointing but also immediately took some of the mental pressure off that I had been trying my best to ignore.

Eventually, the trail opened up and I started seeing more normal walkers/hikers on the trail. I came upon this area and it started looking familiar – wait a minute, had I hiked here before? I do love hiking Almaden Quicksilver, but I wasn’t sure if I had actually been through this area or if it just looked familiar.

At this point, I was almost two hours into the race and still not yet to the 12th mile, so I texted my husband that I was not going to be finishing within two hours. He had dropped me off at the start of the race but was planning on coming back to see me finish, since the Airbnb was so close to the finish line.

When I was huddled inside the shuttle before the start of the race, one of the other women with me, who ran this race last year, was commenting that there was a terrible uphill right at the end of the race. She said that you’d know it when you see it, and you’d probably swear when you did. Well, I hit that hill right on target, at mile 11.5.

Remember my thoughts from earlier? Both when I signed up for the race, and thought, “How trail-y could it possibly be?” and also when I wondered if I had hiked this area before? When I saw this hill, I immediately recognized it. I had hiked this part of the park before, and had decided that I didn’t want to hike it anymore if I could avoid it. It’s a very steep uphill (29% grade at the worst stretch of it) followed by an equally steep downhill (-30% grade for that part) and the ground is sun-baked loose dirt with a somewhat solid base underneath it. This means that you can’t shove your foot easily into the dirt to propel yourself, and also that every step you take feels like it’s going to slide away from you. I stomped up the hill past that dejected-looking man (I’m sure I looked just as dejected), got to the top, recognize the downhill, and let out a big sigh. Only one way through this!

At this point, I felt physically pretty alright, all things considered. I was pretty sure I had a blister on each foot, thanks to the odd angle of the friction from all the downhill running, but it was manageable and I wasn’t thinking too much about it at this point. I was tired, but the caffeine gummies were doing their job. I hadn’t seen any other women, so it seemed likely that I was hanging on to second place. I pressed on, knowing that I was 12 miles in and just had to manage to finish another mile and a half or less.

In a last dual threat to my peaceful finish, a third women came around the corner after me as I worked my way through the last part of the race. Simultaneously, my right calf started threatening to cramp when I was running the downhill sections, so I had to continually adjust my stride to one that least irritated my calf. The woman and I continued down the course, switching back and forth between each of us leading the other. I was really ready to finish, but reminded myself that second place female was not any sort of goal of mine and third place would be just as good. Somehow, my cruising down the downhills and walking the uphills managed to put me ahead of her, and I didn’t see her again until several minute after I had finished.

At this point, I very much recognized where I was, having hiked this stretch repeatedly before. I hit the 13th mile and just let gravity bring me down the hill at the best speed I could manage, which ended up being between an 8:30 and 9 minute mile. I saw the finish line! I trotted down the hill, but had to use my hand to help slingshot myself around the sign that we made a tight righthand turn around. This action was a bad idea, as doing so led both of my calves to simultaneously cramp right as I was entering the “chute” (it was just cones) toward the finish line.

And with that, I finished my first trail half marathon, and my second ever trail race, with a 22:22:22 time!

This was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever physically done. I sent a Snap to my friends mid-run complaining that I had given birth without an epidural and it was easier than this event. I still feel that way, by the way. Even though this is easily my slowest half marathon time, it is also the race I am most proud of myself for finishing – I was unprepared for the type of course, and it took a ton of mental grit for me to stay in the game and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. While I don’t think I’ll ever do this race again, I also said I’d never run a trail race again and look at me now, so who knows.

In a sad coda to this event, I was so exhausted from my almost 2.5 hours of running that I forgot that I had left my hoodie in the trunk of the race coordinator’s car, at his direction. Nobody reminded anyone coming in to get their belongings, so after I drank a bottle of water, I staggered up from the chair I was sitting on and happily went back home. I emailed the race director two days later when I finally remembered my sweatshirt, offering to pay to have it shipped back to me, but was told that they had left all unclaimed items at the park entrance instead. When we went back, the hoodie was gone. ☹️ It was my favorite hoodie, and was a gift to me from my husband, so I’m both disappointed that it was handled so unprofessionally and also upset that I brought my favorite hoodie to a race. Lesson learned: next time, bring a throwaway.

To finish this off, you might think that this difficult experience made me glad that I didn’t have to run anymore in the near future. But I was so excited to have finished and done so well, I immediately started thinking about my next race. I haven’t signed up for one yet, but I can tell it’s on the horizon.