Monday 9/1
I got ready and left the house at a little past 5 am. I timed it so that I would arrive at the Mt Baldy Resort at about 6 am with the race packet distribution scheduled to start at 6:15 am. The drive up was pretty nice on a holiday, free of traffic. When I arrived, I was a bit surprised to see that there was already a lot of cars parked at the trailhead by Falls Rd! I thought we were supposed to park up at the resort parking lot. As I was headed up there, a guy was shouting pretty loudly to park behind the white car. I rolled down the window to make sure he was shouting at me. Yes, he was. As instructed, I parked off to the side of the road, behind the white car. I was directly across from the cache of portapotties.
Even though it was only 6 am, the volunteers and race staff were already distributing race packets. My friend, Sergio, was there handing out t-shirts. This guy volunteers at pretty much all of the local races! I liked the t-shirt. The design was pretty nice for the 60th anniversary of this race and it was a comfortable 60% cotton, 40% polyester blend.
Mt Baldy Resort
Sergio, volunteer extraordinaire!
Race shirt
As I went back to my car, I bumped into my friend, Dexter. We caught up a bit before heading back to the packet pick-up table where we got pictures in front of the race banner. We got one with the race director and another fellow newbie participant. I used a portapotty before going back to my car to relax. As I waited, more and more people showed up. There was quite the crowd in front of the portapotties making it a rather tight squeeze for the cars that were showing up.
Dexter!
Pre-race photo from Dexter with the race director
At about 30 minutes before the start of the race, I got out of my car to begin heading over to the starting area. I shed my outer layers and grabbed my handheld bottle. I saw that there were still a lot of people checking-in and picking up their race packet! With about 15 minutes to go before the start, I bumped into my friend, Nadia.
Starting area
People still checking-in
Almost go time!
Speedy Nadia!
Course map
The course started at about 6,000 feet with a steep downhill run on Mt Baldy Rd to the trailhead. Once I hopped on the trail, it was pretty much an uphill climb all the way to the top of Mt Baldy. It was going to be a warm day, so I paced myself and made sure that I didn't let me heart rate get too high. I kept it to about 140 bpm. A little past the halfway point, I had reached the Notch. From there, I hopped on the Devil's Backbone Trail. As I was approaching mile 5, I bumped into my friends from our old church! I took a quick selfie before continuing on with my hike. After my watch beeped to let me know that I had reached mile 6, I could see up ahead, the last mile up to the summit. Slowly, one by one, people were starting to pull over to take a breather.
Bumped into old church friends on the way up
Yikes, about 1 mile to go, the final push up to the summit just up ahead!
Nearing the final stretch, I let a couple of people pass me. One wore bib #450. She wore Vibram Five Finger which I haven't seen much of these days. They were quite the fad about a decade ago. I tried to follow her up to the top, but eventually couldn't keep up. The elevation had my heart beating so hard! My legs were feeling a bit rubbery, so I had to be extra careful with my footing as there were a lot of loose rocks. Boy was I out of breath! I didn't even have it in me to jog through the finish line! I was just glad to be done!
Finish: 2:24:57
Click here for my Garmin data.
That was quite the ass-kicker of a race! It was about a 4,000 feet gain over the 7 miles to reach the summit at 10,064 feet! I received my finisher medal and a bottle of water. I then wandered over to the line to take a photo with the summit marker. That was definitely more difficult than a regular road half marathon!
Finisher medal
Made it to the summit!
After getting my summit photo and getting a bag of Ruffles potato chips, I ended up chatting with an older gentleman that wore bib #237. He introduced himself as Father Brian, a Catholic priest. A quick search on Google of his name plus running brought up this article about a charity fundraiser that he took part in back in 2019 in Texas. I continue to meet a lot of interesting people through this hobby of running. Before heading out, I got a selfie with Hector, who I had met at the Griffith Park Trail Marathon earlier this year.
Hector!
On the jog down, I ended up behind a pretty happy-go-lucky cheerful guy in the conga line. He looked pretty familiar. I seemed to recall seeing him at the Griffith Park race that I had run earlier this year. He confirmed that that was indeed him. Some of the sections were quite technical and more difficult going down versus going up. The chair lift at Turkey Shoot was running. Not sure where it went, but I was dead set on jogging all the way back down. I continued ahead along Devil's Backbone Trail which was the steeper, but more direct route down to the Notch. The aid station was abandoned, but they had oranges and bottles of water left over. I started peeling and eating an orange while I chatted with a faster runner having a beer. I talked about some of my favorite beers when I used to drink and how Guinness 0.0 was one of the best non-alcoholic beers out there. However, he wasn't a fan of porters and stouts. We headed out together as he wasn't too familiar with the way down. I jogged a little over a mile with him, but I could tell that he was still feeling fresh. Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty pooped so I told him to go ahead without me. It was turning into a scorcher of a day, so I best not push myself! I was out of water by the time I had gotten back down to the trailhead. It was a rather steep walk back up to my car. I had to pull over several times for a short break.
Keep on truckin' Dexter!
Made it back down to the trailhead
My car was an oven when I arrived. I changed out of my wet shirt and used a portapotty before heading out. It took a while for the air conditioning to cool down the car. After driving down the mountain, I stopped in at the Starbucks on Base Line Rd before hopping on the freeway as I really needed something cold to drink! I ordered a trenta salted caramel cream cold brew on the mobile app before going inside to wait for my drink. No one really needs that much coffee, but I was feeling quite dehydrated as I was starting to develop a headache.
Trenta salted caramel cream cold brew
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