Never Again: 2019 Race to Robie Creek

“Never say Never”

…the saying goes, but I am going to be bold here. I’m never again going to run the “Race to Robie Creek.” Most people would probably ask, “What the heck is that and why?” And anyone from the Treasure Valley or maybe most of Idaho would say, “It’s the toughest half in the Northwest!”

The Race to Robie Creek is 13.1 miles starting in Boise with a 2000 feet elevation gain over approximately 8 miles to a summit, then descends roughly 1690 feet to the finish at Robie Creek Park in under 5 miles. It begins on paved roads in Boise but most of it is on an unimproved dirt/gravel road that winds through the foothills. It kills your calves and pride and then destroys your knees and quads. Click here to look at the course map. I was told by many it is some sort of rite of passage for newcomers and an annual torturous test of will for the veterans.

This may sound melodramatic, especially to those annual folks, but as someone who had previously run one trail race in her life this was out of my element. I probably wouldn’t have registered if I had just come across an ad on Facebook or a flyer in a running store. Peer pressure and sheer curiosity, and a little bit of desire to challenge myself to do something different got the best of me.

Are you Going to do Robie?

As soon as I moved here and mentioned running, people asked me, ” Are you going to do Robie next year?” or said, “Oh you have to do Robie Creek, its a rite of passage here.” Or the best, “You have to do Robie Creek…it is so much fun.” Those last ones, gotta be masochistic or mountain goats. Although they may have been referring to the superhero theme and runners in costumes and capes.  So this little voice in my head was saying, ‘You have to do it, you are a Boisean now. You have to fulfill your rite of passage. You can’t back down from something unfamiliar and challenging.’

So next thing I know there I am purchasing WiFi on an airplane to be able to register at noon on President’s Day because the race sells out in minutes. Now maybe because I am originally from the Midwest and grew up running on rolling hills at a laughable elevation this seemed absurd to me. But here, mountain and trail running are part of life. Needless to say, I got in and I had to figure out how to train for it.

Meanwhile…

I’m dealing with some sudden and weird fatigue issues that started manifesting about a week before I registered for the race. After about three weeks of shitty runs with my muscles feeling like they weighed 1000 pounds and struggling to regulate my breathing, I went to my doctor. The last straw had been feeling like I was going to collapse on an 8 mile run around flattest part of Boise. My doc did some blood work and it showed elevated levels of hemoglobin and levels of something called TSH that could indicate a hyperactive thyroid. I thought, ‘ok weird, but maybe we have an explanation.’

My doctor had my blood further tested and my actual thyroid hormone levels were normal. The hematologist told her my hemoglobin wasn’t elevated enough to cause symptoms and without further advice they left me feeling like a hypochondriac.

A few days later…

I ran a 5k and almost ran out of gas going into the third mile running well above my typical 5k pace. Something was. not. right. I told my doctor and she offered that I wait a month and retest. So I did my training runs up Shaw Mountain Road as planned, just hoping things would improve as suddenly as they declined.

My next blood test was a few days before Robie. I was still feeling off…but everything on my tests was normal. My doctor then told me it could be “overtraining syndrome.” Considering how hard I trained and how great I felt training for the NYC Marathon, with a surgery in the middle of it, and considering that when I started feeling like crap I hadn’t run more than six miles at once SINCE NYC, I couldn’t process how it could possibly be over training. With no explanation and feeling a little defiant about my doc’s previous lack of help and now absurd suggestion, I decided to suck it up and run Robie with a reasonable goal of coming in under 2 hours.

Race Day

April 20th I woke up, had some Picky Oats, and had to figure out what to do with myself while waiting for a race to start at midday. The race begins at “high noon” and on that day it was about 75 degrees with the sun shining. I warmed up with some women from my team and our coach. After a weird little skit where the race mascot, the Wonder Toad, defeated the super villain Dr. Fatigue, we were off being smacked by capes and wizard robes in a swarm of people embracing the superhero theme.

The first mile was mostly flat, then we wound up through a foothills neighborhood where there were people cheering and partying. The road abruptly veered to the left and all evidence of civilization disappeared. Next thing we know we’re running over a cattle guard. The lead up to the cattle guard was the last downhill until the summit. Shortly thereafter, I think around mile 3, the road turns to dirt and the death march officially begins. The sun was really beating down for the first hour, so it was a brutal slog.

Spectators on the dirt road were few and far between, but the aid stations were enthusiastic. But they didn’t have Gatorade or any drink with electrolytes. Just straight water. I honestly thought it might be another way to make the race a little more torturous. I sucked on a few oranges, poured a several cups of water over myself, and took my gel a mile early just because I was hungry.

Where the F**k is the Water?

I remember there being a gap between aid stations right before the uphill gets crazy steep in the last 3/4 of a mile to the summit. I ran past a Gu station and asked, “Water? Where is the water?” The woman says, “Just around the corner,” and in a normal state of mind maybe it was just around the corner, but to me it felt like another half mile and I was cursing her for lying to me!

When I think of the highlights of the race, two moments come to mind. First, shortly before the summit, after I got my damned water, we passed the “Kryptonite Station.” Remember Superhero theme. There were also comic book onomatopoeia like ‘Boom!’ and ‘Kapow!’ along the course. At said station, there were people offering donuts, soda, and beer trying to lure participants off the course telling us we would never make it anyway and that we would have more fun staying there with them. I laughed through my misery, and also really wanted a donut.

But there Probably aren’t Donuts in Hell

And that final ascent was hellish. My calves were burning, my shoulders ached, and photographers were capturing everyone’s worst moments. Thank goodness cloud cover had moved in and to our advantage a tailwind was coming through. During my last training run it rained with a headwind uphill, but it was 42 degrees and somehow more bearable.

My coach told me if I needed to walk I should—she walked  on the final ascent when she ran Robie in 1 hour 35 minutes. But, she said it was better to try to keep my feet moving in some semblance of running which she dubbed a “granny shuffle.” And granny shuffle my butt up that ascent I did. I think the one time I checked my watch I was at a 16 minute pace. When I was in the Army I probably would have rucked up the hill at that pace.

I felt quite demoralized being passed left and right. At first, I was telling myself, “It’s ok, you aren’t 100% right now, don’t be hard on yourself.” That progressed to, “These people live for this stuff, they probably grew up on these hills. You don’t belong here.” And eventually landed on, “Stop making excuses, why the hell didn’t you train on more hills or run the course a few more times?!” Eventually I saw a guy in a Philadelphia Eagles shirt and that distracted me from my negative self-talk. I got laughably excited when I mustered a “Go Eagles!” and he responded with “Yeah! Go Birds!”…it’s the little things.

The Apex, the Apogee, the Peak

I finally made it to that damn summit and picked my head up a little bit. I tried to go from granny shuffling to something that looked more like running, mentally preparing for the thunderous downhill ahead of me. The second highlight came just as I began the descent when a paramedic told me I had the best socks he had seen all day. I didn’t believe him, but I appreciated it.

Several people told me the downhill is the worst, that it is painful and kills your quads and knees. That is 100% accurate, but to me it was not worse than the uphill. It was liberating and fun and I would take that pain over the miserable sulky uphill slog. I don’t know that I would say that any given day, but for Robie it was true. The weird thing is seeing your watch go from a 16 minute pace to a 6:45 pace in the span of a minute.

All Downhill from There

The downhill portion, a little less than 4 miles, is windy, full of twists and turns and until the last mile or so, offers very few signs of life. My friend once described the backside of the mountain as a scene out of Deliverance. I found it rather beautiful. I chugged along downhill averaging somewhere around a 6:45-7:00 pace, passing people and getting passed by others. Eventually, log cabins and houses appeared with people having barbecues and offering beer and hot dogs. I knew that (well and of course my watch) meant the end was near, which was good because the balls of my feet felt like hamburger meat.

Suddenly a finish chute appeared with a pretty huge crowd of people lined up to the left side. Jeremy was in there somewhere, bless his heart, he drove like 40 minutes and rode a school bus to the finish line to be there for me. I told him before the race, “This is really going to suck and I will probably need someone who loves me to be there at the finish.” And I was right. I crossed the finish line in 1:52:53, 171st place, somewhere around 25th female and 6th in my age group, and basically collapsed on Jeremy. And I looked at him and said, “Never Again.”

Aftermath

It wasn’t like after finishing a marathon, but my legs had just taken a different kind of beating. My stomach felt funky and I was in dire need of some electrolytes. I won’t draw this out too much, but the race had kicked my ass so hard that I couldn’t even drink the free beer after, and on the drive home I fell asleep only to wake up and puke orange Gatorade into an old coffee cup. I wasn’t able to eat anything until about 4 hours after the race.

Physically exhausted, I slept like 10 hours that night, did nothing on Easter except eat, and then got on a plane to Atlanta for work on Monday. When I tried to run again on Tuesday I could only muster a 9 minute pace even though I was like 1500 feet lower in elevation. I ended up getting sick with a head cold right after I got back from Atlanta, probably the combo of post-race immune deficiency and airport/plane germs.

And I probably sound so sensationalized and whiny, but I am just telling you like it was for me. Thankfully, I got over my cold the first week of May and my body started to really feel better. Not just from the cold and Robie, but back to normal from the fatigue that had been plaguing me since February. I guess my doc’s initial “wait it out” approach worked. It was like a complete 180 over the next few weeks leading up to the 5k I ran this past weekend. I was hitting splits I hadn’t hit in months on the track and ran the 5k feeling strong and energized at around a 6:25 pace. So the lesson learned is….the human body is f**king weird?

Reflection

I postponed writing about the Race to Robie Creek because I didn’t really have a good time and it isn’t fun to write about something that sucked. Not until it is far enough behind you that you can laugh and make sarcastic jokes about it, or find the little silver linings and highlights like Kryptonite, Eagles fans, and sock compliments. I also didn’t want to seem like I was complaining when there are all these people who love the race and do it every year. I think running that solid 5k—knowing I didn’t break myself after the pre-race fatigue and the post-race sickness—was the push I needed to write about the experience. Time and space since the race have not been, however, the push I need to convince me to ever run it again.

I love running the hills here, I’ll keep doing it for fitness and fun, but I don’t ever want to feel so much anger and aversion toward a mountain ever again. Mountains are food for my soul! Next time I try to move quickly up a mountain I plan to be wearing a backpack, carrying hiking poles, and chewing on beef jerky.