This year’s Point Mugu Trail Race 10k was my first race of the year. I’ve been working hard this year, got sick some and was more than ready to get out there on the trails.
Unfortunately, my training wasn’t all that great leading up to the race. I’d mostly been doing political stuff phone banking nights and doing precinct walking on weekends. That didn’t leave a ton of time to do much training.
My plan going into the race, which I did last year as well, was to give it a push but not fret about being competitive.
Race Morning
I took my time getting to the race as I only live 30 minutes from the starting line. The drawback is that I had to park far away. When I checked into the race, I just folded the race shirt into my hydration pack. And my bib…wait, where is my bib? It turns out there was a mistake and someone else was given my bib. They made a few announcements over the loudspeaker but it wasn’t that loud and we figured that the person may have gone back to their car to drop off a race shirt.
After the longer race started, there was another announcement about the bib and finally someone went to the check in and she had the bib. I should have thought to check similar bib numbers to track them down, but it wasn’t that big a deal.
There were a lot of unfamiliar faces at the race, and it made me think that in 11 months since my last race I was out of the scene, but then I saw Jackie, Keith, Mike and others and also started to proactively meet and chat with other runners.
Race Start
It was finally race time and after speaking with a new to me runner, Frank, I made my way to the back of the start bunch. I saw the race start of the longer half marathon race and it quickly turned into a conga line at the start of the Ray Miller Trail. But when the race started, we didn’t end up getting too bunched up.
I ran some of the first climb and felt good. I think I passed a couple of people and settle behind a couple of women who were ahead of me. They appeared to be running together and had a pretty good pace. We ran past one runner who was probably 70 and were still going a moderate pace.
A couple of minutes later the 70-year-old passed me on a climb. Dammit. I was starting to feel a little worked, so I just eased up even more.
“You’re not competing today, Jesse. Remember.”
I was bummed that my heart rate was way low according to my watch. That was obviously an error. I’m thinking that the beer garden wrist band was interfering with the HR measurement. This is one of the main ways I double check to see if I’m pushing too hard.
The rest of the climb was a combination of little runs and mostly hiking. There were still a few folks behind me, but I was pretty close to the back of the pack. I think some of the other runners were also taking it a little easy today. I took several photos and enjoyed the morning air.
I finally made it to the end of the Ray Miller Trail and said Hi to the volunteers at the aid station there and kept going.
I didn’t mention it but the 10K race is a big out and back race which is kind of fun because you get to see where the runners ahead of you are.
Last year I ran down this next section, on the Overlook Trail, like a madman. People looked at me on the out and back part and I think smiled because I was obviously towards the back of the pack but was running like I was in first place.
I got to the turnaround just next to Fireline Trail and added a little water to each flask. I wanted to enough to keep me hydrated but not so much that it weighed me down too much. On the way up the trail, I tried to not think about the day I did this climb on the day of the inaugural SAMO race when it was in the 90’s and I was exhausted. I was only spectating that day but got gassed. To not relive that experience, I started filming a TikTok of my race in action. That worked and the next thing I knew I was at the top aid station again.
As I almost made it to the top of the little climb before the big descent, I was a runner and a sweeper on the trail and the runner was stopped taking photos. Yup, not everyone was in that big a hurry. If you’re not familiar with the role of a sweeper, they are supposed to go up the racecourse and make sure runners don’t get left behind and that they are safe. Sometimes that means they wait for a runner to recover a little or in this case to get in some good photos of Mugu Rock.
I finally got to the big downhill and got a good pace going. I’ve run down this mountain probably 80 times before and I can usually haul a55 here. I didn’t want to overdo it so I didn’t go crazy on the descent. However, I did see a few people down trail and passed the 70-year-old then saw another group that I might have been able to catch towards the end but ran out of real estate.
Before the race I did have a goal and that was to finish right side up and also to try and run it under 2 hours. After crossing the finish line, I had met both goals. There was no PR, and I was last in my age group of 5 runners but that was OK.
After the race I took some photos of the different podiums then went off to the race beer garden and had some tacos. I had a chance to meet some other runners and not only had most of them not done this race before, but it was their first trail race or race of any kind. I thought that was pretty cool. With a little encouragement they too could take on the trail running habit.
My official time was 1:52:04 and I was 85th out of 94.
I really enjoyed my first race back. The SoCalTrail bunch did a great job organizing the race, the volunteers were helpful, and I’ll be back. Also, thanks to the great photographers out on the course, @IGNACIOSALDANAJR, @ORLANDO_.B and @EVERETTJOHNSONPHOTO on Instagram.
My next races are the Ray Miller 30K but as of now I don’t feel as if I’ll be able to get that race done if I don’t buckle down and start getting into race form. I also signed up for the Boney Mountain race next year and am looking forward to some payback after the last time I DNF’d it big time.
Thanks for reading to the end of this novella and let me know what your next race will be. Are you moving up a distance, going for a PR, or are you building back up?
All photos taken on Chumash land.
#SoCalTrail #PointMubu #chumashland #trailrunning