WIth leftover energy from all the drama of application day, I got out for 6:30 a.m. hill repeats on Railroad Grade. Railroad Grade is a looping dirt fire trail that in 1896 was a rail line used to take visitors to the top of Mt. Tam, a gain of 2500 feet on what was advertised as the “Crookedest Railroad in the World”.    The train cars were essentially open top square boxes with church pew type rows of seats.  Riders could then take the “gravity train” down to Muir Woods, a silent glide into the redwood forrest.  After automobiles became popular, railroad ridership declined on Mt. Tam in the 1920’s, and a fire damaged some of the track.  Soon thereafter, the tracks were removed, leaving a great trail for hikers, bikers, and, of course, runners!

Railroad Grade is a 5% grade, perfect for pushing the body.  Today’s training plan calls for five hill repeats, each four minutes long, with a two minute slow jog break between each one.  Downloading the data later, I could see the intervals forming a beautiful wave chart, with heart rate rising and falling during the breaks between.  I was quite proud of my hard work, until my trainer concluded that the Railroad Grade wouldn’t make the grade any longer (pardon the pun).  Future intervals will be on the much steeper Dipsea steps.  Oh well!  

Ask any runner in Mill Valley, from the weekend warrior to the more serious ultra runners, and they’ll share their Dipsea experiences with you.   Here’s mine.   We live less than a one-third of a mile from the start of the Dipsea steps, with which I now have a love/hate relationship.  But despite living there for 10 years, I’d never signed up or thought about signing up for the Dipsea.  I found it interesting, a great event, but the closest I came to participating was to get up on Dipsea morning to cheer others on at the start of the race.  I’d shifted to biking after my soggy Napa Marathon experience 18 years ago, and only occasionally went down the steps as part of a beautiful 3.5 mile loop through redwoods and pines that was my only remaining link to the running world.  I had satisfied my running urge with a “sub 4” marathon.  I’d checked that box once, and had no desire to do it again.

What changed?  It’s my wife’s fault, and here’s why.  My lovely bride has a congenital heart defect, a dysfunctional aorta, one that she’d lived with quite well.  Her erratic ticker didn’t keep her or us from leading active lives, or having two kids.  But her cardiologist told her that at some point, she’d have to get it fixed.  The kicker was that getting it fixed would involve full-on open heart surgery and an aortic valve replacement.   In the spring of 2013, she suddenly started feeling it.   It would be dangerous to wait; she couldn’t put the surgery off any longer.  

So, under the experienced care of UCSF’s top cardiologist, she went under the knife in August 2013.  Literally and figuratively, a heart stopping moment for her, me, and all who love her.  But it all went extremely well — as well as such traumatic surgery can — and she emerged from cardiac intensive care 24 hours later, with a relieved husband by her side.

At UCSF, they try to get a heart surgery patient on his or her feet as soon as possible, even though connected to oxygen and every imaginable monitor.  Patients begin with a 25 foot walk, soon progressing to the full length of the hall of the cardiac unit.  On her very first walk, just over a day after getting a new aortic valve, she had me snap a picture of her in her oh so flattering green hospital gown, all hooked up to tubes and monitors, pushing this big blue box that tracked her every vital sign, doing her best to crack a smile.  And she then instructed me to send that pic to all her friends and relatives with the caption “First steps training for the Dipsea”.

Okay, now you get it.  She had her inspirational “sob” story that would go along with her 2014 Dipsea application.  How could they turn that down?  (For good measure, she included the picture with her application.)   But that left me, the reluctant runner, in a bit of pickle.  If my wife, recovering from open heart surgery, can train for and run the Dipsea, what’s my excuse?   I didn’t have one.  But it was more than a lack of excuse.  Sometimes we just get mired in quicksand, stuck in our routines, and need the shock of 100 watt heart paddles applied to our midsections to move us into action.  Her reaction to heart surgery was the shock I needed to, pardon my french, get my ass in gear.  

I broke out the running shoes, started routinely doing trips to and from Muir Woods, and joined up with what is now my Saturday morning crew, who had been training for and running the Dipsea for years.  And so, along with Heather, I ran my first, painfully slow, and hot (rare 90 degree day) Dipsea in June 2014.  With that, I became a convert, and slowly became addicted to the trail running that is now the heroin in my veins.   And in 2015, I knocked 13 minutes off my 2014 time, and qualified for 2016 without having to go through the heretofore mentioned application craziness.  In other words, I’ve died and gone to Mill Valley runner’s heaven.   

But with that success, the pressure is on.  Once qualified means that I should always qualify, so long as I train hard and push myself, which I’m certainly doing this year.  I ran a 1 hour 19 minute race last year, and qualified, but with less than two minutes to spare.  As one of the only benefits on earth of aging, I get an additional minute handicap this year, but probably still have to run a 1:18 or 1:19 to be comfortable.  So hill intervals, here I come….