A well organized race through many climates and vegetation zones, from desert to alpine meadows and back.
Race morning, and like every one of these races, I was up way too early and had slept poorly. But here's something I've noticed and find interesting: I'm more nervous the day BEFORE than the day of. By race morning it's all just matter of fact. Get up, get the coffee, start figuring out how to move yourself toward a start line.
I also came into this one with a secret weapon: I know these trails. I've divided the whole Mount Laguna area into three zones over the years and mountain biked all of them, covering most of this trail system, including the section of the PCT we'd be running today. This is my backyard. Which made the pre-race communications even funnier.
Is the Canyon Truly Noble?
I have to share this part, because the pre-race emails from the race director were a masterpiece of exaggeration. First came the weather warnings, written as if it was going to be 3,000 degrees out there and we'd all die of heat stroke. I'm looking at the forecast, 50 degrees at the start, high of 75. It ended up being 80 at the top, 90 at the bottom. Then came the critter warnings. Mountain lions. Biting lizards. Stinging caterpillars, watch out, they're out there.
Folks, these are the San Diego mountains. This is not Montana. There are no grizzlies. I've talked to rangers who have worked up here 40 hours a week for 40 years and have never once seen a mountain lion. I've ridden (MTB) every one of these trails and never been stung by a stinging caterpillar.
(insert sarcasm) No, what I'm ACTUALLY worried about is the rabid spider monkeys. I don't know if you've heard, but they are infesting this part of Southern California, especially the Noble Canyon area. And here's my problem: I'm carrying bananas. If the rabid spider monkeys find out I've got bananas, I'm in deep trouble. THAT'S what keeps me up at night. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Battling My HR
One thing I battled from the start to nearly the end was my heart rate, which is not usually a problem for me. Looking at the data afterward, my heart rate was climbing all the way UP TO the race start, before I'd run a step. I can only assume nerves. When the gun went off I was immediately running at 155 bpm, and it parked itself in the mid 150s for miles. Here's the bizarre part: I wasn't breathing heavy at all. My respiratory rate was great, I was doing intentional breath work, I could hold a calm conversation, my head was clear. Everything said "easy effort" except the heart. I haven't run the data through AI yet, but my working theory is a pure stress response. Whatever it was, it wasn't how I wanted to start the day, and it didn't fully settle until the downhill half of the race.
Verdict: The Canyon is NOT Noble
Funny thing happened as I started making my way up Noble Canyon. I thought, I have been here before. And then it hit me: I mountain biked DOWN this canyon once. It was a mistake then too.
Here's why. The top of Noble Canyon is gorgeous, three or four miles of oak-lined, floaty, flowing downhill. It lures you in. And once you're in, there is NO way out. No bailouts, no easy off-ramps, you are in Noble Canyon until you reach the bottom. And the last five miles or so turn into massive rock gardens. Basically impossible on a mountain bike, and super un-fun on foot. The footing is loose rock that moves every time you step down, big rock fields where every single foot placement is a navigation decision. Fine when you're fresh. But I'd be coming back DOWN this thing at mile 26 or 27, and the entire climb up I was actively trying not to think about how brutally hard that descent was going to be.
The Views … Worth It!
I knew this going in, having been up top before, but the views on this course are absolutely amazing. It starts with the canyon view itself, looking all the way down that massive gorge as you wobble up and around toward the top of Mount Laguna, not quite to the summit, then loop down the other side into the valley where I've spent so many hours on the bike. And the transitions are the magic: desert at the bottom, mid-tier oaks in the middle, then true alpine pines and meadows up top. If you break the race into thirds, the middle third is all beauty, meadow after meadow, pines everywhere. I'll be honest, by the time I got there I was so banged up from the climb out of the desert valley that I couldn't enjoy it the way it deserved. But the views were spectacular anyway.
The Wind Down
From about mile 21, I knew what was coming: roughly 10 miles of descent back to the finish, a fair share of it through those rock gardens. Good news, it's all downhill. Bad news, see above.
So I went back to a tool I first learned during my very first full marathon, when I managed the late miles in tenth-of-a-mile increments. Out here it was quarter miles. Just get to the next quarter mile. Great, got there. Celebrate it. Now just get to the next quarter mile. Great, got there. Over and over, all the way down the mountain. It sounds silly, but I think it's a genuinely interesting life lesson: when the whole remaining distance is too heavy to carry, shrink the distance.
One quirk: the last aid station was actually OFF the course, a little detour over and back to the trail, which at that stage of the race was not my favorite thing. But I will always appreciate a good last aid station. Bananas were found. The rabid spider monkeys, mercifully, did not.
The Debrief
Mind & Body. I was blown away by how crisp my mind stayed the entire race, start to finish, and I credit the nutrition plan for a lot of that. Body-wise, nothing hurt terribly until the top of the big climb around mile 16, where both glutes got absolutely FRIED (actually felt on fire), sore enough that I was genuinely worried about cramping. It never came. I think all the weight training I put in saved me there, a lesson learned the hard way at Lake Hodges. Quads held up surprisingly well. The terrain was unforgiving, but the body was ready for it.
Nutrition Plan. A huge win. The protocol: a Hammer gel every 40 minutes, half an LMNT packet every hour, and a scoop of Tailwind (about 100 calories) every hour, topped up with whole foods at aid stations when I could find them, mostly bananas. I tolerated all of it beautifully. The one thing I'd change is working whole foods in EARLIER in the race. And toward the end I could feel my body craving plain water more than sugar or salt, the same lesson Lake Hodges taught me. The needs change as the day changes. I'm listening better now.
The Icedana. Big win here. The ice bandana was probably the single biggest thing keeping my body from overheating, and it's a permanent part of the kit now. It's a no-brainer: ice around your neck, all day. Two tinkering notes. One, it dug into my neck a bit at one point, so the fit needs adjusting. Two, it doesn't work as well with a pack on your back, since the ice wants to sit right where the pack sits, so I flipped it around and carried the ice at the front of my neck. That did the trick.
The Finish & My Thoughts
Here's my honest take. This was a neat race, incredibly well produced, with a great group of people, and I am very thankful I got to do it. And I will never do it again. 😀
The reason is simple: the rock gardens. Look, I am all for challenging yourself. I am all for misery. I am ALL for suffering. But that kind of suffering is just unnecessary. Every footstep is its own little misery, and I'd rather spend those hours in my own head than staring at the ground scouting for rolling rocks. That's not the race I want to run. The Peak falls in the same category for me. Lake Hodges, on the other hand, I'd run again tomorrow, even with a ton more elevation, because the trails are nice and I spent more time enjoying the suffering than not enjoying the suffering. If that makes any sense, you understand ultra-running.
Great race. Great people. Grateful for all of it. But Noble Canyon, you and your rock gardens are somebody else's problem now.