Dipsea Explained
The Dipsea Race is a 7.1 mile (mostly) trail race that starts in Mill Valley, CA and ends at the Pacific Ocean in Stinson Beach. It has about 2200 feet in elevation gain.
The race consists of two big hills. The first hill is a seven-hundred foot climb out of Mill Valley featuring three long and unpleasant stair-cases with about seven-hundred stairs total. The second hill is a twelve-hundred foot climb from Muir Woods to the top of Cardiac Hill. This climb has its own unpleasant stairs in a section aptly named Dynamite.
The Dipsea Race has a few quirks—first it is an age and gender handicapped race. For a fifty-one year old male (i.e. me) this means that I received a six-minute handicap and was grouped with the thirteen year-olds (yep, the thirteen year-olds, age spares no one).
This handicapping is accomplished by starting the race in waves with the oldest and youngest starting first and eventually, twenty-five minutes later, the scratch men start. In between these two end-points, there are twenty-four other groups of men and women of varying ages.
The first to cross the finish line wins—whether it be a twelve year old girl, a twenty-four year old man, or a seventy year old woman.
To further complicate the race, there are two race divisions—the invitational section and the standard section. All the waves of the invitational section go first and then, the process repeats itself with another twenty-six waves in the standard section.
The net-effect of all this is—a mad-house of constantly passing and of constantly being passed.
One other Dipsea quirk is that there are two officially sanctioned short-cuts (Swoop and Suicide). Historically, the race used to be start at point A and run to point B on any route you could find and the first one to the finish line won. This has been whittled down to only two remaining shortcuts (well technically three if you still count the Moors bypass, but that short-cut was barred in both 2021 and 2022).
Race Start
The race start felt fine. I took off up the road out of Mill Valley; I tried to go at a good pace, but not crazy. It is a third of a mile to where the stairs start.
Dipsea Stairs
All we have to fear is fear itself…well that, and the Dipsea Stairs.
The stairs are very crowded.
In this race, they will (almost) always be very crowded. It was not too difficult to pass on the left, but I ended up walking up the vast majority of the stairs.
I definitely need to make improvements here: i.e. better strategies on how to do the stairs faster (i.e. power hiking practice). There is a rail that you can grab so you can engage your upper body and help pull yourself along. I did a certain amount of this.
This is also an area where I should have kept a better eye on my heart rate—it is very easy to let your heart rate get too high in this section. A lot of pent-up excitement and adrenaline, and then boom a very big climb with hundreds of other people.
After the stairs, you climb for another half mile to the ridge and gain three hundred feet of additional elevation gain. I crossed Panaromic Highway in 14:48 (1.2 miles, +690 feet in elevation done).
Crusing Down to Muir Woods
This section is fast.
I ran it in 7:07 (and the road sub-section at a 6:10 pace). It is about nine-tenths of a mile including 620 feet in elevation loss. Roughly half of this section is on the Muir Woods Road which is downhill and wide so all the other people don’t matter much.
Suicide shortcut is easy and short so I don’t really see what the all the fuss is about.
Twenty two and a half minutes to Muir Creek and pretty much back to where I started from an elevation perspective (130 feet above sea-level).
Going up Dynamite
Now is where the race really started (for me).
Dynamite was crowded and steep. Once again a lot of stairs and once again I need more practice power hiking.
I generally was hiking, but would opportunistically run when I needed to pass people.
Once again I should have watched my heart rate a bit closer —too much time spent over my lactate threshold heartrate. It took me 5:39 to do the section from Muir Creek to Deer Park Fire Road. Grade adjusted pace of 7:23.
Hogsback
I tried to temper my heart rate a bit on this section (as I was worried that I was going to blow up later in the race). My grade adjusted pace on this section was 9:03/mile. In retrospect this was not very good.
I tried to keep a good steady pace. It is steep, but runnable. I ran up all of this section.
This was the first stretch of the race that was out in the sun. The temp was probably only in the lower sixties, but I definitely started noticing the heat here.
Cardiac
This is the last fifth of a mile right before the very top. It is very steep and rocky, with lots of tree roots.
I pretty much walked up all of this. Once again, I didn’t want to blow up on this section. This fifth of a mile took me 3:33 with a 10:36 grade adjusted pace.
I reached the top of Cardiac in 51:35 (4.1 miles and 2200 feet of elevation gain done).
All Downhill from Here (almost)
The main water station is at the very top of Cardiac. I grabbed a drink of water and threw the rest of it on my head.
From Cardiac to Swoop is a roughly 1-mile downhill stretch that is pretty runable. It is not as fast as the Muir Woods Road, but you can make pretty good time here.
I ran this section in 7:04 with a grade-adjusted pace of 8:23. I thought I did pretty well keeping my cadence high.
Swoop
All hell done broke loose!
Swoop is where I started to blow up.
My heart rate was pretty elevated all the way down Swoop. I would not have said I was going all that hard right here (i.e. my heart rate was meaningfully higher than I would have expected for the given pace).
I slowed down a bit going down Swoop.
Down the Steep Ravine Stairs
These stairs are crazy steep and one could definitely fall in a very unpleasant way.
I thought I did pretty well here. It wasn’t super crowded, but there were a few people. I wanted to go at a good pace, but not too aggressive. If you screw up here, you have a good chance of being done for the day.
I ran down the stairs in 2:43.
Insult Hill
This section is aptly named. You have just come down the Steep Ravine stairs and really feel like it should be all downhill from here, but instead you are given a 100 feet of fairly steep climbing. It really is pretty insulting.
I didn’t have much left in the tank here so I resorted again to hiking.
Finally, I reached the top of Insult hill and then started to try to crank it up a bit.
The Moors
I had hardly anything left for the Moors. I ran them, but I wasn’t fast. This was the section of the race that I was most disappointed about.
I had to walk up the (very) small hill in the middle of the Moors. I was definitely gassed for this entire section.
I lost a lot of time from Insult Hill to the finish line (relative to other runners).
Final stretch
This is a very short section of road that takes you from the trail to the finish line. You try to avoid face-planting as you come off the embankment and hit Highway 1. From there you run down a short bit of Highway 1 and cutoff down a road to the beach parking lot.
I did well enough here. A few people passed me, but I kept up my pace well enough.
Goal #1: Qualify for Invitational Section in 2023.
Unfortunately, I missed this by a little over a minute.
In order to make the invitational section you need to be either 1) one of the first 450 people to cross the finish line, or 2) be in the standard section and be one of the first 750 people to cross the finish line.
Note, the invitational wave has a 27-minute head start. In other words, a 51-year old male that was in the invitational section would start 27-minutes ahead of me. Consequently, for a standard section runner you really need to be one of the first 750 people to cross the finish line (as you are unlikely to beat people of the same age and gender with a 27-minute head start).
I ended up placing at position 767 just outside of the top-750.
There is a bit of a Dipsea/covid statistical quirk here. Basically the 2022 race organizers invited a larger than normal group of invitational runners (about 660). This made it considerably harder for a standard runner to be in the top-750 overall (i.e. you really needed to be one of the top-100 standard wave runners to qualify for the invitational section).
Dipsea giveth and Dipsea taketh (i.e. 25 year-olds might not like my six-minute handicap either).
Goal #2 - 1:17:30
I fell short of this by about one hundred seconds. This goal time was definitely an informed guess on my part, but still a guess.
I think I could have marginally improved my time if I had controlled my heart rate more coming out of Mill Valley and on Dynamite, but I doubt I would have made up one hundred seconds.
Goal #3 - 1:12:30 (or something thereabouts)
Definitely wasn’t happening given my current fitness.
Dipsea Results Page
The Dipsea results are a bit confusing due to the age and gender handicapping and the two sections (invitational and regular).
You can translate my results into 1:13:07 (age adjusted time). My actual clock time was 1:19:07 with a handicap adjustment of minus-6 minutes.