The day was a perfect race day: 55 degrees at the start, warming to about 80 by
the finish. The course was a modified out and back, following the Pacific Crest
Trail and some Forest Service roads. There were views everywhere along the
course. It was roly-poly, with very few ugly climbs - 3500' of total climbing
over 31 miles. (See the
course profile here).
Ken and I started out at the back of the second start. They had an early start
for people who knew they would go over 6 hours. We ran very conservatively and
then slowed down. Ken was a little bit under-trained,
and got into a tiny bit of trouble with dehydration.
We ran together until the turn around at Jackson Gap (about
the 16 mile mark), and then we decided I should go ahead - Ken felt like
since I had really done the training I should go for it. (He ended up finishing
with only one long training run of 17 miles!)
After I left Ken, I had a nice cruisey
downhill, and gained 25 minutes on Ken before the next aid station - I found out
later he had been dizzy and was getting the chills. We had run so conservatively
that I actually felt GREAT until a 3 mile long steady but not too steep climb
that finished with about 4-5 miles to go. I had a little left at the end, so I
think I could probably do 6:00 if I ran a more evenly paced race.
The aid stations were awesome - you pull in, they check off your number (so they
always know where everybody is) and then they fill your bottles, and camelbacks
and bring you food. Basically, the volunteers waited
on us hand and foot. There were bagpipes at one stop, and fiddles an mandolins
at another. The volunteers had camped out along the course so they would be
there when the race started!
At the finish there was tons of fresh-baked goodies, and burritos and soup and
you name it. The best part of the race though was that Doug (my hubby) and
BettyLou (Ken's wife) could see us almost the whole race. The trail parallels
the road, so not only did we have those awesome aid stations, we had our own
support vehicle. Doug took over 70 pictures along the
course - these are the ones on the web page.
I would definitely run this again, and I think I would do more 50k's - as long
as they were on trails. I'm stiff and a little tired today, but I'm not sore at
all. I've run marathons were walking hurt for three days, and this is so much
better. In theory I could've run the next day, but instead I
started the long drive back to Dallas.
The race wasn't the only part of this year's road trip - we also spent time in Breckenridge, Colorado, and touring some of southern Oregon with Ken and Betty Lou. Click here for the "this is how I spent my summer vacation" photos.
Back to Running
Back to Home