Mt Hood PCT 50m

Mt Hood PCT 50M

I’m finally a real ultramarathoner … maybe. I guess everyone has their own opinion of what the requisite distance that makes an ultramarthon an ultramarathon, but I’m pretty sure that 50 km is only barely maybe so. Regardless I’m really happy to have finally run my first 50 miler. The weather was great, the trail was awesome, and my body responded quite nicely to the task requested of it on Saturday on Cascade crest between Hood and Jefferson.

I started with a real slow pace. My goal on the first out and back was to try to stay below 155 bpm. I found the pace relaxing and somewhat tedious until, at the first turnaround (~ 14 mi), I counted runners and found myself in 110th place out of 115 people. Not to worry, my race plan had the field coming back to me in the second half of the race. Actually I was very worried. From Little Crater Lake back to the start/A.S./finish (mile 23 to 28), my legs didn’t feel as fresh as I thought they would have given my conservative pace, and doubts were beginning to creep up in my mind: did I start too slow, will I miss cutoff times, was my training adequate, can I even run this far at all, etc.

As I ran into Timothy Lake (the start/ A.S./ finish) my spirits began to rise. The scene was pretty hectic. People were dropping left and right. Olga (one of the RD’s) was taking down peoples numbers and saying things like “How do you feel? Oh you’re dropping, why? I just finished Hardrock, you can do this, its not so hard. Dont sit down. Why are you sitting? Get out of here.” The large congregation of runners and large number of runners dropping meant two things to me. One, I was catching up to the field and if I could keep a steady pace here I’d pass a larger number of people in a relatively short distance, and two, a lot of the folks ahead of me have probably gone out at a pace quicker than they are now able to maintain. I worked these mathematics in my head and prepared to drop some science by partaking in my secret weapon: the Starbucks double shot. Is this legal? For the last 2 AS now, nothing solid appealed to me. As a matter of fact, my stomach was making itself very clear to me that it did not want anything to eat besides melons. Spirits raised and caffeine ingested I headed merrily on my way hoping my race would come around and confident that I’d run the first half of the race to plan (sub 155 bpm, lots of salts, and enough water to pee a few times).

And then my day started to turn. Caffeine slowly took hold off my adled brain. Ibuprofen worked its way down to my aching hamstrings. I bumped the lasted Audio 1 mix as entire trains of runners came back to me. One by one, and by groups of 3 or 5, a significant chunk of the field (roughly 35 runners) came back to me on the next two sections. My race was coming together. I hit a short speedbump when I fell but fell a mile or two short on water up to the second turnaround. I clearly wasn’t the only one having water issues here. I saw a woman walking this entire section with a gallon jug of energy drink.

About this point it dawned on me that I was very close to finishing sub 10 hr. Great, so I’ve running for 7.5 hrs, am slightly tired, but I need to make tracks. I kept thinking ‘come on Craig, do you really want to run another just to get sub 10 … no, so do it right the first time!’. I’m overly caffeinated at this point but feeling OK about my melons only diet. The field is coming back to me slower now, but I’m trucking along steady and handling my stomach issues fine. By the last AS I realize I might actually finish. Melons and more melons get me through the last few downhill miles. I came in a few minutes ahead of the 10 hr mark. Sweet! Really really stoked. Way fun but also harder than I expected. Next time I’ll be better trained.