Another Dam 50K - Race Report

31 miles, 7:12

My morning started by leaving a message on Mike’s voicemail at 7 am it went like this : “Hey mike, It’s Josh. I am an idiot. I overslept so I won’t be coming up to the race today. I feel like an asshole because I am the reason you decided to run the race. Sorry man, I hope you have a good race.”

I set 2 alarms for 4am but I didn’t wake up until 7. After I called Mike I started thinking that it might be best that I wasn’t going to run this race. I didn’t need to be running a 50k so close to Mohican anyway. I thought the race started at 7:30 but I checked to race website to see if that was right. I saw that the race didn’t start until 8am. It was now 7:25 and it would take me an hour to get to the race. I figured I could start 30 minutes late and still have time to finish in the planned 8:30. I called Mike and he agreed to explain my situation to the RD and get me registered (Which I forgot to pay him back for, I will bring that to Mohican, Mike!) I got ready as fast as I could and hoped in my car. I got to the park around 8:40 right as Mike was finishing his first 4.4 mile loop. In my rush to leave the house I thought I left my trail shoes at home, so I ran the race in my road shoes. After the race I looked in the back seat of my car and my trail shoes were sitting right there! I hadn’t worn my road shoes in a few weeks and I discovered that my trail shoes are MUCH more comfortable so I will be wearing those for the whole race at Mo, even the road section.

I picked up my race number then Mike and I started the 3.5 mile loop (The actual race started with the 4.4 mile loop, because Mike and I wanted to run together I started with the 3.5 mile loop and finished with the 4.4 mile loop instead of the 3.5 mile everyone else finished with.) According to my GPS it took mike 1.11 miles before he steered the conversation to X-rated content. He defend this by saying he had already run 5.5 miles, so it wasn’t that bad. The goal for this race was to run a 16 minute pace to simulate the first 50 miles at Mohican, that never happened. It wasn’t totally my fault. First of all this course was very flat, nothing like Mohican, so it was hard to simulate walking the hills. I also wanted to make up a little time from being late, so we decided to run our first loop together a little faster. As it turned out we never really slowed down until 15+ miles and even at that point we never even came close to going as slow as 16 minute miles. We did keep a comfortable pace so I am not worried about recovery.

The race went very smooth, neither of us had any breakdowns as we cruised along the course. Mike –the shoe whore- Keller used three different shoes during the race to test out what will work best for him during Burning River in August.

This race consisted of a 4.4 mile loop which crosses over a huge earth dam. This section of the loop is in the direct sunlight and got very hot. This loop has two short steep hills at the beginning and end of the dam. The other loop is 3.5 miles almost all in the shade. There is one medium sized hill in the beginning of this loop but not much else other then that. I would probably say this was the flattest trail 50k I have ever done. Mike finished his first official 50k distance in the fine time of 6:32 (or something right around that.)

He had given his camera to a volunteer right before the last loop so that she could take pictures of us as we ran in. He had made a plan with her, that when we were rounding the corner he would shout “hootie who, hootie who” very loudly so she knew to get the camera ready. This worked perfectly and she was right there to get the money shot. Mike kicked it in to the finish line. After he finished I continued, running the 4.4 mile loop to finish in a time of 7:12. A far cry from the 16 min. miles I planned but It was still a relaxed pace.

I tried the new single bottle waist pack I had bought yesterday. I hated it. Not because there was anything wrong with the pack. I just don’t like things bouncing around while I am running. I think I am going to take some duct tape to rig up a handle for the bottle. That way I can carry it as a handheld but still have the option of sticking it in the holster when I want to carry food out of an aid station or when I want to have a hand free for technical trail.