Old Goats 50 (K) Race Report

I recieved an email from the race director the day before the race. It said the forest service couldnt clear the main divide well enough to okay its use for the race. This meant the 50 mile race went to a backup course which included one 11 mile loop followed by two 20 mile loops. This presented the unique opportunity to run a perfect 50k distance and call it a day right there. I jumped at this chance and felt incredibly more relaxed going into the race with this new change. I had run a 29 mile training run 10 days earlier, up and down mount Ashland, and it went pretty well so my confidence in just finishing was very high. I let go of many more concrete performance goals once I beared the full weight of the toll the motorcycle ride took on me mentally and worse, physically.

I slept pretty poorly the night before the race, due to a combination of pre-race nerves and leftover soreness. I got up early {3:40am} to get to my beloved bluejay race morning. This would make close to a dozen races at bluejay. I parked and got my bib and took care of final gel and drop bag stuff between bathroom stops before the start. And we were off.
I knew that if I felt fine, I should be near the front of the group considering I was running a mere 50k compared to the people I was running near that had 50 miles to go. I was in the top 10 for a half hour, then I started dry heaving. I had run a lot of these trails before in Big Baz´s Winter Trail Run Series so I was comfortable with all the tight turns and bad footing, but my minor nausea was back. This was especially odd because I typically have an iron gut and don´t get bothered by much. This condition kept me from my practiced fueling of 1 gel every 40 minutes and 1 salt tab every hour. I couldn´t get my first gel down until the end of my 11 mile loop at about and hour and a half. This was very bad news for the rest of the race.

I knew what was happening the whole time, that this energy debt would be no fun at all, but I literally could do nothing about it. So I just kept running fairly conservatively on a heavy, empty, and twisted stomach. I made progress and hoped things would get better so I could hammer for 2 hours on lightly used legs to close out in a halfway decent time. This did not formulate. I finally got to the 18 mile aid station where my friend Jay was volunteering and got some more wáter and was happy to hear the cheers and see a familiar face. The next 4 miles were largely downhill but somehow the most difficult yet. This second wind hope I had was crumbling. I made it to the Candy store aid station and refilled and downed my 10 oz handheld a couple times, making me realize I hadn´t been drinking enough along with my not eating much. I saw some pinapple and shoved it down before I could think of it. It helped! I had been running near a fellow competitor Keshav for a while and we were helpìng to push eachother. He encouraged me to get out of the station and start moving, I chased him down somehow within a minute or two after the Candy store at approx. 22 miles. We went back and forth a couple times and I began having trouble just continuing to run from a serious bonk. I eventually decided I would not stop running until I got to my friend Jay at the next aid station which would mark about 25 miles. I did it. I ate some lil cutie slices as I still couldn´t handle gels for some reason. Some electrolite mix and wáter chugged down before I headed out, and these next 4 miles were about as slow as I have ever run in my life. I often questioned if I could see myself, if I would consider what I was doing running anymore. I made it to bluejay and somehow managed probably a sub 8 last mile, which I hadn´t done in the previous couple of hours.

5 hours and 29 minutes after I started, I finished and apparently won the 50k officially. To be eligible for awards, you had to claim which distance you were racing before the race started whether it was 50k or 50 mile. I was not the first person to finish 50k but I was the first person who had planned on only 50k, and finished. There were probably 10 people to actually cross through before me, but they either continued to run a full 50 miles, or decided to call it a day after their 50k, thus officially not being eligible for an award. Despite all that, I was just glad to be done.


I knew I was going into a 50 mile race without the time to prepare, but I went for it anyway. This takes a combination or courage and stupidity, I know. I am dissappointed in my performance mostly because had my health been fine, my body could have run this 50k a solid hour faster. But of course talk is cheap and its imposible to know.
The biggest benefit from taking over eager risks like these is the speed of the learning curve, verus doing it a smarter or more conservative way. I feel like what I learned overall packs quite a punch for the tie spent learning it. Its really intiguing to me knowing how much more is so out of your own control when lining up for a race that is a mínimum of 4ish hours. It is hardly comparable versus a 10k or 5k or 1500m. The attitude cannot be the same. Creativity becomes necessary, and adaptablility becomes crucial.

I don´t know what my future racing looks like right now, but I will be back training seriously in june and see where that takes me!


PS:  Again, I am typing all this in Valparaíso, Chile on a hostel computer. This means the computer and keyboard and online settings are in a limbo between spanish, english, and whatever languages travelers set them to. So please excuse misspelled words and weird punctuation, if any at all.

The days leading up to my first ultra!

(Race report will be the next blog post)

Read this section if you need to be caught up to speed:
I signed up for Old Goats 50 mile race 1 month before race day, in a slightly mad craze to give my remaining 3 and a half weeks of time to train in Ashland purpose. I was scheduled to depart the country for 2 months, a couple days after the race. So I signed up for the race, got in from the waitlist and had begun some more specific training for it. I quickly got a cold and that put a damper on training for over a week... this brings us up to date read on for the report...

I took my last final for school and hopped on my motorcycle to start my ride home from Ashland,OR to Trabuco Canyon, CA. I did this over 2 days so I only had to get to Davis, CA for night 1 on wednesday before the saturday scheduled ultra. This portion of the ride home took 4+hours just as expected. I had my two saddlebags filled with clothing and I wore my backpacking pack on my back that was chaulk full of gear for my (now less than a week away) upcoming backpacking trip in south/central america.
I made it to Davis with no problems and had pizza and beer with my (sometimes running) friend Spencer, whom along with his girlfriend Julie was gracious enough to let me stay at their place for the night to help break up my ride home. Julie kindly made me breakfast in the morning and I was off by 8am to start the 7+ hour ride home. I cruised at 75/80mph on I5 eager to get home and start my recovery and maybe get a short run in before the race. I made it a goal to get 100 miles between every stop. As I got through the first and second stop, I was increasingly uncomfortable physically and a bit nauseus. This began to make for a miserable ride. I just persisted and knew I had no other option but to get home today and despite the soreness coming on, I needed to start recovering for the race.

After many hours of what I can`t call anything other than agony, I got to L.A. and made my last gas stop. I was at the peak of my stomach sickness and laid down next to my motorcycle to rest. I got up for wáter, and threw up all over the ground next to the gas pump. I didn´t even have the energy to go inside and tell the worker what I had done to his gas station. I heaved myself onto my hog knowing the next time I got off I could rest indefinitely. It took about an hour and a half to cover the next 40 miles, but I made it home by some miracle of will power, and the need for the finish line.
It was thursday and I got home at 5pm after 9 of the longest hours of my life. On the upside, I have now experienced ill-prepared long distance motorcycle traveling. May I suggest getting a windshield before riding anywhere near this distance, and a backrest!

As I laid down for the next 18 hours, I worried about how I would run this 50 mile race in a day. To my surprise, I was not really sore on friday. I walked around a bit and ate and drank wáter fine. This all made me very happy considering how things were going for me lately. I was coming to terms with everything just fine and then I checked my email in the early afternoon. The news from the race director, the old goat himself Steve Harvey was the best news I had heard all week.

.....Stay tuned for my next blog post which will be the actual race report!

PS.. I am typing all this in Valparaíso, Chile on a hostel computer. This means the computer and keyboard and online settings are in a limbo between spanish, english, and whatever languages travelers set them to. So please excuse misspelled words and weird punctuation, if any at all.

One Month Out

I will be back home in southern California for a few days soon, and I was looking at volunteering at a local 50 mile race thats happening while I'm there. I quickly looked up the race again (I am familiar with Old Goats 50 and have read about it before) and I got on ultrasignup.com and started learning more about times and stuff. LONG STORY, SHORT: I thought about racing instead of volunteering-I contacted the RD Steve Harvey of Old Goats and found out that despite it being sold out, I had a good shot of making it in from the wait-list.
I gave it a night to think, then promptly put in my credit card # and did a couple longer-than-usual runs on Mt Ashland in next few days. (I had been in pre-season track & field training)

Me nerding out on some of Ashland's local talent's ultra trophies on display at rogue valley runners. No big deal or anything. :)

SO, about 2 weeks out from the race and I find out I am in, then before I can think at all.. I get to the big red deny or green confirm button and click confirm as fast as I can. Then immediately think "what did I just do".

The longest running day I had about this time was 2 hours and my biggest week was about 8 hours or 70 miles and all I had was 2 weeks before the 50 mile race-my first race over a marathon distance. I began to worry. I got sick with a decent cold after a 3+ hour run and wasn't able to run as long or as well as I planned prior to finding out that I got in to the race. So, with 2 weeks to get in the most important stuff, I set it for two 4+ hour runs with a lot of vert within 8-14 days out from race day. I had already done one 3+ hour run but it left me sick and weak.

11 days out on a tuesday, I got my 4:08 run in and about 29 miles according to my educated guessing, with about 5000+ of vert(and then decline). Now time to focus on recovering to do it again on friday or saturday. Second guessing myself, I looked for some confirmation (or some tweaking of my plans) from a running friend/old coach Liam. I settled on running a double of 90 minutes each run on friday or saturday instead of a 5 hour effort in an attempt to focus on being fresher and recovered for the race. Liam added "WWJD" in a text, and I responded "Jurek?" and I was right on.

Today is Thursday, 9 days out. I will be accepting all good thoughts and mojo from now until I toe the line and eventually finish(thats the plan at least! haha) a week from this saturday in Cleveland National Forest.



P.S. To those of you more familiar with Ultrsignup: What is with me being ranked #1 with a top 5 time ever on the course? My only result on the site is a 21k from a year ago! When I saw this I couldn't help but laugh to myself about the whole situation and what fun this is going to be, and how much I am going to learn from it!

P.P.S. I'm also accepting all advice and thoughts on preparation and during race ideas for a first time ultra-runner. Thanks!