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.