The ways a day can go. Sun Mountain 50K - 5/20/17

Side note: I thought I posted this months ago. 

My bad...

"Ok, have fun and be careful. I'm going to swing this down as hard as possible. " 

When I think of the ways a day can go. Man, I usually laugh a bit, cause really who the hell knows. This isn't a big story about persevering over great heights etc etc. I get migraines often enough, and Sun Mt 50k happened to be the next random day that one landed on. 

I had one earlier in the week, so was kind of waiting for a flair up, and was just hoping it would pass on a few days, but not so much.

Leading into the race I had an odd feeling that I just chalked it up to taper, fatigue, burnout. I wasn't looking at this as a race or that I'd even finish. The last 50k left such a bad taste in my mouth that I stopped everything for 8 months. Mostly, or directly because I didn't drop from that race and like an asshole kept going to "prove something". This time, I had this relief that if the IT band went or anything body related failed, I could drop and not damage myself for the rest of summer like last year. 

The morning was amazing. About 51 and blue skies. I didn't want to run close to the front or in a pack and feel forced. Also, I really wanted to run with Alley for the first two miles, just another weekend run with the two of us "banging out some shit" (BOSS). 

I mention to her the day before: tomorrow you have nothing else to do but run. No clients to talk to, meetings, or schedules to manage, or sitting at your desk with your ass falling asleep. Just one thing. Run. 

At two miles I carried on with my pace and we said we'd see each other in a few. 

I know I've mentioned before but I fuck'n love downhills. Steep technical downhills. Running with a group of 8 when we hit the first major down and sweet beard of Zeus it's a technical mt. bike trail with massive banked turns. So. Much. Fun. 

About mile 6 I felt the start of the headache start, small dark ache behind the eyes. By mile 10 it was about a 5 out of 10, by mile 15 it was at a 7 and my neck had stiffened up. Blah blah blah. Yeah that all sucked, I'll fast forward cause really I wouldn't want to read about having a headache during a race. 

.....we pick up our story already in progress....

I had this great plan: I'd walk to where I waited for Alley when she raced here two years ago. A cool little out crop about mile 20. Sit there, rest, wait for the headache to ease then run with her if I could to the 25.5 aide station and decide to drop or not. Clear plan. Great! Not 2 minutes after said plan I hear,"Hey! What're U do'n here!?!?" 

There goes my plan  : )

New plan: hang on to Alley until mile 25.5

"Do what you need to do and I'll try and stay with you." I heard myself say. If she was in front I could focus on that and push the headache off to the side. In training sometimes I lead, and other days she's the strong one and leads. You never know what the day can bring. We rolled into 25.5 AS and I decided to stay on. A handful of pickles, some ginger ale, and another salt tab. What the hell am I doing to my body??? At this point I figured nothing mechanical was aching, like an IT band or hamstring so I figured. What the hell. 

With the words of,"only 6 more miles.", hanging in the air from the volunteer Alley and I laughed at each other as we both remembered we heard the same thing at Volcanic 50k, which took another three hours to finish after that was said there. 

Funny thing happened on the way to the coliseum.

As we climbed Patterson Mt. the pain in my head started to quickly go away. The climbing was steady and there was a breeze with a bit of shade cover. Up and over the ladder, to prove we weren't cows one last time, and then the final push to the turn around at the top. Holy shit what a climb, but I finally saw a woman come back that was just ahead of us. Phew! 

Viewing the valley from the top, legs rested, and head feeling good I laughed looking around. Amazing. Got to spend half the day running with Alley, see her power up the hills and kept that steady pace to keep us just in front of the cut offs.

From the top of Patterson I told Alley- "Ok, have fun and be careful. I'm going to swing this down as hard as possible." 

Legs were under me, views were amazing, descent was on, target rich environment.

So much fun. Slightly technical, but highly runnable. I focus on long steps, grabbing as much ground as possible with each step. Floating, little efforts with tight hard pushes to keep up speed. I stopped once to ask a woman if she needed help as I could see that her IT band had pulled. The obvious lower leg drag that has so many times affected my race days. Made my stomach turn just seeing her. Also, reminded me that it could happen at any time, so I hit the gas again and shot down the trail. ( A later look on Strava had me listed as the second fastest on the day : ) I'll take that! )

Finally hit the road and figured it was about a mile to the finish. Garmin read, 28.9 but I had hit it on some branches earlier and it turned off for a few so I knew I was close. Kept telling myself, "it'll be 31, plan on that, don't think it'll be shorter." So I pushed an easy pace to make sure the bottom didn't fall out. 

It's funny, I had no stress about the day. I told myself, if I drop I drop. Enjoy the day. Look around. Soak it in. 

Yeah, the day didn't fall as I would of like, but in a lot of ways it seemed to turn out better. I got to run with my Girl and enjoy the area a bit longer. Spent time watching some amazing people work the effort of the day. Great, great reminder to myself that I've surrounded myself with some pretty amazing people. So yeah, not a bad day ; )

Coming down the Mountain…

It’s funny the things I’ve never done before, but already knew I’d love the second I tasted it. Like when I bought kayaks before I ever kayaked. I knew I’d love it, so why not. Same with the Grand Ridge Half Marathon race. I’d never done a trail race before, but knew if I talked myself into signing up I’d love it.

Again, like triathlon, I followed after Alley did her first and got the low down. I’ve run at Discovery, Carkeek, Redmond Water Shed, and a few others, but never in race mode.

Alley and I had scouted the course a few weeks before with a close friend and got a real idea of what an ass kicking this was going to be. I quickly noted the 3-4 places I’d have to walk – in the first 2 miles – no joke! I came away from the scout run knowing I’d have to walk plenty and that was just the way it was going to have to be in order to survive. No illusions of powering up the hills, because there was 2200’ of powering that would have to happen in 13.1. Pace yourself Grasshopper!

The morning of it was freezing, temps. in the low 30’s and snow was expected. Crap… I love the snow, but come on now it’s going to be snow bound for the next 8 months, couldn’t it just wait one more day!

Trail running seems more laidback than regular running and I didn’t have the nerves that I usually have before a tri and road race. It was a lot like the first time I did Fat Salmon and all the swimmers were just so easy going and relaxed. OK, I can do this…

Game plan: It was my first so I was pretty open to crashing and burning, but I figured if I had a game plan I might be able to pull this off and have a great time.

Start slow. Walk when it makes sense, don’t force the up hills and conserve your energy until 10 mile.

Easy…

1-2 miles went as planned, I knew from the scouting run that the hardest grade was inside the first 2 miles, about 18% for about 150 yards twice. My thought was if you race the 1^st 2 miles you’d never see the finish. So the race really wouldn’t start until the top of mile 2.

This is where that whole thing about not ever doing something but just knowing comes into play. The aid station was at mile 4ish after the big climb up to 2 you still had some steady climbing but it was rolling and ONLY and 8-9% grade. Small down hills but nothing like what I knew was up ahead. I ran through the aid station without stopping, because I wanted to pass the 2 guys in front of me because the first massive down hill was about 30 yards up the trail.

Hold on to your sh#t cause this is going to be a bumpy ride!

Now for whatever reason I’m lucky to have a fast turnover, I’m light on my feet when I run on uneven terrain, and I trust in my ability to descend. On the first down I passed by about 12 people in about 5 minutes. I was in full flight, zigzagging back and forth, over the mud puddles, over logs, it was beautiful. I must have yelled out a dozen times in excitement. It was a freaking blast! I watched everyone else going down hill and it seemed tense and timid. I wanted noting to do with that, gravity was my bitch finally, I wasn’t slowing down for nothing!

The turn around was at the bottom of what I think was a 1.5 mile drop, which means, yeah, 1.5 miles back up. I walked, as was the plan, most of this and knew I just had to make it back to the aid station. In all I’d only been past once, after mile 2, then again just before getting back to the aid station. But that was OK.

My plan was to be conservative until the turn off back to finish, which was about mile 10. Then it would be game on with about 700 feet of elevation to drop in a about 2.5 miles before the finish.

Unfortunately, that’s when I felt the heat start rolling behind my eyes and the aching start up through the backs of my arms. Are you kidding me, is this a fever I’m feeling? Crap!

I was running with 5 other people starting the downhill and quickly lost two in the first few turns of Mr. Toads Wild Ride. The legs were feeling great and as long as I could keep my balance I was in good shape. It’s pretty amazing carrying that amount of speed through such tight turns over puddles and rocks. My garmin had us at 7:15 pace. I thought that was totally nuts considering there wasn’t a straight section more than 20-25 yards long without having to change direction.

Finally!

There was a really big fallen tree, about 40 ft long, really hard to miss, that I remembered from the scouting run that meant the end was near. Up a tragic little hill, then straight down, hard hard left, into a unavoidable puddle. Then .6 miles of flat, flat, damn flat road to the finish.

I couldn’t of hit the last puddle any worse, pole vaulted with a firm planting of my right leg that put a pretty good jolt through the system. At this point I was only about 2 seconds behind the guy in front of me. I had visions of hitting the last stretch and picking up a 7 minute pace and pulling away from the guy I’d been switching turns with for the last 2 miles. BUT NOOO, that’s actually when the damn fever I’d forgotten about decided to flip me the bird as I grinded to a 10:22 pace and started sweating from every point on my body.

Running on empty...

I kept thinking, ‘you’re doing fine, don’t give in, don’t quit’. Then I almost started laughing while I keep thing at the same time ‘ARE you kidding!?!? A F**king fever now!’ I thought it was all happening in slow motion, but no that was just my pace. The legs just would not move. The two people behind me raced by about 50 yards from the finish and I couldn’t generate anything, full on white wash of emptiness. Sadness…

The up shot was it was an amazing amazing race. It was my first trail run and I had a freaking blast. The down hills rocked and felt like they were part of some insane carnival ride. A guy that I was running with asked how long I’d been trail running because I had great technique. I laughed and said it was my first and he had that ‘shit, wait,what’ look on his face and said ‘I had major crashes on my first four, nice job”

It was a nice job, I grabbed 23rd out of 167 at 2:13:03 I was guessing 2:10 based on last years finishing times and was extremely happy w/ the outcome. I can always tell that “another” is born when I hear them say ‘next time I need to add this or that to my training’ and yes I have plenty to add to my training before this one next year.