Resurrection Pass 50 miler 2017 race report

I wrote this post the day after the race, but never posted it. I’m not sure why.

Resurrection Pass 50 was my second attempt at a 50 mile race, and I was really feeling hopeful and well prepared. The race starts in Cooper Landing, and follows the trail over the pass to Hope. The trail itself is only 38 miles long, so to make a full 50 miles, at close to the halfway point runners had to go down a side trail (Devil's Pass) for 6 miles, and back up. So this race goes uphill steadily for 16 miles or so, 6 miles downhill, then 6 miles back uphill to the junction, another couple miles to the Resurrection Pass summit, then down, down, down for the last 20 or so miles.
There is not a list of required gear, but to run 50 miles in the mountains unsupported but for one aid station, you sort of have to do a lot of planning, and depending on the weather, take a lot of gear with you.

Cooper Landing is about 3 hours from my house, so I drove to Cooper Landing the night before. I slept in the back of my Jeep Cherokee at the trailhead. I got everything ready to go in my hydration pack before going to sleep, but didn’t actually put it in, because I knew I’d have to get the bladder out in the morning to mix Tailwind in, and it’s harder with stuff in my pack. I made two drop bags. One was for the aid station at Devil’s Pass, allegedly at mile 22, and I put half my food, a baggie of Tailwind, a long sleeved shirt and warm hat, and dry socks in it. The other drop bag was for the finish line in Hope, with a change of dry clothes and another, warmer, hat.

I slept in the car, but didn’t sleep well. I almost bought a sleeping pad when I was at REI, but didn’t.  I should have.  I woke up at 4:30, and ate a nutrition bar right away. Got dressed, long tights, t-shirt. I wore a hoodie until just before race start to stay warm. I packed my new Goretex rain jacket that I had just bought at REI. Overall, I wound up being pretty happy with my clothing choices. Until I got cold. More on that later.

After I got dressed, I ate 2 packets of oatmeal with hot water from my Jetboil. Cleaned my bowl and spoon, mixed my Tailwind, packed my hydration pack. Bathroom x2. Ready to go.

Just barely light at race start at 6:00 am. I knew I would be slow, so I started at the back, to avoid everyone passing me. Trail started going uphill right away. I hate starting off uphill, but it warms you up fast. I followed my running coach’s advice, and started off what was actually fairly slow, but it felt hard because my body wasn’t really happy to be moving yet. Wound up behind a guy for a while who was speed hiking the race. His walk was a slow run for me. Finally passed him once I was warmed up a little, but he was never more than a few minutes behind me.

The trail wound through the woods and gradually uphill. Somewhere around mile 5, it leveled out a lot, and I started picking up my pace. Between miles 5 and 10 were my fastest miles of the whole race, except I had to stop a couple times to take care of biological needs. The trail itself was well maintained and mostly pretty smooth and runnable.

After about mile 10, it got somewhat steep again. I was glad my coach said to walk a lot in this section, because I did. The climb on this trail is so gradual, though, that it mostly doesn’t look steep. There’s 4900+ feet of elevation gain in this race, but it doesn’t seem like it, until you try to run fast.

There was supposed to be a turnoff for Devil’s Pass at mile 16. The Resurrection Pass trail is only 38 or so miles long, so you have to run about 6 miles down Devil’s Pass and back up to make the full 50 miles. My GPS said I was at 16.96 by the time I hit the turnoff for Devil’s Pass. I thought I would be able to make good time going down Devil’s Pass, but the trail was not nearly as runnable as the Resurrection Pass trail. I probably should have pushed harder through this section, though.

All boulder fields should look like this.

The Devil's Pass trail is rocky, muddy, etc. I found it more difficult to run. There were a few boulder fields, and stream crossings on boulders. The aid station was supposed to be mile 22, but was mile 23.5 according to my GPS, and I took about a 10-12 minute stop. Changed socks, grabbed a snickers, and more fuel, refilled water. My 2L bladder was just about empty. The volunteer didn’t fill it all the way back up, only about ¾, which wound up being not enough water. Left the long sleeved shirt and warm hat in my bag. Maybe a mistake, because I did get cold later. Rang the cowbell to officially reach the checkpoint. Speed hiker guy came into and left aid station a few minutes behind me, then passed me when I stopped to pee. I never saw him again. He finished an hour ahead of me.

Back up Devil’s Pass. I slipped on a stream crossing, got the fresh socks wet, landed on my hands and knees on the rocks, almost face planted in the stream, but caught myself. That sort of hurt. Took a few minutes to shake it off. Stupid Salomon Speedcross trail shoes are great for most things, but really suck on wet rock.

This is where I fell. This was also my last picture, haha.

I was starting to get tired and walked a lot. I ate a Snickers bar, in two halves, half an hour apart. (Much later I wondered if the elevation could have had something to do with how quickly I tired in this race.)

The summit of Res Pass was supposed to be at mile 30, but was at mile 32 by my GPS. Coach said to push hard approaching the summit. I felt like I had no push. Tired, but still mostly enjoying the race. Around mile 30 or 31 the rain started. Just sprinkles at first, then more. By mile 33 or 34, it was pouring. Puddles everywhere. Wet, slippery trail. Wet feet. Then wet legs, wet, cold hands. I had my new Goretex rain jacket, thank goodness, so my core was dry, but I got chilled. The last 20 miles were mostly downhill, and I had planned to try to run them fast, but I was miserable, cold, wet, sore, tired and just creeping along. I kept telling myself to run faster, and I just couldn’t do it. Trail turned into a stream or huge, ankle deep puddles in most places. I wanted the race to be over so bad and I felt like I would never finish. Ate a king sized Nutrageous bar in 3 sections. That was delicious.

I ate either Skratch or Honeystinger chews every 30 minutes religiously, except when I had the candy bars instead. No major stomach issues or intolerance. Got pretty sick of the chews, but not to the point that I couldn’t force myself to eat them.
Ran out of water/Tailwind at what I thought was 3 miles from the finish, but turned out to be 5 miles. Was too cold and too close to want to stop to filter more water, so I just kept going. Tried catching some rain in my hands, but it didn’t work very well. 
I think the biggest thing slowing me down was my head. I get into a negative thought cycle when I get tired and/or sore, and let myself focus on all the bad things, and it puts me in a downward spiral. I get discouraged, and lose all my energy and motivation. Somewhere around mile 40 I swore I was never running again. By mile 50 by my GPS, I was convinced I was never going to be able to finish the race, even at a walk.

My GPS said 52.5 when I finally reached the trailhead at about 8:40 PM, to find no finish line. I stood there for a few minutes, wondering if I was done, and the RD finally hopped out of his warm, dry car, and asked if I was finishing. I said, “Am I finished?” I was.

I changed into warm dry clothes, and got a ride back to my car. I heated some water in my Jetboil stove and had some dehydrated pad thai that was delicious, and a Hershey bar with almonds. Crawled into my sleeping bag. Slept terribly, because I couldn’t stretch my legs out all the way in my car, and my legs hurt all night. Was awake by 7 am, and heading home.

My legs hurt really bad all day on Sunday, and I ran my one mile pretty painfully at something like a 16:30 mile. And really, it was more of a shuffle than a run.  The next day, they were still really sore, but I felt like I could actually run, slowly, at about a 13:30 pace. By the third day, I was feeling much better and my legs only have a small amount of residual soreness.

I’m really excited to be running this race again this August, and I am hoping I can perform better in the second half than I did last year. I know what to expect, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot about keeping my mind more focused and positive, even when I’m tired. Plus, I’m running it with a friend, Michele, who is always good company and has a sarcastic mouth when she’s struggling, which makes it easier to bear somehow. So we will do fine, I’m sure. LOL.

I've Got This

So, in my last post,  clear back in January, I talked about our trip to Hawaii. I haven’t posted since then, because of a couple of things. First the obvious: life gets hectic and blogging doesn’t get done. I’ve said that before. But seriously, for the last 6 months, my husband and I have been grappling with some pretty big potential changes. I wasn’t ready to talk about them on the blog, but I had a hard time even thinking of anything else. So I didn’t write. 

But now, the hard decisions have been made, and it’s just a matter of planning and execution now. 

So, in January we went to Hawaii. Like I said in my last post, we wound up having long discussions about whether we could live in Hawaii. What I didn’t talk about in that post was what happened when we got home. On January 14, we came home to Alaska, from Hawaii. Thanks to Jeep Uconnect, I was able to start my Jeep as soon as we touched down in Anchorage and I took my phone out of airplane mode. That way, it was nice and warm by the time I got my luggage and we got out to the parking lot. But wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.

I walked out of the airport, fresh from the warm air of Hawaii, into the cold of an Alaskan winter:

This is not the parking lot at the airport. But it is winter.

 took one breath, and that’s when I knew. I didn’t want to live here anymore. I immediately, desperately wanted to turn around and go back. And 6 months later, even in the midst of an Alaskan summer, I haven’t changed my mind.

All winter long, when I would say how much I want to move to Hawaii,  James would say “let’s see if you say that in the summer.” The thing is, sometimes Alaskan summers are pretty freaking awesome. The warm, but not hot, sunny summers, that is. Not the cloudy, chilly rainy summers. Those suck. I was sitting outside the other day, and I had to admit that if Alaska was like this all year long, I probably wouldn’t want to move.

I also totally love that it stays light all night here in the summer time.

(Pic taken at 1:54 am)

But Alaska isn’t like that all year.  Summer in Alaska is mercilessly short, which leads me to the other thing that happened, one that was very sad. A friend and coworker, Jeanni, was in a car accident and killed one Saturday. At her memorial, and also on Facebook, one of our mutual friends told a story about the last time she had seen Jeanni before she passed away.  Jeanni absolutely loved unicorns, and she had come across some fancy unicorn bubble gum. Our other friend encouraged her to open it and have a piece, but Jeanni decided she would save that gum for a special occasion, and settled for chewing some “normal" gum instead. A few days later, she was gone, the gum she was saving for a special occasion,  still unopened. Our mutual friend ended the story by saying “Just chew the damn gum." 

Um, mind blown. Such a simple story about a pack of gum that didn’t matter in the big scheme of things at all, probably not even to Jeanni. But oh boy, it resonated with me. Big time. (Thanks, Amber). At that point, James and I had about figured out that we “eventually” wanted to move to Hawaii, but who knew what eventually meant. Maybe in 3 years when my youngest graduates from high school and we don’t have any more kids at home? Maybe never, and just vacation there every couple years? Who knew?

But seriously. Coming home shifted my mindset. Then hearing that story made it impossible for me to ignore it. I really started thinking, long and hard, about what I really wanted. Alaska has warm weather at most 1/3 of the year. The rest of the time, I just wait for it to come back.  And when the weather is warm, there’s an almost frantic feeling in me that I have to wring out every possible second of enjoyment because it goes by so fast. I’m done with that.

I’m 48 years old, and I’ll be 49 in a few months. I’ll be 50 soon. Right now, I can run, and hike, swim, and snorkel, and I can probably learn to paddle board. I have some health problems that may or may not affect my mobility in the future. I have no idea how long I can enjoy this lifestyle. But I know that I want to enjoy it as much as I can while I can, and I want to make it last as long as possible.  I know that I don’t want to spend 2/3 of the rest of my life (the winters) waiting for the other 1/3 (the summers). That’s just not a good use of my time. Is this what they call a mid-life crisis?

Now that I know what I want, I’m not going to wait any longer than I have to.  And luckily, haha, my husband, while not as downright obsessive about it as I am, is at least ok with it, and willing to go along with my impulsive decisions.

So there it is. What all this talk boils down to is, we are moving to Hawaii:

 as soon as we can make it happen. We still have to get the house ready to sell,  and we don’t want to move our youngest in the middle of a school year, so we are planning for next summer. A lot of things can happen between now and next summer, so nothing is set in stone yet, but preparations have begun. Lists have been made. We've started selling things we aren’t taking with us. It’s going to be a busy, hectic year, but what’s new? I excel at busy and hectic. I’ve got this. 

Hawaii

James and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in December. This past September, we were out to dinner and got talking about how, in almost 25 years of marriage we had never really been on a vacation just the two of us.  We had been camping and things with the kids, and I had gone to the Beach with my mom. There was the time in October 2012, when he was away out of state driving truck long haul, that I flew down to SLC and spent a week with him in his truck.  We went to South Carolina and to Texas to see Meghan and Ryan's boot camp graduations.  But no actual vacations. 

The 25 year anniversary seemed like a land mark, so we talked about how we should go on vacation, just the 2 of us. Someplace warm. We both wanted to go to Hawaii and before I knew it, we were sitting there in the restaurant making plane, hotel, and car reservations. The week of our anniversary, tickets were really expensive, so we searched for the soonest relatively cheap fares and settled on January 6-13. We were going to Hawaii!! The 3+ months between took forever and we were constantly telling ourselves to hang on because although life was crazy, in a little while, we were going to Hawaii. And so we did.

And oh my gosh, we had so much fun!!! 

We got there at 10 pm on Saturday the 6th, and I had to take my hoodie off as soon as I was off the plane. We got to the hotel and our room was FREEZING, because the housekeeping staff had left the A/C on all day. We had a big sliding glass door out to our lanai though, and we turned the A/C off, opened the door, and were then quite comfortable. We played this game with housekeeping all week, leaving the door open when we left, then having to open it again and turn off the A/C when we would come back every day, LOL. 

I ran every morning, and got lots of miles in. The first few days I really struggled to maintain my pace, I think because I'm not used to the heat and humidity, but by the end of the week I had adjusted pretty well. I wound up with a lot of soaking wet stinky running clothes though. I ran around the base of Diamond Head one morning:

did hill repeats on it once:

 ran on the path beside the beach:

 and through Waikiki:

I ate seafood every day. I had lots of shrimp, tried seared ahi (only cooked on the outside, very tasty), and poke (yum):

I had fresh pineapple (completely delicious), fresh coconut (blech), dragon fruit (which was prettier than it was tasty), and two different kinds of small, local bananas.

We snorkeled:

  laid on the beach in the sun:

hiked:

 drove around the coast:

and watched fire dancers:

Really, we had a fabulous time. And we enjoyed the warm weather so much, we wound up having long discussions about whether we could move there. That's still undetermined,  LOL.  But we are definitely going back. I think we will visit the Big Island next.

Summer 18 racing plans

My last long race of each summer seems to be in mid October, the Zombie half marathon. After that race is over, winter is definitely on its way and the running season is winding down for me. There are some long winter races in Alaska, but I don't feel confident enough with my winter survival skills to be out in the wilderness for several hours, potentially alone for most of it. Alaska kills people that aren't prepared, and I'm not prepared for that.

But it seems like as soon as I am done racing, I start wishing they would hurry up and come out with the next year's running calendar. Mostly, I have to wait until around New Year's to get firm dates on the next season's races, and I am really not good at waiting. I'm really bad at it actually. Luckily, the new year is finally here and I have gotten my 2018 racing schedule nailed down through Labor Day. 

Without further ado, here's my plan, although there aren't specific dates available for a couple of them yet:

February 10: Love Run 5k with Brooker. We've done this one together the last few years.

May ? : Turnagain Arm Trail Run - 8 miles

I really wanted to do this one the last couple of years, but in 2016 I didn't sign up fast enough and it sold out in a couple hours. I learned my lesson, and in 2017, I was signed up within 5 minutes of registration opening. Then I had to do some emergency travel for work, and didn't land back in Anchorage until about 2 hours after the start time. The scenery on this run is amazing and I was so disappointed. So I'm trying again this year.

June 2-3: Alaska Endurance Trail Run, Fairbanks 

You can sign up for 6, 12, or 24 hours, on a roughly 6 mile loop. I did the 24 hour race last year, but had to stop after about 18 hours due to dehydration [http://thefitterknitter.blogspot.com/2017/06/alaska-endurance-trail-run-race-report.html]  I am going to do better this year.

June 23 : Kesugi Ridge full traverse (30 miles), Denali State Park

Last year, I struggled with my running, which is a major part of why I got a running coach. I missed the cutoff at the halfway point last year, and didn't get to finish. [http://thefitterknitter.blogspot.com/2017/07/kesugi-ridge-traverse-race-recap.html] Again, doing better this year. Making the cutoff, finishing the race.

July 14: Angel Creek 50, Fairbanks

I did this race in 2016, hoping to make it my first 50 miler, but did not finish after getting lost in the fog. [http://thefitterknitter.blogspot.com/2016/10/angel-creek-50-miler-race-report.html]. This is becoming repetitive. Gotta start making my racing goals the first time.

August ??: Resurrection Pass 50

This was a great race, and I can't wait to do it again. 

September 1: A Day at the Beach. I've done the 12 hour in 2016 and the 6 hour in 2017. I will probably do the 12 or 24 hour this year. 

There might be a couple more, like the Girdwood trail marathon or the Equinox, in late September/ early October, plus there's the Zombie half in mid October.

I think it's going to be a pretty fun summer.

2017

In 2017, I:

• Ran every day, an average of 3.3 miles per day
• Ran 1212.8 miles
• Completed my first 50 mile race
• Had to stop running my first 24 hour race after 18 hours, due to dehydration
• Ran my fastest 5k ever 
• Gained 5 pounds (whoops)
• Worked way too much
• Got a promotion (I start my new job January 15)
• Got a new Jeep
• Celebrated my 25th anniversary
• booked tickets to Hawaii (we leave January 6)
• Started working with a running coach (she's awesome)
• Went to Dillingham AK for work (I had never been there before)
• Child #1 almost got married (it got postponed, not cancelled)
• Child #2 came home for the summer to work with his dad
• Child #3 turned 18
• Child #3 also got to participate in a national cooking competition
• Child #4 started high school

And I don't even know what else. It was a great year, overall. I hope 2018 will rock just as much!! I've got big plans! 

Whirlwind

Whirlwind pretty accurately describes my life this summer. I've been so busy, and I am constantly thinking, oh I should blog about that,  but never seem to find the time to do it.
What has kept me busy this summer? Well, running, fishing, travelling, working, and just life in general. I think I worked almost every Saturday this summer, unless I was out of town for a race or something.
My oldest son, Ryan, spent the summer with us. It was amazing to have him home, but honestly having one extra person in my house didn't make things any more crazy, except for the extra sibling bickering that drove me crazy.
I have tons to blog about though. I just need to set side time to do it.
I ran the Resurrection Pass 50 miler 2 and a half weeks ago. This coming Saturday I am running the 6 hour version of A Day at the Beach. I did this one last year too, but did the 12 hour. With just 3 weeks between Res Pass 50 and this, though, my coach and I decided I should do the 6 hour this year, since 3 weeks is not a lot of time between races.
The first week after Res Pass 50 was just recovery. For 4 days, I just ran very slow 1 mile streak savers. The first one took something like 16:50 and was very painful. Then there were a few days of run/walk intervals, gradually increasing both overall time and the ratio of running:walking. This is the first time I've had such a structured recovery, and it really worked.
This week's training:

Sunday: the last of the run/walk intervals for recovery.
Monday: I was supposed to run 5 easy miles, but I wound up working more than 12 hours straight, and I wound up only getting about 3 miles in before it got too dark. I didn't have my headlamp with me.
Tuesday:  a 1 mile day.
Wednesday: I was supposed to get 8 miles in, but Ryan was leaving for the airport in the morning and I decided I needed to spend some time with him. We had dinner and played a game of Monopoly, and at 11:50 I realized I hadn't run that day yet, so out for a speedy 1 mile last minute.
Thursday:  6 miles on the coastal trail. The target was 2 miles warm up, 4 miles at a half marathon pace, and 2 miles cool down. I did it, but it felt really tough.
Friday: hill repeats. Those were FUN
Saturday: 5 easy miles. This was the only time all week besides the 1 milers that I was able to take Daisy with me. I think she had fun:

Total mileage for the week: 23.45

Kesugi Ridge Traverse race recap

In my last post, I mentioned that I was running the Kesugi Ridge Traverse a couple of Saturdays ago, June 24. Well, I did, and it was awesome, and I will tell you all about it.

Kesugi Ridge is in the Denali area, so it is a couple of hours’ driving distance from my house. The race starts at the Little Coal Creek trailhead, and ends at Byer’s Lake campground and trailhead. The race director had arranged a free (although rocky) group camping spot at Byer’s Lake, so I decided to head up Friday night and spend the night. Becky and her friend Vivian decided to come with me (the same kids that crewed for me at AETR), which again worked out well. When we got to Byer’s Lake, the group campsite was as rocky as advertised, but I was able to find a fairly comfortable spot right next to the only other person I knew that was running the race, my friend Chris, who was also at AETR, and managed an amazing 57 miles in his 12 hour race. He’s fast, so I knew I wouldn’t see him once the race actually started.  The girls slept in the back of my Cherokee, and I put up my 1 person tent, and was quite comfortable. Chris lent me one of his inflatable sleeping pads, and I have been tempted to buy one before, and now I’m convinced I have to have one.

I always worry that I am going to oversleep for a morning race (even though I never have), so I set multiple alarms on my cell phone. I woke up half an hour before my first alarm, though, and briefly thought about going back to sleep, but didn’t. I found I had slept very comfortably, and wasn’t sore anywhere, which is not my normal camping experience. Gotta get a sleeping pad.

It’s a good thing I got an early start, because I was still barely ready at go time. I made a quick breakfast of Optavia blueberry and almond hot cereal (yummy) with water boiled in my new Jetboil stove. That’s a new purchase for me, and this was my first time using it. The instructions were frustrating, as they were all pictures, without written instructions, and I found it to be too much to decipher first thing in the morning. Chris, however, is well versed in Jetboil use, and showed me pretty quickly how it worked. That thing was amazingly fast! It had my ½ cup of water boiled in seconds! I mentally went through my packing while I ate, and decided which foods and how much I was bringing with me. Then I packed up my tent and sleeping bag, returned the sleeping pad to Chris, and we were on our way to the Little Coal Creek trailhead, where the race began, 20 miles further up the Parks Highway.

When I got there, I tried to quickly get organized and get ready to go. What I thought was plenty of time turned out to be barely enough. In fact, a friend lent me a Delorme In Reach satellite beacon with tracking and text capabilities and I didn’t even get it turned on. I decided that if I needed it, I would turn it on then. In fact, I didn’t even get my GPS watch searching for the satellite soon enough, and the race started before I even had a signal. I was .2 miles into the race by the time my watch was ready to go. Oh well. I just had to add .2 to all my distances.

So, this race has a pretty tough cutoff at about the halfway point. You have to make it to about mile 14.5 in 4 hours to be able to continue the race. If you don’t make it, you have to hike out at Ermine Hill instead of going all the way to Byer’s Lake. I knew, thanks to simple math, that I was going to have to really push to have a chance at making the cutoff. So I did not stop to take any pictures at all, because I didn’t want to waste a single precious second. All the photos are borrowed from when I hiked this with my family last summer.

The first mile is sort of rolling trail through the woods. But the next 2+ miles are pretty much straight uphill. You gain over 1000 feet of elevation in those 2 miles. Those miles took me a long time, like 26 minutes per mile. That ate a big chunk out of my 4 hours. Over an hour had passed by the time I got to the top of the ridge. 

I was already starting to worry, but I had given this a lot of thought ahead of time. I decided that I was going to keep pushing, and try my best to make the cutoff, but also not stress about it if I didn’t. Either way, I was going to be spending most of the day running in the mountains and I was determined to enjoy it no matter what. So every time I started worrying about the cutoff, I reminded myself to just keep going and do the best I could and not worry about the time.

Once up on top of the ridge, the terrain becomes rolling, with lots of ups and downs, but is very rocky. I found that there were only a few places that I could confidently run at anything close to full speed. I tripped lots of times, but didn’t actually fall. 

And I have to say I HATE crossing boulder fields, but I did it. They were much easier with my running pack than they were with a 35 pound backpack the previous summer.

(Did I say I hate boulder fields? Well, I do. Here I am last summer, picking my way across one while my husband patiently waits. And occasionally helpfully tells me to "step on that one")

The weather was sunny and very warm, and there were beautiful views of Denali for a little while before it got clouded over.

I ran and I ran, and I pushed as hard as I could given the terrain, but I didn’t make the cutoff. I missed it by 36 minutes. I was disappointed, but I’m confident I’ll make it next year. After passing the Ermine Hill junction, you have to go about ¼ mile farther down the trail to get to the checkpoint, and it was up a steep hill. Climbing that hill, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to continue running, was the only time in the race that I got really frustrated. I was still feeling really good, and felt confident that if I had made the cutoff, I would have been able to finish the race. After checking in with the volunteer at the checkpoint, I stopped to finally take some pictures of the beautiful rocks all around me, then headed back down the hill to the Ermine Hill trail junction. 

Once I got back down to the junction, I took off my shoes and socks to tend to my feet, which had blistered during the race and been ignored. They felt much better after putting chapstick on the blisters and letting them be bare for a couple of minutes.

My plan was to run down the 3.75 miles or so to the trailhead. The race sweep was just behind me, and we quickly caught up to a girl that had gotten to the checkpoint about 10 minutes before I did. She was not in very good shape. It was really warm and sunny, and we had all been out in the sun for close to 5 hours by that point. She was stumbling down the trail with her trekking poles swinging aimlessly. I called out and when she turned around, her gaze was clearly unfocused. She said she wasn’t feeling very good, and I believed her. As we were talking to her, sort of assessing her condition, we passed a tiny streamlet that crossed the trail. I encouraged her to dip her buff in the water, which was nicely cold, and drape it around her neck. She did that, and I tried to get her to do the same with her headband, but no luck. I took my hat off and dipped it in the stream too and the cold water felt really good on my head.  We found a patch of shade and had her sit and rest for a bit, and encouraged her to drink some water. She did, and promptly threw up. I was starting to worry that she might not make it out on her own feet, but after resting for a while, she was able to eat a few dried mangos and drink some more water and kept that down. Soon she was looking much better, and we got to our feet and started moving again. 

We crossed another steam and I made her get her buff wet again, but she was doing much better, and was able to make it all the way to the trailhead under her own power. After a few minutes wait, a shuttle (a guy in a Subaru that was helping out with the race) picked us up and took us to the finish area at Byer’s Lake, where I got some food and watched some other runners finish.

I was hoping to see Chris finish, but by the time I was ready to go (and the girls were begging to go), he wasn’t in yet. Chris is a strong runner, though, so I wasn’t worried, and headed home. Turns out I should have worried. Apparently, several runners really struggled with the heat and suffered badly from cramping, including Chris. He had a really tough day out there, and since he is a friend, I felt bad that I wasn’t there to support him when he was able to make it across that finish line. I’ve heard second hand, though, about his commitment to making it across that finish line himself, even after being encouraged to let a 4 wheeler bring him in, and I am super impressed with his strength and persistence.

It really was super hot and sunny, and while the weather was a blessing because rain can really make for a crappy run with poor visibility, you are completely exposed the entire time you are up on that ridge, with no shade anywhere to get a break from that unrelenting sun beating on the rocks. The trail sweeps were familiar with the course and had Delorme satellite beacons in case of emergency, and they were friendly and supportive of the slower runners (including me). This was an excellent, well organized, well prepared race and I completely enjoyed every minute I was out there.

I mentioned in my last post that I was using this run as sort of a decision point for Angel Creek 50. Although I felt great, I did not make the cutoff at the halfway point, and I have decided to not try to run Angel Creek 50 this year. Instead, I am going to focus on being ready for Resurrection Pass 50, which is on August 12, because I think if I can get some quality training in between now and then, it’s totally doable for me. Angel Creek will have to wait til next year. I know Travis and Chris are both running it though, and I wish both of those guys lots of luck. Travis missed the cut off by 1 minute last year, after battling through some nasty conditions. The weather looks like it could be much better this year, and I think he’s got it in the bag. I can’t wait to see how they do!