Race #44 Lake Youngs Nuts 50K
This is a great post in my mind because it is a testament to what the body is capable of doing. It has been approximately 3 and a half months since I completed the Defiance 50K, which was my first 50K. The problem with this race I immediately found out afterward was that my left foot was in severe pain, turns out that I had a stress fracture on my second metatarsal which made it so that I had to wear a walking boot for two months. Well I started training again about the second week of December for my first race of my schedule, the Lost Dutchman Marathon down in Arizona February 17th.
I like running so much now I am always reading other people's blogs, looking at ultrasignup.com for races and results from people I know, comparing my times to other people's times, a little obcessive compulsive on this issue. So I was looking through a race calendar and saw this Lake Youngs Nuts 50K run and I was like that would be a good race possibly. I went to the website and noticed that the price of the race was only 20 dollars so I was like there is no way I could pass this up and it would be a good test of my foot to see where my fitness level was, so of course I talked to my wife and asked her if I could go do it. I super love my wife she is such an amazing support to me and she said that if I wanted to that I could even though it wasn't on my calendar. So of course I signed up 4 days before the event, it was kinda a last minute decision, I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to do it. I knew I would be ok with the training I had been doing for the marathon.
So Saturday morning came, we arrived around 6:50 and there was already several people in the parking lot so I was glad we got there right at the beginning so we didn't have to park on the street. One of the cool things about the race is that the runners bring soup and aid station supplies to fuel the runners. I brought my ultra fare for the station, Swedish Fish and Nutter Butter Bites. I went and picked up my number which was 45 and then went back to the car to stay warm until the 7:30 start. The race started at about 7:37 so it was a little bit late but not to bad. My equipment for this race was a long sleeved tech tee, a pair of running shorts, my Zensah Calf compression sleeves, new Injinji running socks, new Montrail Mountain Masochist shoes, new Garmin 410 GPS watch and a Nathan handheld water bottle. My main focus for this race was just to test out my foot and see how it would fare.
The course was not a very technical trail at all. Basically it is a walking trail that goes around the park. The loop is a 9.6 mile distance. We started out with a big downhill right away which gave way to gently rolling little hills for the first half of the race loop with a few steeper climbs. At about the halfway mark of the loop according to my watch was kinda the big hill of the course. It wasn't to bad but it was the first point in the course where I walked to the top. On the other side of the hill it was again some rolling hills for a bit until you run out of the wide trail and into the "single track". I say single track in a sense that it is only about to hold basically one person and this was the muddy part of the course. Actually the weather for the day was amazing for this time of year. No rain and the air temp was between 40 and 50 degrees so really it was perfect. Toward the end of the loop you are thinking ok I am almost done it should get easier, well turns out no there are a couple of steep little climbs that are hard on the body especially the mind because you think you are close to being done and then it just keeps going.
I went out at a pretty fast pace to start, I was doing about 8 minutes per mile in the beginning and then when I started to hit the hills the average climbed to about 8:30 per mile and then my watch screwed up and changed to a different setting which didn't show the miles per minute setting and for some reason I couldn't get it to go back to the right setting the whole day I was trying while I was running and when I stopped at the aid station but couldn't get it to work so I just changed the setting to the time and figured it out in my mind as I was trudging away. According to the official timer, I finished the first loop in 1 hour and 19 minutes, I spent about 3 minutes in the aid station. My wife was waiting for me all day at the aid station, she is such a trooper and the only spectator besides the people volunteering at the aid station. Glenn Tachiyama was at the aid station and filled up my water bottle for me.
I set out for the second loop and just kinda settled in to a groove and kept myself going at a pretty good pace. I made it through the second lap and I noticed there were people coming at me from the other direction and I thought did I go the wrong way but it turns out some people did one loop the opposite direction which I guess was supposed to be easier. I didn't know this so I was a little worried. I finished my second loop in 1 hour and 28 minutes, and was at 2 hours and 50 minutes after 2 laps or 19.2 miles. I was only in the aid station again for about three minutes.
.JPG)
When I set out for the third loop I asked about people running the other way and the person said that some people who weren't expecting to be in the money did one loop that way so I thought well maybe it's easier and I don't expect to be in the money so for my last loop I went the opposite direction. This turned out to be stupid because it took me longer to do this lap and I think it was actually harder I should have just kept going the way I was going. There was one guy I saw who had done two loops the opposite way and he was ahead of me so that made me mad so I followed him on my third lap but he soon left me in the dust. I ran out of water on the third loop with like 3 miles left so that was not good because I needed water bad I was bonking. My third loop was the slowest of all of them, I came in at 4 hours and 35 minutes and it was 1 hour and 45 minutes for the last lap. I did finally catch up to the guy who did two loops the opposite way toward the end of the loop. I didn't know if I was passing him at the time because the last 2.2 miles of the race were the first 1.1 miles of the loop and back. So when I passed him I didn't know if he was on his last 2.2 miles or just finishing up his third loop. The last 2.2 miles were hard because the last part of that was the big short uphill but at the very end of a race like this your legs are wasted and you have to go up this hill.
I started the last 2.2 miles with Daniel Tomko. He was a guy I was racing with the whole day. I got through the last aid station fast because I just wanted to get done. As I was leaving for the last miles so was he so we started together and then he pulled away from me because I just didn't have enough left in the tank to catch him. After the turnaround though I started to gain on him and was feeling better. I powered through and got to the last big hill just and he was getting to the top of the hill. Almost so close. I was racing to finish in under 5 hours so really I was racing the clock. I got close but finished in 5 hours and 1 minute. I don't have the official results yet but I think I finished like 11 th out of 58 registered 50kers. I was very happy with this considering that I was coming off an injury. This also happened to be my personal best 50K time, although its only my second 50k.
After the race I sat down and had a great time recovering. I had 2 cups
of chicken soup and several other aid station goodies. After the race I
sat next to Daniel Tomko and talked with him for several minutes. I
also saw Jennifer Hughes who I worked with at the Bridle Trails 50K aid
station, she had already completed the race because she did an early
start. All in all it was a good day.
.JPG)
