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| Run/Jog | 51.10 Miles |
8,307 AEG |
| | Run/Jog | 51.10 Miles | 17 Hrs 16 Mns | | 3.11 mph |
| 8,307 ft AEG | 51 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Decided to come back to this one after 9 years, since they improved the course, I didn't mind the idea of a trip to The Boat, and I wasn't satisfied with my first run (though I did finish it). Something about the best laid plans, but for a variety of reasons my training was terrible and I went into this year's event in the worst shape I've been in in a decade. I did, however, have experience on my side this time, as the 2015 event as just my 2nd 100 mile run.
The weather forecast looked a little better this year, with no rain, not as cold at night (I think it got down to 8 degrees last time), and still relatively pleasant afternoon temps.
The race still starts out with a climb straight up the ski slope, and I knew right off the bat that things were going to be rough. Probably a couple hundred yards before reaching the top of the gondola, I was nearly to the point of needing to stop and rest. Fortunately, the last couple miles up to Mt Werner are a bit more mellow, but I was still pretty beat by the time I got to the nice runnable single track. Didn't run nearly as much of that as I would've liked, although I started feeling a bit better on the way down Fish Creek.
By the time I got the the Fish Creek TH turnaround, I was seriously considering abandoning this attempt and just running down the road into Steamboat. Took my 5.5 hours to do those first 17 miles, compared to the 2015 where I got to downtown Steamboat in 5 (Fish Creek TH is where the new course departs from the old route). I decided to keep going, and headed right back up Fish Creek trail. At around the upper falls, I started seeing the competitive runners who started 4 hours later coming the other direction. I'm proud to say I (barely) arrived at Long Lake at mile 24 before any of them caught up.
Between Long Lake and Summit Lake, I actually started thinking I might be able to finish this thing - I really only needed to maintain a 3mph pace, and I was doing almost 4mph on the flat-to-gradual-uphill road. Then, at 14 mile mostly-downhill down Flash Of Gold trail and Spring Creek trail into Steamboat... Unfortunately, my legs really stopped moving here, and the last 5 miles into Dry Lake I struggled to even do 3mph. At this point I pretty much knew it wasn't happening, but I figured I should be able to make it to Olympian Hall in Steamboat, where my friend's family would likely be waiting.
I left Dry Lake at around midnight, at which point it finally felt cool enough to put on another layer. A half mile, while I was chatting with a couple other runners, we heard some snorting, which the flashlight revealed to be a couple of moose within 50 feet of the trail. Always feel really vulnerable around those things, but fortunately they just seemed to be warning us to stay on the trail. I actually had a good mile of decent movement on the way down Spring Creek, but by the time I got to town, I couldn't muster more than a power walk.
I ran into my friend heading back up in Downtown Steamboat, meaning he was ~15 miles ahead of me, and he would absolutely crush it. By this time it had actually gotten quite cold; it seemed there was an inversion unlike the last time, when it was much colder up high. I can say I arrived at Olympian Hall a good 15 minutes before I timed out, but I decided to pull the plug.
All said, early on I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to make it 50 miles, and I think having a lot of experience with this helped get me that far. But it was a serious kick in the butt, and this failure might actually motivate me to finally start focus on getting more consistent aerobic fitness. And I actually liked The Boat much more after having a couple of days to just hang out there, so I'm leaning towards giving this one another try and finally having a Run Rabbit Run attempt I can feel good about. |
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