SD50, Escondido, CA
50 miles
Elevation Gain: 4,682 ft
I can not describe the feeling of finishing this race 2 hours faster than my previous 50 miler. I didn’t think it was possible until I was more than halfway to accomplishing it. But how did I get there?
I started the race with an ambitious but attainable goal. But I also had this circling in my head: “Don’t burn out. Pace yourself steady.” Because this course was “easier” with few technical sections and less relative climbing than many of my races, it would be easy to start out at a pace that was unsustainable for the distance. So as others took off feeling fresh and enthusiastic in the dark morning before sunrise, I let them go and stuck to my plan. Suddenly the sun was up and 10 miles had passed. I felt like I could use a bathroom break and those were few and far between so I actually stopped and waited about 10 minutes for one of the only porta-potties I would encounter all day. I didn’t want to carry any extra discomfort with me today 😉. Here, at mile 10 I had my first drop bag, took what I needed, shoved food in my face and was off.
Soon I linked up with new trail friends. I noticed that looking around I saw few women (turns out less than 25% of the participants were women) but I had a great group of dudes to spend the day with. I passed more than 20 miles with a rotating cast of new friends, but was almost never alone. Having the company made the time fly. We chatted about EVERYTHING under the sun, poked fun at each other, and offered encouragement. Everything was going according to plan and suddenly I had reached the 50k mark in record time, setting a new 50k PR for myself. I had a brief moment of fear wondering if I had gone too fast and would pay later, but decided: no, the course is easier than any of my 50ks and I am ready for this.
Somewhere around that 50k mark my run-brain started to decompose and my math and memory were challenged. I convinced myself that I had made a huge mistake at the last aid station and that was my last drop bag for the race and I had not taken enough nutrition. So I started to ration the food I had with, thinking that what was in my pockets was all I had until the finish line (I have celiac so aid stations are not a guarantee of safe gluten-free food). This, combined with the fact that I had spent 4 very hot miles drinking plain water because my electrolytes didn’t appeal created a situation I would pay for. I created 2 problems for myself: calorie deficit and hydration problem. And I didn’t notice until the miles started feeling like they were taking days and my joy for running was nowhere to be seen.
I called this the Pit of Despair (Princess Bride fans…?). Later I was able to figure out that I was in that Pit for 3ish miles, about 40 minutes. You may think 1) wow, you were going slow. And 2) that is a tiny percentage of a 50 mile race. You are correct on both accounts. I would say I walked that entire stretch, but according to my stats that is not true. I just don’t remember being able to run. It was an emotional Pit. In my experience we hit the Wall emotionally before we hit the Wall physically. So, I knew it was a big red flag when I didn’t want to close the gap of 10 feet to join my trail friend ahead of me to talk his ear off. I also knew the longer I stayed in the Pit, the bigger the problem I would have to deal with. So I started problem solving. How many calories are in my pockets? I had baggies with instant mashed potatoes as a solid food choice for aid stations (just add water: carbs, salt and some belly-filling nutrients that gels can’t compete with) and I had water in my bottle. Why wait for an aid station? I mixed that up and started eating as I hiked. Next: electrolytes. They weren’t causing GI distress, but I knew I wasn’t CHOOSING to drink them so they were in fact a problem. I had salt pills. This was breaking the “nothing new on race day” rule, but options were slim since I knew I couldn’t continue without something. I took a salt pill. By the time I arrived at the next aid station, a short 1.5 mile trek, I felt that I had covered the distance to the moon and I was already feeling better. I still thought I had no more fuel ahead so I drank a bunch of Coke, ate all the bananas I could, and washed my face with a car wash sponge and a bucket of water that all the other gross runners had already rubbed on their nasty bodies and headed on my way. Lo and behold, within a few meters I was jogging. Half a mile after that I was singing out loud and dancing down the trail causing day hikers to really question if the area was safe for them. And then another mile later I realized my mistake and ate everything in my pockets because I did indeed have one more drop bag just ahead.
I reached my drop bag feeling like a different person, loaded up my pockets and took off again. All day I had been joking with my trail pals that it was not a 50 mile race, it was a 43 mile race followed by a 7 mile fun run. Because for the first time ever, I had a pacer. My husband was joining me at mile 43 to pace me in for the final stretch. Again, run brain failed me and I thought I would see him at mile 42… disappointment led to a very slow mile to actually reach him. And when I came around the bend and saw him there, smiling and waiting for me I was crying with joy, sprinting to him with open arms like we had been separated for a lifetime… because that’s what it felt like. I had given him specific instructions. He had 1 job: occupy my mind. My husband is not a chatty guy but oh boy did he rise to the task. His other usual job is to feed me something delicious at the end of a race. While we were running, he asked what I wanted to eat for dinner and I shut that conversation down fast “we can’t talk about food. I barely have enough calories and you will make me realize I’m hungry.” The only other topic I shut down was his small comment about an ache in his knee from a dodgeball game a few days before. I interrupted and told him “don’t talk about pain, even in your body. It will make me realize the pain in my body that my mind has been shutting down for hours.”
Before I picked up my husband at mile 43 I realized that I was close to missing a goal I had developed as the race progressed: finish without a headlamp. So those last miles I was racing the sun. It was setting, but I was running. Then when there was barely light left in the sky I heard something…. It was the finish line.
I beat all my goals, set 2 new PRs, finished 7th in my age group and in the middle of the pack overall. And I never took my headlamp out, a goal I didn’t even set until about 3pm that day.