Recapping My 50-Mile Ultra Trail Race

Nothing beats the "one thing at a time" mantra.

A Return To Writing

It’s been way too long since I’ve published a post. It hasn’t been for a lack of motivation. I’ve sketched out and outlined plenty of ideas for posts, but for one reason or another, I haven’t sat down to convert those outlines into prose. And like with most things in life, the longer you procrastinate, the more difficult it becomes to end the procrastination period.

But this Substack isn’t something I want to let wilt away and die, even if my posting is intermittent. I enjoy the writing and the challenge of converting my ideas into a structured format that is hopefully interesting and clear to whoever reads it. Thankfully, every so often, I get an email alerting me to a new Substack follower, and it jogs that part of my brain that is operating in the background, thinking of ideas I want to explore and write about.

So, I am finally back with a fresh post and hoping to publish 1-2 posts a month until the start of the NFL season, which is the beginning of my busy season for work.

Ultra-Running

Two years ago, I completed my first ultra running race and wrote about it here. For those unfamiliar, an “ultra” is any race longer than a marathon, and these are quite often trail races as well. That post didn’t focus too much on the actual race I ran two years ago, but explored the oft asked question I get from people: “Why do you choose to do this?”.

Last year I ran my second ever ultra race, the Lake Sonoma 50 (technically 51 miles, but who’s counting), which has since been converted into a 100km distance in order to earn back its status as a Western States Qualifier. I had always planned to talk about that race, given it was a much different experience than my first race. And, with my third ultra race coming up in about a week and a half, recapping last year’s race felt like a logical post topic for me to jump back into things.

When I ran the MST 50k, I was truly a trail racing and ultra newbie. I understood things about the sport on a very surface level. I logged enough miles and trail time to be able to finish the race, but I wasn’t super prepared for the distance. I wasn’t quite sure what gear I needed. I took in enough Ultra content to know I needed to fuel, but I didn’t have a dedicated plan. I devoured whatever I could get my hands on during the race to ensure I took in enough calories (honestly not the worst plan for a rookie), but I didn’t specifically plan my foods around their macros (carbs, protein, fiber, etc.). Between that and the ridiculous weather for that race, it ended up being an oddly “chill” experience.

A good microcosm of this was my first stop with crew access. My crew consisted of my amazing family - my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. My tracking was a bit delayed, so when I got to the aid station, they were still up the road getting ready. My sister spotted me and shouted, “Omg he’s here, he’s here”, and they rushed down to meet me. It was a funny, light moment in a race that was a celebratory introduction into these weird, hard races I wanted to do more of.

This isn’t to say that my race two years ago was “easy” or that my race at Lake Sonoma (LS50) was super serious. But it was a little bit more intense. The increases in distance (an extra 18 miles) and, particularly, the elevation (10kish feet of gain, an extra 7,500) demonstrated that this was going to be more of a challenge. My goal, like in my first race, was still to just finish, regardless of time. But “just finishing” went from a foregone conclusion (my first race was tough, but there was no cut off or finish deadline, so it was only a matter of how long it would take me) to a truly unknown proposition.

With the increasing challenge came more intense training and planning, particularly around nutrition. So while I still had somewhat of a chill vibe, there’s no doubt that the challenge had increased, which left me taking things more seriously (in a fun way, but still). The uncertainty of my ability to finish along with family and friends making the long trip to California to cheer me on and crew for me, led me to feeling more pressure.

The result was a much more emotional journey than the year prior.

Lake Sonoma 50

I woke up early on race day (all these races have very early start times given A) you want to beat the heat if possible or B) you’re slow like me and want to finish before it’s too dark). I wish I could say I was well rested, but I always sleep horribly the night before a race. I’d like to get my pre-race anxiety figured out at some point. I know to some extent it’s normal; even Dean Karnazes in his books talks about fitful sleeps the night before races. What I hate is when the cause of the bad sleep moves from being nervous about the race to being nervous about being nervous and the impact that will have on my sleep. But that’s a topic for another day.

Without great rest and on the heels of a big carb load (even though I had practiced this), my stomach felt a little bit off from the get go. Not terrible, just not 100%.

Knowing I have some anxiety issues at the beginning of races, my goal was to try and keep my heart rate down early on and really manage my effort. But this proved difficult. The first section of the race was all uphill. Thankfully, it was on the road, but that led to other racers likely starting out faster than they should have.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. Though my heart rate was higher than I hoped, I stayed conservative with my pace and got through the first checkpoint (2.4 miles in) right in line with my pre-race expectations.

From there, we got off the road and hit the single track trail. It was much more crowded than I expected, making it very difficult to pass and even resulting in some backups where I was standing still at times. I made it through the second checkpoint/aid station (6.9 miles total) at the back end of my expected pace range, but the next section was rough.

As noted above, there were people on that first section of road who likely started faster than they should have. Now, these people were slowing things down, and I had to exert a decent effort in passing people. I pulled into my first aid station with crew access (13.9 miles) about 10 minutes behind schedule. It was frustrating to get off my planned pace, despite actually moving up 21 places during that span. The combination of falling behind but not conserving energy was less than ideal.

I was in and out of that aid station fast. I knew I had to get back on the single track quickly and try to make up some time. At this point, all plans to manage my effort went out the window, and I was only intent on getting to the next aid station back on track time wise.

On the plus side, it seemed that my quick aid station stop plus some natural thinning out of the pack made it possible for me to move at the pace I wanted to. On the negative side, I was exerting a lot of effort and starting to experience some palate fatigue. My water bottles in my vest were filled with Tailwind, but all I wanted was to drink straight water.

I made it through another mini aid station (18.8 miles) where I was able to get some water, but at this point my stomach was starting to bother me. It just felt tight, and I was having trouble getting calories in. At this point, I know the next three aid stations are bigger, and my entire crew will be there (an absurd amount of people for a back of the pack runner). My parents, my wife, my son, my sister, my brother-in-law, my aunt and cousin, and my trainer from home and his wife all made the trek out.

I’m determined at this point to hit the necessary cutoffs (the first one at the roughly halfway point) and get through the next three aid stations so all of these people who came so far to support me aren’t let down, and at the very least, I am able to see them in those three spots. I also didn’t want my son to see me bow out so early.

I pulled into the first of those big aid stations (21.7 miles in), still about 10 minutes behind the low end of my planned pace range, despite passing another 12 people. This is a problem because the low end of my pace range puts me at the halfway point just before the cut off time. If I come in after that cut off time, I’ll be forced to stop. So while I’ve stopped the bleeding, I haven’t made a big dent into the time I lost early on in the race.

This is the point, where in hindsight, I should have known the heat was bothering me more than I realized. It got into the low 70s, which isn’t that hot, but when it’s sunny and the hills are relentless (the race is literally nicknamed “Relentless”), it’s impacting you. I’m sure that it impacted me especially, given that this race is in early April, and I’ve trained in Buffalo (i.e. relentless winter), though I did try to get into a sauna routine to help with some heat acclimation.

I think my stomach issues were a combination of not sleeping well, stress/nerves, overexerting myself early on in the race, and the heat. Whatever the reason, I’m at the first of these three big aid station stops in a row, and things feel bleak. My appetite is low. I can tell from everyone’s faces just how bad I look this early into the race. And in the back of my head, I know I’m not even halfway done and two of the biggest three climbs of the race are ahead of me. I deal with probabilities for a living, and part of being successful with that is not being overconfident in things, especially at the tails. But if you had pinned me down to a probability guess of me finishing the race at that point in time, I would have struggled to give any sort of guess north of 1%.

This is where it was nice having a diverse crew, though. I got the empathy from my family, but I got the objective observations from my trainer, Carley. He walked me through where I was and where I needed to be in a very positive, straightforward manner. It was business like, yet upbeat, and unlike the people in my crew who weren’t used to this sort of thing, he paid zero attention to how I looked. The focus was on what needed to be done.

While that helped me immensely, if I’m honest, I was on the brink of tears (I have never cried during a race or even come close to it before) and eventually just had to get out of the aid station or else I was going to break down and cry.

I did my best to get through the next stretch. While I didn’t move that fast, this stretch had a ton of hills, and I think I ended up overestimating how much time it might take me on the long end. With the focus on solely making the cut off time (which would allow me to continue and get to the third big crew aid station, where I could then stop), I pulled into the turnaround/halfway point (25.9 miles) at 12:57 PM, 18 minutes ahead of the 1:15 PM cutoff time.

My appetite is gone. I’m taking the smallest nibbles possible on a PBJ sandwich imaginable. I can’t take in any Tailwind. All I can do is take in water. In fact, I didn’t even refill my bottles with Tailwind. I just chugged two bottles of water and refilled my soft flasks with more straight water. I thought there’d be a bathroom at this station, but there wasn’t, which was a blow. I don’t even know what I would do with one, though. My stomach was tight, and I felt like something had to come up or out, but I didn’t even know which. The lack of bathroom took that decision out of my hands.

Along with taking in a bunch of water, I took some salt pills (SaltStick FastChews) and got my neck bandana filled with ice. At this point, the lack of calories doesn’t bother me too much as I’ve basically planned to bow out at the next aid station (the last with my big crew). I hate to say I gave up, but I basically did mentally. It was unfathomable to me at that point in time that I could finish that race.

Once again, I left the aid station on the brink of tears. On the bright side, the turnaround point is at the peak of the second of three climbs, so I’m very downhill to start. I’m not even trying to make up time at this point, so I walk for a good stretch, sipping water and accepting my fate. But, to my surprise, the combination of the ease of the downhill, taking it easy (my decision to “give up” relieved some stress), doing some of the heat management I should have earlier in the race, and avoiding calories for a little bit to allow my stomach to settle, led to me feeling better.

Slowly, I felt more and more like myself and somewhat re-energized, and I eventually started running again, even managing to get a Gu down. By the time I pulled into the third and final of the big crew aid stations (30.1 miles), I not only made up a little bit of time but felt way better. I even told Carley, “I’m back from the dead.” About an hour earlier, I had no intent to attempt to finish this race, and now I was determined to do so. I took more salt pills, chugged more water, and from here on out, I split my vest soft flasks between Tailwind and straight water while only taking a Gu when I felt good enough to do so.

The rest of the race is a bit of a blur. I moved very slowly after overexerting myself early (despite the slow time), and my feet were an absolute wreck between blisters and broken toenails. But I didn’t waver in my resolve to finish, like I had earlier. One step at a time, I ultimately finished the race in 14 hours and 6 minutes. There’s a soft cut off of 14 hours, but I still counted as an official finisher. It’s a blessing given some races of this ilk have a hard finish cut off, meaning if you’re even one minute behind it, you get a DNF. My son likes to remind me I didn’t finish in the 14 hours.

Lessons

It was easily the most gratifying physical and mental accomplishment of my life, and I learned some lessons:

Get Help

It feels ridiculous to say I work with a trainer at the gym, a running coach, and a nutritionist all to be a below average runner, but I know I don’t finish that race if you remove any one of those people. I know I’m fortunate to have friends in this space to help and/or the money to commit to getting that help, but in whatever way you can, get help. There are people around you who are great resources in whatever endeavor you take on, and you’ll be more successful while having a better time if you’re willing to reach out to them.

One Thing At A Time (to the EXTREME)

I’ve previously written about the “one thing at a time” mantra on this Substack, but this race proved to be the ultimate test of it. There were so many points in that race where if I had to decide how the whole day would unfold, I wouldn’t have been able to envision myself finishing. I quite literally gave up in my head completely at one point in time.

Thankfully, though, this was another stark reminder that we just have to focus on the next step. Planning is great, but we don’t ultimately know the full context of all the subsequent steps until we actually start them or are in them. You don’t know how you’re going to feel in an hour or tomorrow or next week, so you shouldn’t decide ahead of time that you won’t be up to that potential future task. Sometimes all you need to do is get there, and you’ll find you’re able to manage or better.

It was much more a happy accident than an intentional plan for me in this case, but the tunnel vision of simply getting to the next aid station is what allowed me to finish that race.

Ultra Specific Takeaways

• Understand specific race logistics better. While I wanted to start that race conservatively, I underestimated the resulting bottleneck once the pack hit single track, and that more severely negatively impacted my chances of finishing than if I had run a little harder earlier.

• Don’t ever stop improving your gear set up. I’ve found better shoes to help reduce the chances of the bad blisters and toenails that plagued me at the end of my race. I’ve also added a waistband that lets me carry an additional soft flask that I’ll utilize just for water in an effort to combat the palate fatigue and likely dehydration I suffered in the middle part of the first half of my race

• Start heat management more proactively. I think the raceday weather being hot but not unbearable led me to get complacent and delay my heat management practices, and this amplified a lot of the problems I was facing. Next time out, I’ll try to start the SaltStick FastChews and cooling off techniques earlier than I think I need them.