Volunteers take heed

Please forgive me for my lack of detail in location on the trail. The trail was beautiful on this day and everything looked very similar.

I had not run a 50k in almost 9 year and when I told family and friends I was going to run another the responses were anywhere from, “A 50k, is that real?” to “OMG are you crazy?”. I have to say, it always sounds crazy but the experience is always satisfying and an eye opener. My focus was just to finish (using this run as a training run, in preparation for a few more ultras within next 6 months), test calorie intake, and blister prevention. So this event is in its 5th year, well organized and supported by an amazing group of volunteers, including a volunteer at the final aid station who stuck her hand into my heed, lol. She was very helpful in making sure I got the drink I wanted. Although I do recall asking for a beer at aid station 2 and a shot of tequila at aid station 3 while no-one was able to provide that for me, I know what to pack next year. Yes I said it, “next year” I will run this one again, it was beautiful & challenging. The Bluff I believe, or what I believe to be the Bluff was right after the 1/2 way point. Leaving the aid station, my eyes began to focus on a site that is not often seen in a run on the east coast, runners climbing slowly up a vertical climb, in between boulders a trail that was passable slowly. All I could do was laugh. I am sure most of the runners around me did not find the humor in our situation. The only sounds in response to my laughter and smart remarks, “really are they serious?”, were grunts and frowns. Okay, one woman further back gave out a primal scream. I hope she did not fall, I did not look back. Once at the top, it was beautiful. Running across the Bluff for about a couple hundred yards was awesome. This is why I run these distances. The view is never the same in shorter trail runs. Although this seems to be reachable to anyone as long as you can climb the vertical climb from the parking lot, (For race dir-please correct my geography if I have this wrong, I will correct). Something else I enjoyed was the friendship and conversation through the day. Although the course was marked very well, it was still easy to get off track during the day. Either exhaustion, poor eye-site, poor footing, the list goes on for excuses. It happened several times- I was running along and someone would pass me, politely. An hour later they would come up behind and pass me again. I do not remember passing them, but somewhere along the trail, they took a wrong turn. The first time it happened, I just thought they were off the trail going to the bathroom. Nope it just was too much time in between passes and they should have been hours ahead of me. Then there were the 3 runners who saved me a lot of extra mileage just before aid station 3. I was almost convinced by another runner that I must be going the wrong way on the trail (at about 5 hours into the day). Okay at this point I was tired and easy to convince. The three runners I went with seemed more convinced that they were going the correct way, I stayed with them and am I glad I did. At aid station 3 I was hoping to run into some of the people on the video (on website). I did not recognize anyone, I do remember someone saying, “8 miles to go”. Well I obviously was not paying attention, they meant 8 miles to the next aid station, then 2.5 miles from there was the finish. The anti- blister techniques did not work, however I am getting pretty proficient at lancing and repairing. The tough blisters to avoid are the ones that develop under and around the toe-nail. The food/ calorie counting worked great! From all of the information I have found, depending on body weight and running intensity, on average we should try to get in about 300 calories an hour, the body will not absorb that but anywhere from 280- 320 was what I was able to get into me. Two days after event I am back on course with training and looking forward to next years running.

My finishing time 7hrs 38min 41s

~~Bill Schrau