Lake Perry Rocks 50k

Two weeks ago, I got an email from Dad: This is a long shot, but would you want to take a crack at a 50k next weekend? It's in Kansas...

Dad, you're crazy... Let's do it.

So it began.

Thursday after class, the whole family was waiting for me, I grabbed my stuff from my dorm room and we were on our way. There was a lot of driving ahead of us, from Leadville to Topeka is more than 650 miles, but we were shooting for Burlington that night. I was strange for me to be somewhere without mountains. For a long time, Pikes Peak peeked over the horizon, but eventually we lost sight of that too. We got to Burlington after sunset, got some pizza and went to sleep.

Friday we drove all the way across Kansas (pretty much) and arrived at the hotel mid afternoon and had time to swim in the pool before dinner, K(ansas)FC.  Getting the various gels and other supplies ready for the race was when it really hit me, looks like I'm actually going through with this. Watched some baseball, went to sleep.

Saturday dawned cool and crisp as we went to register and pick up our shirts, I felt pretty cool pinning my yellow (for the 50k) bib number onto my shorts, then sat back and tried not to fidget to much waiting for the 8:00 start.

T minus 10 minutes, still trying not to fidget. Photo: Kevin Gray

Dad moved up to the front, and I scooted further back. I wasn't in any rush, I planned to finish in about eight hours. We started down a short section of road that turned onto single track almost immediately and here I was worrying about starting too fast. The 50k wasn't very large, but it started with the half marathon, so the fist couple miles were more of a group hike.

Coming from Leadville, elevation 10,200 ft, running at ~900 ft was easy on the lungs, but the trail was not any more forgiving to my feet. The course is 99.9% single track through thick (at least to me) forest, very rocky with roots and vegetation everywhere. Now, I'm pretty familiar with rocks, rocks I can handle, but the fallen leaves made the downhills downright treacherous. Not only were the rocks hidden, but the leaves made the trail very slick. Tripping and stumbling were the theme for the day, especially later in the race.

Less than five miles in, still feeling good. Photo: Kevin Gray

The race was in two 15 mile loops, and there were aid stations or water jugs every 2.5 miles or so. I was set to take a GU or Shotblocks every half hour, and this ended up being how I kept track of time, because the stopwatch on my watch doesn't count more than an hour, it just rolls over. So if I wanted to know how long I had been running, I would count the empty wrappers in my pocket.

Had to run up the hill so that the photographer didn't get me walking. Photo: Kevin Gray

The back half of the first loop was fairly uneventful, walk up the hills, jog down. I was still feeling good, not worn out yet.

Rolling in to the main aid station at mile 13. Photo: Kristy West

After going through the main aid the first time, there was a short loop, and then through it again at mile 15.

And back out. Photo: Kristy West

At this point I was feeling awesome, power(walk)ing up the hills and cruising back down. I was half an hour ahead of schedule for my goal time of eight hours. I had finally caught up to some other 50k runners, the first I had seen since the start, and managed to stay ahead of them for another ten miles. A few hours later I was feeling less enthusiastic. My legs were very tired, and my brain was trying to take a nap on the job. I found myself trying to run up hills that I knew I shouldn't be, and would have to stop and tell myself to save it for the downhill. The terrain didn't help much in this respect either. Every time I would build myself up for anther stretch of running I would take two or three steps and trip. It became a cycle of run three steps, stumble five, run three, stumble five. At one point I was hiking up a hill at top speed (not very fast at this point) and tripped, but I was going so slow that I just kind of sinking rather than falling. I found myself doubled over, my nose about two inches from the ground, clutching a tiny beanpole of a tree growing next to the trail. Not my proudest moment.

Finally, the trail started to flatten out again, I knew I was close to the main aid station. I shuffled a little faster, and made it back to the main aid station. The finish was close, I could smell it. I ran the small loop as fast as I could, re-energized by the thought of finishing. I came off the single track with my head up and started up the hill to the finish. Where, of course, my family was waiting, just enough to get through the end.

Smile for the camera! Photo: Chris Boyack

I finished in 7:33, half an hour faster than goal and only half an hour off my marathon time. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Took a quick shower and we drove back home.

In summary, an awesome day with an awesome Dad.