Full race report now at: http://www.crockettclan.org/blog/?p=145
I finished the Desert RATS 50 in Fruita, CO in 10:46:16, 24th overall and 1st in the old foggie 50+ age group. It was a wonderful run. The temperature was great (high about 65), but I still became badly dehydrated at one point. I need to do more afternnon training. I also took a wrong turn and wasted 5 minutes or so. I had a great time. Two of my boys came with me and mountain biked while I ran. Home in the evening. It was a fun Saturday. The course was easier than expected even with the 8,000-foot elevation gain/loss. My full race report will come in a few days.
A few quick details. This race is run on mountain bike trails above the Colorado River. The terrain is similar to Moab but with less slick rock. The 50-mile race runs concurrently with a 25-mile race. The 50-milers run the loop twice, the second loop in reverse direction. About 40 miles of the course is smooth single-track. There is about 8000-feet of climb during the two loops, most on four long climbs from the desert floor up to the plateau. On the first climb I was frustrated that I couldn’t keep up with the top 30 runners, but once at the top, I was able to blast by a long train of 20 runners who just didn’t have the technical speed on the downhill. Because it was on single-track, the only way for me to pass them was to go "off road" and do a slingshot sprint around 4-5 runners and then swoop back in line. It felt like I was racing Nascar. I eventually passed them all and and had "clean air" in front of me to run as fast as I pleased. I reached the first check-point (mile 5.9) at 53 minutes. That was nine minutes faster than planned, so I now understood why I was having trouble keep up. It was just too fast. The next 12 miles or so was a blast, rolling trails on a shelf above the Colorado River. I discovered that I struggled to keep up with the runners around me until the trail became more technical, then I had speed about 50% faster than the others and could catch up or press ahead. At mile 9.2 I made a blunder and took a wrong turn out of the aid station. I recognized my mistake after a few minutes. I probably wasted about 6 minutes and fell behind about one-half mile from those I was running with.
The elite front-runners came running toward me at the 21-mile mark. They were eight miles ahead. Amazing. I finished loop one (25 miles) in 4:42, just two minutes slower than planned. By mile 30.9 I was back up to 5-minutes ahead of my planned pace. But then the afternoon became warm and the climbs were tougher. I spent the next couple hours picking off runners ahead of me one-by-one. I pushed very hard from miles 34-37 to pass a couple runners. In doing so I became pretty seriously dehydrated. I noticed heat-stroke symptoms. Chills, light-headed, not sweating. I quickly took action, took two electrolyte pills and pushed the fluids. I backed off my pace significantly. I had built up a big lead over anyone behind me, so no one caught up to me, but I took an extra 10 minutes off my pace to recover. Within a half hour, I felt much better. It was only about 60-65 degrees, but I just wasn’t drinking enough and taking in enough electrolytes. Also, I just haven’t trained much in these temperatures so far this season.
During the final huge climb at mile 45-46, I was really lazy. But then I recognized Milada Copeland from Utah, hot on my tail, less than 3 minutes behind. That woke me up and I started to push much harder. Once on top, I knew that no one would catch me during the last three-miles to the finish. It was mostly downhill and I still had good downhill speed. I finished in 10:46, which was 16 minutes slower than my goal. I knew where I lost those 16 minutes (6 minutes from wrong turn, 10 minutes from dehydration episode).
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