Ran the El Vaquaro Loco 50k this morning and man was it hard and the scenery was amazing!!
This race started at a campground about 10 miles outside of Smoot Wyo and I decided I was going to sleep in the back of the truck for the night at one of the campsites and man I wasn't the only one that was doing that, that is one of the cool things about ultra trail running is you see alot of runners with tents and sleeping bags at the races. I had a good idea for the course profile and sometimes it is not as bad as it looks on paper but this one was much harder then it looked. Race got started right at 6am and there was not flat to warm up as we started the climb right away for about the first 4 miles and got to the top of the first hill and it seamed like I was the pacer for a group of 4 guys and they all looked like they were in my age group and not had around a 3 mile drop before the nest big climb. The course was horse trail and very rocky and you were not able to open up on the down hills much at all. one of the guys fell of and it was now the 4 of us running together but spead out over a few hundred feet. It was so awesome running through creeks and along mountain lakes with the picture perfect blue water and all. Started another big climb at mile 7.5 and this one was big with alot of hiking on this one and got to the top of it and I just felt a lack of energy and on the way down and was not sure what the heck was going on and around mile 11 I went from the group lead to the end of the group but we still all hanging together. We get to the turn atround at mile 16 and I had taken alittle more time at the aid station then the rest of them and had a little more watermelon and and was ready to head out and last min. decided to us the p.o.p. and let the group go on with out me. Got going again and had no idea of how far the group was ahead of me, and now I just as not in the best shape and not sure why my energy was going down and all and now had a very long and tough 8 miles of hills to climb and got over it and had some down hills after that and I was just so tired of my supplements and the hydration that I was using and made a change when I got to mile 24 aid statione and had them just put straight water in my pack and went to just water and the powerbar cola bites. got down that hill and started the next big climb and was feeling much better as I got to the last aid station at mile 27 and just a hand full of trail mix and was out of there, energy was coming back and I could now see some of the guys that I was running with earlier and caught a few of them at mile 28 and now we were on our way down the last hill and it was great as I felt great and running very strong again and pased the other two guys in the group along with a few more younger guys and finished strong. Happy with the effort but need to work on nutrition just alittle more on this type of running. 38 OA 3 AG
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