Squaw Peak 50!! I can't believe I just did that... That should be the motto. This was my first attempt at a 50 miler and boy was it a doozie.
A crew of us from Eden (Shane - who ended up taking 3rd overall, Booth also a first timer, Dave - he's run 5-6 of these and his son Cam) headed down Friday night to enjoy john's pre-race dinner and race instructions. We decided to just camp at Nunns park and were lucky enough to get a site by the river - that place was noisy. After a toss filled night headed up to Vivian around 4:30 and was running down the trail to Bridal Veil falls before I knew it.
I've been battleing knee/IT band issues since April so, I was just hoping the pain would stay at a managable level. I would say it was at about a 5 for the entire run except for the steep down hill going into AS 9. It flared up to7-8 there. Took some advil and tried to push the pace to get under 13 hrs.
A shout out to all the Aid stations - they were awesome and very helpful. I do have to give props to AS 4 the potato's with salt were awesome. I took an endurolyte about every 40 minutes and a GU about every 40 too. Only drank water. Although I did have a couple sips of coke.Again great Aid station's - they make this possible.
My only real goal was to Finish (with the leg issue), then get under 13. Probably the only mistake I made was starting in a long sleeve shirt with an under armour shirt underneath it. I heated up pretty quick. I had a new shirt and drop bag at aid station 4 - so I sweatfested it until there. Dropped the gloves, shirts and started off down to aid station 5. Fell in with a great group moving down this section ran the entire way - did run out of water about a mile before the AS though... ugh. It's pretty much a meat grinder from AS 5 to 9. about 19 miles. The pavement road up to AS 6 was a heat fest luckily John was in his truck passing out creamies - I happily took one. At 6 I meet up with three of my bro's Fritz, Gdoc, and hair dog. Gdoc was planning on pacing me into the finish the other two were going to run until they decided to turn around. Fritz went up to AS 7 and Hair dog to AS 8. It was great having them there. Very impressed with them and grateful for G sticking with me - he pushed me up that freaking climb although I think we both had our mouths open when we thought we had peaked out and then saw the climb on our left. I ran out of water on the climb and finished off G's too. I knew it would be close to breaking 13 so, once we passed the snow mud sections - we pushed it about as hard as I could. At AS 10 I saw my wife and kids which was a nice surprise, them along with the cold towels were perfect. Although everyone said it's all down hill from here... Let me tell you that final pavement section - those rollers were mentally killing me. I was glad G man was there to help keep me focused. Finally saw the river and pushed it to the finish. Awesome experience. | 