I have completed my first 50k. I picked a doozy for my first one. I would not recommend this race for someone who has arthritis in their knees like I do, but I loved it and will definitely run it again. We traveled down Friday afternoon. Myself, my wife, and our four kids. We left at 2 p.m., figuring traffic would be fine at that time, but at 2:15 we were stuck in non-moving traffic at 54th S on I-15. It took us an hour and a half to get 90th S. There was a bad wreck involving 8 cars that had shut the freeway down for a while. Traffic after that was fine. Since we were running behind schedule, we stopped in Price and had dinner at JB's Restaurant. I had chicken penne pasta with broccoli. It was a good pre race meal. We got to Moab about 8:30 p.m. The packet pick up was still set up at Eddie Mcstiff's and I got my number and free shirt. We headed down to the Lazy Lizard. A group of small cabins at the South end of Moab. I slept pretty good, but woke up a few times to the sound of rain on the roof. I got up at 6:30 and ate a bowl of cereal and a banana. Then we got the kids dressed, fed, and headed up to the start. At the start I put on my GPS and turned it on. It only stayed on for a few seconds then shut off. The battery was fully charged when I left home, so it must have been bumped on during the drive down. The race started at 8:30 a.m. There were three races, a 10 miler, a 20 miler, and a 50k. All three races started together at the same time. The start was on the road, but quickly converged onto a jeep trail heading up Prichett Canyon. It was a cold morning, probably around 35 degrees. I had on a wind breaker over my running clothes. Prichett Canyon was the first of 3 monster climbs that I would encounter during the race. Not only was it a climb, but it was a technically challenging trail with lots of rocks and mud. After three miles I was burning hot. I took my wind breaker jacket off and tied it around my waist. I still had the pants from my wind breaker on and wouldn't be able to do anything about them until mile 10 where they had drop bags. The canyon continued up for another two miles. The top of the canyon was rather steep but I was able to run the whole way up. At the top of the hill was the first aid station. I drank some heed, grabbed some pretzels and M&M's and started into the downhill. Each aid station had M&M's and I gladly took advantage of it at each one. The technical downhill was a blast. I was able to move up a few positions. The trail and views were wonderful and I was really enjoying every moment of this race. We came to another canyon and ran along the upper edge of it. We were on a jeep trail with a 200 to 400 foot drop on the left side. The trail headed over the hill to the right and we dropped down into a different canyon. At the base of the canyon was the second aid station and the bag drop. I took the wind breaker jacket off my waist, but struggled to get the pants off over my shoes. I finally got them of, but had lost some time. The course headed up a dirt road (Kane Creek Rd) to Hunters Canyon. Here we did an out and back up the canyon, 2 miles up and 2 down. There was a clip at the end of the canyon that we used to punch a hole in our bib numbers to show that we had made it to the turn around. This trail was fun with several small water crossings and a small arch we had to duck through. By doing the out and back I could see my position in the race. At this point I was in the top 20. The course continued on up Kane Creek road, then dropped into a dry riverbed. The ground was very sandy, but the rain from the night before made it firm enough to get good footing. After the river bed came the second monster hill. I hadn't walked at all up to this point. I didn't make it very far up this hill before I was walking. I walked at a good pace, but it was a very long, steep hill that seemed to keep going and going. At the top of the hill I could see for miles. The views were great. The trail then headed downhill, but the uphill had taken so much out of me that I couldn't run the downhills as hard as I would of liked. We came to a small slot canyon the we had to go through. It was so narrow at the end that I had to turn sideways to get through. Great fun. At mile 17 there was another aid station. I was feeling a bit dehydrated, even though I had been fueling good. I ate a half of a peanut butter sandwich, refueled with heed and M&M's of course and headed on. The course had several sections which were across slick rock. It was well marked and easy to find which way to go. There was another aid station at mile 20. I was starting to slow and had been getting passed. The next section was a nice downhill trail back to the start. The Colorado River was on the right and a magnificent rock face was on the left. Back at the start was another aid station. This was the finish for the 20 miler. The course for them was actually 23 miles. The rest of the course was another out and back with some added features. We dropped down into another riverbed and crossed under the road through a 15ft pipe. Then headed passed the first monster hill and came to a ladder that went up a rock face about 12 ft. At the top of the ladder there was a volunteer that said "watch out for cactus." This was a new terrain challenge, cactus plants with long spikes all along the trail. I managed not to get poked. Next came a rock climb. There was a rope to hold onto as we climbed up and volunteers to support us. Only one person was allowed on the rope at a time. The next mile was rolling hills on rock and sand. Then a second climb. Downward this time. I slid right down. The trail then headed down to the road. This was the only paved section of the course. It was only about a mile long. After the road, we came to the third monster hill, Moab rim trail. There was an aid station at the base of the trail. They said that it was two miles up and two miles down. The trail was a brutal uphill climb up rock and what seemed like a 45 degree angle. I walked all of this hill. At the top was another clip to punch a hole in our bibs. I had to come down slowly because my knees where pretty torn up and just couldn't go fast. I came down the trail, along the road, up the rock I had climb down, down the other rock, down the ladder, back through the pipe and to the finish. At the finish I had one guy on my tail. Coming out of the riverbed was a steep muddy trail that would've been a walker at this point, but I was almost done, so I pushed hard up the trail and finished strong. The guy behind never caught up. I finished in 6:23. I haven't seen the official time yet and don't know what my place was, but I will update things when the results get posted. I was very excited to have finished with such a good time. I was expecting to be a least an hour slower had told my wife not to come up until 4 p.m. (7.5 hours), so she wasn't there to see me finish. They had a BBQ set up at the finish for all the racers. I got a hamburger and was just sitting down to eat it when I saw my wife pull up. She had decided to come up an hour early to be sure to see me, but still missed my finish. We stayed in Moab another night and drove around to some of the sights with the kids the next day, including "Scooby Doo Rock" which was the kid's favorite. It was a great weekend.
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