Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Event: ROC - Black Creek Park
 

Late afternoon, easy walk with Cheryl and the dogs, at Ellison Wetlands. Working on recovering from yesterday's race. Actually, legs felt much better by late afternoon, than they did first thing in the morning.

Finger Lakes Fifties 50K trail race, in Finger Lakes National Forest.

Anne and I left at 3:30 am to get there in time to be ready for the 6:30 am start, so I was sleep-deprived at the outset.

The 50K is two long loops around the Finger Lakes National Forest, starting at Potomac group campground. The loops differ slightly in the start; the first loop starts on the road, to allow the field to spread out a little before it hits single-track. The second loop continues on from the group campground, on a fairly technical trail which wasn't part of the first loop. After about half a mile on this trail, the second loop is identical to the first loop. The stated distances are 15.69 miles for the first loop, and 15.53 miles for the second loop, for a total of 31.22 miles (slightly longer than what 50K actually is).

(For once, my GPS distance was in reasonable agreement with the advertised distance -- the GPS said I covered 30.67 miles, which is only 1.8% short of the officially stated distance.)

I ran with Anne for nearly 10 miles of the first loop, which was my choice, to encourage me to go slowly enough that I would be reasonably fresh after the first loop. It seemed to work; the first loop, I averaged 12:17/mile, and the second loop, I averaged 12:24/mile, not much slower, and although the second loop was shorter, it was significantly harder at the beginning, as the road we were on at the beginning of the first loop was replaced by the technical single-track at the beginning of the second loop.

I took a bit over 3 minutes at the start/finish after the first loop to change into different socks and put some more Body Glide on my feet, to ward of blisters. Whether that was a needed thing to do or not, I'm not sure, but I did get through the race with no blisters.

Although this course doesn't have a huge amount of climb (2384 feet for 50K), it is not in general an easy course. Most of the course is single-track trail, some of which is fairly technical. Two fairly short (like 0.4 mile) sections on paved roads are both uphill so it's tough to use those sections to pick up the pace. There is one very fast section near the 3 mile mark of each loop where it is on a decent surface gravel road and it drops around 500 feet in the course of about a mile -- very fast, but also very tough on the legs going downhill for that long. Then right at the end of that, it turns off onto a trail that goes uphill very steeply for a long time, and is fairly technical to boot. Quite a shift in gears ... My legs are very sore (writing this the morning of the next day), and I'm guessing that the soreness is mainly due to this downhill part of the course.

I did OK for around 5 miles or so of the second loop, then really started to tire. I apparently managed to not slow down too much, but it was a major effort. I really had nothing left at the end.

I was slightly disappointed with my time; last year, I did the 25K in 2:46, and was optimistically thinking that I could slow down by around a minute per mile and do the 50K, which would have put me around 6 hours. Instead, I was nearly a half hour slower than that. Still, my main goal was to finish, as this was the longest race of any kind I've ever done, and by far the longest trail run, by around 2X.

Anne was around an hour slower than me, at around 7:30. I think she was also a little disappointed with her time, but like me, just happy to be able to finish. Her time was certainly hurt by a couple of things -- (1) While I took 3 minutes to change socks after the first loop, she said she had a 10-minute stop (change socks, bathroom stop, get something to drink, ....). and (2) She estimates she covered an extra half mile -- she didn't go off course but at one time she was worried she was off course, during the second loop, because things weren't looking familiar, and there was absolutely no one else in sight. So she turned around and ran backwards until she encountered another runner and figured out that she was in fact on the right trail after all. It just looked different, between the first loop when she was following other people, and the second loop when she was totally alone.

I can't imagine doing the 50 mile option -- that involves a third full 25K loop, and then a fourth loop of 3.48 miles.

C • Trail run 2

Still in Ohiopyle, PA. Easy run, again on the rail-trail, this time heading upriver for a while, then back down. Resting up for Finger Lakes Fifties 50K on Saturday.

Rafting down the lower Yough starting from Ohiopyle. Six of us in a raft -- Cheryl, I, Anne, Paul, Andrea, and her b/f Brian (who was our guide for the trip). Very nice -- good weather, decent water level, some very exciting rapids, got to see some rafting companies come through the most challenging rapid, where several rafts dumped, and Brian assisted in a rescue of one rafter stranded on a rock just below the rapid.

Easy run, in Ohiopyle, PA, on a very nice rail-trail. (One of the nicest anywhere?) With Anne. Cheryl and I, and Anne and Paul, went down to Ohiopyle for a few days to see my daughter Andrea and her boyfriend, who are working at a river rafting company for the summer.

Easy walk to look at some of the river and the rafting on it; with Paul, Anne, Cheryl, Andrea, and Brian (Andrea's b/f).

Hike, on trails in and around Ohiopyle, with Cheryl, Anne, Paul, Andrea, and Brian. Saw lots of rapids and waterfalls. Very scenic; somewhat rugged hike in spite of the generally slow pace (a lot of stops for pictures and conversation).

Kayaking on the Youghigheny River in Ohiopyle, PA. We did the "town loop", which is an oxbow-shaped section of the river where you can put in and take out within walking distance of town. Andrea's b/f Brian was our guide. Anne, Paul, Andrea, and I also went (Cheryl declined). Carrying the kayaks to and from the river was very grueling for those of us not used to it (Andrea and Brian had no trouble). The kayaking was an adventure; the loop of the river contains around 5 named rapids, one of which (Cucumber) is a double hydraulic (two hyraulics, essentially right in a row). That one did us in -- we all dumped except for Brian, who has very extensive white water experience as a guide.