Subject: Squaw Peak 50 Trail Run Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 12:03:01 -0600 From: "Feucht, Andrea L." I hope this is the first of many reports from this fine race this year. :-) I am still getting together the pictures that were taken during the race, so I will post that link once they're organized. First, my thanks to John Bozung and his cast of amazing volunteers. The race was well-planned, VERY well marked, and it was generally a great time for everyone. One of the most distinctive parts of this race is the no-cutoff finish. If you make the 33 mile cutoff, you can take as long as you want to get to the finish, which eases the mind when you are already stressed out. If you were to walk from the 33 mile aid station all the way in, at a pretty leisurely pace, you would get to the 46 mile aid station before dark, so the last 4 miles on the road are perfectly navigable in the dark. Next year I'll have to go a bit faster so that most of the food will still be left at the finish. :-) This was my second attempt at 50 miles, and, as I have been telling people for weeks before the race (in a committment-making burst of optimism), my first 50 mile finish. It was exciting, painful, calming, stressful, debilitating, exhilarating, nauseating, and AMAZING, and I enjoyed (at least at some level) every single moment of it. I spent all day Friday driving up from Albuquerque to Orem with the SO, an 11 hour jaunt. I always forget just how long of a drive it is, until I do it again. John spent a bunch of time talking at the pre-race briefing about the importance of hydrating because the weather was expected to be hot, sunny, and generally miserable for running. Thank my lucky stars that didn't happen... I think that type of weather would have been devastating to my race. Race day started, like pretty much all ultra race days, in the dark and waiting in line for the porta-toilet. I exchanged greetings with the people I knew - Ernst Baer and Emily Loman, Julie Nelson, Jennifer and Gerry Roach. I was also to see a few more familiar faces along the way, and meet some Hardrockers, as well. The first few miles I talked with Julie, and then she dropped back to avoid the crash-and-burn that got her last year. We headed up the trail to the 5 mile aid station, and I got to talking with Anita Bower, who had run the race last year. Very nice woman. The two of us hooked up with Jennifer Roach, and I though I was set. I was running with two people who had finished under 15 hours last year, so everything was golden. We stayed together for the first 16 miles, up and up and up to an aid station on a windy jeep road pass. Fabulous views were all around, of the Wasatch range, and of the Provo-Orem metro area, and the mountains to the south. It was in the 70s and cloudy, perfect running weather. Anita and Jennifer and I kept each other on a good pace and the miles passed quickly. After leaving mile 16, it was a long, long downhill on a jeep road to the next aid at mile 22. Jennifer took off, and Anita and I hobbled down a little more slowly on our fragile knees, in awe of Jennifer's resilience. Soon, Julie caught up (she had held back until that 16 mile saddle) and blew past us as well. I wasn't going to get to talk to her again for awhile. Everything was going pretty well, I was drinking what seemed like a reasonable amount but actually probably wasn't much at all. During the entire race I'd be suprised if I drank 100oz total. It was staying down well, but I had no interest in food and tried to keep the calories coming in through beverage alone. Obviously that wasn't enough, either. Anita left me around mile 19 and I leapfrogged her until the 22 mile aid station, where I briefly saw Julie on her way out. My knees were not hurting yet, but they were what I call "twingy", and my stomach had just started to get queasy on that long downhill. I sat down at that aid station and contemplated taking off my shoes to investigate my hot spots. I decided not to, on account that they had not changed in sensation since mile 5. I wanted to avoid taking my shoes off as long as possible, hopefully until after the finish line. Anita left shortly before I did, and said "I'll go slow so you can catch up". Famous last words, as I now know. I saw her about 200yds down the road as I left the aid station, and by the next one I think she was 10 minutes ahead of me. I had a bad stretch there. 3.something miles of pavement and I walked damn near the whole thing. I was hurting and starting to feel sorry for myself. A bad train of thought to board... [Interjection, for background purposes.... My main goal in this whole shebang was "Aid 8 by 2:30pm". That is the only cutoff in the race, at mile 33. So you get 9:30 to do just over a 50k, then you can take your sweet time to the finish. My whole focus was on that time, and everything seemed to be going well until around mile 19.... ] ..... so there I was, trundling down the road, thinking that I needed to get to the next aid (26 mi) around noon to make the 2:30pm cutoff feasible. Since I had left mile 22 at 11:05am, and I thought at the time that it was a full 4 miles to the next aid, I got to thinking that I would get there at around 12:30pm, and there would be no chance of making it to Aid Station 8 by 2:30pm. This got me on a pretty negative psychological downward spiral, thinking everything from how nice it would be to be done at noon, to how if I can't even finish this damn race I have no business being entered in Hardrock and I might as well drop out of that, too. I was pretty depressed, and on top of that, I wasn't doing anything to make my situation better. Instead of speeding up to have a chance at the cutoff, I was slowing down. I was mighty suprised to come into view of the aid station at noon, and then once I got in, to hear them say, "so, the cutoff at aid 8 is now 3pm". It was stressful to hear it, yet exhilarating as well, because I had literally been saved from myself and my negativity. I got a little food, a smoothie, and more powerade, then took off again. I had been going 7 hours, and I knew time wise that I wasn't even half way done. But I was happy, even if my feet were killing me. To get my energy back up, I got as much food down as I could, and I made my way up the road. I had thought I was the last person through the aid station, but a few people passed me on the road. I got to aid station 7, mile 29.6, at just after 1pm. I knew I was good to go for making the cutoff at aid station 8, and I might possibly even make it there by the original cutoff. Now I was feeling very happy, and my stomach had recovered most of the way. I was all alone, practically skipping up the trail. What a beautiful section of the course! A narrow singletrack trail, winding through a flowery meadow, and then a large grove of aspens, up to a ridgeline. Down again on a trail, meeting up with a jeep road, and following that road for about a mile. I felt good enough to run the last mile, and let out a triumphant "woo HOO!" as I came into aid station 8 at 2:45pm. I ate, I drank, I nearly forgot all about my drop bag but I remembered it at last and had my long-awaited Frappucino. Didn't need anything else out of it, which I think is a good thing. I had 2 drop bags total and ended up taking 1 thing out of each one. Of course I also had my very SO Dave along and he gave me moral support at miles 22, 26, and 46, which was very helpful, especially when he told me at 26 (when I felt like crying) that I looked "fresh as a daisy". :-) I finally pushed off at 3pm, with the knowledge that the sweep was leaving right behind me and, hiking, they planned on 3.5 hours to Windy Pass, then another 2.5 hours down to the finish. I thought I could better that by a half hour on each leg. I made good time and passed 5 people on the way to Windy Pass aid station, at mile 40.5. I felt good, if tired. My main problem was my feet, which ached pretty badly, and a newly popped blister was stinging a bit in there. The long "death-climb" of 1300 feet in a mile really wasn't so bad (there's much worse on the Hardrock course, so at least I'm seasoned in that experience), and in the middle of it I caught up again to Anita and Julie. Anita had been having a hard stretch, so Julie had waited for her before the start of the climb, and they were now together. We finally made it to the aid station at about 6:15, later than I had hoped. I still thought we could do between 15:30 and 15:45 finishing time, which meant a little over 2 hours getting down the last 9.5 miles. My god, that trail! Holy canole, it was a mess. Sure, if you're Karl Meltzer and completely fearless the trail is mostly runnable, but Julie, Anita and I were going on trashed feet, trashed knees, and man were we slow. Anita got a bit freaked out going down because she said her hands and arms were going numb, so she took off, hoping to get down as soon as possible. Julie and I stayed together, running a little, but mostly stumbling and cursing the way down. We gave ourselves permission to bitch as much as we wanted during this stretch, so bitch, moan, and whine we did. Most of the way down you can see where the aid station is, and it is much farther on trail than line of sight. We knew how far down we had to go to get there, but we seemed to be losing elevation much too slowly to be getting anywhere. It was frustrating. The two nice parts about that section was the conversation I had with Julie, and the wildflowers lining our path as we got lower. But man, that was the longest 6 miles I think I've ever gone. (Until, I bet, the 6 miles from Divies-Little Giant pass to the finish at Hardrock this year... :-) ). We finally bottomed out, then had to run across a long meadow, and down some road before we got to the aid station, the last one. Julie was very happy to see her friend Mike Tilden there, and I got introduced. We took off again, and Julie said that we should run to get it over with. I was reluctant to go along, but more reluctant to lag behind. Besides, it hurt no matter what I did, so running wasn't so much worse than walking. So we ran it in. 3.5 rolling downhill miles on pavement. Ouch. We made it to the park just as dark was taking over, and crossed the finish line together in 16:20 (9:20pm). The big buffet I was eagerly awaiting was mostly gone, so that was disappointing. But hey, when I'm as slow as I am, I'm just glad they kept the finish line open. I got a bunch of chicken and a popsicle, and that suited me fine. Anita had come in just under 16 hours, so that was cool, and Jennifer (whom I hadn't seen since mile 16) had finished under 15 hours. Emily Loman finished exactly when I predicted she would - just as I was getting into the 33 mile aid station, at 9:45 into the race. :-) Way to go, Emily! I obviously didn't eat/drink enough during the race. That's going to have to change for Hardrock. Had the weather been what was predicted (hot, sunny, and 90) rather than what it ended up being (mild, cloudy, and 70s), I would have bit the dust and most likely DNFed. Other than that, I had a good race. I knew my feet and knees might bother me, so I didn't let that get to me mentally. Nothing serious was hurting - just all normal fatigue and soreness. That was very refreshing psychologically. I feel very good going into Hardrock, and am excited that I'll be there to acclimate in just 4 weeks! Take care everyone, Andrea, in ABQ alf@prolaw.com http://tenacity.net