Race Day – Big Horn has a great start at 11AM.  This means that unlike most ultra’s you get a full night sleep prior to the race and can relax the morning of the race.  That felt like luxury.  The race started fast.  I ran the first 5K is 26 minutes.  I was going hard, but was running in the top 15 where I wanted to be.  The race started with a 1.5 mile gravel road section to spread out the pack, then hit the single track.  The race climbed to the first crew point at mile 13.  I was a little off my goal pace, but it was warm and windy so I wasn’t concerned.  My time for the first 13 miles was around 3 hours.  Not the 23.5 hour split I wanted, but I find that I don’t need to go out too hard and can stay strong later in the race to make my goal.  Around mile 15, things started going downhill.  I got sick and for the next 10 miles, anything I ate came out quickly.  I struggled through this drinking lots, but unable to eat.  By mile 25 I was starting to ingest a little bit of food and by the mile 30 aid station, I was able to eat.  At this point, a lot of damage was done.  I was dehydrated, way under on my necessary calorie intake, and at the base of an 18 mile climb.  By mile 45 it was just dark, but I was back and ready to make up time.  I got my head together at Porcupine (the 48 mile turnaround) and left at a great pace (10-11 minute miles).  Hundreds start at mile 50 and I felt like I was going to have a good race.  That quickly came to an end around mile 52.  It was a very dark night and in one of the numerous swamp crossings, I got off trail.  I ran through the swamp for a while and eventually found the trail.  I knew I had gotten off the trail to the right of the trail so when I found the trail, I went right.  Somehow I had made a loop in the swamp, crossed the trail and when I got back on it, I was going the wrong way.  All the runners I had met had already passed, so any runner I now saw had been well behind me and I assumed they were still going outbound.  It wasn’t for quite a while that I started remembering the trail and realized I had to be going the wrong way.  I asked the next runner and sure enough, I had screwed up big.  From the point I realized my mistake and turned around, I ran pretty hard for 50 minutes before getting to the spot I had originally gotten off track.  Based on this, I lost at least 100 minutes and ran around 6 additional miles.  It should have taken me 80 minutes to get from the turn around to the next aid station and it took me over 3 hours.  This mentally destroyed me and physically put my feet in bad shape.  The extended time spent in the swamp and muck filled my shoes with mud which by mile 66 of the course had built a large blister on the pad of my left foot.  At mile 66 (realizing I have gone 6 miles more than all the distances at this point), it was first light and the start of a new day.  I drained the blister, ate, put a fresh sock on my left foot, and hit the trail again for a 5 mile climb.  I was now several hours past my goal pace and struggling to mentally recover from my error in getting lost.  These items along with a long steep climb really put me over the edge of suffering.  By mile 75, I could no longer put weight on the ball of my foot and was running with my toes curled down so all my weight was on my heel and tips of my toes – not a great way to run and definitely not stable.  At mile 82, I put on light shoes and was off again.  With the help of a couple of ibuprofen washed down with a Red Bull, I was able to get a good boost of energy that pushed me along for a couple of hours.  For the rest of the race, I was able to keep a good pace and ran the last 18 miles on my 24 hour splits (3:45) and the last 5 miles in under 1 hour.  I didn’t feel good the last 18 miles due to my foot, but I was able to finish strong. My final time was 27:45.  This was close to 4 hours off my goal pace, but I was happy to have finished in light of many issues I overcame throughout the race.

This race was a huge growth experience and I will be a better and stronger racer because of it.  I have never suffered that much in any race.  I only felt good for about 20-22 of the miles.  The race taught me a lot about doing races without crew, how to stay strong without a pacer, how to suffer for hours on end, and how to persevere when stuff just goes really badly.  In addition to the first solo race, it has also become my longest single run (106 miles) and longest weekly mileage (122 miles).  My fears going into the race were not eating and drinking enough during the night and when I got tired, getting tired and not being able to focus alone during the night, and getting lost alone in the dark.  With the exception of getting lost, I had no other issues running the solo race.

Bad Feet & Cankles

Emily: San Juan Solstice – Lake City, Co

Kristin, Suzanne, and I signed up for this race in January for a fun girl’s trip.  Don’t most girl’s trips involve the race that is ranked the hardest 50 mile race in the US?  The San Juan Solstice is in the San Juan mountains and is a looped course out of Lake City, CO.  It has almost 14,000 vertical elevation gain and decent with 3 major climbs – two of which are almost 4,000 vertical each.  Both of the big climbs bring you to an elevation of 13,000 feet and at the top of the second climb you stay on the Continental Divide trail for a number of miles.

I was trained and ready and feeling great about the race.  We started running at 5a in the dark but it was getting light just fifteen minutes into the race.  We started running on a somewhat wide trail along a river that had a slight incline.  At mile 3.53 (I looked at my Garmin afterwards) a guy that was passing me started losing his footing on some rocks and before I knew it his feet wiped out my feet and I went flying.  I landed on my right side mostly on my forearm slightly down an embankment.  Pretty scary.  I jumped up and started assessing the damage.  My arm was bleeding profusely.  Another racer  (a PA) helped me determine if anything was broken and we didn’t think anything was so I started moving forward “shaking it off”.  The pain and just being startled kept me from going as fast as I wanted to at first and then my knee (that I had fallen on) started hurting quite a bit too which hindered my speed running the downhills.  I knew at that point that I was just going to have to struggle through the race and just be able to complete it but knew I would not have the time that I was planning on meeting.  Around mile 25 I caught up with some people that had seen me go flying and they were amazed that I had recovered as well as I had. 

Fresh blood after the race.

Emily's battle scars after getting them cleaned

Even with the pain, the San Juan Solstice course was gorgeous.  The views were amazing extending for miles and miles.  I crossed the finish line at 15 hours and 14 minutes.  Definitely not the time I was planning and could have done this race without the injury I got in the beginning of the race but it was a testament of how strong I am even finishing a tough race like this as battered and bruised as I was.   The medical personnel at the finish line were amazing.  It took quite a while to soak my arm to remove the ½ inch of dried blood and clean out the wound.  Almost a week later I’m healing but still have road rash and am bruised on my entire right side of my body.

Kristin dealt with stomach issues and finished 12 minutes ahead of me.  Suzanne finished a great race in 12h 22m and was first place in her age group.  I am lucky to have such fantastic, strong women as my friends!