Last year, Kelly signed us up for a half marathon a few
months out. I told her she was crazy,
since we hadn’t been running a LOT, but hey – it’s nice to have a goal. Despite kidney stone surgery for me in the
middle of training, the race went well.
I trumped her in 2014 by signing us up very early for a
Spring half-marathon and a September marathon.
Long runs kept getting more enjoyable during training, and what I thought
were long distances before (6-8 miles) became enjoyable midweek runs! I challenged myself in June with a trail 30k
named Hell Hath No Hurry in Pittsburgh and finished it on sweat, stubbornness
and PB&J. I’d highly recommend that race,
it was a blast!
After the trail 30k, I couldn’t get the idea of a 50k
ultramarathon out of my head. Ultra
runners were crazy friendly (and crazy), supportive and impressive. 50k, 50 miles, 100 mile stickers on their
cars…and multiple stickers? I love
it! I decided to look for a relatively
local one and found the CanLake 50, a road 50k and 50 miler. Kelly was up for it, so I got us on the wait
list, continued training and started to hope it would work out. The race director (Gil) is an awesome communicator via email and by having a great website, and following the race on Facebook I couldn’t help but get excited about
it. We lucked out and knew we were officially in
the race before we even ran our marathon.
All of a sudden, my September bucket list 26.2 mile race was now a
training run for something bigger!
I was nervous the night before. We drove the 3 hours from Erie to the starting
area of the 50k, a boat launch on the Canandaigua Lake. We drove the course and it looked innocent
enough at first. Some rolling roads
through the countryside, some nice country roads and then uh…wow. Hills.
Hills like we don’t have in Erie PA!
Our plan was to walk the hills anyway and run the flats and the
downhills, so ok, no big deal. Wait, are
we still going up? Oh good, it flattened
out, then turn left. Look up, now that’s
a HILL!
We got to the Finger Lakes Community
College and registered, got our bibs and sweet race shirts. I'm sure I wasn't friendly enough to everybody that night and the next morning, I was pretty nervous.
That ride had done nothing to calm my nerves but we were
committed. We drove 40 minutes north to
our hotel near Rochester, and got a pasta dinner up the street. As it turns out the hotel is apparently in
the running for the least soundproof Courtyard Marriott in America award. We were awakened by some stupid drunks at
1:00am that didn’t shut the hell up until 2:00am. Why not just stay at the bar if you want to
be a loud drunken idiot? But I digress.
Up the next morning and hit the road south, we had just missed
the start of the 50 milers and saw about a dozen of them running by. Pre-race time in the warm lobby of the FLCC
was a blessing. After an anxious bus
ride we were at the boat launch again.
Starting at the opposite end of the boat launch and running away from
the direction of the race is so disconcerting!
Turn left and off we go for real.
Nice view for the start, huh?
Kelly and I plodded along at our planned pace and felt
fine. I was overdressed and ended up
taking my jacket off around mile 5. No
big deal, I stuffed it in the top of my Ultimate Direction SJ 2.0 vest (which
I’d highly recommend).
Here we are at the turnaround:
Around mile 10 my
chest started to tighten up, I just couldn’t get a full breath. It took 3 miles for that to work itself out,
which was really concerning considering how much further we needed to run. Kelly was awesome though. She slowed down for me, talked me through it
and kept me focused. That chick is a
rock.
50 mile runners were passing us and looking strong, that’s
motivational!
Some nice views:
I especially like this one. :-)
We finally got to the aid station on the lake and refueled
again. We knew the hills were coming so
we wanted to be ready. We walked, we ran,
we walked…it’s a long hill. Then at the
left turn it just seems to go straight up. More walking. Next year, I’ll be much more ready for the
hills – they definitely kicked my ass.
Our goal of a 6 hour 50k was starting to look bleak after the slow miles
because of my breathing and these hills.
Finally, we conquered the hill – wow!
A great aid station and just 11ish miles to go.
At the midpoint of the hill, looking down:
Sadly, only one of our drop bags was at this aid station and
we both were looking forward to a shoe & sock switch. I’m not sure where Kelly’s drop bag ended up
but we didn’t see it until after the finish. Probably my fault, I put it in the right box but didn't realize I had to label it with the aid station too.
I used this area to swap out my Altra Olympus for Altra Paradigms. Nice to change things up a bit with fresh socks and shoes. Had no problems with either shoe, Altras ROCK! I have some 3-Sums at home I'll be using for speed work this winter. If you haven't tried Altra running shoes yet, you're missing out!
We settled back in to a run/walk routine, walking only when we
had to. I’m sure I could get into more
detail on the race and views but they’re escaping me right now. I was so focused on relentless forward
progress (great book, by the way). We wanted that medal badly!
We knew we were close, then we were directed to take a hard
right. When we saw the dead end at the
end of the road, it felt like a cruel joke.
I was really glad to see the familiar white arrows directing us around
it. Then the grassy downhill seemed even
more cruel! We finally saw the finish line
and finished our first 50k. 6:50:46. I couldn’t be more proud of my wife, she’s
just relentless when it comes to getting what she sets out for.
I seriously have trouble calling myself an
ultramarathoner. I don’t feel like one
yet. I watched so many people do the 50k
and the 50 miler and make it look so much easier that I’m not sure I’ve
registered that I did indeed cover the miles.
It was a tough run, physically and mentally. I never would have thought I could cover 31
miles on two feet, even a couple of years ago.
Now all I can think about is the next ultra.
Gil, I think if the arrows on the road were yellow and you
had pretzel M&M’s, I could’ve improved my time by an hour. ;-) Just kidding!
The race director Gil is top-notch.
The race is REALLY well run. The
aid stations are fantastic. The
volunteers are my heroes. I had an older
couple see me struggling to refill my bottle with Tailwind at an aid station
and they came running over, did it for me and made sure I got my hydration vest
back on. I’m sure I didn’t express just
how much I appreciated their help (though I tried). Every aid station was loaded though and every
volunteer was bending over backwards to help and cheer you on. Pringles and PB&J rule!
This is a great race, worked by great people and filled with
amazing, supportive runners. The views
are wonderful, the leaves are changing, the lake is gorgeous. If you haven’t done the CanLake50, do
it. If you have, do it again. Just say “go JB!” as you pass me in 2015! We had already decided that we wanted to do
the 50 miler before we had even untied our shoes from the 50k.
Thank you to everyone involved in the CanLake 50 – you’re
awesome.
