Leona Divide 50 mile run

Leona Divide 50 mile run:


This was my first go at any sort of distance running since I opted to drop from the Catalina 50 mile run. I had some successful training runs in the last several weeks, so wanted to come out and see how my achilles recovery was progressing.

Sara and i drove up the night before, she was doing the 30k. We got to the race start about 45 minutes before the 50k and 50mile runs began. Sara would start at 7am, 1 hour after these races started. We gathered our race goodies, had some food and relaxed for a little while.

We started over towards the start line, Sara wished me luck, and i wished her luck on her run.

My days' adventure began with a 2 or 3 mile climb, I started very slow and cautious, not wanting to slide back down the slope of injury i'd been working to climb out of. After the climb, the course did a bit of rolling through lots of single track.

There was some definite tightness in my achilles and calf which lasted 1 - 2 hours, then it loosened up and would prove to be a non issue for some time. I never ran very fast or very hard, my primary focus was steady and injury free.

The course was impressive, lots of single track and a good number of participants. I felt strong for the first 5 or 6 hours, then things started to get more difficult. I grabbed handfuls of pineaple roctane at each aid station (the only flavor they had). I am pretty sure i consumed a good 25 of these gels throughout the course of the day.

At mile 23ish, the descent to the turn around began. i could feel the strain on my achilles during the ascent so opted to jog very slowly and cautiosuly on the descent. During one of my running stints, i heard a bit of a rustle, looked down, and was greeted by a lovely black snake.

Who happened to be crossing just in front of me, and almost under my footfall. Thankfully for both of us, My footfall landed on dirt rather than snake. that was a pleasant suprise.

I continued down to the turnaround, which was a little past 25 miles, and turned back up for the climb. I would walk up most of this, with brief spurts of short slow jogs. Once at the top of the climb, i began jogging again back through the rolling single track.

My legs where feeling a bit of the mileage by now, and required a bit of coaxing to keep moving. I managed to jog through most of the return, up to the bit of a climb which began around mile 40, and lasted 2 or 3 miles. I walked most of this.

The last 2 miles where back down the initial climb. Again, i opted to jog this very slowly, rather then my typical let gravity do the work, i opted to put the brakes on and minimize impact and strain to my achilles.

As i rounded the final corner to the finish line, Sara was there with encouragement. I jogged across, 10:40 (12:48 min / mile pace), nothing spectacular, but more then acceptable for testing the waters, and relatively little endurance running prior to the day.

Sara did great in her 30k, she was running in the top 5 most of the day, until she and several other runners took a wrong turn, and climbed an extra peak. She finished right around 3:50 finishing top 10 in her age group.