Run Rabbit 50 Miler - Steamboat Springs, CO

Silver Creek Fire as seen from the trail

Are you ever exhausted but unable to sleep? This race report comes to you in that frame of mind, my apologies in advance.

CR inspired me to write down some thoughts on the race, and I thought it better to do it now before I romanticize or forget what it was really like.

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Twelve hours before the race, at the pre-race briefing, two grandfatherly race directors made grandfatherly jokes and informed a small crowd of people that the course may have to be rerouted. The Silver Creek Fire had jumped the Continental Divide and was encroaching on the course. Options were to either start at 3am, reroute to some variation of the 100 mile course, or wait and see. At 5:59am the next day, in the dark, on some dirt road near the base of the Steamboat Springs ski slope we were corralled to line up, informed "the course has been rerouted, be nice to each other, you have 30 seconds, any questions?"

Any game plan I had went out the window, but then I'm not sure you can have a game plan for an ultra other than to roll with it. Aid stations were now spaced 8-9 miles apart, slightly farther than the 5-6 mile gaps of the original course, this turned out to matter to me a great deal emotionally. 

The first and last six miles of the race were the same, heading out we climbed the mountain, a long dirt road gaining 3500 ft of elevation. Then into to woods for 8 miles of rolling technical trail. This was perhaps my strongest section of the day. Trailed by half a dozen men and convinced they were going to come crashing down on me as we navigated the rocky downhill, I spent the next hour trying to get away from them without falling. From here it leveled out and became quite uninteresting. Miles of primitive, rolling dirt roads on the edge of tree line.  Some boy who rides bikes with my good friend and coworker ran a few miles with me and became my only real interaction of the day. The heat didn't start to bother me until mile 23, and by this point the dirt road had led us back to some nice, highly exposed, single track. Somewhere around mile 25 I caught my friend Andrew who had started the 100 mile race the previous morning. Quick math told me this was a rough day for him. We shuffled along for a mile and a half together, Andrew slowly unwinding the night's trails before he insisted I leave him. The trail took a steep uphill grade at this point and the 9 miles from 27-36 were some of the least pleasant of the day. From here things were largely uneventful. I ate a few salt tabs, made it back to the mountain, and navigated 6 miles down the dirt road we'd run up that morning, decidedly less enjoyable than I had been imagining all day. Turns out 3500 ft of elevation loss isn't much easier on the legs, especially after 46 miles. I crossed the finish line some time near 5pm, the grandfatherly race director hugged me, and all the emotions I had been repressing the past ten hours came out in giant tears. 

Overall, the race was low drama, I'm happy with how I managed nutrition and fatigue. FDK told me after her 50: there are going to be some easy miles, take what you can. For the most part that proved to be a highly effective strategy. 

A few random thoughts:

• CR: does Tailwind make you thirsty?? I added half a scoop to my 1.5 liter bladder, I was too worried about the heat to go all day with only water. I think this was the right choice to replace salts, electrolytes, etc, but damn it made me thirsty. 

• True discipline is getting to an aid station in 87 degree heat and not drinking a liter of ice water. Around mile 27 my stomach stopped processing water as fast as I was drinking it and I was still thirsty, which left me with a sloshy stomach and a dry mouth.

• Random things would hurt and then after a few miles, with no explanation, go away. I am unsure if this is mental or if my body actually fixed itself. My back was bleeding from my pack chaffing the skin up to mile 15 and then it stopped being an issue. I rolled my ankle hard somewhere around mile 27, I thought my achilles was going to pull apart my heel all over again, but a few miles later that pain also disappeared.

• My nutrition for the day was: a smoothie-filled cliff bar, half by mile 6 the other half by mile 13, a peanut butter sandwich spread out between miles 23-37, a few lemon-lime salt tabs, and ~2.5L of water.

• No one talked to me out there. I ran the majority of the race alone. This is the first ultra where I lacked any real camaraderie with the other runners. I missed the witty banter and dark humor.

• This course is not as stunning as the Grand Traverse. The Grand Traverse was a joy. If you wish to run an ultra in Colorado I cannot recommend it enough. 

Sunrise as we ran up the ski slope

Long Lake - good lord was I happy to make it back to this aid station, mile 37

post-race doggos, waiting for Andrew to finish