It hurt, but it was worth it. My two 50k finishes have now taught a number of important lessons. Foremost among them is this:

I can finish 50k ultra-marathons without much training, but it’ll hurt. Next time, train.

This was my 2nd ultra-marathon. You can read about my first, the Bryce 50k, and my thoughts about doing it again here.

Saturday started a bit chilly, with a slight breeze. I chose to just wear a long sleeve tech-tee (later a tank-top), some cheep gloves, a Buff bandana (later a plain red cowboy one), and a Patagonia Houdini windbreaker that I just love. On my feet I had my Altra Lone Peak 2.0s (2nd pair!), Injini trail socks, Altra gators, and some Zensah compression calf sleeves. For my pack and nutrition, I chose my Nathan VaporWrap with water, some Clif ShotBloks, SaltStick Caps, and an Ultimate Direction 20 oz. bottle with 2 hours worth of Hammer Perpetuem in it. My plan was to refill it with mix a couple times at aid stations. Finally, I got some good use out of my new Suunto Ambit2 gps watch. Love it!  I could have shed the windbreaker by mile 2. Thankfully it doesn’t weigh much so having it in my pack wasn’t a problem.

I thought that I went out fairly conservative, knowing there were a lot of miles ahead. As it would turn out, I clocked PRs on all of the strava segments down to Split Rock Bay. Oops. I guess the excitement of race day got the best of me. As usual, my legs felt a bit stiff for the first few miles, but once I dropped down onto the bone road and climbed up lone tree hill to the Elephant Head aid station, I was feeling loose and good.

There, I made the mistake of asking the volunteers how many miles it was to the next aid station. I should have just memorized the miles they were all at, or written it on my arm with a sharpie. In any case, they said it was 4.5 mile. I had another hours worth of Perpetuem in my bottle, so I didn’t mix a new one. As it turns out, it was 9 miles. Oh well. It wasn’t too hot and I had some Clif ShotBloks, so I survived.

After Elephant Head, there is a nice 1+ mile downhill to Split Rock Bay. I didn’t want to blast my quads too bad,  but knew that the downhills are where I could pad my time and augment my generally slow pace along the flats. I made it to the bottom, and continued to feel good as I worked my way south, and up the switchbacks to the saddle where we cross into the southwest side of Antelope Island.

Up to this point, it was all trail I had done before, but before I turned north here to return along the spring Buffalo Run 25k course to Elephant Head and White Rock Bay. I had never traversed the saddle to drop into this section of the island. It was gorgeous. However, right as I started to descend back towards the shoreline, an all too familiar pain in BOTH KNEES came out of nowhere. IT (Iliotibial) Bands. NOOO! I hadn’t had IT band problems for over 0 months (last January)! I was sitting at about mile 8 with 23 more to go. I couldn’t believe it. I hoped that with careful posture, some breaks for stretching, etc… I would be able to manage it. I picked my way down the hill and it was just excruciating.

So much for making good time on the downhills! Once down at the shoreline, the doubletrack degraded a bit into loose rock, sand, etc… for a couple miles until pushing up a 1,000+ ft. climb to the Sentry Peak aid station.

On the climb, the pain went away and I made good progress, passing a number of people. I ate a bit, stretched, mixed another bottle of Perpetuem and got some more water. Then, I headed south towards the shark fin looking peaks. The pain immediately returned on my knees and I knew I was in for trouble. Still 17 miles to go. Quickly, the trail cut east and descended over the ridge and down to the east side of the island. I could see the “ranch” down below and hadn’t realized how high we had climbed. The dirt road down was in good shape, and normally, this would have been my strongest section of the course. It was a 3 mile downhill, dropping about 1,000 feet total. Not too steep to be unrunnable, but steep enough to make really good time. IT Band pain, however, is at its worst on downhills, and wow, it was bad. I limped my way down a lot of it, wincing when the pitch went especially steep. At the bottom, I came up on a runner from Wyoming and we shared a mile or so together going into the Ranch.

The flat hurt my knees, but was bearable. At this point, I knew that there were any more major long downhill sections. The remainder of our course was the Mountain View 1/2 marathon course that had started an hour after our 50k. So. I had a 1/2 marathon ahead of me of flat-ish trail, lots of soft up and down rolling miles. I wasn’t feeling good, but thought I could make it. I alternated between running slowly (9-12 min/mile pace) and speed-walking (13-14 min/mile pace). I would run for 60 seconds until the pain was too much, then speed-walk aggressively to give my knees a break. That’s the dumb thing about IT Band pain. It can be unbearable at even a slow running pace, but the moment you switch to a walking gait – the pain disappears. In any case, the walking saved me. For the last 13 miles, I average about a 13 min/mile pace. I am not fast on flat miles, but this is much slower than I had hoped to go. With the exception of the slow descent from Sentry, I had been clocking faster splits than I had hoped for. And, had I continued for the last 13 at my previous pace, I would have finished close to the 6 hour mark – WAY faster than I had planned or hoped. But, it didn’t pan out that way and I had to swallow my pride as a lot of people passed me over the next 13 miles. Often, they would pass as I walked and then I would catch back up to them as I ran, and so on. In a way, this made it even harder to swallow. I knew that if my knees would allow, I would be running at a pace faster than most of them – doing the passing rather than being passed. I have no pretensions about being a good runner and was out there to simply beat myself, not them, but feeling strong and moving up in the pack feels good. I knew that I should have been, but just couldn’t oh well.

At about mile 20.5 I hit the wonderful 9 Mile aid station where I had a drop bag. I switched my long sleeve shirt for a tank top and swapped my buff for a fresh bandana. I remixed a Perpetuem bottle, ate a tiny bit, and was off. In all, I think I was there about 7-8 minutes, my longest aid station stop by far. But, my legs felt so fresh on my way out. Wow. What a difference that made. I soldiered on to the Lower Frary aid station where my good friend Matt Van Horn (MVH!) was waiting. He pushed me along for about 5.5 miles, literally running circles around me. He would run ahead, then run back to me and go way behind, then turn around and pass me and run ahead again. I hated him for goading me on, but was also so grateful. It was wonderful to have a smiling face. I’m sure he got sick of my perma-scowl as I tried to wince through the pain.

After hitting the fence-line and climbing up and over to the east side of the island at mile 28-ish, I told Matt to continue on to the finish and tell my family I was on my way. To make the course a full 50k, the RD looped our route north of the finish on the paved road a bit, then west down to the the dirt road along the lower campsites, then back south to the fence and up to the finish. The pavement hurt, especially on the downhill. But, with the finish line literally in sight, I tried to push. My family was waiting, lots of cheers, and my 5 year old boy even joined me to cross the finish line.

I finished in 6:45. That was 32 minutes faster than my Bryce 50k time. However, this was a much easier course. UltraSignup gives your performance a % ranking of how well you did against the top finisher. My 7:17 finish at Bryce put me at 61%, placing 30th out of 90 runners. My 6:45 at Antelope Island put me at 53%, placing 119th out of 199 runners. In the back of my head, I  had sub-7 hours as a goal, so I am very glad to have done that. I can’t help but feel regret that my knees didn’t cooperate with the rest of my body. My legs were trashed by the end, but I feel that I could have gone another 30-45 minutes faster if the IT bands hadn’t been a problem. That would have put me in 80-90th place, with a 6:00-6:15 time. Well…I guess there’s always next year!

In the end, I am frustrated but grateful that I was able to push through and finish.