Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Tie Dye 50K

First trip to John Bryan park and Clifton Gorge since I was "a kid" for another great race organized by the Ohio River Runners club. It's actually 32 miles (33 for me > lost again) of road, fields, smooth trail, rocks & roots, and rocks on rocks. My goal was to finish and under 8 hours, and I did, in 7 1/2 hours. Next year the goal will be under 7, which is doable.

The first 3 miles are on a road and a chance to "book" some fast miles to help later on. I ran my own race and chose to run a 10 pace and save energy for later, wise. After 2 hours, I was still at a 12 pace, but that would slip. 

The views in the gorge were fantastic from the top as well as the bottom. Unfortunately your eyes were glued to the rocks on the trails as these are ankle breakers and falling on them would not be good. I only fell once while passing a large group of scouts. The "kids" were giving me high fives, when I missed a root and crashed right in front of them, to the collective ahhhhhhhhh. There were a lot of other hikers in the gorge area so you would need to pass them on tricky areas. A few times I was on a rocky climb and the hikers would say "runner" and get off to the side. I would have preferred to use those climbs to walk but felt compelled to run up them, since they had patiently moved over.

The only issue my body had was cramping at four hours, but an S tab (salt+) fixed that. (Thanks to a blog from some ultra star about the "healing powers" of these things when things go South.)

The only missed turn was on the last climb and I added a mile or so, oh well.