#70 - Hagg Lake 50k 2009

DATE: February 21, 2009

LOCATION: Hagg Lake Park, near Gaston, Oregon

This was a tough race for me. I once again wanted to do the Hagg Lake 50k. They give a special award to anyone who runs it five times. This was my third time. I knew a number of my friends that were running it, so it was going to be fun to see them on the course. I woke up early and drove to Hagg Lake. The weather was perfect for that time of the year, and it was going to be a run with very little mud.

I check in and got by bib and got ready for the race. I was hoping to break five hours and enjoy the race. The course is two loops around the lake with a 3 mile out-and-back at the beginning. In the out-and-back I was running pretty good.

Once I got to the loop around the course, I got going pretty good. I enjoyed the trail and felt like things were going pretty well. I don't remember my exact times, but I remember this was going well. I did however remember thinking that I would have to have a good second half to break five hours.

In the second loop, my legs started to get really tired. It started about five miles into the second loop (mile 22 overall), I felt some cramping, so I walked at times. A few more miles later, I was cramping pretty bad, and watched as many of the runners were passing me. I remember running along the street at one point and felt my legs cramping really bad, and looked down and saw my calf tightening up really bad. I remember at that point thinking it was all about finishing for me.

As I crossed the finish line, I was happy to be done. I didn't stick around too long. In the week following that race, I was really some real tightness in my legs. On Saturday February 28, I went out for a 15 mile run, but had some pain in my lower back, so I cut the run short by two miles. After that run, I had some real bad pain in my sciatic nerve. After taking a few weeks off from running, I focused mainly on cycling as I was recovering from the sciatic pain. It would be 5.5 months before I would do another marathon. But I did take a four day 386 mile cycling trip down the Oregon Coast during that layoff.