DATE: January 23,2010
LOCATION: Lake Youngs Watershed, Renton, Washington
Van "Pigtails" Phan has hosted this 50k in January for a number of years. I first ran this race in 2008 with my friend Tim Lawson. This time I was running it solo. I originally chose this as my January marathon in order to keep my monthly streak alive. But as I looked at the calendar I realized that Brian Pendleton was going to once again host the Yours Truly 50k at the Cedar River trail (only about 20 minutes away from Lake Youngs), so I decided to make it a double weekend. Also I had been thinking about doing the Pacific Rim One Day race in March, so I thought this would be a great training tool.
I drove to the start after spending the night in my car. I arrived about an hour early as normal, and got ready for the race. It was neat to see so many other friendly Maniac faces. The races is pretty simple, it's a 9.6 mile loop three times and then a 2.2 mile out-and-back to complete the 31 mile run. The trail is also pretty hilly. The hills aren't huge, but there are a lot of rolling hills that are short and steep. The trail is also a dirt trail that gets muddy when wet.
The weather this day was WET. It rained pretty much the entire time, so that made the race harder with mud. It was also cold, in the upper 30's and low 40's. This created a very tough day.
In the first loop I was running pretty good. I believe my first loop time was about 1:28, which wasn't bad, but I knew I was going to be slowing down as the day went on.
In the second loop I slowed down, I ran this one in 1:34. I knew the last loop and the out-and-back would be tough, so I stocked up at the aid station and pressed on. In the final loop was a rough one, I had to do a lot of walking, but wanted to save some energy for the next day, so I took it easy. The final loop was run in 1:45. After that I powered though the out-and-back and finished in 5:10:51, which was good for 22 of 80 ultra runners. I felt pretty good, but was looking forward to drying off after the wet day.
LOCATION: Lake Youngs Watershed, Renton, Washington
Van "Pigtails" Phan has hosted this 50k in January for a number of years. I first ran this race in 2008 with my friend Tim Lawson. This time I was running it solo. I originally chose this as my January marathon in order to keep my monthly streak alive. But as I looked at the calendar I realized that Brian Pendleton was going to once again host the Yours Truly 50k at the Cedar River trail (only about 20 minutes away from Lake Youngs), so I decided to make it a double weekend. Also I had been thinking about doing the Pacific Rim One Day race in March, so I thought this would be a great training tool.
I drove to the start after spending the night in my car. I arrived about an hour early as normal, and got ready for the race. It was neat to see so many other friendly Maniac faces. The races is pretty simple, it's a 9.6 mile loop three times and then a 2.2 mile out-and-back to complete the 31 mile run. The trail is also pretty hilly. The hills aren't huge, but there are a lot of rolling hills that are short and steep. The trail is also a dirt trail that gets muddy when wet.
The weather this day was WET. It rained pretty much the entire time, so that made the race harder with mud. It was also cold, in the upper 30's and low 40's. This created a very tough day.
In the first loop I was running pretty good. I believe my first loop time was about 1:28, which wasn't bad, but I knew I was going to be slowing down as the day went on.
In the second loop I slowed down, I ran this one in 1:34. I knew the last loop and the out-and-back would be tough, so I stocked up at the aid station and pressed on. In the final loop was a rough one, I had to do a lot of walking, but wanted to save some energy for the next day, so I took it easy. The final loop was run in 1:45. After that I powered though the out-and-back and finished in 5:10:51, which was good for 22 of 80 ultra runners. I felt pretty good, but was looking forward to drying off after the wet day.
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