The Pistol Ultra 50 Mile Race - Night Running

Friday packet pick up is a great experience at The Pistol Ultra and the race directors always do a fantastic job with guest speakers, lots of swag, and you usually see a few well known ultra runners.  I believe this year over 600 runners participated in the race series.  After I walk through the line and get my bib, swag and all my goodies I see tables with book on the other end.  Let me go check this out.  As I walk up I see the books on the first table I walk up to are all Catra Corbett's - Reborn On The Run which is  great book.  I turn around and see Catra standing in line getting her swag.  Wanting to speak to her I wait around for a few minutes and introduce myself, grab a pic and an autographed poster before walking away from the table.  Now, time to check out the other table.  I see books by Jason Romero - Running Into The Darkness which is a also a really good read.  I look around but I do not see him and decide it's time to go.   

This year Mike and decided to both run the 50 miler on March 16, 2019 with the race starting at 8pm on Saturday night we will be running through the night.  Luckily the course is extremely well lit with plenty of aid stations so we do not need a headlamp or a bag.  Obviously, we both know the course pretty well since I ran the 50k last year and Mike was a pacer for someone last year.  My goal is to sign up for a race every month leading up to the Warhammer 100 Ultra in June with my only break from races being in May.  Since this is a night race and it's suppose to get down below freezing we are planning out gear and clothing as we will need to add layers throughout the night.  We parked right beside a section of the course so we can just grab anything we need out of the car and not carry anything with us.  The trick is to have everything laid out and organized so that we can stop quickly and grab what we need and move on.  This worked great.

8:00pm race start: we are lined up and ready to start our 50 miles of fun!  Countdown begins and we are off running away from the high school towards our first 10 mile loop.  The first loop goes really smooth and Mike and I are moving pretty well and feeling good laying our first 10 miles down in 1 hour 38 minutes.  Start of the second loop Mike stops at the car and I stop at the aid station and I start off slowly running waiting on Mike and then I just start running and we didn't see each other for the next hour as we got split up on the course.  Loop 2 is pretty good as we are now 20 miles in at 3 hours 38 minutes.  The start of loop 3 was pretty terrible for me as I started getting sore and then my mind took over.  Many many thoughts later (about 3 miles) I started feeling really good again but not before I decided I was never running again... "why do I do this? why are you running a 100 miles in June... are you crazy?" and that was a just a few of my random thoughts until I got through my first wall.  In the middle of loop 3 we catch each other and laugh about what all was going through our minds. As w finish lap 3 we stop at the car and add a few layers since it keeps getting colder.  Loop 3 last year was a terrible loop for me.  Not much different this year except last year I only ran 3 laps.  2 more to go!

My friend Jake from church met us as the start of lap 4 and gave us new life as he decided to get up in the middle of the morning and run our 4th lap with us.  We were very grateful as it gave us a whole new energy level.  At this point we were running and walking in sections as the asphalt was tearing us down since we both are usually running on trails we are not conditioned for this.  Jake ran with us for nearly 13 miles with good conversations to help keep our minds from wandering and helped us start our 5th and final loop before heading out.  At this point the temperature is about to drop below freezing and Mike and I are getting cold as we could not generate enough body heat to keep us warm.  All I can think about it is a hot bath.  Yes a hot bath so I can get warm and sleep at the same time.  Mike and I are still doing our run walk but we are about 6 miles in we start discussing the state record for our ages and realize we could both set new records if we pick up the pace.  We both decided push forward and not stop running for the next 3 miles.  Mile 48 we finished in 13 minutes and that was not good enough so we picked up the pace on the next two miles finishing mile 49 at a 10 minute pace and mile 50 at 11 minutes and both setting a new state record for our age groups finishing in 11 hours and 9 minutes.

I learned a valuable lesson in this race that I will use in my 100 mile race in June.  No matter how far you have pushed yourself there is always more in tank but you have to have the power to dig deep in to your mind to be able to use it.  Our minds stop us before our bodies even get close to being done.  I am learning more and more that finishing an ultra race is just as much your mental toughness as it is your physical toughness.  Always move forward, keep pushing and be relentless.  I will work on my starting race pace going forward for longer races so that I do not peak to early.  I need to have a better strategy than just run.  Fortunately that has worked for me so far but in order to keep improving I will have to train like this going forward.  I am going to work on my heart race and pace so that I am burning fat.  Here we go.