Trail Frosty Foot 50k - 2020

Mr. Running Pains... what a great name for a race director.  I have wanted to do this race for a couple of years and finally got the chance to run in it this January.  The Tsali Frosty Foot 50K is a trail race that takes place in Almond, NC and the 2020 race was held on January 18th.  For this race my training has not been very good but that is normal for me around December and January.  Jacob and I are both running this race and it will be his first ultra race.  Jacob has trained very well for this race and me... not so much.

We arrived the morning of the race and picked up our bibs and swag, used the wonderful port a potties and jumped back in the car with fresh hot coffee because it was freezing cold outside and still dark.  We set in the car and put our bibs on and discussed the race for a few minutes, took a shot of Fireball and waited on the race director to call everyone to the starting line.  We started lining up at 7:45am and started making our way to toe the line for the 8am start.  Mr. Running pains gives us a pre-race speech while we are standing there freezing and gives advice to not run the first big hill.

Off we go.  It’s freezing.  As we pass the first picture station we are all waving and smiling for the shot but almost everyone in the pack tricked over the same root as we were staring at the camera trying to get a good pic.  Mine turned out well even though I tripped it was after the camera shot!
Luckily we are both warming up now that we are running as the temp was around 28 degrees it felt great to start moving.  As Jacob and I made our way through the course we were able to keep a decent pace as we pushed each other to keep the pace up.  1 hour and 19 minutes into the race we made our way to the first aid station at mile 7.5 we saw Jerica (Jacob’s wife) at the aid station waiting on him to come through.   We stopped for a few seconds and grabbed what we needed from the aid station and took off as next stop would be the next aid station at mile 16.

The next several miles just clicked off with no major issues and we maintained around 10-11 minutes per mile through the rolling hills along this beautiful trail.  We pass and talk to several runners and 2 particular runners that we met were Chris and Matt and as we chatted about races that we are all running.  Matt and I discovered that we are both running the Georgia Death Race in March.  For a lot of this race we are running around Fontana lake so you see a lot of floating docks on the ground since the lake level is so low in the winter at this lake.  As we make our way to mile 16 I am starting to feel a little fatigued as my calves are starting to hurt.  3 hours in we make our way to mile 16 and see Jerica once again.  For her first ultra as a crew member she is making her way around really well.  When we see Jerica this time we throw our gloves to her as we are both really warm and trying to shed some heat.  Not knowing at the time but that was the biggest mistake I would make during this race... besides not training...

Around mile 18 or so we are running as a small 4 man crew with Matt and Chris that we met earlier.  We stopped and grabbed a selfie and kept going. At mile 20 my calves were starting to tense up and I could feel the cramps starting.  This is not a good sign for me with a little over 10 miles left.  I got to the point around mile 23 or so that I was slowing Jacob down so I told him to go and not wait on me.  I had to walk a few miles which made it even worse because I got even colder!  My hands were shaking and freezing since I no longer had gloves and my calves felt like balloons and were cramping... I probably looked like a T-Rex walking down the trail!  Luckily around mile 25 into 26 I was able to start running again and was able to finish the race.  When I crossed the finish line I went straight for the food and carried it to the car.  Not my best race... but I did learn a lot during this race for prep and training.  we all need to have these types of failures to remind us that we have to put the work in and earn it.  Remember these races to keep pushing forward.