Humble Pie

Soon-to-be-crushed optimism.

My first 50k didn't turn out too well; in fact, it turned out to be a 25k.

I could tell you it was due to the crazy course conditions, but the real reason is that I was over-confident and under-prepared.

It seemed like a good idea in November—a 50k in February would be just the thing to help keep me motivated over the winter. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I had taken six weeks off in September and October to deal with an injury, and my busy life reclaimed the time I had carved out for running. Instead of motivating me, my first 50k loomed on the horizon like impending doom. There always seemed to be a good reason why I couldn’t fit in my weekly runs and in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn’t training enough.

About two weeks before the race, I finally headed out to Forest Grove to check out the route (and to claim my superstar parking pass for attending an official training run). The course, which circles Hagg Lake twice with a small out-and-back to get the mileage up, was fairly dry when I ran it that day. It was somewhat muddy and challenging, but when I finished most of the first loop, I felt more than able to run it again. The thing is, the weather had been fair for almost a month prior to that run, but (of course) it started raining later that day and didn't let up for two weeks—just in time for the race. Words cannot adequately convey what all that precipitation did for the trail conditions.

Pure awesome. (But not for running.)

It started out innocently enough with the 1.5 mile out-and-back up a gravel road. There was snow on the ground, but it was a beautiful sunny day. My husband and I started out at the back of the pack and took our time, pacing ourselves for the longest distance either of us had ever run. My strategy was to walk the steeper hills and whenever the mud was too deep to run in without maximum effort. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the majority of the course. I had wanted to run the whole race with Aaron, but I was clearly holding him back and frustrating us both. He really tried to get my level of motivation up and actually got me to run a sub-10:00 minute pace for about a half mile on the highway between trails, but we ended up making an amicable decision to part ways for the remainder of the race.

So I watched my husband streak off and I resumed my run-walk-slide-hop progression through the mud. It was a pretty frustrating way to run really—I’d just find a rhythm and then the course would degenerate into a soupy pit, only to dry out just in time for a steep incline. Or worse, the steep incline and the soup would merge and I had to pull myself up the hill with brush, nearby tree branches and the occasional blackberry vine. The only thing that saved the run from being entirely soul-sucking was that the conditions were far too terrible to take seriously (I actually laughed when I saw the washed-out bridge and the creek I’d have to ford). I mulled over the decision to complete the second loop or not for the next eight or so miles, which I covered at a snail-ish 17:00 minute pace (plenty of time to mull). When I broke through some trees and saw the finish line on the far side of the lake, I was so demoralized that I seriously thought about going for an icy swim (hey, it would wash the mud off!).

Shortly after the last aid station, I crested a hill and saw Aaron waiting for me. I have never been so relieved than when he told me he was too wrecked for loop two. We ran the last bit together and both refused the finisher socks (since we didn’t really finish). It took me four hours and sixteen minutes to run the 25k; that's only slightly less time than it takes for me to run a marathon, even though the distance is over ten miles shorter.

Like this all the way up to my hips. (And this is after I scraped my shoes!)

I took two lessons away from this experience. First, I will never under-train for a race again. I had gotten over-confident after beating my course record by over 30 minutes during the Portland marathon after six weeks of complete rest due to injury. Reading several stories about professional ultra-marathoners didn’t help—I always paid attention to what I wanted to hear, like a woman whose longest training run for a 100-miler only is 20 miles (the rest is mental) or a man who decided to run 30 miles on his 30^th birthday, half drunk and barely dressed after twelve years away from the sport (he ran with his heart). While sitting on my ass reading about these athletes’ heads and hearts, I blithely ignored the most important thing—to prepare my body. It takes a lot of time and effort to adequately train for a race, and I wasn’t putting in the miles. It’s as simple as that.

Second, I will never run a double-loop race again. It is far too easy to quit in the middle when you’re fifty feet from your car and you know exactly how grueling the second half is going to be. In a point-to-point or even an out-and-back, the desire to finish the race for emotional reasons and the need to finish the race for logistical reasons merge and become greater than each reason on its own. As the mileage increases, the debate rages between my heart (I really want to finish this race!) my head (My ride is at the finish line; I have to get there somehow, so it might as well be running!) and my body (I’m so tired! I’m in so much pain!). When your car and your family are right there at the mid-point and it’s so easy to just quit and go home, the body latches onto the logic of stopping and all other arguments pale in comparison. So this race, my aching legs, bruised hip (I fell) and scratched and swollen hands convinced my head that the sane choice was to bail out. What I forgot to consult was my heart; it’s not so comfortable with the fact that I quite. And so, Hagg Lake won’t be my last 50k, it will just be my last failed attempt.