4/2/2011

I was supposed to run in the Lake Sonoma 50 today but the race was cancelled earlier in the week due to part of the course being underwater (check out the picture). A few runners from the Sacramento area quickly organized a 50 mile run up in the Auburn area along the Western State 100 trail. The run started out nicely but with the weather being around 20 degrees warmer I was sweating, well, like a (insert favorite sweaty animal).

The first part of the run had us do three consecutive up and backs on the K2 hill I mentioned from last week. This only covered about the first seven miles. From that point forward I could not catch up on my hydration. By mile 21 I was getting rather loopy and had to walk for along stretch. At mile 33 I was really hurting. I spent some extra time hydrating and eating at an aid station set up by some of the generous folks who organized the run. A few folks dropped from the run at this point. One guy looked at me and said “there’s no quitting in the Western States?” which was all I needed to hear to push on.

Unfortunately, around mile 39 I noticed some blood in my urine so I figured this was a good time to stop. To add to the misery for the day, I had to walk another two miles to get to the main road and I was still faced with needing to hitch a ride back to my car. After 30 minutes of hitching, an older gentleman pulling a horse trailer picked me up. He looked at me funny and asked what the hell I was doing. After explaining to him about my training he went on to tell me some of the history around how the Western States 100 is run on the same course as the Tevis Cup which is the 100 mile horse race. Ironically, I told him how the Western States 100 was born when a Tevis Cup veteran showed up at the start with the idea of running the 100 miles.  He finished the race under 24 hours. Check out more Western States 100 history at the following link… www.ws100.com/historyoverview.htm

Well, after I got back to my car I drank a boatload of water and things seemed to clear. The next few days I was still having a hard time with some serious stomach cramps and I eventually went into the emergency department. All the tests came back okay but the ER physician suggested I take some time off. I also spoke Mo Bartley and she gave me some good tips on hydration and how to deal with the hot weather. Although this seems like a setback I think my conditioning is good enough where I can handle some time off.

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