Marquette Trail 50 DNF, mini race report
I may some day fill in more detail, but for now here is a basic writeup of what happened at my first ever attempt at a 50 mile race at the Marquette Trail 50 on August 15, 2015 (which I DNFd at mile 31). I will also be following up with some photos from the race when I have some time later this week.
This was a HARD race, it had 4 really big climbs; one of which was 500 foot of gain at a very high grade. A good portion of the course was runnable, but I was surprised to find that there were quite a few sections of “flattish” terrain that were so rocky and rooty, that you could not run at all. So I had to stop and walk and lost a bit of time in those sections, which would come back to haunt me later in the race. I got stuck behind some pretty slow lines of people hiking and jogging a few times too, which I didn’t consider much at that time; but I now know that I should have passed those people.
One tricky aspect of this race was that the 50K runners and the 50 mile runners all started together. The 50K racers had no time cutoff, so they could go as slow and easy as they please. I think I screwed up a few times in this race early on by getting behind some of these 50K runners and not moving around to pass, since I needed to make the 8 hour cutoff at the 31 mile point.
My mega-awesome wife and kids came to the race to cheer me on, and my inlaws stopped by the race on their way driving back from Michigan to their home in Minnesota. I saw them all at aid station 2 at the 10.7 mile point, which was a good boost to the morale and a nice break from the race stress even if just for a few seconds.
I met a bunch of cool people on the course and chatted with a few of them, but it seems like I would only be with someone for 5-10 minutes and then we would get separated at an aid station or something else. The first major climb was Sugarloaf mountain at about mile 15. At that point, my legs felt great but I still walked the entire climb. This was the only climb that had stairs. It was a mix of stairs and roots to climb up the “front side” of the mountain”. [This was another moment where perhaps I should have ran up parts of the climb] I got to the top, and snapped a few pics of the amazing scenery, and made my way down the back side. I can’t say I really ran down the backside, as it was very rocky and sometimes hard to spot where the trail markers were along with watching your step down the big rocks and boulders.
The section between aid 3 and 4 was the longest segment between aid stations, at about 7 miles. It was also the longest section of flatter terrain. It ran right along the edge of Lake Superior for most of it, so the scenery was quite awesome. This section was a mainly pine tree forest, so most of the terrain was a very runnable bed of pine needles. I trucked along here at my “race effort”, but the temps were rising and so was my heart rate. I know now that I should have picked up the pace here, as I lost a lot of time later in the race on the large climbs.
I hit aid station 4 (mile 21.7) at what felt like longer than 7 miles, and saw my family again. They were a sight for sore eyes, and my wife handed me 2 fresh flasks of Tailwind. I gave her the empties and then filled my bottles at the aid station. I pulled out my buff and had a super nice aid station worker fill up both the front and back of the buff with ice cubes. I wore it around my neck to try to keep my body temp down, as it was getting hot and was supposed to be temps in the high 80s today. The buff/ice combo worked PHENOMENAL, and I will definitely use this method in future races where you can get ice from the aid stations.
I left that aid station still well on track to meet my goal and beat the 50K cutoff. But the next section included a climb up Bareback mountain, which was quite hard and looking at the data now I lost a lot of time. By the time I hit the next aid station at mile 25.2, I had lost an hour of “race completion time” and was now pushing closer to missing the 50K cutoff. I filled up all my nutrition and ice at aid station 5 and pushed on. This next section would be the hardest of the day, with a big climb up “Top of the World” and also a climb up “Hogsback Mountain”. When I looked at my GPS, I had about an hour and forty minutes to make it 5.5 miles; which at any other course would be EASILY doable.
My legs were really starting to tire now and the climb up “top of the world” really heated me up as you were out of the treeline on most of these mountaintops and it was a pretty steady climb of about 300 feet. I kept coming around corners thinking I was almost to the top, and then discouraged by seeing that I had more to go. I got to the top and had someone at the peak tell me that the next section going down the back side was pretty runnable so I tried to pick up the pace/effort and go faster. It was quite difficult by now to go faster, as my legs were starting to revolt. My right quad was in a lot of pain, and I started having issues with my right hamstring “locking up”. I tried to stop and stretch it a few times, but it was really bad. I also noticed that my calves were “twinging” a little as if sending the signal that they were just about ready to cramp up. I thought to myself that it was a bad move not to have worn my calf sleeves for this race.
I came across a few racers I knew from West Michigan (Scott VanLoo, Peter Burrill, and Lewis Hayden) who were doing the 100K and going the other way. They tried to encourage me and tell me that I had plenty of time to go and looked great, but I know I was looking and feeling bad. I was really struggling by this point. They told me that I “only” had Hogsback left, and then I would be just a few more miles to the 50K checkpoint aid station. At this point, I still thought that beating the 8 hour cutoff was feasible, but my legs were in rough shape and I began to doubt my ability to turn around and run these same hills for another 20 miles.
I got to Hogsback and the first section of it is a really crazy all tree roots climb with plenty of places where you can’t even find a good place to put your foot. I had to do a lot of tree grabbing and other hands-and-foot scrambling up this one. Once I broke out of the treeline, it was all rocks, and it was INSANE. My legs were screaming, my body was ridic tired and hot, and my will was breaking. [I really wish I would have taken some pics of Hogsback as it is really hard to describe in just words, but I didn’t want to lose any time messing with my phone.] I kept looking at my GPS and seeing the time ticking away, knowing that my goal of running my first 50 miler was slipping through my fingers. That realization and the difficulty of the climb utterly breaking my will to go on made the Hogsback ascent one of the hardest things I have ever done, both mentally and physically. As I climbed the rocky sections, I started seeing more 50 milers coming towards me and going the other direction as they headed out for their final 20 miles.
By the time I reached the top, I was destroyed. My legs were trashed, my will was shot, and I just wanted the day to be over. But now I still had to climb down the backside, which is no easy task; along with running a few more miles once I got down. There are a few sections where there is no foothold at all, you have to either butt slide or just hope that your shoes grip as you scale down the flat rock. I finally got to a section that I could run and I tried to pick up the pace again to see if I could make up some time. My watch was getting closer and closer to the 1:30pm cutoff and I strongly doubted I would make it. I kept doing the mental calcs in my head of how much distance I had left and how much time I had left.
At this point, it was extremely difficult to stay running. Lots of walking and despair and pissed-off-ness too. Without going through the details, I ground it out to get back to the start/finish area and jogged in to where I could see my family waiting around the corner from the finish line. By this time, it was already a few minutes past 1:30pm, so I was really sad and mad and everything. I tried to put on a good front for my kids, who so awesomely held out my favorite candy bar (an Almond Joy) as my reward when I ran by them on my way to the start/finish. I came around the corner and had a race official tell me that I missed the cutoff, which made me even more upset. Then I slogged it in to the finish line where the RD was waiting to shake everyone’s hand. I was in a piss poor mood by now at knowing I had just DNFd and didn’t have a lot to say to the RD.
I walked over and talked to my family, who tried to console me while I threw a temper tantrum pity party, but yet I was glad the suffering was over. I felt totally gassed once I stopped moving and I don’t think I could have made another 20 miles in that heat on those dead legs if I had made the 50K time at say 7:55, instead of missing it at 8:06. I missed the cutoff by six minutes and change, but to me it seemed like I missed it by a mile.
I had trained so hard, and had solely focused on this race for over 9 months; but at the end of the day; I didn’t train hard enough. I also did not use correct time/pace management tactics early in the race, worrying more about “going the distance” than making the required time cutoffs. Those failures are solely on me. Now it is time to rehash what went wrong and to try to learn. As I write this, it is 10 days after the race and I am still mad about it. I think it will take me some time to get over this; but I am trying to remember the positives about the race and the journey that got me there. I met many new people, ran new places, pushed new boundaries, and got to really experience some amazing examples of God’s creation while working towards this goal. Even if I did not meet the end goal, the journey itself was worth the effort.
[Only 26 out of 58 racers finished the 50 miler]
