congrats on the finish!  back of the pack is a norm for me, wouldn't know what to do out at the front!

"the road surface was perfect for older or injured people"  sounds just right for me, I'll keep that one in mind

Congrats on finishing the 50 miler. How is your knee holding up now?  The pictureswere beautiful, thanks for sharing.

Thanks !

My knee is surprisingly ok , I just feel like as long as I can keep moving it I will . I have run a couple times short distances and there doesn't seem to be any problems .

A few things -

I trained for this race by running on long straight desert roads , we have lots here . I don't think I did any hill work after the TRT knowing this race and the two marathons I did leading into it had no hills to speak of . We practiced various distances for aid stations , started with 5 miles by the end of the race we were down to 2 miles . I ran with Tailwind the entire race , I used 4 VFuels and ate about 1 1/2 peanut butter & honey sandwiches . Early on I did not stop for any longer than it took to get a bottle , later as my back got a bit stiff I would stop and decompress it for a count of 60 . I'm a Hoka person and they suited this course perfectly . I carried hand helds until my arms got sore and switched to my pack . That was the great thing about this race you could have everything you could possibly think of in your crew car .

Congrats on the PE50.  Sounds like your knee is recovering well, and to me that sounds like you made the right decision to stick with the 50 miler.  By the  way I know that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but that road is ridiculous.  I'd go stir-crazy.

 

By the way, have you ever tired endurance riding?  That might not be great on your knee though.

I crew for a friend , that's how I started running . I picked one of my geldings ( I bred Arabs ) as a likely prospect but he would not take care of himself on the trail . It just seemed easier to leave him behind and keep running . I have a 6 year old mare my friend thinks I should start conditioning but I don't think I have it in me to deal with a young green horse anymore .  I broke my pelvis and herniated a disc in a fall about 15 years ago , I'm not sure I could stay in the saddle for much longer than an hour or two at this point . Honestly I think running is easier , the whole horse thing just adds a level difficulty that could be overwhelming .

Great Job! Sounds like you had a great attitude and enjoyable race. The trails out my backdoor are flat wide open desert. I enjoy running out there in the winter but can only take so much of it before I need to drive across town to the mountains! Very nice RR.

I can't really wrap my head around downgrading to only 50 miles .  Honestly, I wouldn't think that much running would be possible after 7 knee surgeries...nice work fighting through the training and getting the finish.  Nice report,. thanks.

Great report, awesome effort and gorgeous pics. I am old and broken in places.. I just don't think I could deal with the long straight road. I think looking at it from the start would defeat me.