Notes
Capitol Peak 50 mile
Preamble:
Running 50 miles has been in the back of my mind for awhile. It seemed so daunting and epic and impossible that I never thought my training was sufficient to live out such a fantasy (this girl dreams about running 50 miles?? What’s wrong with her? Good question). But, in my hunt for 50k training advice (Chuckanut), I stumbled upon the Santa Clarita Runner’s 50k and 50 mile training schedules. Their 50 mile plan surprised me, it seemed almost reasonable, and suggested running (not racing) a 50k 5 weeks out. I wanted to run another ultra after Chuckanut if I didn’t get injured, and was already thinking about the Capitol Peak 55k (based on Fritz’s and Mark’s stories and a training run Lia and I did there). I gasped a few weeks later when all these side thoughts merged and I realized the Capitol Peak 50 mile was 5 weeks after Chuckanut. But I needed to not focus on that, I needed to gear up for Chuckanut. So I stowed the CP50 back in a corner of my brain, existing as a glimmering hope.
I thought I did everything right to prepare for Chuckanut, but didn’t feel well that day. I had some sort of stomach bug or something and just felt off. In the end I was happy with the stats and had a good run, but it left me feeling like I hadn’t taken advantage of all my great training and also that I was drifting away from the joy of running into a mode where nothing I accomplished was good enough. Wanting running to taste better again, I vowed the next one I would really emphasize the joy, and not let competition make things so negative. I don’t hate competition all together-- it can lead to great performances. But it can also beat you up psychologically, and be taken too far—it seemed ridiculous to get in a tizzy over whether I was 8th or 11th or 33rd. Who cares?
After Chuckanut the next race remained up in the air. I ran slowly for awhile, but eventually recovered and ran a great 26-10 weekend 3 weeks out from the CP (50m or 55k or Sun Mountain in June? still pondering). Then I played soccer on those overtrained legs, and ended up temporarily crippling my calf. Doh! But 5 days later I could jog, 10 days before CP I managed an incredibly slow 15 miles. It wasn’t pretty, but gave me confidence I could try the CP. The week before the race I could move fast again, but kept all my runs short of course. My fitness seemed diminished, and I still wasn’t sure whether I should do this. But I had signed up at this point, there was a bib number waiting for me...
Then, the day before the race I woke up at 2am with a horrible sore throat and chills! Nooo! Stupid taper I hate you! At 7 am I loaded up on Madison Market remedies, not caring if I was buying the placebo effect or not. I made the decision to risk it: since I didn’t care about my place or time in this run, a little cold shouldn’t stop me from trying to accomplish the distance. So, Toffer and I drove down to Olympia, and spent the sporadically rainy/windy day wandering around our capitol. It was great of him to join me in this adventure – a lot of waiting around on his part, but I was thrilled to see him when I finished!
We camped among other ultrarunners in a field owned by the Marksman Rifle Club. The air was pretty chilly, so I bundled up and drifted off peacefully to sleep to the sound of gunshots and campers pitching tents.
The run:
4:15 am arrived sooner than I expected and once I remembered where I was, I began my excited pre-race futzing. The air seemed to have warmed up overnight, and I was stoked to not have to deal with a long sleeved tech-tee (though had some in my drop bags of course!). My anticipation and herbs squashed my cold down to a little tickle in my throat, nothing could stop me now! I bid Toffer farewell on his day of exploring and skipped over to the starting lines.
We launched from the Mima parking lot at 6:01 am up a dirt road, which quickly became a sweet flat single track. Dawn had just hit, so pink filled the horizon, and we could tell it was going to be a beautiful day.
I tried really hard to start slow and hang back, but my fresh legs had a minimum speed they wanted to travel at! Besides, it still felt nice and slow and effortless, just floating along the pleasant trail. I ended up much further up in line than I meant to be, with Shawna Wilskey right behind me telling me about Glenn Tachiyama’s surgery! Woah, Rhea, WAY too fast. This woman is like Lia. But when she passed, I followed. I knew I wouldn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t keep up with her for the whole race, but in the beginning her pace was perfect for me, not out of control cardio mania nor frustratingly slow plodding.
We stayed within about a minute or two of each other (she led for most of it) for the first ~17-18 miles, at which point she took off on another gear and I never saw her again. I really enjoyed chatting with her – she had some great advice about ultras and it was fun to swap stories about races we have both participated in. I think some of the things she told me contributed strongly to me finishing this race.
But back to the course. The first 8 miles or so had some pretty muddy sections (though apparently not as muddy as in the past). I knew I should just run through the stuff to save energy, but I wasn’t ready to have wet heavy feet just yet, so I enjoyed prancing around the mud holes. Plus, one guy behind me said “screw this! I’m running through this shit!” and 10 seconds later lost a shoe to the muck… it was pretty sticky.
I felt great, joyous; just purely happy to be out there moving at a comfortable pace in a beautiful place. I hit the first manned aid
station at the bottom of a hill, grabbed an apple car-boom gel (which tastes like apple pie! Yum!) and started climbing. The next section included 1.4 miles on road, which I wasn’t too thrilled about, but soon got my happy groove back when we re-entered the trail. The path continued to climb, but very reasonably with lots of flat breaks. I hit a clearing that took my breath away – the view was fantastic (no camera, darn!). Soon I reached the ‘grunt trail’, 1000 feet up in 0.9 miles. It didn’t seem all that steep, in the beginning anyways. I knew I should walk the whole thing, but I just couldn’t handle it, so I jogged and power-walked the steeper parts, trying to not push too hard. I passed Shawna, knowing full well she’d pass me back soon, but I needed to click into my own gear. Because of this, I unwittingly became the first woman to the top of the peak! I assumed there were 55k women in front of us and really wasn’t aiming for that, but got a spiffy headlamp out of it. Cool!
Running down the other side Shawna bombed by me, I was impressed! The next section was a lollipop route along the ridge, but seemed to go down for a long ways. I started to feel punky around mile 21, but a honey stinger ‘ginsting’ gel and salt pill perked me back up. I was definitely not running easy anymore and slowing some, but just kept moving forward.
On the way back up the ridge I walked a bit more than I would have earlier in the race, but managed to stay positive, I was over half way done! I hit an aid station at mile 30, 5 hours into the race. ‘WOW,’ I thought, ‘I am near my 50k PR in a 50 mile race, should I be worried?’
Climbing back up to Capitol Peak a second time was very steep, so I just took the opportunity to walk, hydrate and gel up. I came across the race photographer heading out and he said ‘you runners really are masochistic,’ which got a laugh out of me, I couldn’t argue. Pam Smith came hiking up behind me on this second ascent, looking strong. I accepted right then that she was going to pass me. I didn’t fight it or entertain the idea I could compete with her. She caught up to me going down the other side, but stayed behind me for some reason. We chatted a bit, and pretty soon she did pass, saying ‘c’mon, let’s go catch the leader!’ to which I replied ‘that’s Shawna!’
I didn’t try to follow her, even though as she realized this she called out ‘give me more of a fight than that!’ I just told her ‘this
is my first 50 miler; I don’t know what I’m getting myself into!’ We were at mile 31 and there was no way I was going to surge with 19 miles to go. I really didn’t want to turn my run into a competition! I knew what would happen if I did – I would keep up for a few miles, then blow up. Even if I did hold on, I’d still be left behind eventually and then feel bad about it, what was the point of going through that? I was out there to enjoy myself, not kill myself trying to beat someone. It was temptation to repeat a pattern staring me in the face and I stuck my tongue out at it.
However, it was really kind of her to try to bring me along with her: that is some great sportsmanship, and what I love about the ultra community. I don’t think she realized that I wasn’t trying to place. Before she left I asked her about women behind her, I wanted to know how many more times I’d have to face this ‘running my own race’ versus ‘competing’ choice. She told me there was a woman about a minute back and not another for awhile. So, I thought, 4th is good enough, just forget about it and keep running. Pam just went ‘poof!’ and she was gone.
I did what I was there to do; I ran down the hill, the views were still pretty. A few miles later I hit a pretty severe low. My legs were hurting terribly, running wasn’t feeling good at all, and all sorts of bad thoughts charged through my mind, including: ‘This SUCKS, I’m NEVER doing this again! I hate running! Why the #$@& am I out here?’ I think it was mile 35-36 and I wanted to quit. I got so caught in this negative mental spiral forward momentum started to take a back seat.
But then, the competitiveness I have been trying to let go of actually did me a favor. I heard/saw the next woman (Tia Gabalita) a few switchbacks back, and somehow it jolted me alive again! I had accepted she would pass me, but at this point with all the negativity in my head I didn’t want it to happen yet! I took off like a rocket (HOW? I thought I had nothing left??) , but somehow she was always the same distance behind me. I couldn’t gain anything, but at least I was feeling much better and moving with some chipper again.
I got so riled up a momentary distraction from the trail happened and suddenly I flew through the air, followed by a smack! faceplant into the mud! I was only a little scraped, mostly just covered in mud, thankfully, so got back up and kept running, a little shaken up. Calm down Rhea.
Tia was on fire when she passed, I was astounded at the rate of her leg turnover at that point in the race! She had a great smile and clearly was having a good time. Her happiness spread to me and I was glad for her, anyone that can run like that at mile 38 gets to go by! I didn’t try to keep up with her either, but re-centered myself, attitude adjusted, ready to plug on the 12 miles left. I was back in business!
The last 12 miles were very interesting. I plodded along fairly slowly until I took a final honey stinger gel with 8 miles to go --the
vitamin b and kola nut in it shot me over a freaking rainbow or something because I began feeling like superwoman! By 6 miles to go the major hills were over, just rolling with a downhill bent back to the finish. Excitement started bubbling over into my legs and I got going really really fast! In reality I doubt I was moving with any exceptional speed, but it’s all relative, and let me tell you, I felt like a cheetah. Through the muddy sections I stamped right down the middle of the trail, loving all the splashing and slipping and luckily I kept both my shoes. With 2 miles to go I really started pushing – all the way into cardio overdrive! WOW! I crossed the finish line in a state of euphoria, what an amazing adventure!
The Aftermath
It turns out lots of people had a good day and times were generally faster than other years on this course – they had to reroute due to logging, which may have made the course easier, but also the conditions were perfect, there was less mud than most years and no snow at the top. Also, they marked the course extremely well, so nobody got lost! For a first 50 mile race, I lucked out with the free parameters.
I felt pretty good immediately after the race, actually better than I did after Chuckanut and certainly no worse than after any of my 50k’s. I had chores to do in Seattle when I got back, including finding parking for the rental car and walking another mile or two, and it was fine. I expected to be a complete mess post-50 miles; I thought I wouldn’t be able to drive and that I’d be passing out from exhaustion. It seemed eerie how ‘ok’ I felt.
But really there is no free lunch, and 50 miles DOES do something to you beyond 50k. In my case, it completely wacked out my sleep patterns. I didn’t sleep more than an hour the night after the race, and even the next night had trouble. At first I assumed it was all the caffeinated gels I consumed, but eventually that didn’t make sense. I asked Shawna about it and she told me it happens, that she didn’t sleep well her first year of ultra running (she does A LOT of them). If you push your body into survival mode, it won’t sleep, not when a bear might eat you! So of course that cold I staved off for the race took advantage of this! But it is a great feeling, even if sniffling, to have run 50 miles. Yes I know many people have done much more impressive things related to running, but it was something that seemed out of reach that I just snatched. I am still amazed humans can do this. We are so weak and our heads play such crazy games with us, yet when we ask inhuman things of ourselves, we often come through it victorious!
What I learned:
- The human body can do incredible unimaginable things
-Competition has both good and evil sides; I should practice manipulating it for my purposes
- I can run for 50 miles!
- Eating/drinking more is better: 6 gels + gu chomps+ 7 salt pills+ aid station snacks was probably barely enough
Thanks for reading!