White River 50 Miles

In the days heading up to White River, I was a little anxious about how I would perform. I strained my back moving furniture over to our new house in Wallingford, and I also worried about the heat, as I have run very few races during the summer. I also wanted to do well so that I could place high in the Washington Ultra Series. I decided to forgo Cascade Crest training runs for a few days and spend some time at home, fixing things around the house, and by race day I felt OK.

I drove down on Friday afternoon with my friend and fellow adventure racer, Murray Maitland. We set up our tents at Buck Creek, a couple hundred yards from the start/finish, then headed over to packet pickup, where I was immediately heckled by Adam Hewey for turning 40 and entering the Master's category only a few weeks ago. I had already decided not to join USATF (necessary in order to compete for prize money) and Adam seemed relieved to hear that. I didn't really want to feel pressured to compete, as I enjoy a race much more when it feels more relaxed and social.

I woke up at 4:45am to the sound of a caravan of cars arriving for the early start at 5:30, and I spent my time planning in my mind how much water I would need at each aid station and what food to pack with me. I usually do not rely at all on aid stations for food, and instead pack a small waist pouch with sufficient food to complete half the race. I leave another pouch of food in the drop bag at Buck Creek for the second half of the race, along with two extra water bottles of my favorite energy drink mixture, so I can quickly swap out as I go by.

At 6:30am, we are toeing the line, ready to start, although we delay for about a minute while we all wait for Scott Jurek to come back from the porta-potties. I try to stay back mid-pack as I really need to learn to start slower, and I figure that putting a bunch of bodies in front of me will help me with that. The countdown hits zero, and we are off.

I run comfortably for the first ten minutes, and then I start passing a few slower people as I warm up. Soon I am running right behind Chris Twardzik, who is the one person I'd like to beat in this race, as we are competing for the Washington Ultra Series. After several minutes behind him, I decide that I am going to let him chase me in this race, and speed up to catch the next chain of runners up ahead. I enjoy running behind three or four other runners, as their energy pulls me effortlessly along, and we continue on past the first aid station (3.9 miles / 32 minutes?) and into the climb up to Ranger Creek.

As the climb steepens, I pull away from some of the slower runners in the paceline, until I am behind Prudence L'Heureux. After she stumbles and drops her Powerbar into the bushes then goes to retrieve it, I am on my own for a while, speed-walking the steeps and jogging the mellower sections of the climb to Ranger Creek.

I pull into Ranger Creek (11.7 miles / 1:53?) with both my bottles empty. I quickly fill up one bottle of water and I'm off again. I feel pretty great. No back issues either. The trail here climbs up through the trees some more and pops out a couple times at amazing overlooks atop thousand foot cliffs - nice! The climbing is mostly over, and we follow some beautiful ridgeline singletrack on our way to Corral Pass. This section is an out-and-back, so everyone gets a chance to say hi to friends or scope out the competition, depending on their attitude. A couple of the sections are a bit narrow, and the guy in front of me falls off the trail as he steps off to let a runner come by in the opposite direction. When I see Kami Semick coming back at us, I know I am close, and I arrive at Corral Pass a minute later (16.9 miles / 2:45?). I fill up my bottle with water again and leave.

I remember two years ago when I did this race. In retrospect, training 30 miles a week does not a 50 mile racer make. I went out fast, and by the time I reach Corral Pass, I was not ready to leave. I spent a few minutes at every aid station, eating and drinking and trying to recover. In the end, I almost killed myself to finish sub 9 hours. This time around, I am beating a 10 minute per mile pace, and I've still got a big downhill to come. And I feel great.

I start retracing my steps back toward Ranger Creek, only to pass Chris Twardzik going the other way, just a couple minutes behind me. I still have my work cut out for me. I say hi to all of my friends as we pass and before I know it I am back at Ranger Creek. One of the aid station workers, Scott, knows my name and says he knows me from living in Queen Anne. Small world. At the end of the race, he'll even share some beers with me.

Back to the present, we turn onto a new trail for a steep downhill section towards Buck Creek. This section is my favorite part. The trail is soft and the descent is long and shaded, punctuated occasionally by a switchback. I see glimpses of a runner behind me. It is Adam Hewey, who heckled me a little last night. He and I pull into Buck Creek together (mile 27.2 / 4:10?) . I quickly restock my food and grab two filled bottles from my dropbag, and I'm off. After I leave though, I wait for Adam for a few seconds to catch up so that we can run together and chat. He is angling for an 8 hour finish, which looks quite feasible at this point. I am happy to have someone to talk with as we mostly hike up the climb to Fawn Ridge.

On our way up, we come across Phi Kochik, who joins in with us. Adam lives in Ballard, and Phil now lives around the corner from my new house in Wallingford. It's funny that they live so close and I haven't talked with either of them before for more than a minute or two.

Fawn Ridge represents two thirds of the climb up to Suntop, and I'm still feeling fine. Clouds came in to cover the sun, which really helped prevent me from overheating. The weather is hot, but not nearly as bad as I had expected and feared.

Phil, Adam and I ran loosely together all the way to Suntop, passing Kami Semick along the way. I feel good to be passing famous ultra-runners at this point in the race. Kami seems most concerned about whether Prudence is behind us. We say that we think she is quite a ways behind, and Kami relaxes a bit. We pull into Suntop (mile 37 / 6:05?) and smile for Glenn, who is taking our pictures with Mt Rainier as a backdrop.

We head on down the forest road at a reasonably relaxed pace. At least, my legs aren't complaining as much as they could be. I do have a huge blister on my sole, however, and it slowly gets bigger as we pound the 3000' of descent down the road to Skookum Flats. We see Hal Koerner turning into Skookum Flats when we are only a few hundred yards away.

We pull into Skookum Flats (mile 43.4 / 6:51) with time to spare to break the 8 hour barrier. I look for a couple Gus, but they don't have any. I am a little behind on my food at this point, as my stomach has been bothering me slightly, but I think I can finish. A couple hundred yards out from the aid station, a feel a little light-headed, and I slow down to eat what I can from my waist bag, letting Adam and Phil disappear into the woods. I continue on. I can feel the heat emanating from my body. The one water bottle that I filled up for the last 6.6 miles is now half-empty. I have to stop and eat a little more. I think that I just ran out of gas.

It's a bit disappointing to run a race so well and then bonk a few miles from the finish line. I think that is what happens when you start looking forward to the finish and stop paying attention to your body. In retrospect, I should have brought an extra water bottle on the downhill from Suntop and ate and drank a little more while I was relaxing on the downhill. In any case, I still have a race to finish.

Next comes the double disappointment. Chris Twardzik passes me with twenty minutes to go. He looks great. I struggle to run as best I can. I run out of water.

At one point, the trail passes very close to White River, and I refill a water battle with silty river water. I pour it on my head as I run. I think that the food is starting to help, or it may just be the lure of the finish line, but I get at least a part of my energy back, and I can run the last several hundred yards to the finish line. Final time was just over 7 hours 50 minutes. 14th place. I was quite happy. I finished 3rd in the Masters category. Only later did I find that the prize money would have been $200 if I had signed up for USATF. Oh well, maybe next year. Congrats to Adam for picking up 2nd place Masters. He'll be tough competition in races to come.
Also, congrats to Anton Krupicka, who broke Uli's old course records by about 30 seconds.

Afterwards, I hobbled down to White River for a post-race soak, then went over to the medical tent to get all the grit out of my blister, which was "the size of Milwaukee" according to the guy there. The atmosphere afterwards was really great, and I lounged around for a couple hours with the other racers watching runners come in.