Choosing a race schedule this summer was tricky and largely dictated travel by plans and one races’s proximity to the next. After deciding to race Boise potato marathon on on May 13th, I wanted to make sure I had at least a month to recover and build for each of the following races. This lead me to search for races in/near Idaho for around the 3rd week of June/July. I chose to run the RONR 55k and PUTS 50 mile. The PUTS race ends up being exactly half of my goal race Pine to Palm in September, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to trial tactics for the race and work out any kinks, bumps, and problems encountered.
The race itself: I chose this race primarily because of the distance/elevation profile, location, and timing. After researching the race it seemed like it was a good mix of grassroots organizers, prime single track, and a cool way to discover an unknown region of my new home state.
The race starts at 2am and has a pre-race briefing at 7pm the night before. This means that nobody goes to bed earlier than 9 or 10 at the earliest and that everyone gets 4 hours or less of sleep. I nearly fell asleep at 9:30 and then ended up not being able to sleep at all the entire night. Typically this would have concerned me, but I knew that everyone would be getting very little sleep so I didn’t worry about it too much.
We started at 2AM and immediately went into a steep climb. I started the race in the lead which was a bit stupid and lead me to push harder than I should have so early in an ultra. I led for about 20 minutes until the eventual race winner (a guy with lots of FKTs who I knew was a much better climber than me) asked to pass and took off. I stopped to tie my shoe and get my heart rate down a bit which dropped me to around 5th. It took my HR a bit to come down and pushing too hard on the initial climb led my flat/downhill legs to be dragging ass and cost me in slower splits for miles 3-6. After the second big climb I was able to recover my legs and lower my HR all the way to the aid station at mile 9.
After the aid station was our biggest climb of the day, around 3.5k of vert over the next 9 miles. The route was quite slow-going single track and was pretty overgrown (waist high grass and plants) just off the trail with the plants to drooping down and obscuring rocks perfect for rolling ankles and face-planting over. Two of my three big mistakes/lessons came in this section of the race. The first lesson happened around 3 hours into the race when my headlamp died 20ish minutes before first light. I had to wait an extra minute at an aid station for the next runner to leave and cost me a minute or so plus slower running when I was following behind him to copy his line. This taught me that my headlamp lasts around 4 hours and I would need a better one for my 100 mile race.
The next mistake was a wrong turn I took off course around mile 18. A sign pointed right onto very obvious singletrack trail that I assumed to be the correct way (although it didn’t have the course marking flags as most obvious parts of routes didn’t) but turned out to be intended for the 100 mile racers who race the course the opposite direction the first time (and would be coming downhill from the left going to the right). I followed the single track about .25 miles moderately uphill until I ran into a huge downed tree blocking the trail and proceeded to hop it . One hint that should’ve clued me in was that I heard the runners behind me yelling something but I couldn’t determine what it was and wrote it off (silly ego). I continued until my watch, which I had uploaded the box route onto before the race, really started to yell at me and say I was over 1100 feet off course. I stopped and pulled out my phone and checked Gaia which led me back to where I took the wrong turn.
Once back on course I immediately saw the flags marking the course that I missed-if I had so much as taken a glance 15 feet up I would have seen them. I had just moved into either 3rd or 4th place at this point of the race and was only ahead of the two immediately behind me by a few minutes. I estimated that I likely dropped 3 places and lost around 10 minutes with that mistake (looking over the race track after the finish it turns out it was actually closer to 15 minutes). Rather than get mad at myself or flustered, I did some mental math and decided if I could just focus on making up 20 seconds over each mile for the remaining 30 miles then I would make up that 10 minutes. It gave me something to focus on and I didn’t lay eyes on the 5th place male until the mile 30 aid station.
The final mistake came at the mile 30 aid station. I had told Kaitlin to meet me at six hours into the race but didn’t make it clear and she thought I meant 6 hours from when I last saw her instead of six hours total time. I should’ve asked her to leave her bag with all of my nutrition at the aid station in case she missed me but I neglected to. Fortunately I had some nutrition in the drop bag at the aid station and managed to lean on the volunteers to get the nutrition and liquids I needed. The stop took around 7 minutes and included a bathroom stop and picking up some powders to mix for liquid calories which saved me down the road.
There was one more aid station at mile 34 to top off water and then a big 8.5 mile stretch with a 2,500 foot climb and no water/very little shade. I managed my effort well and was able to pass two on the climb up and start feeling good. I was very concerned about bonking and tried to milk my flasks for every last drop and just take one sip every so often hoping there would always be a bit more liquid left. Around mile 39 or 40 I passed two guys walking and talking who I believed to be a 100 mile racer and then pacer until they started running behind and following me. They stayed close to me and we came into the mile 43 aid station together. We dunked in the river to cool and I topped off on hella salty snacks at the aid station. It was getting hella hot and the last section was an out and back in a place called dry canyon-need I say more? Left the aid station with them and didn’t plan to stay with them initially, but then we started talking. After a few miles went by much quicker than they would have gone (race was starting to drag and I was ready to be done), we decided to stick it out and finish together. With most of my races this year, I’ve found myself in no man’s land and haven’t had the opportunities to connect with other runners in the way I cherish at races (exceptions being at the Bridgeport run with Jonathan and Potato marathon with Blake). I really enjoyed Sam and Travis and felt it was time to switch things up and give fewer shits about finishing place/obsessing over times. I had a great day, made some mistakes and learned from them for my next race, and had the opportunity to make some friends rather than worrying about finishing a few minutes faster. Nobody blew up on the last part and we brought it in together at exactly 11 hours.
