Farmdale 50 Mile Ultra FINISHED!

Start/Finish line at 4:30am

I finished 8th of 23 and 4 DNF. And I got 1st place for my AG again... making it exactly the same outcome as last year.

I really cut my running down this summer, typically just walking/jogging 4-5 miles at lunch. I only had a couple 10-15 mile runs and the Painful Elimination (25.5 miles) and Evergreen 50k. So this race was interesting, I can still run 50mi even without adequate training. It just hurts more and for longer afterwards.

The race started out with 100% humidity and even though the air was cool, running like this is hard. The high humidity makes it really hard to not overheat. Just like last year, it rained pretty substantially in the middle of the race, leaving lots of standing water. The thunderstorm that came with it was new for me... I was out on the far part of the 5 mile loop when lightning started erupting all around me, powerful chest rattling booms. There's really nowhere to hide, so I just kept on running.

Once the storm passed, it warmed up again and the trail got mucky. Its like running in glue, trying to rip your shoes off your feet, and draining your legs. It never gets hard to keep moving, but it does get hard to maintain pace as fatigue increases quickly.

Pretty muddy day! These shoes are actually Black.

I didn't take a whole lot of pics, left my phone in the car the whole time... it would've gotten soaked.

The first 30 miles went by pretty easy. As is becoming the norm, I start having strange thoughts at this point... like how I "only" have 20 miles left to go. All a matter of perspective I suppose. Once upon a time, 20 miles was an epic long run to me. Now its just "a couple 5K's"... or an easy training run.

My 3rd Farmdale 50 Miler brick. What should I build with these things?

Strangest of all.. I've gotten rather acclimated to 50 milers...  I don't stress out the week before. I didn't even pack until the night before the race... and just threw the "typical kit" of stuff in the car, without any plan.  I'd like to think some day I'll view 100 milers the same way... but I doubt it. The "hundo" still feels a little intimidating. Even so, I'm contemplating registering for the CMAR 100 miler, which features twice the climb as the Potawatomi 100  (total of 23,500ft gain). And it's in July, sure to have absurd heat and humidity instead of freezing winds.