Pigtails and Yours Truly 50k

This weekend was a lot of fun. To me what is fun is not fun to most. I ran 62 miles in two days. A month or two ago I was planning on running the Capitol Peak Fat Ass (Jan 19). But in hearing about how hard it is, I decided to do the Pigtails 50k this last weekend. This also allowed me to do my 12 hour training run. So how did I get two races? Well I was looking at the Maniacs Calendar, and saw that a bunch of Maniacs were running on Sunday, January 27, as a part of the international Yours Truly 50k race.

So I was planning this to be a solo trip. I booked two nights at the hostel at Pike's Place in Seattle. I planned to drive to Renton on Saturday from the hostel, then to Cedar River from the hostel on Sunday morning. MY friend Tim Lawson (Maniac #409), was planning to doing MadAss in Madras with his cousin. But on Friday, Tim called me and told me that his cousin was sick and he could not goto Madras. He decided to join me. I was happy to have someone to join me. Tim and I have know each other for many years, I enjoy talking running with him.

We left at 4pm on Friday, after getting so snacks at the Dollar Tree, and filling up the gas tank. We ran into HEAVY traffic in getting out of Portland. It took us 1:15 to get cross the bridge and into Washington. Then the traffic was much better. We made good time and arrived in Seattle by about 8pm. We had a hard time finding a parking spot in downtown Seattle on a Friday night, but we finally found one, and checking in at the hostel.

We had a little dinner, and looked on a book about extreme ultra marathons. While I look at some of the races as just amazing, Tim looks at the races and says, "I want to do it!" We then headed to bed, because Renton is a 30-40 minute drive. And that meant we would have to leave at 6:15am.

I got up at 5:30am, and had my devotions. I always start my day in God's Word, even on a race morning. After that Tim and I had a little breakfast on the go and left at about 6:15. We drove to Renton, it took us at about 30-40 minutes. When we arrived it was COLD! My car was saying that it was 26°, which it sure felt like it. It was overcast. We were there at 7:00am, we waited for about 30 minutes before we started out on the course.

We started off and were running good. The race is three loops and then a little out-and-back. It was cold and the ground was frozen solid. It was an untechnical trail, but the frozen ground made it a trick to run on. Tim and I ran a good pace, we averaged a 9:19 mile in the first loop.

In the second loop we kept pushing along. It remained dry and felt great. We did slow down, but managed to run a 10:06 mile. This loop was completed in 1:38:27. As we got to the start area, it was starting to rain. I didn't think much about it, but boy did we get hit by it.

As we started out on the third loop, I knew it would be tough. We saw Eric Barnes and starting running with him. I know so many Maniacs by name, but it's nice to get a chance to talk with him. We were walking up the hills and running the rest. It was good. But the rain fell on the frozen ground, this caused for some very slick conditions. At one point I did slip on the frozen ground and got a bit scratched. We slowed own with a pace of 10:15 miles.

We finished the run off with a challenging out-and-back. At the end we had run a time of 5:08:01 (9:55 pace). This ranks as my third fastest. It was a lot of fun. But I was so tired. Tim had a huge PR and I was so happy for him. We drove back to Seattle, and once we found a parking spot we went to the hostel and relaxed. The first thing we did was to take a shower, and eat some dinner. After that we sept some time on the internet. But at about 7:30 were were starting to get tired. We went to our room, and relaxed, but fell asleep about 8:00 or 8:30.

We had to get up real early on Sunday. Yours Truly 50k is near Maple Valley and is about a 45-60 minute drive. We left at 6:00am, and had no trouble until we got out there. It became snowy and slick. We missed the parking lot at first, but later found it. We got there at about 7:15, and got started on the run at 7:45.

The course is a basic out-and-back, but you have to run it twice. I was feeling a bit stiff, but like all doubles it's about getting out there. Our goal was to have fun. I brought my new digital camera and so did Tim, so we wanted to take a lot of pictures, and just enjoy ourselves. Each stretch of the out-and-back is 7.78 miles. It was cold about 32° at the start, the course was a compact gravel, and was frozen. But the clouds were thin.

As we started out, we had a lot of fun taking pictures and enjoying ourselves. Tim made it a habit of taking pictures of the others runners and we crossed them. It was fun to see the other Maniacs and non-Maniacs. We arrived at the turnaround within 1:27:37, giving us a pace of 11:15.

On the return we caught up with Monte Pascual. He is a much slower runner, and was also working on his second 50k of the weekend. We decided to stick with him for a while. I think we felt like it would be nice to chat a little. As I said earlier it's nice to have a chance to get to know other Maniacs a little better. We stuck with him until the halfway point. In the return leg we ran a 12:26 pace for a time of 1:36:44.

When we got to the start area, we met up with Fred Johnson. We first met him at the start. He is a new runner to the area, and also ran Pigtails. He is a much faster runner with a time on Saturday of 4:12. He was considering on going home. But when we told him that we were going out, he decided to join us. We had a little more serious run at that point. We ran a nice pace of 12:01 for a time of 1:33:29. When we got to the turnaround, we waited up Jess Mullen. That would add a little extra time to our time.

On the final return, we pushed much harder. I was not ready for a hard return. But we were going strong. We ran a very nice pace, once again we got to know Fred better. The weather which was very nice, was getting even better. The temperature was in the upper 30's and the sun had come out. Only a few times in the entire run did we have a little snow. We finished very strong and ended up running a sub-6 hour race. Our final return was 1:17:39 a pace of 9:59, which gave us a negative split. First half of 3:04:21 a second half of 2:51:08, that means we ran a total of 5:55:29 a pace of 11:25.

We stuck around a little longer. We saw mostly everybody back in. It was a fun day. We took off about 3pm. It took us 4 hours to drive home, but this included a stop for gas and a stop at Burger King for dinner.

I had a blast of a weekend. It's very fun to see so many neat runners and get to know some of them better. Thanks for reading.

Here is a link to my breakdown of the weekend.
http://www.marathonfreak.com/january_double.pdf