Sunday, January 9, 2011

Day 39 - Horseshoe Elevation Fest 50K Fatass

Woke up today around 6:15 a.m. after a pretty good night of sleep. Getting up and out the door a little after 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning with the whole family to go to a 50k for me - I must say my family is very, very, very supportive. It makes it a lot easier knowing I have their support.

We arrived at Stephan's house a couple of minutes before 8. My friend Stephan held the Horseshoe Elevation Fest 50K Fatass (click here if you need to know what a fat ass is) starting at his house. The course is a 6+ mile loop run on the Horseshoe Trail which is on roads and trail. We had to park at the bottom of his driveway and walk up. The driveway was snowy and had some icy spots and was not a good idea to drive up. I was warmed up after walking up his driveway because it is about 600 yards long. Once we made it there we signed in on the table where there was a watch to record your time on every lap. After talking to a lot of friends and getting a group photo we off running down the slippery driveway with snow falling that fell for the rest of the event. There was an inch or two already down on the trail. My wife went on a 7 mile hike with another friend and the kids sledded, watched movies and played Nintendo Wii for the the rest of the event and had a great time.



These fatass events are a great way to try different things before a real race. I was trying to use two of my drinks mixes mixed together. 1 scoop of Hammer Perpetuem and 1 scoop of Cytomax. The flavor was not that great at first but wasn't to bad after I used it for awhile. That mixture was giving me 220 calories per bottle. I had 5 bottles made and almost finished one on each loop.

After running down his drive way we made a left and we were running on a trail which lead to a gradual climb off and on to to top of the mountain. From there we headed down to an aid station he had set up at the half way point. Then we hit the road section for a couple of miles through 
Adamstown and one last climb back up to the starting point to sign in at the table.

My first two loops I ran with Derek and Tony. It was nice hearing about Derek's goals for the year and his big race in the fall the Pine to Palm 100. He is a great runner and it will be fun to follow his progress along the way to his first hundred mile race. After the second loop Derek was going out for a loop with his dad. I took my first gel on the start of my third loop. Tony and I ran the third loop together and he helped me keep a nice pace on this lap. It was a big help to me to have them push me along for the first three laps. The start of the fourth loop it was gel time again. I was on my own and this is where I started to feel some aches and a little tightening in my legs. I took my first Hammer Endurolyte of the day. These help with keeping your legs from cramping. This loop went really well after the gel and endurolyte knowing once I finished this one I had one more to go. After leaving the sign in table for the last loop my legs felt very tired. After pushing on the road section it was really slowing me down once I hit the trail. I felt like I was moving my legs as fast as I could but they really were not moving that fast. I took another Endurolyte and a couple of minutes later my last gel of the day. This time the long road section went fast knowing I would not see it anymore today. Another fun event I am glad to be a part of from one of our on Pagoda Pacer club members. Thanks to Stephan and his family for hosting a great event. Below are my splits to the event.

After saying good bye to everyone we headed down the driveway for the last time. Slipping and sliding down to the bottom. We made a quick stop at ToysRUs and then headed out for a nice supper with my parents. After getting home and cleaning up we were all beat. If all days could be just like this one!

Lap 1 - 56:15 
Lap 2 - 58:14
Lap 3 - 56:27
Lap 4 - 58:21
Lap 5 - 63:23


1-8-2011 - 31 miles - 4:52:40 - run

1 comment:

  1. Nice! Can't wait to get up your way for some long runs!
    Good to see you progressing nicely. _Jess

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