around and around we go

speedracers here it is...
this past weekend i did my first timed run at Pacific Rim One Day Run. this race is hard to even know about if you don't live in oregon or washington. heck i didn't hear about it until i joined the nw listserv. then at best you get one notice from the rd fred willet. low and behold it is one of the longest ultra events around oregon. maybe autumn leaves 50 miler has been around longer. i don't know how long that has been but, mckenzie river 50 miler / 50k has been around 2o years so those two races have been around close to or more than 25 years. it also used to be one of the largest timed races said by a local ultra runner.

i called fred the tuesday before the run to see if i could get in. i didn't care if i got a t-shirt, i didn't care if anybody even recorded my laps. i didn't care if i had my miles recorded in the results, which are hard to find also. i just wanted to run.

the plan was to run 50 or so miles. run easy, but just run. i didn't know if i would enjoy this one mile loop frenzie. my brother has done it. he logged 116 miles (?) in '05, running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute from the get go. he did it to build confidence to be able to complete 100 miles and run for 24 hrs. you see he was getting ready to run states that year for his first 100. mmm, let me see at states, he finished 19th in 20:08, yea i think he did o.k.

there were many of us new to ultra's that were there and then others that have been doing this race for over a dozen years. it was fun to see Rob, and Steve. Michelle and Jenny were doing their first 50 mile run, very cool. Steve completed his first 24hr event by knocking off 105 miles. T.C. did 101. Tim England (former winner of Plain 100) took honors with 121 miles. Lisa Bliss, last years winner of badwater, was there getting ready for umstead.

the plan was to run easy. walk the hills. run the flats and downs. so loop after loop i ran the flats, hammered the technical downhills, and did a solid hike up the monster climbs. i practiced eating on the climbs. i drank 20ozs an hour. i ate about 300 calories an hour. it went well. my quads got worked on the downs. my hiking still has some work but that was good practice.

so all went well. got a few hours of running and a few miles in for the day. a total of 247 ft of gain was had. boy that was a monster day. i hope that was good training for the rumble in a few weeks.

here are some pictures taken by bob, "the beast", lynes here

i will consider this next year. it was fun. i never thought i would do this kind of thing but it went pretty darn well. now i am ready for some single track.