Description
Red Rock 50 Mile Endurance run and Trail Marathon. This run is extremely difficult and is best suited for the expert trail runner or experienced ultra marathon runner.
This is not a fancy event, it is a genuine, old fashion ultra run. It is a low key, hard ass, 50 mile endurance run.
-From the Red Rock sign-up page
At 3:30AM, the chirp of my phone's alarm broke the silence of my bedroom. I had two options: Get out of bed and prepare for my race or go back to bed and live to regret it. A small part of me wanted to pretend I didn't hear the annoying tune coming from my phone, but the desire to achieve greatness outweighed it. It was the morning of the Red Rock Endurance Trail Race and I was determined to finish strong.
Since I was housesitting, I had a lot to do before leaving the house. Finish laundry. Check. Feed the dogs. Check. Make the bed. Check. Eat breakfast and prepare my race pack. Check. It was going to be a good day. I could feel it in my bones. But my stomach disagreed. You know those television commercials with the female tennis player clad in all white. Mother Nature pops out of the bushes with her "present" for the girl. You all know what I'm talking about. That commercial was my life yesterday morning. Ugh. So my stomach was in knots due to that. Awesome.
I drove out to Paradise Road and arrived around 5AM. After driving around for 45 minutes, I could not find the race start. I desperately tried calling my friend Sabrina (who was also running with me), but the lack of service was not helping matters. Deciding to drive back up the road a little ways, I saw headlights coming my way. I flashed my brights at them and asked to follow them to the race start.
When I walked into the tiny room, Sabrina flashed me a sleepy smirk and said, "Glad you finally found it." Looking around the room, I felt like a complete rookie. Everyone was decked out in their Hokas, hydration packs and headlamps. They were all lean, mean running machines and you could sense the determination, excitement and vigor in the way they held themselves, legs slightly wider than hip width, hands on their hips, thumbs looped through the straps of their backpacks. It wasn't like the typical road races I've competed in where people are clean and keep to themselves. No, these folks sported beards, gators and their legs looked like Michelangelo had sculpted them with his chisel.
I grabbed my race bib from the race director (Louise Eschobar, yes, the one from the Born to Run series) and picked up my race tee and arm warmers. This race had been dubbed the "hardest trail race on the west coast" and with Louise as the course director, I wasn't surprised. He has quite a reputation of being a complete bad (other word for donkey). Louise stepped up on a bench and yelled out to get the attention of the 60 or so people in the room. "I'm going to tell you a little bit about how to run the Red Rock Endurance run," he began. "Then I am going to try to convince you not to run it." People chuckled. "This is one of the hardest courses you will ever do. The course is minimally marked. Do not pass over the white chalk. If you pass over the white chalk once, you are stupid. If you pass over it three times, you should be a triathlete." More laughs escaped the mouths of people in the room. Sabrina raised her eyebrows at me. "That's you," she said.
Louise continued, "Keep the pink ribbon and the ocean on your right until the turn around, then keep them on your left. There are 5 aid stations. This is a minimal aid race. Western States and this race are very similar. Western States has 2400 elevation gain. We have 2100. Western States has 30 aid stations. We have 5. Western States has 1400 volunteers. We have 14. So, we have a lot of similarities." He spoke about respecting the volunteers, the trails and other runners then he talked about how minimal the race would be and how we must be prepared. "At the end of your run, you must come back into this building, take a shot of whiskey and ring the cowbell. That will be your end time. Now, I know some of you don't drink, so instead, you will have the option of kissing Manly on the lips." I looked over at Manly... his name certainly suited him; he was a tall man with a thick strawberry blonde beard. "He isn't too bad looking," Sabrina later told me.
That was that. It was time to race. We drove out to San Ysidro and parked. Then, the race began. "We're crazy," Sabrina said right before Louise told us to go. She and I started strong for the first mile and a half. Unfortunately, the first 6 miles is straight uphill. After the mile and a half, we decided to walk a bit and mix in some running when we felt strong. Fortunately, most of the other runners had the same idea.
Two days prior to the race, I went to see a massage therapist, who is also a competitive runner. The moment she touched my left calf, she said, "Oh wow. You are tight. You shouldn't be running." Yeah, I didn't tell my parents she said this because if someone told me that and I chose to run, that would be stupid of me, right? I guess that's why I'm a triathlete... har har har. So I didn't run at all on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. It felt so good to run when we started, but once the climb got really steep, I was hurting. I huffed and puffed my way up the hill, reminding myself that it was a beautiful day to be outside. The ocean was stunning and a cloud had made its way across the harbor so it looked like an island. It was hard not to stop and just stare.
We cut across San Ysidro to Cold Springs and climbed up to East Camino Cielo. A woman in Hokas trotted along in front of us and we all struck up a conversation that lasted for 3 uphill miles. At 53 years of age, this woman was a three-time ironwoman, had finished multiple ultras and did century rides and marathons for training. She was a beast. She told Sabrina and me about the ballroom dancing competition she and her husband had competed in the evening prior. This woman was living an incredible life and her body proved it.
The three of us made it to the first aid station almost two hours into the run. Sabrina grabbed a handful of Pringles and a Mountain Dew. People had told me about how great a soda pop is during a long race, but I was scared to try. I tried to eat a pretzel, but even one made my stomach turn. I took a bite of a banana, filled my water bottle with the electrolyte drink Succeed and decided to try a little bit of Coke. Ohhhh.... bad idea. As we started running again, we were met by an incredible view of the Santa Ynez mountains and a nice steep downhill run.
This is where I will get my time back, I thought. But the Coke proved to be a bad move. It sat right underneath my rib cage and every time I ran, darts of pain pushed through my ribs into my belly.
Ow ow ow! Instead of trying to keep up with Sabrina's gazelle-like prance down the trail, I tried to just enjoy the scenery and take it easy until my stomach stopped cramping.
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| 6.5 miles in |
The view was incredible. It was worth doing this run every weekend just to see the sites. So pretty! We crossed the creek and climbed more hills. I had a really difficult time trying to stomach anything other than water and electrolytes. Looking at my heart rate monitor, I saw I had burned 2500 calories already and knew I needed to replace some of those calories. I ate half of a Honey Stinger Apple Cinnamon bar and kept running. Some parts of the trail were chilly and covered with shade and trees. The fall leaves blanketed the path as we picked up our pace. Other parts of the trail were a vertical climb in the hot sun. Eighty degrees worth of sunshine beamed down on our faces as we pushed through the pain.
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| 10 miles in |
By the second aid station, we were pretty tired. Again, I could not stomach food, so I made the error of drinking ginger ale for the calories and because I thought it would settle my stomach instead of upsetting it like the Coke had. A man put ice in my hydration pack as I swallowed two S-caps. Then Sabrina and I embarked on our next 11 miles. As soon as we started running, I had to stop and walk. My hamstring, quad, IT band and psoas all cramped up and created a huge knot in my left glute. I tried to stretch it out, but nothing helped. Then the ginger ale did the same thing to my ribs as the Coke had. I pinched in the soft area under my ribs and doubled my upper body over while continuing to run, hoping that would help slightly. Why did I always have to cramp on the downhill where I was supposed to be strong?
Sabrina's calves began to cramp up as we hit the top of the hill. Suddenly, she stumbled, caught herself, then fell. Picking herself back up, we kept going. It was flat. We should have gained speed, but my knot was growing tighter and tighter. I got down on the ground and went into pigeon stretch. I could barely get down on the ground and I yelled out in pain. The next mile and a half was downhill, so we chit-chatted the entire way down about a wedding Sabrina had attended recently where Emma Stone was the officiary. We also talked about the shot at the end of the race. I thought it sounded disgusting, but Sabrina was excited for it.
When we hit Red Rock, I knew we only had ten or so miles to go, but my leg would not allow me to run. As soon as I could, I returned to a shuffle and ran until Sabrina wanted to stop and chew on an energy bar. At the first aid station, a man had told us that the last hill was worse than the first. I didn't believe him, but I should have listened. It was the heat of the day when Sabrina and I began the climb up the final hill. We got a quarter of a mile in when Nash came blazing down the trail, shirt off, hair running wild, nothing but a water bottle in his hand. "Hey you," I said. "You're looking good. There is a woman half a mile in front of you. You can catch her," he urged. "Okay. Hang on," I replied.
I knew Sabrina was not keen on pushing the speed uphill and honestly, my glute was way too tight to try to shuffle my feet any faster. As soon as I had some power, I worked on getting my hips forward and striding up the hill. I got to a break in the climb and could see the woman in front of us. It would be easy to catch her. I waited for Sabrina then we took off to catch up.
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| Depleted |
At that point, I knew the rest of the climb would be difficult, but I didn't realize how bad it would be. I began feeling incredibly nauseous and lightheaded. I had to stop at one point and put my hands on my knees to stop from falling over. I started doubting myself.
There is no way I can do this. I kept yelping out in pain as I tried to push up the canyon. Every time I tried to stop, Nash would put his hand on my lower back and say, "Oh no, you don't." I cussed, which I never do unless I'm in utter pain. "I'm sorry," I told him.
That's when Sabrina took off. Somehow she got a rush of energy and she charged up the rest of the hill and down the fire road. The fire road... That was supposed to be where things got easy, but every time Nash told me to run, it just made me want to walk even more. Finally I told myself that I just needed to focus on one section at a time, not the entire thing. That worked well until Nash pointed out the RVs where the finish line was and I realized how far we still were. It did not help that my watch was telling me we still had five miles to go. I know that's nothing, but when you've already been running for six hours, five more miles is a lot.
When we got to the bottom of the hill, I saw Sabrina waiting for me. What a great friend! We pushed toward the finish line, sometimes jogging up the hill, other times we walked. Whichever we did, it hurt. Nash kept pushing us on. Part of me was really glad he was there, but another part of me wished he didn't have to see me sucking it up. I had no desire to go on at some points and I felt badly that he had to see me complain.
That's when I saw it: The hut. Inside, there was a man with a scraggly beard named Manly who was waiting for me to take a shot of whiskey and ring the cowbell. Okay, Manly... if you insist. Sabrina and I trotted in slowly (though it felt fast at the moment), took a shot, rang the bell and got our final time: 6 hours and 54 minutes.
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| Finishing with a shot of whiskey |
"Okay, time for burgers," she said. I had told her I would eat a burger with her after the race. Nash made us stretch, we talked to Louise for a little while, drank some Endurox Recovery and took photos. After that, we climbed in Sweet Baby Sam and drove up to the store for some greasy food. It tasted so good but it was so heavy. I felt like I was forcing it down my throat, but my body needed the calories desperately.
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| Our finishers medals |
When I got home, I discovered that my sub for class didn't know he was teaching, so I went into work and taught then Patrick came over and we watched
Moonrise Kingdom. I was proud of myself. I made it all the way to the last 15 minutes of the film before I passed out with my cozy blanket tucked around my shivering body.
This morning, I woke up at 4:45 and taught an hour of cycle followed by Pilates. I feel great! No soreness, but I am going through heat strokes followed by the chills. I can't figure out if my body is hot or cold.
Towards the end of the race, I thought,
This is it. I never want to do this again. But what did I do when I got home? Looked up which race I wanted to do next... So... suggestions? My thoughts are the Avalon 100-miler, a Valentines Day 10K (which I am doing for sure) and Memphis in May. If you know better ones, let me know!
Thank you to everyone who supported me! To my class participants who wished me luck the whole week prior, to Kelly who worked out the knots in my legs, to my family who thinks I'm crazy but knows not to question my insanity, to my Wyoming friends who sent me texts cheering me on (thanks Tucker, Nani and Grylls!), to Sophia who checked in on me post-race, to Tyler, Doug, Patrick and Matt who came with me on my long training days, to Ben who took me up to Montecito Peak because without that hike I would have never known what to expect on the first 4 miles, to Nash who came out on his day off and pushed me when I thought I had nothing left. Most of all, thank you, Sabrina, for signing up with me, committing to the race and sticking with me throughout. I enjoyed all seven of the hours (plus some) that we got to spend running, walking, talking, panting and being bad (other word for butts). Love you all!
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