Holiday Lake 50k++

Well it was another gorgeous running day for Holiday Lake on Saturday. I headed down on Friday with Amanda, Bill and Sharlene for a stay in the luxurious Super 8 in Appomattox (NOT!). But hey, how much do you really sleep the night before anyway!

Our day started early, the race starts at 6:30 am. We all nervously hung out at the 4-H Center, chatted with various friends, rethought clothing, etc. Finally the race started. For me this was a pretty exciting day, my first ultra since July after finally recovering from a stress fracture in my foot. I was really happy to be back out there again!

I started off running with Amanda and we had a really nice time running together for about the first 14 miles. You start off on single track along Holiday Lake but pretty quickly get to the rest of the course which is mostly really runnable fire roads. Amanda and I discussed that this is a really good example for a fast, non-technical 50k. I don't think there is a single rock on this course. Only a few stumps, roots, and briars around the lake but mostly just fast, flat running.

I had my splits from last year and figured I wasn't doing too badly but was definitely pushing the cut-offs. The turnaround is at about 17 miles. A couple miles before that I realized I'd be close and Amanda and I agreed to part ways. She took off like a shot! I slogged on and made the cutoff by about 10 minutes, no problem! I can only imagine how fast Amanda would do this one if she were racing it...maybe next year!

It's almost 10 am at this point and it's bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and it had to be in about the mid-50s. I was wishing I had a short sleeve shirt but I didn't so I just sucked it up and started running the second half of the race. Pretty quickly I hooked up with Frank Villa who I would end up running most of the second half of the race. He is one of the sponsors of the Horton races and has run all of them. We talked a lot and kept each other going. We both wanted to finish under the 7.5 hour cut off for official finishers so we could get our finisher shirts. After all, that's why we do these things, right??! Frank told me about the time he finished one minute over the official finisher cut off for MMTR and Horton did not give him a shirt. We knew there would be no mercy here either!

I was pretty psyched when we hit the last aid station. I knew we had about 3.5 to go, I thought we could make it. The lakeside trail was beautiful, I really just wanted to walk and enjoy the day, but no, we had to run! We finally hit the pavement and made that right turn down the hill toward the finish line. Quickly I spotted Amanda, Bill, Sharlene and Mark along the side of the road cheering us in. Frank and I crossed the line together triumphantly! He had done it on 10-15k per week of training and I had made it with way less training than appropriate for a 50k. But hey, we were done, finally! Results can be found on Horton's site. Here are a few more pictures.

I'm glad to be back. I think it took me so long to get this race report up because it was really hard for me to sum up. I think I'll take a page from Anita Finkle's book and do a top five list. Here are the top five things I missed most about running ultras.
1) the comradery and friendship
2) the beautiful scenery along the way
3) aid station food, especially potatoes
4) crazy long drives for a run
5) the satisfaction and joy of crossing the finish line

Now it's off to Black Mountain.