Here it is. The end of 2024 and I managed to squeak in an ultra. With life and work being as busy as they are, as much as it hurt my feelings, I decided to sign up for my first road ultra: the Prospect Park Track Club 50K. The entire race was on pavement. Typically, ultras are an excuse to go somewhere fun and spend all day on trails in the woods and running in the mountains. That wasn't in the cards, so I chose a race that I could drive to so that I would spend minimal time away from the family. When I signed up, I hadn't realized how close the race was to Thanksgiving. So close to Thanksgiving, that there was a guy dressed as a turkey running the 50K. It was funny that after not pinning a bib on since last Thanksgiving, in the same week I pinned on a bib for the Trinity Turkey Trot (5 K) and another for this 50K.
Last minute, Chris decided to come with me, which was great. It saved me at least an hour of commute time and it was also great to see him throughout the race and enjoy a meal with him after the race. Definitely easier to have him drive me home instead of having to deal with mass transit to get home. We arrived in Brooklyn late afternoon the day before the race. I brought my usual pre-race dinner: brown rice, sweet potatoes and chicken. Chris went out in search of something more exciting and found a vegan Ethiopian place to order takeout. All smooth sailing- I was able to get to bed early since I wanted to be up by 4:15 the next morning. I actually fell asleep, probably by 9ish only to be awakened by obnoxious loud music with thumping bass from the downstairs neighbor. It was jarring to say the least. I reached out to my Airbnb host and it turned out that it was her son downstairs, so thankfully, she was able to tell him to turn it down. She was annoyed. It wasn't the first time she had this issue with guests. Kids! I commiserated with her and left her a good review, regardless of the noise.
I got up at 4:15 the next morning and needed the full hour to dress, eat breakfast, have success in the bathroom and do a last minute check on my drop bag items. The race was a looped course. Being allowed to keep a drop bag at the start/finish meant that I didn't have to carry anything with me. Annoyingly, we got a cold snap right before the race, which meant a lot more logistics with gear. I ended up wearing a pair of fleece-lined tights, which did not have side pockets, so I had to wear a vest in order to carry my phone and a bandana, knowing that with the cold, my nose would run the entire race. I started with hand warmers inside of ski gloves with liner gloves and a thick fleece over my Houdini jacket, which was over a thermal. I was worried more about the wind than the low 20F forecast. The 6AM start would be in the dark, so I also made sure I had a headlamp over my beanie.
Chris dragged his butt out of bed to drive me to the start so I wouldn't have to worry about parking. I got there at about 5:30, dropped off my Oreos at the potluck style aid station table and got in line to get my bib. Surprisingly, there seemed to be about an equal number of people doing the 50K vs. the 50 miler. 50Kers had to do a short out and back the first loop and then 8 more full loops around the park. 50 milers just had to run 15 full loops around the park. The park was open to the public, so throughout the day, there were plenty of walkers to run around, bikers, scooters and rolllerbladers and a few cars passing us by.
I felt surprisingly fresh at the start of the race. It was cool to quickly say hello to a fellow runner from Princeton, my Strava friend, Boris, who was running the 50 miler. I felt like the running was easy and there were no aches and pains, despite feeling clunky the entire week prior to the race. I guess adrenaline was working its magic. After the first loop, I was warm and ended up stopping to take off my heavy fleece and switch out my beanie for a running hat. I also dumped the mittens and hand-warmers for fleece-lined gloves. For the entire race, I stuck to my plan of taking a few minutes after every loop to drink some Skratch (which they had available at the race), down a gel and then to treat myself to something else, which ended up being Lay's regular potato chips and Fritos after loop 3. I didn't want any of the candy that I had packed after slurping all of the gels. I also told myself that I could listen to music after I finished 3 loops. Music definitely helped with the monotony of the repeating scenery.
Sunrise during loop 2
I entered the pain cave at loop 6. Busted out the Coca-Cola I had in my bag. I never drink Coke unless it's during a race. I also took an ibuprofen after loop 7. Not far from the start, the park has a gradual hill but it's pretty long. I got pretty tired of that hill. The total elevation gain for the race was 1,273 ft. Apart from that, the loop around the park was never really flat. Mercifully, there were no long downhills, so my quads stayed intact. I did start to feel some knee pain during loop 6 and my hamstrings started getting sore. My shoulders started to hurt a bit as well, since I hadn't practiced running with my vest. Thankfully, my core never broke down.
Heading out on loop 6 and pretending things are all good
Loops 6-8 were all pretty slow. However, I am proud of the fact that I didn't really walk. I took a few walking steps leaving the start after each loop, but then ran the entire loop, including the hills. During loop 9, this allowed me to pass quite a few people. As per usual, it turns out I could've run faster because my last mile was my fastest mile.
Pushing my way to the finish. I had to dig deep to pass those two runners behind me.
Overall, I'm really happy with how I ran. My goal going in was to run somewhere between 6-7 hours, but I finished in just under 6 hours with a chip time of 5:57:38. My moving time was 5:34:41 (10:32 mins/mi), so there was quite a bit of stoppage time for fueling, bathroom, changing, etc. On the last loop, I had to switch to wired headphones because my Jaybirds batteries were drained. The sound quality was so bad but I really needed music to get through that last loop. Funny thing is that I placed 2nd in my age group, but there were only 5 women in my age group. Still, I was pleased to be a top finisher in my group and also to be firmly in the middle of the pack overall. Given the number of runners I saw with super shoes, there were some pretty fast folks to compete with. It was pretty awesome to be finished by lunchtime, even though I wasn't really hungry. Super sweet that Chris was there to drive me back to the Airbnb so I could get a hot shower before lunch. We found an Indian restaurant a short walk from the Airbnb. I was able to walk slowly, which actually felt better than the ride home where my legs got super stiff.
Many thanks to the PPTC for a very well-run event. All of volunteers were super friendly. They even had a group of runners from PPTC running counter-clockwise in order to cheer on the runners. I'm not sure how many loops they went but it was probably at least 5 or so. There were also folks from PPTC cheering throughout the loop and when I finished, the race director handed me my belt buckle and PPTC buff. It was a small enough race that he could do that for every runner. Anyway, I highly recommend this as a race if you've never run an ultra and want to try. The 50K has a very generous cutoff. In fact, I saw a couple of people walking the entire thing and saw that they finished.
Recovery is going well. I'm writing this 6 days after the race and I was able to get an easy trail run in yesterday. I went climbing last night and landed a bit weird off of a belay. My right calf felt weird when I weighted it last night, so I didn't run today. Biked on the Zwift trainer for an hour instead and that felt good. I really only had one day of moving very slowly after the race, but I forced myself to walk to town and replenish some calories. By Tuesday, my legs felt back to normal. Was able to drive to the office and felt great.
Best part of the race? Strava gave me 15 fitness points for my effort. Kidding, of course and the AI feature is very annoying. Honestly, the process was the best part. I'm thrilled that I was able to train consistently, include biking, strength training and climbing. I focused on getting enough fuel on board and as a result managed to increase mileage without losing weight during this training block. That's a huge win for me. Protein powder on the daily helped a ton. I also never got sick even though my family members were sick on and off these past few weeks. Looking forward to a few months of base-building before the next big block.
My first ultra belt buckle
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