There’s no other way to say this: I had a fantastic time at the Whoo’s In El Moro 50k this past weekend! I tried to get in last year, but the entry field was so small it sold out before I had a chance to register. So I guess you could say I’ve been looking forward to this race for over a year. I wasn’t sure how I would do, since I haven’t exactly been taking it easy the past few weeks, but I ended up feeling really good and setting a Personal Record for the 50k distance. Plus, I was able to definitively answer this most important question:
This year’s Leona Divide was possibly the best race of my life. I say this not because my time was great (it wasn’t—it was 30 minutes longer than my previous 50-mile time, and hours behind the race winners) and not because I felt amazing during the whole race (I didn’t—hello, crash at mile 43.) But something about this race changed the way I think of myself, and my limits, and my abilities, and I finished with a euphoric feeling that has stayed with me these past few weeks. This same feeling is making it really difficult to write a coherent race report, though, so bear with me.
Because you can’t truly appreciate the stripey knee socks until you see them in action. Don’t click through unless you’re prepared for extreme silliness, exuberant singing, and perhaps the only successful aid station M&M mouth-toss ever caught on camera.
This was a great race—I felt the best I had during a race so far for the 2010 season. It started on a bad note: we’d driven down to Julian from LA the night before, and had horrible traffic leaving the city. The first hour we traveled 13 miles. We finally arrived in Julian close to 10 pm. The B&B was cute, but our room (and bed) was tiny. We settled in to sleep around 11, but I could NOT get to sleep. I literally tossed and turned most of the night. I would guess I dozed around 2am, and got up at 5, with periods of wakefulness in between. So I was exhausted and not feeling my best at the start.
There’s no other way to say this: I had a fantastic time at the Whoo’s In El Moro 50k this past weekend! I tried to get in last year, but the entry field was so small it sold out before I had a chance to register. So I guess you could say I’ve been looking forward to this race for over a year. I wasn’t sure how I would do, since I haven’t exactly been taking it easy the past few weeks, but I ended up feeling really good and setting a Personal Record for the 50k distance. Plus, I was able to definitively answer this most important question:
This year’s Leona Divide was possibly the best race of my life. I say this not because my time was great (it wasn’t—it was 30 minutes longer than my previous 50-mile time, and hours behind the race winners) and not because I felt amazing during the whole race (I didn’t—hello, crash at mile 43.) But something about this race changed the way I think of myself, and my limits, and my abilities, and I finished with a euphoric feeling that has stayed with me these past few weeks. This same feeling is making it really difficult to write a coherent race report, though, so bear with me.
Because you can’t truly appreciate the stripey knee socks until you see them in action. Don’t click through unless you’re prepared for extreme silliness, exuberant singing, and perhaps the only successful aid station M&M mouth-toss ever caught on camera.
This was a great race—I felt the best I had during a race so far for the 2010 season. It started on a bad note: we’d driven down to Julian from LA the night before, and had horrible traffic leaving the city. The first hour we traveled 13 miles. We finally arrived in Julian close to 10 pm. The B&B was cute, but our room (and bed) was tiny. We settled in to sleep around 11, but I could NOT get to sleep. I literally tossed and turned most of the night. I would guess I dozed around 2am, and got up at 5, with periods of wakefulness in between. So I was exhausted and not feeling my best at the start.
