Orca's 50k

Alright, I'm going to try and get back into the habit of writing this thing. Instead of trying to summarize everything I've left out, I'll just pick up as though I never left.

Two weeks ago I completed my first ultra marathon! I "wimped out" as much as you can when it comes to Ultra's in the sense that I completed the shortest possible race to be considered an Ultra, 50k. That being said, I chose one of the more challenging routes in North America.

The Orca's 50 takes place on Orca's Island in Washington State. This is a gulf island between Seattle and Victoria. It was beautiful there.

Stolen from Winston's blog

A group of 5 of us went down for the race. Jon, Johnson and Winston from the triathlon club, as well as my roommate Sean.

Jon has participated in Ultra's before, however, for the rest of us this was our first attempt. We arrived late Friday night, had some food, chatted with the race organizers and went to bed in prep for the big day.

Race morning came around, we were up early, but the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. The only shock to the day was when I realized that there were only 3 aid stations for the entire 50k (I thought there were at least 5-6). In addition to that, aid station 2 only had water...

The course was beautiful but challenging with over 8800 feet elevation change. I was a little worried about how my body would hold out. I ran a half marathon in November and injured my knee's and hadn't really done a long run since and only really got in any running in the one month leading up to the race. Going into a 50k run when your longest run was 49 minutes and 11k isn't exactly confidence boosting.

Hilly

There was a little scare at 19k. I rolled my ankle quite badly, the same one I sprained at Christmas. It was bad enough that I stopped for 5 minutes and even started walking back, however, after a few minutes the pain went away and I decided to at least try and make it to the next aid station (30k) rather than quitting, and it was a major relief to find out my ankle no longer hurt.

I managed to make it 35k before my knee's started to give out, then it was just a long 15k in to the finish (especially since the last 8k were straight downhill). During the last 15k I dropped from top 10 down to 30th, my final finishing place (out of 300). That being said I made it to the finish and was rewarded with a lovely local beverage from a keg!

We partied it up with the other runners, there was food and music late into the night, then the next morning we piled into the truck and made our way back to Vancouver!

All in all it was a great weekend. Two weeks out, my knees are still a little sore. I haven't tried running, but I have biked and I hope to start running light again by the end of this week. Gotta get prepped for the BMO in a few month!