Leading up to my first 50k, I read a bunch of books, articles, magazines, and blog posts. Suffering was one common theme. Nausea, lost toenails, emotional rollercoasters, running through pain… I was a little nervous toeing the line to an ultra-marathon, having never run a marathon before.

The first few miles went by smoothly. The altitude was a bit of an issue. I’d been training at sea level in Boston all summer. Park City is at 7,000 feet of elevation, and the race summited at 10,000′. Two and a half hours into the morning, after nine miles of uphill hiking, I got up to ~9,000′. That’s about when my headache started. For the next four hours or so, until I got back down below 8,000′, I had a tradeoff between hiking/running at my target heart rate, or slowing down and decreasing the headache.

The scenery was beautiful, though. That helped distract me from the headache! A perfect fall day in Utah, sunny and cool, with yellow aspen leaves everywhere.

Aspen trees

Here’s me at the summit, about thirteen miles into the race:

Summit

There was a short section, around miles 18-20 or so, where I got a bit fed up. A few “ugh, this is a slog, let’s hurry up and get to the finish and be done” types of thoughts were running through my head. And I did make one major mistake – I didn’t bring the right supplies for treating blisters. Thankfully, right when I took my shoe of to check out a hotspot on my heel, a kind runner paused and offered me some duct tape.

I was surprised at how easy it was to stay upbeat almost the whole time and enjoy the hiking and running. Eating a Clif bar or a couple of GUs per hour, drinking enough water, and downing salt tablets made the race go by pretty easily. (Training sufficiently was critical too!)

The one thing I wish I had done differently was running closer to my limit. For a significant chunk of the course, I wasn’t able to go at my target 160-170 beats per minute heart rate. Sometimes the uphill was too steep to run, but I didn’t powerhike fast enough; other times the downhill was too steep or rocky to run fast. Of the eight hours, I spent just shy of four hours in that target zone, and a little over two hours in in the 150-160 bpm range. So perhaps learning to hike faster, or getting into sufficient shape to be able to run uphill more, would be a good way to improve.

I spent one hour in 170-175 bpm heart rate range, mainly towards the end. It felt awesome to be able to pick up the pace after running a marathon. (Even if that faster pace was just 6mph!)

So – blisters narrowly averted, annoying headache, and the possibility that I didn’t push myself as hard as I could have. But did I suffer? No way. It was a great and fun challenge. Next up… the Wapack and Back 50 miler!?