Berryman Trail 50 Mile

It's been several weeks since this event, but I guess a post is better late than never.

Our weekend started with a huge downpour, flash flooding the streets and making it difficult to navigate through town to pick up our two oldest kids from school...a great way to start a weekend of camping and running. Mendy's parents had gone down the day before with our youngest son to get a good campsite and get things set up. I was thankful that they had, because it was well after dark when we finally arrived at the Berryman campgrounds, and the last thing I wanted to do was set up a camp for my entire family. If awards were given out for the best campsite preparations, they definitely would have won (it was slight overkill, but that's a whole different story). I slept on a blow up mattress in the back of our van that slowly deflated as the night went on and the rain continued to pour until the wee hours of the morning, so I was exactly well rested come morning...not that I would have slept much anyways.

As with any trail race, the start was a very modest "get ready, set, GO!" and we all started lumbering off. The marathoners had a slightly more ambitious pace than the 50 milers, but nobody was starting with blazing speed - there were plenty of miles ahead of us. I settled in with a group of 4 or 5 other guys for the first 10 miles or so and was feeling great, and then out of nowhere my knee started hurting, bad. There was an aid station coming in a few miles where I knew Mendy with be with my gear which had a knee strap in it. I figured if I could get there, all would be good and the pain would go away soon. Unfortunately that was not the case, the strap was in my stuff, but it didn't help.

With almost 40 miles yet to go, I knew this was going to be a long day. I slowed my pace considerably and decided to just enjoy the experience rather than worrying about a good time. Mendy was faithfully there at each of the stations she was able to travel to, sometimes with the kids, sometimes without. I enjoyed having her out there and spent a little more time than normal at the stations giving the leg a little break. The last few miles seemed to drag on forever. Eventually I hit the last aid station and knew I had just over 2 miles to go until the finish with the 11 hour mark looming. I was way over my original time goals, but decided it would be nice to stay in the 10 hour range, so I decided to put the knee aside and just try and finish strong. Somehow I managed to run those last couple miles faster than any of the prior individual miles and finish under 11. I was glad to be done.

Unlike shorter distances where I push hard the whole time and then don't have much of an appetite afterward, I was starving. We hung out for a few minutes so I could eat a hot dog and relax, and then we were off to my parents house farm for the rest of the weekend.

Aside from the knee, which ended up being IT Band syndrome which is still bothering me now, I loved the race and the distance. The trail itself was pretty much all single track, which just enough rolling elevation to make it interesting without any really crazy climbs. There was a couple of creek crossings to get wet in, and a lot of mud from the prior rains. Aid stations were every 3-5 miles and well supplied with all the typical stuff. Good race that I look forward to doing again and redeeming my time.