Just a 50K

I ran the Calico Ghost Town 50K this past weekend. Gf ran the 30K. The race starts and ends in the middle of main street of the ghost town, which is a county regional park. No big deal, but it was nice to get out. 

I finished in 5:27, which is pretty good but not great for me--it's my tenth fastest out of twenty-six 50Ks that I've done. In a longer race, my goal is usually just to run instead of walking a larger fraction of the time. In this race, I ran pretty much every single step that wasn't obviously too steep. So that's nice, but I guess to progress I'll have to actually do better on how fast I'm running, not just whether I'm running. My goal was to run under 5:10, which would require 10-minute miles. I managed that through 12 miles, but only managed it for 5 of the remaining 18 miles. 

Oh well, it was fun. I had a great conversation with a fellow racer where we barely talked about running at all and instead talked about crows, desert tortoises, and growing ferrocacti from seed. The course maybe isn't the most photogenic, but it's pretty in person, with nice desert vistas, and a 70-degree day felt great after a cold December. 


Go through here

Then down and back up again


My only complaints are that pre-race communications could be better (putting the course map on the website would be nice, as would explicitly noting that the start/finish parking is inside the park) and that the first few turns straight out of the gate on paved roads could be marked (there were Sheriff/County SAR folks at some of the turns, but if a fast newbie ever showed up, he couldn't have led the first two miles without asking for help). The rest of the course was reasonably well marked, except that I'm pretty sure the volunteer at the junction the 30K and 50K split was in the wrong place. It all worked out though, since he probably sent all the 50Ks the same way and we met up with the original intended way after not too long. 

It was nice to have a race under two hours away. I talked with another Coachella Valley runner about other local races. Other than Kodiak and Calico, I don't really think there are other ultras under three hours away. Three hours will get you a bunch more: Cuyamuca, San Diego 100, PCT 50, Leona Divide, OTHTC 50K, and of course everything in LA: Angeles Crest (I guess that's only two hours) and Chimera if/when that comes back, Sean O'Brien, Ray Miller. Several of those are on my list for the year.

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