Dirty German 50K Race Report

The inaugural Dirty German 50K... So much to tell, so little time. I guess the beginning is the best place.

I started training for this race about 3-4 months ago. I searched the internet for 50K races and was surprised to find one so close to home. The website boasted almost 90% trails for the entire race, with the remaining portion to be run on paved bike trail. No roads, no traffic, no worries. It seemed like a good option and the entry fee was very cheap ($60). With this came a tech shirt and a cap and pint glass for finishers. Seemed like a good deal. Plus I would get a chance to explore PennyPack Park, a relatively huge park within the Fairmount Park System in the Northeastern section of the city.

My training plan was based solely on mileage. I sprinkled in a few 800m intervals and hill repeats throughout the training cycle, but by no means did this become regular practice. I tried to incorporated 1-2 days of strength training and participated in the CrossFit Open for several weeks, which usually took place on a Friday night. I began training in January tipping the scales at 205lbs, which is pretty heavy considering my past as a lightweight rower. I never did take a starting body fat percentage. I ended training in the week before tapering at 190 pounds and ~13% body fat. Not necessarily the optimal weight for someone to looking to run a 50K, but I'll take what I can get. Even though I had been feeling pretty slow in the weeks leading up to the taper, I attributed this to all the miles I had been accumulating. There were still some small glimpses into my true fitness improvement: 800m repeats consistently below 2:50 and closing in on 2:40. Three solid legs at the AOR relay at a fairly consistent speed. I took two days before the race to rest completely and it seemed it seemed to work well. My legs were fresh and almost jumpy the night before the race.

I woke up around 545AM on Sunday morning and felt well-rested. This is an anomaly. Typically for other races I have a hard time sleeping or I get to bed too late and only get 6 hours of sleep. I had laid out most of the gear I was planning on bringing to the race the night before: waist pack for a 20 oz bottle and some gels, tech hat, a few bandannas, Wave Precisions (with the MT-101s in the drop bag just in case), an extra shirt and socks, couple of granola bars, a bottle of Gatorade, and butterscotch Krimpets (you never know). I had spent the week caffeine free so as to give myself a little extra kick in the morning and to help move my digestive track along. It worked several times. When I got to the starting area, I found it wasn't nearly as congested as many other Philly races are. I picked up my race number without issue, used the restrooms once more (no lines), prepped myself and was ready to go for the start. Nobody seemed to know where I could leave my drop bag, so one of the registration folks offered to keep it behind her desk for me. After giving a quick list of instructions and last minute announcements, the gun went off.

There were three race distances offered today: 25K, 50K, and 50 miles. I would guess there were about 500 people at the starting line at most. The course quickly progressed into tight single-track, so the first 2-3 miles were pretty slow going. It opened up in various places where the trail made its way under bridges and ultimately the field thinned out pretty well by the time we hit the first aid station (AS1) at mile 3. I grabbed a Gatorade and kept moving. I had set my watch alarm to beep at 15 minute intervals to remind myself to drink water and I kept to this regimen pretty well. It was right about this point that I began chatting with another runner who was doing the 25K. The conversation made things much easier and eventually we picked up another girl from Washington DC. We were all moving along at a pretty decently clip. I really had no idea what the pace was, since the aid stations served as the only mile markers, but I felt light and strong. We shared the pacing responsibilities for the most part, but I found myself in front for a majority of the time. From AS1 to AS2 was approximately 4.5 miles. We rolled in at the farthest point from the starting line in good time. The course was essentially in a Figure 8 with AS1/AS3 in the middle and the start/finish area serving as an aid station as well. For those of us doing the 50K, we would complete two loops. I think it was about this point in the race that we picked up another two guys and I kept the group cruising along on the route back to AS1/AS3. I saw another runner up ahead of us and slowly started reeling him in. As we approached the rest area, things got real dicey. The runner ahead of us immediately made his way to the left, whereas we were given instructions to head right, followed by instructions to make another right. I voiced my concern to the group, but one of the guys asked if this was the 11.5 mile mark for the 50K and the response was "Yes!" Soon we found ourselves on the route back to AS2. It was hard to distinguish this at first, being all trail, but something didn't seem quite right. The two folks running the 25K gradually pulled away (I never did get their names) and our group shrunk to three, with two of us hoping to finish 50K. I felt queasy with confusion at this point and was getting very nervous that we were off course, but continued blindly forward. There seemed comfort in the fact that there were five of us in the same boat, which abated some of my anxiety. This came to a screeching halt when we turned a corner and found ourselves back at AS2 and saw the deflated looks on the two 25K runners who had arrived moments earlier and gave us the bad news. Turns out we should have followed the lone runner at AS1/AS3. I should have been furious, dejected, resentful, all of the above. But for some reason I seemed oddly unperturbed by the news. We had gone off course. Big deal. It didn't even matter that we were cruising along at sub 8:00 pace over some fairly technical terrain, through more creeks than anticipated and a course that was filled with mud from the past several days' worth of rain. I was at peace. The three other runners who had signed up for the 25K took the offer of a fellow spectator to drive them back to the start. I wasn't sure how things progressed from there. The other runner (I would later learn his name was Mike B.) and I decided we would press on and conquer. Never mind that we had gone 8 miles out of the way and would have to finish 40 miles to finish. It took us almost 45 minutes to realize that we could easily adjust our course and would allow us to come much closer to 50K, a revelation we were both ecstatic about. Even though we were feeling confident at the time we considered the 40 mile option, we slowed our pace considerably.

The rest of the race is history. Soreness and lethargy started creeping in around mile 18. I made a valiant effort to keep my fluid intake up and for the most part I was successful, nearly finishing my water bottle by the time we reached the next aid station and taking in some gatorade and pepsi as well. Even though I didn't feel the effects of bonking, I could have been more diligent about taking in food. I downed about 3 gels, a small handful of Cheez-Its and potato chips, and a quarter of a PB sandwich. Seems like a lot now that I'm writing it down, but Mike had downed at least two gels an hour for the duration of our run. He seemed a bit more fresh towards the finish, although he was complaining of some ankle pain. I think I would have finished much slower without him. There was a good sharing of the lead and I wanted to walk or rest too many times to count, but I trudged along because I didn't want to hold him up. I hope I did the same for him.

As we started our last mini-loop, we explained our dilemma to the race director, who graciously agreed to record our finishing time but admitted he couldn't give us an official place. I was OK with that. After a what seemed like seconds, we were off again. I caught sight of Brigid arriving just as we were headed out and stopped for a hot second to say hi. She was visibly shocked when I told her we still had eight miles left to cover and honestly it felt like an eternity. Now I am amazed at how much her reaction shook me at the time. It didn't really seem like eight miles was a lot but suddenly it felt like a whole different race. I tried to push it further back into the depths of my mind. Mike and I hit the trail and everything was a blur until we hit the final aid station before the finish. Grabbed some chips and some pepsi (like I was watching the Superbowl or something) and we peeled out. This was the darkest part of the race. I remembered from the first loop that out of nowhere we would emerge from the trail and into the final quarter mile of the race. The problem was that it seemed to lurk around EVERY turn. Mentally, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and, like the ivory tower, there it was. I tried to pull my form together and make myself at least somewhat presentable for the final portion of the race. Mike and I crossed the finish line in an unofficial time of 5:19:43. It was sheer ecstasy.

I didn't feel as sore as I thought after the race. I felt bad that Brigid was waiting for so long at the finish area, so we split soon after I changed into some dry clothes. All in all, it was a good race. The weather could have been much worse, but I would have liked to see my result if we didn't hit that little hiccup in the middle of the race. One of the biggest changes I would make for next time (if there is a next time) is to cut some weight before the race. It seems the little aches and pains that creep up on me after 15-18 miles are a direct result of carrying 190 pounds over that long of a distance. There is simply no way around it. Mike was telling me he used to train as a power lifter at a solid 220, but dropped 40 pounds during his running training and the aches magically disappeared. I had a suspicion that this was the case, although I thought I could remedy it with increased strength training, which would help joints, bones, and tendons become much more durable. But it didn't work the way I thought it would. I'm pleased with the way things went, although I already started compiling a long list of things I would do differently.



Race start/finish.