The Course

I hesitated to publish this post because I know that several people close to me will say, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" In the end, I decided to because I thought it was an important part of my documentation, and to also make it clear that I am not going into this "blindly." I know what this is going to entail. My training is going to methodical and complete. I don't want to be stupid about this, and that means being realistic about the course.

Okay, so here is what we are looking at:

1. 32.9 miles, (just about 1.75 miles longer than an exact 50k)

2. An elevation map that looks like this:

3. A total of 10, 317 feet of elevation gains and losses

4. Aid stations every 5 miles.

5. Due to the remoteness of the trail, "crews" (a.k.a. family members) will only be able to meet us at the 2nd and 4th aid station.

6. Course time of a maximum of 9 hours. Cut off time for aid station 4, is 6 hours. (If you don't make it by then, they pack you up with the supplies and take you back to the bottom.)


My biggest concerns are clearly number 2 and 3. I figure that miles 5-10 are really going to be the killers. Essentially, the elevation goes from about 3700 ft to 5500 ft with no plateau. It is uphill the entire way. If we can make it through those miles without fatiguing our muscles too greatly, then I think we will be okay. The trick to that, is obviously building up our muscles on that kind of terrain, and not going into oxygen debt. I figure we have to be able to do at least 7-10 miles of continuous uphill here inorder to be able to do 5 there with the higher elevation and our bodies not being prepared to function on less oxygen. I am still trying to find a place here that can simulate that. It looks like in a lot of respects the first 16 miles are the deal breakers. At the same time, I also hear from runners who have done this before, that the downhill second portion of the race is very technical. Running down parts of it is CRAZY. So we will need to practice some very techincal downhills, especailly on fatigued legs. Other then that, I guess it is just going to be a matter of putting in a lot of miles. I figure that a lot of our longer training runs near the end will have to be 25+ miles. The kicker is definately going to be doing that in the AZ heat. Starting at 4:15 am still won't have us done on that kind of terrain until around 9 am. (Interpretation: Running in 90 degree temperatures). Can we say HYDRATION??

Still, if we can do it here...we can definitely do it there. The typical saying is: "It's not the running of a 50k that is the hard part. It's the training for it, that's killer.