Eating ice chips out of my bra saved me on this race. hot. Hot. HOT.
Not many posts this year. The Crimson Canyons 50k has been on my radar for a couple of years, but it has been getting bumped by the Spartan World Championships. Thanks to COVID all my Spartan Races got cancelled, and a bunch of other races too. Thankfully, Crimson Canyons found a way to keep racing, and since they are close to home down in Richfield, Utah, we were happy to finally race again.
The race course started right from town, and made two loops up into the hills west of the interstate. Jim was doing the 25k, which was just the second loop, which we found out was the shorter, but more technical loop. The coolest moment of the day was at the start, but I was almost comfortable in just my sports bra and shorts, which didn't bode well for conditions later in the day.
The first six miles were perfectly flat. I love races where I feel like I can get some mileage out of the way quickly. At mile 4 I found myself leading the women's race! Now to just hold the lead for another 27 miles...not a problem, right? I felt great power hiking up the hill on the first loop, and then ran down my favorite trail of the trail, a dry canyon where a couple of us bombed down sandy and rocky washes at full speed. The first loop was quickly done, and I came in well ahead of any goals I could have made for myself, 15 miles in under 3 hours.
Back at the START/FINISH/TRANSITION area, I put on my shirt for some sun protection, and grabbed my hiking poles as well as filling up my water bottles with my race mix. The next five miles would be uphill, hot, dry and slow. We would be heading through Dairy Canyon, Flat Canyon, and Cathedral Canyon, the iconic sections of the race. Already thirsty, I quickly realized that my drink mix wasn't working for me. Too many calories, not enough water, and I couldn't stand the taste of it. My stomach didn't like it either. I had changed my formula recently, and swore right then I was going back to the original immediately. There was nothing I could do for a slow five miles as I picked my way up the canyons.
The canyons were beautiful, but I was hot and dry and wishing they were over with already. When I finally reached a flat section, my stomach was sloshing and I still had most of my drink mix left. I would have loved to puke but couldn't. Dehydration was setting in, and I was pushing hard at a fast walk. Finally I could see the aid station. They had plenty of ice, so I stuffed some down my bra and held a baggie in my hand. My fatal mistake was sticking with my drink mix. There was a short loop of 2 miles through Cathedral canyon and then we would come back to the same aid station. I was still in 1st place leaving the aid station, but in the next two miles. dehydration would slow my pace, and 4 women passed me. My motivation broke along with the sweat on my brow. I couldn't even run downhill.
Finally, back at the aid station, I refilled my bottle with plain water, grabbed a whole can of Coke, and started walking back uphill. The next few miles would about break me. The hills were steep like roller coasters, and the heat was intense. On the other had, the Coke immediately made my stomach feel better. Amazing how quickly that worked. But it wasn't enough liquid to keep me going and my water bottle was down to dribbles. I could barely keep walking, and stopped several times to rest under the infrequent shade of small pine trees. The ice that I had in my bra and baggies was long reduced to hot water. I kept enough wits about me to pop my third AltRed capsule of the day, if I couldn't eat anything useful at least I could let Altred give me some extra endurance!
I staggered into the next aid station and sat in a chair for 20 minutes with a bag of ice and a bottle of water. I was incapable of moving for a while, or even talking, which I'm not sure had ever happened to me before. The volunteers were great and put an icy towel on my neck.
I was thoroughly sick of my hiking poles by then, as trying to carry water bottles as well is hard without a pack. Either poles AND a pack, or neither one, I concluded. Doh. The race director kindly agreed to carry my poles down to the finish as he dropped off some more ice at the aid station, and finally my hands were free to pick ice out of my bra with abandon! LOL.
So I grabbed a bag of chips, more ice, and a bottle of water. I had 6 miles of mostly downhill to the finish. I could run a little bit, but I was so hot. I tried to ration my ice chips, but they always seemed to run out too quickly. I tried to eat a few potato chips, but I had so little saliva that they literally turned to dust in my mouth that I just spit them out. It wasn't an entirely pleasant last six miles, even with a refill of ice and water from the last aid station. I ended up finishing in 7:45, when the women who passed me finished about an hour earlier, which I should have been capable of. I definitely needed to keep on top of my liquids better with temperatures in the 80s.
Of course, the next day the high temperature was only in the 50s. But by then I was back home recovering. When I weighed myself the next morning i was still four pounds lighter than normal, and no, you don't lose weight from a long run...that was all water weight as I was still drinking extra water for days. Hopefully I get a chance to go back and run that course again, I did enjoy it and quite a bit was really runnable. With 5000 feet of elevation gain it was tough but beautiful.
Results are here: Crimson Canyon Ultra 50k/25k
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