San Juan Solstice

I completed my eighth San Juan Solstice, and my 21st 50 miler, on Saturday, finally crossing the line in 13:21.  It went about as well as I thought it would.  Been combining 40ish miles of running with 60ish miles of biking every week, and while this wasn't enough to crush the course it was at least good enough to get me across the finish line without any big issues.

I actually ran well for most of the race.  I hit halfway in seven hours, just two minutes behind Brooks.  I stayed within sight of him for another ten miles or so before reality set in and he pulled away.  He was the last of my friends I had a chance of beating, as most were well ahead of me the entire day.  If I'm training for the Pikes Peak Marathon, I probably shouldn't talk shit at this race to a bunch of guys training for a hundo, but such is life.  And if you don't know the course, don't be impressed with the negative split, the huge majority of the uphill is in the first half.

I listened to two shows between mile 15 and mile 40.  Gov't Mule from May 1, 2004 in NOLA, and Pearl Jam November 6, 2000 from Seattle.  Both were killer shows and helped keep me going.

I knew the last ten miles wouldn't be pretty, and they weren't.  I got to Slum, mile 40, in ten hours.  And even though 3:21 for the last ten miles is pretty damn sluggish, I spent at least 15 minutes at that aid station drinking beer and chatting with $100 and Becca, then another 15 minutes at the Vickers aid station drinking my only light beer of the year.  To top it off, I arrived at the Packer Saloon, 100 meters from the finish line, in 12:57, and didn't finish for another 24 minutes (Lucho would not be impressed with that sprint time).  So I could have easily cleaned up those aid stations had I been concerned about running a faster time.  Here I am at mile 40 drinking my first beer of the day and wishing this was a 40 mile race:

I found out after the race that two guys drank a shot of fireball at the Carson aid station.  I didn't see any booze there when I went through, so maybe they were genius enough to put some in their drop bags, but for once I was not the first person to consume booze during a race.  Kudos to those guys!

One interesting thing for me is that I carried no calories with me the entire race.  And no drop bags.  Just two water bottles.  Skipped the first aid station as they have very limited supplies and I want to make sure the slower guys get their share, and then I just filled the bottles with water and ate whatever was at the aid station.  The aid stations were on point this year - bacon at Carson (mile 23), mac & cheese at Divide (mile 31), popcicles at Slum (mile 40).  Common thinking in ultrarunning is that you will immediately die if you don't take some kind of gel every eight minutes, but I'm glad I can get by without that stuff.

Back in my Hardrock days I would look to run around twelve hours to make sure I was ready, so given the difference in my goals and training nowadays I'm really satisfied with how this race went down.  Right now I hope this isn't my last SJS, but given I won't be there in 2018 (we will be hiking the Colorado Trail this time next year) we will see where life has me in 2019.

Night outside 13 was spent in the van at the Lake City baseball field.