Some race in Washington (White River 50 miler)

On July 30th I ran the White River 50, a 50 mile race outside of Tacoma, Washington.

It was a brutal race with very few redeeming qualities, which is why it has taken so long to post about it. The only reason I am posting now is because I have since run another race, so I want to get this one done so I can write about that one.

Pros

Some pretty views
Got to run & travel with Cyndi (she rented us a blue Mustang convertible, so that was sweet)
One of the aid stations had orange otter pops
It was pretty far from civilization

Cons

It was very humid
Temperatures hit over 90*F
It was very steep. Lots of folks had poles at the beginning and it quickly became clear why
The hills were inexorable. Basically two enormous climbs and descents over the course of the race, and that’s it. Nothing else. Really rough on the body to not have anything to mix it up.
The trail visibility was bad (e.g. you never were sure where you were going)
It was pretty far from civilization
My nutrition was terrible (didn’t eat for the first four hours of the race)
Lots of the course was not runnable (e.g. tons of roots)
AS a result of all of this, I was pretty grumpy throughout and considered dropping several times, which is psychologically challenging
My plantar got super bad afterwards

This was the course profile – basically two enormous hills. Straight up, straight down, then do it again on a different mountain. Pretty brutal on the legs.

My time was awful – like 13 hours or something – one of the slowest 50s I’ve ever done. In talking about it afterwards, folks kept being like “well, at least you learned something?” All I learned is I don’t want to do this race again – hah! The post-race hatred for this race was pretty strong for almost a week afterwards – I was shocked at how frustrated I was about the whole thing. Really did not love this one.

One silly moment was when I was running with some younger folks (like early 20s). Entertaining quotes from them included:

“I hope I black out during this race”
“This race is going to be a journey“
“What if we left White Claws in our drop bags and chugged them at every aid station”

Anyway, here are some photos.