White River 50 Race Report - July 26, 2008

I’d been eyeing up this race for a few years, as it always falls around the time that my family travel to Washington State for holiday. This year, I made a conscious effort at training for it. I studiously pored over available training plans on the internet. I compiled the best bits of a couple of plans, printed it out, and followed it for exactly one week.

With a month to go to the race, I had a hard decision to make. The training had been going OK, but I didn’t feel that I had put in sufficient mileage. I had worked up to about 50 miles per week, the bulk coming in one or two long (3+ hour) runs at the weekend. I was feeling relatively good, so I took the plunge and registered. Then I got sick with a 103 degree fever that knocked me on my ass for the better part of a week. Great timing.

I crammed a couple more long runs in after the illness, and then it was on the plane. My brother Brad met me at the airport in Seattle, and we drove down to preview the race course outside of Enumclaw Washington and near Mt. Rainier National Park. The course consists of two loops of roughly equal difficulty – 27 and 23 miles. Each loop has one massive climb and its complementary knee-bashing downhill. The total elevation gain for the course is about 9000 feet (2745 m), with a maximum elevation of about 5600 feet (1700 m). My plan was to do the first loop of the course for practice, but I was having second thoughts. That seemed like too much mileage the weekend before the race. So instead, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at what I was in for on the second half of the course. I would do the 10 mile uphill section and the final, rolling 6.5 miles.

The weather was fantastic, temperatures around 50 (10 C) degrees in the morning with beautiful dry air. After my summer training in Hong Kong, it seemed like it took much less effort to propel myself up the hill. I was breathing easy; my heart rate was 10-15 beats lower than in Hong Kong. The wildflowers and views of Mt. Rainier were more than enough reward for the effort. The end of the climb is called Sun Top. Heavy snowfall in the winter months meant that there were still small patches of snow around at the end of July. My brother met me there and we chatted with a guy manning the fire lookout hut at the top.

We drove down to the start of the final 6.5 mile section along the river. I had been warned that the rocks and roots on this stretch would be a challenge, so I wanted to see it first-hand and before mile 43 of the following Saturday’s race. It had everything promised – tricky footing, steep climbs – and even some sand to test the wits of exhausted runners.

Race weekend approached, and we travelled down to the packet pickup and pre-race pasta dinner on Friday night. I gawked at the faces I had seen in ultra photos on the internet. Since this race is the US National Championship 50 mile trail race, many of the big names in US ultra running were there. A few years earlier, I ran in the Delaware Marathon – a tiny race where a guy named Michael Wardian was the winner by 30 minutes or so. He had since gone on to run the US Olympic marathon trials and had become the National Champion over the 50 and 100 km distances and was looking to add 50 miles to his CV. I stuffed myself to the bursting point with spaghetti and garlic bread and we headed down to our campsite to get a little bit of sleep.

I was up at 5:00 AM with my re-heated Starbucks coffee picked up the night before. The sky was bright and the temperature was about the same as the previous weekend – it would be a great day for racing. Although the race start was only a 2 mile drive from our campsite, we managed to arrive just 10 minutes before the start. I didn’t have time to warm up – I just had to stay warm and wait for the gun.

The first section of the course was a 4 mile, mostly flat section along a trail that paralleled the highway. I was probably in the top 50 out of 238 starters at this point, trying not to go out too fast, but feeling comfortable. I reached the first aid station in 32 minutes and didn’t recognize it for what it was. I had expected to get there in about 40 minutes. I ran right through without picking up any gels or extra water – a very rookie mistake.

Shortly after the aid station, I passed a port-a-john and decided to take the opportunity for a necessary purge. This allowed a further 50 people or so to pass me and I found myself in a huge slow pack walking up the first climb of the day. I decided that this was probably a good thing. It would keep me from burning too much energy at the beginning of a very long race. I felt great and passed a few people heading into the second aid station at mile 12. The trail gradient made it possible to run much of this uphill section. At the aid station, I managed to beg one Gu gel off of a volunteer and to fill my water bottles. Some very dedicated volunteers had trekked in 2.5 gallon jugs of water from Corral Pass, 5 miles away.

The next 5 miles to Corral Pass were an out-and-back section with more uphill to the top of the ridge and then about 3 miles of running with fantastic views of Mt. Rainier. Some of the leading runners passed me heading the opposite direction soon after the aid station – they were flying. I had made up some ground, but there were still probably 75 to 100 runners ahead of me, and I saw all of them. The aid station was full of cheering spectators and volunteers and really gave me a boost. My brother helped to fill water bottles and I helped myself to the melon, sandwiches, chips and salted potatoes.

The next section retraced the last 5 miles. I had filled both water bottles and stocked up on gels and salt capsules at Corral Pass intending to race through the next, limited, aid station without stopping. I ran with a couple of guys on the downhill chatting about strategies and fueling when one of the guys did a somersault off of the trail. He seemed to be OK and got up with a little assistance. About 5 minutes later, he did the same thing again. I made it back to the start/finish area in 5:06 and without incident, although I was beginning to feel the IT Band in my right knee – not a good sign at the halfway point. 27 miles down – 23 to go.


Again, I fueled up on melon and all things salty, refilled my water bottles with Gu20 and headed up the trail. This was the beginning of the second climb and I was glad that I knew what to expect. The temperatures were warming up to around 65 degrees (18 C) and I ditched my long-sleeved top. I traded places with a couple of guys and passed a few more runners. I was feeling great on the uphill, running most of it. The knee didn’t bother me at all on the climb. There is a false summit at the top of the hill, dropping over 600 feet before making the last climb up to the Mile 37 aid station at Sun Top. It would have been demoralizing, had I not seen it before. I grabbed one last bite to eat at the top and a couple of gels and began the long descent of Sun Top Road.

The only section of the course that is not single-track trail was probably the toughest for me, mentally. The incessant pounding down the gravel surface began to affect the left knee as well as the right. I was hoping to fly down this section, but instead, slowed to a crawl on the last couple of miles to the last aid station. The never-ending road finally ended and I met up with my brother who again handed me a full water bottle and a couple of gels before the last section.
Again, I was glad to have previewed this section of the course. I think it would have been much tougher, had I not seen it before. Although the trail parallels the river, there is a net elevation gain of 700 feet (225 m) over the 6.5 miles, through short ups and downs. At this point, the knees were screaming on the both the ups and the downs. I passed a few more runners in spite of my laborious pace.

The finish came into view and I was greeted like I had just won the race – a great way to end my first 50 miler. I was very happy with my 9:21:15 (56th out of 202 finishers). Michael Wardian ran the 4th fastest time ever on the course to win in 6:52 – amazing. The top woman, Susannah Beck, finished just 40 minutes later in 7:32. We hung around at the finish for about an hour, soaking it all in and then jumped in the car for the 3 hour drive back to the San Juan Islands and to friends and family.



The race went about as well as could be expected for me, I think. I have to wonder what would have happened without the toilet break at mile 4 and getting stuck behind all of those slower runners. I have a feeling I would have burned myself out and not been able to finish as strongly – but who knows. I finished upright and in fairly good shape, and might even try another one of these someday.