Montaña de Oro 50k

Pre-race thoughts
Going into this race, my confidence in finishing the race was extremely low. After a horrible race in the AFC half marathon my plan was to take it easy, go slow, and if necessary use all of the 9 hrs that they give you. I knew the course was hard, but I'm never known to pick the easiest race. I picked it because it was close to my birthday and I wanted a good challenge. But in the end the timing of the race was bad. I caught the flu a few weeks out, ran horrible marathons at SF and ET shortly thereafter. Follow that up with a lousy half marathon and I just knew it wasn't going to be smooth sailing for my first 50k.

FE/Carbo-load
I drove up on Saturday morning around 9am. When I got to around Santa Barbara, it started to rain and when there's a few drops in sunny California, accidents were sure to follow. I passed about 3 accidents before stopping off in Santa Maria to carbo-load at an Olive Garden. I met up with my friends there. I ate a little bit too much and I felt like barfing. I think from now on, I'm going to stick to ramen or pho. I stayed at the Travelodge in Morro Bay. It was a pretty run down motel. I was probably better off staying at a Motel 6. I didn't really want to eat dinner because my stomach wasn't entirely emptied of Olive Garden. But I went anyways to The Galley, which was highly recommended by everyone. I had the sea bass and 2 beers (Firestone Double Barrel Ale and Reissdorf Kölsch). I was carded for the beer... are you serious? I can count on 1 hand how many times I've been carded in my life. Anyways it turns out that the restaurant owner was also running the Montaña de Oro as his first 50k.

The 50k race was 4 loops: run the 25k route twice: 12k + 13k + 12k + 13k.

1 - 1:39 12k
This first loop wasn't too bad. You get to see a lot of the ocean at the beginning. I was very disciplined and didn't pass anybody unless they were walking. The only bad part was going up to Valencia Peak because there was a lot of loose rocks making your footing pretty bad. Oh yeah and it was a steep climb. Coming down from the peak was fun. I love downhills but I knew I was overworking my quads. During the loop, I kind of made a mental note of where the 8k loop breaks off from 12k loop. I guess I was just being prepared for the worst for when I get to cover the same loop again.

2 - 2:12 13k
There was a lot of steady climbing in this loop. By this point the course was pretty open since most of the people ran the 8k or the 12k. I was getting extremely fatigued because it was just non-stop climbing. When I got to flatter sections, it was very hard to convince myself to run. I was taking my shot bloks and gels every 30 minutes, but my legs were feeling way too exhausted to go another round! But mentally I felt pretty good when I came into the aid station so I thought I might as well give it a shot. If something horrible happens, I'll just bail out and run the 8k.

3 - 2:10 8k
I walked the entire beginning flat section just to give my legs some rest. It was here that I was passed by Larry Macon, now that's a true maniac! I went to the bathroom right before the climb started. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was probably when I ran when I got to the first downhill section. My quads were toast. Then as the climbing resumed, all of the leg muscles slowly cramped up, rigor mortis was setting in. Here's where the fun began. It got so bad that all I could do was stand. I took in whatever gels I had left on me. I limped around but it was too painful to climb. I kept looking around for people or something to lean up against but I was all alone. Eventually those behind me caught up and checked up on me. One nice lady gave me 2 salt capsules and massaged my legs. But in between my grunts from the pain, I was shooing them away. I didn't want to keep them from finishing their race. I was extremely dejected because I knew my day was over. Time to drop out. Montaña de Oro 1, Emil 0. Then I started to wonder, "how in the heck am I going to get my butt off of this mountain?" I couldn't sit down because there was nothing to sit on. I found a small little ditch and sort of sat in there for a while. But I just wanted off so I got up and started to climb again. The 2 girls that had stopped by earlier yells back to me that the turn off for the 8k was pretty close. Pretty close was all relative... it took me a while to get there. I knew I needed to park myself somewhere and wait for the salt to kick in. When I finally reached the top and saw the turnoff, lo and behold a most welcomed sight: a picnic table! But as soon as I planted my butt on the bench, the muscles cramped up so badly that it was almost unbearable. When they finally subsided, I just sat there not wanting to move. But eventually I got up and started walking down the 8k loop. Here's where I got the chance to roll on the ground because everything seized up again. I looked at my muscles, they were all knotted up or twitching like mad. But I got back up and forced my legs to keep on moving. The salt finally kicked in where I was able to walk down and end the misery. The legs were actually good enough to run, but I didn't care much for that at that point.

DNF - 6:01 33k

Post-race thoughts
... and that folks is my pathetic "race" report. Good game, thank you, come again. My first thought afterward was that I should just stick to road racing. It is rather unlikely that I'll give the 50k another shot, but I had just been completely and thoroughly humbled by Montaña de Oro suffering my first ever DNF, so who knows if I might change my mind later when I forget the agony that I went through. I really wanted that dang coaster, but it was impossible. Even if I had completed that 3rd loop, I would still have to cover the 4th loop. I will definitely have to go back to the drawing board and adjust my electrolyte replacement for hot/humid weather and hilly terrains. I've gone back and looked at all of the races where I suffered severe cramps and they were all hot, humid, and hilly. I will continue to cut back on the racing so I can let my body heal up. I will go from 18 marathons to about 10 in 2010. Then in 2011, I will further cut down to 5: Pasadena, Seattle, LA, SD, NYC/Honolulu.