50km Through the Woods
Recapping my first ever ultramarathon and longest run ever.
The last couple months have felt like an absolute whirlwind between traveling most weeks for work’s ‘conference season’, exploring New York, catching up with friends, hosting visitors, and taking on new and exciting adventures. Given the chance, I wouldn’t trade this chaos, and I still pinch myself with gratitude that this is the life I get to live.
Do Hard Things
Easily the most physically difficult thing I’ve accomplished in 2024 occurred back on March 23, 2024. I joined a former work colleague to compete in the HAT 50k in Susquehanna State Park in Maryland, which features a 50km (~31 mile) trail race with over 4000 feet of vertical climb.
Every one of my previous marathons were traditional road races on pavement; this couldn’t have been more different. It followed a single-track trail through the woods for the vast majority of the race, mixing in a few open field runs, some very steep climbing, stream crossings, and a couple miles on pavement.
Back in January, my friend invited a few of us down to stay with him and try out the route. The course map follows a 3-mile trail which loops back to the start, followed by a 14-mile loop which you run twice! During that January trip, we ran the 14-mile trail with a group of his training buddies. It was a blast and a completely new experience as trail running involves a MUCH slower pace, usually walking up hills to conserve energy, and being very careful with ever step. The uneven terrain means there is a potential rolled ankle at every single turn off the side of a rock or a weird hole in the ground. I really enjoyed it, and I got lucky with the first pair of trail-running shoes I bought which helped me with stability and never caused an issue with my feet, even when going through water.
The actual race weekend was completely different from training. I took the Amtrak train down the Northeast corridor on Friday afternoon, about 2 hours from NYC, and Brian picked me up to get our race bibs. The race was to begin Saturday morning at 8:30am, and constant rain began around midnight, which didn’t stop until the last couple miles of the race!
Obviously rain sucks, but because of the design of the course (repeating the big loop), going through it the second time was an exercise of slogging through muddy trails, trying to gain any sort of traction with your step, and slipping, sliding, and falling all over the place.
Another major difference with HAT compared to the large-city marathons I’m used to: there were only ~300 participants. By comparison, the New York City Marathon has 50,000 athletes toe the start line! I lined up with the other 299 crazy people in the pouring rain in a field, and we were off to the sounds of a live bagpiper.
With no headphones, and a focus on each and every step (looking down, 6 feet in front of you, rather than out in the distance like on the road), the miles slowly rolled by, with the pitter patter of rain acting as a substitute for my normal angry rap music.
One of the coolest parts was the aid stations. While few and far between (only about ever 4-6 miles), they’re really fun when you arrive. Volunteers had trays of French fries, peanut butter sandwiches, chips, pretzels, and Gatorade and water. Basically anything with salt is a go. One of my personal favorites was the salted, boiled potatoes – a trail-race classic.
After the first 14-mile loop, I stopped at the home base to refuel with pretzels and sandwiches, and realized a few of the people we had trained with were there at the same time, so I was keeping reasonable pace. Several of them (not my host, Brian), ended up calling it after those 17 miles. They knew how vicious the terrain was getting and how slippery and, frankly dangerous, it would be on the second loop. Because they all had major races in the weeks to follow (e.g., the Boston Marathon), the risk didn’t seem worth the reward. Totally understandable.
Before I got too comfortable in the tent, I ventured back out with my last paper cup of french fries in hand, and started again. As you can imagine, that part is pretty demoralizing knowing you have 14 more miles to go, and you’re running through all the parts that really sucked in your head, knowing you’ll have to conquer them for a second time.
During the second loop, when I arrived at the second stream crossing, I realized the waters had picked up steam (and height) so the volunteers rerouted us via bridges. I later found out that somebody had a pretty bad fall in the water, and another participant was basically dragged away in the current. I can attest; one of the crossings was easily at my knee height and during the first loop I rolled my ankle on a rock under-foot that I couldn’t see because of the depth of the water.
Because several participants had stopped after the first 14-mile loop, it was even quieter out on the course; almost meditative at times. I was able to get into a nice flow state, reflecting on all sorts of things in life (that I can’t remember now if I tried), all while trying not to fall - which I did three times.
Despite the rainy, cold, and extremely muddy conditions, it couldn’t have been more fun, and crossing the finish line was so dang satisfying, especially with several people who hung around to cheer me on. I’ve never run that far (31 miles) or for that long (6h13m), but it was an absolute blast. The community and camaraderie around trail-racing is next level, and it was so fun to meet so many people during training and on the course.
I’m not sure when my next ultra-marathon (anything longer than 26.2 miles) will be, but I hope to sign up for one soon with a bunch of friends to experience it together.
Thanks for reading, more spring/summer recaps to come!
Mike