NOVEMBER,20th I ran the Los Pinos 50k ultramarathon. I have been working a lot and have not had very much training time, since the last ultra a month ago. Also I hurt my lower back at work a week or so earlier. But not wanting to miss the fun, I showed up anyways.
This race is suppose to be a hard 50k and to make matters worse, it was raining pretty hard before the start of the race. So here I am at the start line at 7am, drenched, and cold. I decided to carry a pack for all the extra clothes.
For the 1st 5 miles, I stayed with the fore runners. There were 6 of us and we were running about 7mph over a roller coaster of small hills. Somewhere aroung 5 miles though I backed off, mostly due to my back, that was beginning to take its toll. I was passed by about 15 people in the next 7 miles down a set of long switchbacks. Downhill was really takeing its toll, at mile 12 aid station, and after eating some food, I took some Advil, and it was not long before the pain went semi-numb.
For the next 8 1/2 miles the trail went up steaply and I found this to be my strongest ability. Passing quite a few runners, the trail was soon a creek from the constant downpour. At times, especially on top of hills, the wind would be strong, and the rain would be sideways.
Upon reaching the top, the trail went down another steep hill, where, I met up with a few more runners, then climbed steeply back to the top of yet another hill.
Glad to have the steep hills completed, I jogged along a long road to the last aid station, and on down another dirt road to a camp ground. My back was killing me by this point, and could hear the sounds of people cheering. 3 people had passed me the last mile and I could care less at that point, because of my back. Also I ran into a campground only to find that the people cheering was a group of partiers hanging out in the rain.
I was now off coarse, had no idea where I went wrong, and began backtracking, in hopes of finding the trail. After about 5 minutes, I was back on coarse and jogged into the finish line Glad to be done.
I finished 16th at 7:15hrs. All in all it was a good coarse under harsh weather, and my body not cooperating. I am glad to have done it, and will most likely run it next year to better my time.
