Palo Duro Trail 50k

Palo Duro 50k Trial run, The Beast

Brian first talked to me about the Palo Duro 50k right after the Socorro Chile Harvest Triathlon. I must have been high on the endorphins from having a good race and started actually thinking it was a good idea. After all, the race was several months away and I would be in “good shape” after running the Colorado Relay and all the training getting ready for the Beach to Battleship Ironman. Yeah, it sounded like fun….

After convincing Margaret and Jane it would be a good idea, after all good friends don’t let friends do stupid things – alone. We registered, made reservations and made training plans.

Great, now I had three things to get ready for, the Colorado relay – which I was lucky enough to get the hardest leg (had to arm wrestle Margaret for it), the Palo Duro 50K and the B2B ironman. My training plan for B2B just wasn’t going to cut it. Luckily Jane has a coach and Margaret has a really good training plan!

After a couple of months running the foothills, a couple handfuls of 20+ mile runs, several centuries on the bike, and hill repeats every Thursday I finally felt comfortable running the 50k. Well, I wasn’t so much comfortable with it as I was fit enough to run it. Truth be told, I was really nervous about the distance as it was an unknown.

I’m use to road marathons where the energy is high, people are anxious, the music is blaring, and the road is smooth. Trail runs seem to be diametrically opposed. The energy is low key, most folks are relaxed, there’s no music (well, there was a live piper –which was very cool) and the roads are anything but smooth.

At the pre-race pasta feed we checked in, got our swag, race numbers, ate our fill, and talked shop. What a great time. And, as a bonus, I got the coolest race number of all time, 666, yep the number of the beast! So as a group it was decided that I needed horns for my running hat, which Walgreens provided for $1.99 and Jane painstakingly attached to my prized IM St Louis hat.

The start was a bit difficult since it was in the dark and the route quickly turns to single track where it’s almost impossible to pass. It turns out it was probably a good way to start off, nice and easy with plenty of walking for the first 3 or so miles. The Dread Pirate and I ran the first three miles together, with me trying to shine a flash light far enough ahead of us that we could see the obstacles. After the 3 mile mark the trails started to open up, by mile 6 the runners had separated enough to get into a nice grove and the sun came up. Nice….

Mile 6 saw us back at the start and ready to run two big 13 mile loops. Margaret and I found each other and started to run, it’s great to find some your own speed to run with. We ran the whole race together, switching off taking the lead and taking pictures of interesting landscape items and each other.

One of the most fascinating things for me was the feed stations. I’m accustomed to powerbars, fruit, gels, the aid stations at trail events consist of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, cookies, snickers bars, M&M’s, salted baked potatoes, coke, pretzels as well as bananas. At first I was nervous about the nutrition and took in a few gels but after about 15 miles I relaxed a bit and just started eating whatever sounded good. It appeared to have worked since I finished the race feeling well and never had an energy slump.

The run was designated as a easy training pace but with the hills, single track, and dirt, my heartrate seemed to climb right up into the serious racing zone, I spent about 4 hours in zone 4 and about 1.5 hours in zone 3. Not necessary an easy training run but it worked for me.

The course was gorgeous, wet lands followed by rolling hills out into the deep red canyons, running along red cliff walls, through dry river banks, climbing rough single track, Beautiful scenery all over the place. Oh, and don’t forget the wild life, There was one runner making crow calls and entertaining us with his English accented calls. We could hear him from miles away.

The race was fantastic, and I’m totally hooked on Trail runs. The weather was perfect, nice and cool in the morning and no wind with the temperature heating up to around 80 by noon. My total time was right at 6 hours for 31.5 miles, definitely not a road race! If you ever get a chance to do this run go for it! You won’t regret it.