Landrun 50K Recap

Saturday March 12 was the first of what I am sure will be an annual gravel 50K--the LandRun 50K. This event runs alongside the LandRun 100 mile / 50 mail gravel bike ride. My friend Arthur Elias helped organize this event, and it was a perfect run.

We really dodged the bullet on the rain. It was supposed to be a nasty wet muddy day, and all we had was clouds, and cool temps. I'm no fan of races in the mud, and this 50K was kind of a springboard to my 100 miler coming up on April 2nd. I am under trained, and I wanted to see how I felt and what pace I could maintain after 25 miles. Travis Jennings, who will be my pacer for 50 miles at Prairie Spirit, was running the whole 31 miles with me this day. It was good for us to get used to each others company on a day of monotonous running--not that there's anything wrong with monotonous running.

Quite a few friends from Tulsa made the trip over. K2 and Mitch are around my pace, so I knew we'd have good company for the most of the day.

And one of my fave running buds Johnna was here too. We hung out for most of the day until I tried to kick up the pace a half notch at mile 25.

They advertised red dirt, and they made good on that claim. Lots of nice long declines and a soft surface to run on. Almost as good as trailz.

I thought at first I'd hit the mother lode--a beer drop on the course--just for us !~!~! Turns out it was empty. So I went from thanking them to cussing them for littering.

Doing downhills and long inclines too. Most all of these were runnable--but they're also a good place to walk. We hit an aid station at mile 10. The course was an out-and-back, so we hit it again at mile 20ish. Perfect placement.

The sun came out at about mile 25. I was focusing on running smooth and relaxed, and increased my foot turnover by what felt like 10%. We crept away from the peeps behind us and reeled in three runners in the final miles. We caught Arthur, and K2. A lot of bikes passed us in the last 10 miles. Their course merged with ours, and I was thrilled with all the encouragement and awe they gave us. It seemed like they were shocked that anyone would RUN that far. I guess a lot of them were unfamiliar with the ultra craze.

The party was big at the finish line. A huge crowd was cheering in the bikers as they finished their races, but they seemed to go crazy when us runners came in. It was a good day, and I feel like I passed my own self imposed test. Now, another couple of semi-long runs, and then come on Prairie Spirit!!