Bartlett Park Ultras - 50 mile

I still remember the day when I signed up for my first 50 miler and finished it. Here I am, signed up and all set for my second 50 miler. Thanks to my friend Bruce for suggesting this race to me while I was looking for an Ultra. Bartlett is a small town outside of Memphis, and the race was to be held at Nesbit Park. Bruce, Diane and I started on Friday evening and reached Bartlett. Also, I got to try some frog legs for the first time, and some coleslaw, hush puppies and beans. Juicy and yummy!! :)

The morning was just perfect, but I had race sickness, I guess. I was hoping it wasn’t the frog legs. I had been feeling sick in my stomach the whole week, even before Tupelo, and this morning it was bad. I just had some donuts and coffee. Aid stations in Ultra marathons will be loaded with all kinds of food anyway.

Met Joshua Holmes, Angela and a couple of other friends after picking up my race packet. The T-shirt was really cool and the Polar water bottle was awesome. The race had an event where you could guess the 50-mile winner’s finish time, and whoever made the closest guess got a free entry to the race next year. I don’t even remember what my guess was, but I ain’t good with luck, I knew that for sure.

The race had several distances: 50K, 60K and 50 mile. The 50-mile course consisted of a short 1.8-mile loop to start with, then 4 x 7.4-mile loops, then 4 x 4.3-mile loops, and closed with a 1.8-mile trail. Imagine running through the same course over and over again, and the worst part, you go through the start line every time. It’s too tempting to drop down to the 50K or 60K during the race. Not today. I was very determined to finish my second 50 miler.

It drizzled at the beginning of the race and with that I started chafing. Real bad. After finishing my first loop, I removed my T-shirt right away and decided to go shirtless for the rest of the race. The course got a bit wet and slippery. Kissed the ground near the creek, where it was really slippery and covered with thick slushy mud. The course didn’t look all that steep during the first two loops, but the third and fourth loops were killing. There were only two aid stations on the whole course. While I was planning to eat something solid during the race, my stomach had some other plans: to push out anything that I put in. Chips, PBJ sandwich, etc. Finally, I made peace with it and it was taking in Coke without any issues. Got to run the whole race on a little bit of GU and Coke. The course started thinning out, with runners showing up occasionally at the intersections.

I finished my 4th loop by afternoon and, with that, my 50K. One of the volunteers hollered, “Yay! You are almost there, just 20 more miles to go, way to go”. The 50-mile course was actually 51.2 miles. 20 more miles, and that number sounded so big. Time to start the 4.3-mile loop. I was excited to see how the new loop was gonna be and was hoping it would be easy. It was worse, especially with some crazy steep hills where you have to go on all fours. The course was a bit confusing and I missed the trail. Had to run an extra 2 miles to get back on track, as if I didn’t have enough miles to cover. It was dusk and starting to get dark by the time I finished my fourth loop. It was time to run that last 1.8 miles and call it a day.

The 1.8 miles seemed so much longer than they looked. I was hungry and starving but then couldn’t eat anything. Tired, beaten up, and my feet were refusing to move. What have I got myself into? I would have loved running downhills towards the finish line any other day, but not TODAY. Finally, the parking lot came into sight and I finished the race. While Diane and Bruce were cheering me on, the RD hollered my time, 12:05:53, and gave me my finisher medal. With that I finished my second 50 miler. My friend Angela Ivory guessed 13:20 and won the free entry to the 2011 race.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad compared to my first 50 miler. I could walk normally. I tried gulping some ginger ale, but it just made things worse. Coke and ginger ale waged a war in my stomach and it was hell suffering. After resting for about an hour, I decided to go easy for the night, limited myself to soup at a very nice Mexican restaurant and called it a day. Felt great the next morning and had a ball at Kim’s poolside party, and it was great to catch up with John, Judy, Kim and a couple of other friends. A couple of dives in the cold pool really helped my cramped-up muscles. Had a great race and one helluva weekend.

While things could have gone wrong and there was a possibility that I could have DNF’d this race, it was purely by His grace that I was able to survive this race and could finish the 50 miler, strong :)