Race Report – Mianus River Park 50M

I see you Mara, now let’s have tea.

Buddha

This weekend was the inaugural Mianus River Park 50 Miler. Other than a couple of dead toenails and extremely sore feet, I made it through alive and well. Below is my race report from the event.

Stats:

• Mileage: 49.67 miles
• Elevation Gain: 4,824 ft
• Pace: 11:57 min/mile (rough running pace 9:30-10:00 min/mile)
• Calories Burned: 7,590
• Calories Consumed: 1,000 – 1,500
• Animals Seen: Barred Owl, Red Tailed Hawk, Blue Jay, Deer, Squirrel, Chipmunk, Bat

The Course (see map below):

The race course I chose was eleven laps of the 4.5 mile Yellow Loop in Mianus River Park. The loop has a bit of everything: gravel, packed dirt, root scramble, stream crossings, two bridges, steep and rolling hills. I did it six times clockwise and five times counterclockwise.

The Race:

I woke up at 3:45am for a four o’clock alarm. Somehow my body always knows it’s a race day. I was planning to get started at 5:30am, so that gave me an hour and a half to prepare. I made a coffee and a cheese sandwich (new pre-race meal for me), and chugged a large glass of water. I went to the bathroom twice (always leave time for that second, last-minute bathroom stop), applied copious amounts of anti-chafe cream and double checked my pack. I wrote two big 50s on my hands as reminders in case I got any ideas about quitting, and at about 5:15am I turned on my headlamp, put on my shoes and went out to the woods.

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The first few laps flew by. I started the run listening to a Peter Atia podcast interview with Tim Ferriss, and their conversation on psychedelics and mental health carried me for about two and a half hours. They recommended two books that I stopped to take note of (Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me and I Don’t Want to Talk About It), I saw a few families of deer and stopped to stare at an owl. I had eaten way too much for dinner the night before and the first fifteen miles were spent sweating that out.

The start of lap five I met up with Anne, her mom and their dog Daisy. I walked for the first mile or so with them to give my legs a bit of a break and to assess how I was feeling. At roughly 22 miles, I was feeling pretty good but was really tired of the course already and had another six laps to go. I wasn’t even halfway! I was already picking up some of the early warning signs I’ve learned to keep an eye out for on my long runs: course weariness, thoughts of post-run meals and mileage checks. All of these cause little cracks in my resolve that allow doubt to seep in.

On my second podcast, an interview between Tara Brach and Tim Ferriss, Tara quoted a line from the Buddha that I found very powerful. “I see you Mara, now let’s have tea.” As she explains it, the evil god of desire, Mara, has come to tempt the Buddha, and rather than try to ignore him, Buddha faces him head on by inviting him to tea. At this point in my run, the concept of acknowledging my fears felt really important, so I decided to give myself a little pep talk. “The next few hours are going to be very uncomfortable,” I said. “But that is nothing compared to all the time you put into training. You’ll get through this.” I was surprised how much power came from actually speaking those words aloud.

I met up with Anne for laps seven and eight, and the addition of a running buddy and the switch to counterclockwise laps made miles 28 to 37 feel really good. We talked the whole time, and even got yelled at by a passing walker for not maintaining six feet. Oh well. I was excited because this section of the run, crossing the 32 mile threshold, was the part I was most worried about. It can be hard to accept, at that point, that your longest training run was still eighteen miles short of where you have to go.

“I am in a really bad mental state right now.” I said this to Anne right when I realized she would be leaving me in another half mile. I had at least another two hours to go and my legs felt really tight. Luckily for me, Anne didn’t indulge this little outburst, and told me I would be fine. She ran ahead to get me another Gatorade and to bring me a backup set of shoes, which ended up being the best decision I made all day. My ASICS had more room in the toe and kept my bruised toenails from pushing up against my shoe every time I took a step.

While she was gone I flipped a switch. I was one Joe Rogan podcast away from finishing. That was nothing. I drank some Gatorade, tossed on the podcast and started my ninth lap. Somewhere in the middle, on one of the longer stretches of flat, packed dirt trail, I realized the pain in my legs had gone away. My right ankle hurt but I actually preferred the acute pain in that one foot to the achy stiffness that seized both of my legs earlier. Had that pain been mental? It seemed so.

The last part of the run was really pleasant. Once I had quieted my doubts, accepted I was going to finish and quantified what it would take to get there, I really enjoyed the run. The Joe Rogan episode I chose was mostly just stoned conversation with his friend Kurt Metzger, which ended up being perfect for my own mental state in that moment, and in almost no time I was texting Anne “starting my victory lap.” No sooner had I sent the text than I began to hear cheering from up ahead, which was Anne and her parents. She thought I was finishing my victory lap.

So at that point, having been cheered already, the last four and a half miles really did feel like a victory lap. I quickly called my grandfather and parents while I walked the first half mile or so, then I put on some upbeat dance music and finished it out. My final thought, interestingly enough, as I finished the run, was whether or not I wanted to do the 100 mile in September. I’ll be sleeping on that decision for this week and will decide next weekend whether or not I want to move on to the larger challenge. Right now I’m saying “hell no!” but I’m not in the right state of mind to be making that decision.

I had initially been worried about running this “race” solo, but that ended up not being the case. Between Anne, her parents, my podcasts and the other park-goers, the run felt very manageable and at almost no point did I feel alone. I’m still swearing off ever running another foot in that park, so I can’t say there will be a second Mianus River 50M race, but this first edition went pretty well.