Mad Meadows 50k: Reap What You Sow

Well, the time had finally arrived. A group of friends from the Mountaineers club had sold me on signing up for an ultramarathon, and I was convinced I’d be exiled and never talked to again if I backed out. Plus, I love a little competition. The thing is, I always told myself I’d never run a marathon. I didn’t see the point. I’d done exactly one 25k in my life, on some trails in Ohio. I remember it fondly as the broken toe 25k. It was a loop, and the savages doing the 50k were just doing a second lap. I couldn’t comprehend that kind of distance back then. I also had a food-running shift at Rooster’s that night, so I raced home to find a couch as fast as possible.

Fast forward a few years, and here I am the night before a 50k that’s already bought and paid for. I’d fallen off my training plan. Spring and summer mountaineering had taken over my life. My longest “recent” run, about three months earlier, was 10 miles up Silver Strand beach in San Diego, after a Lyft dropped me near the Mexico border. I felt great. Now I’d need to triple that, or more. “Yeah, I’ll be alright,” I thought.

The organizers (affectionately, the Mad Meadows Run Club, MMRC) started sending prep the week of the race. I’d just gotten back from a four-day larch march through the Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness, a little soul reset, before returning to rainy fall Seattle. Reading their advice, it dawned on me that I was probably underprepared. Endurance wasn’t a stranger after a summer of long, heavy mountaineering days, but I’d cut out running entirely back in July to keep my legs healthy for Olympus and Rainier. No matter. I’d already paid for it.

The larch march through the Chelan-Sawtooth the week before, the soul reset I needed. Photos by @zatiana

The Kit

I assembled my kit: the 1.5L running pack, AirPods, two full bags of Nerds Gummy Clusters, a stack of gels, and a couple energy waffles. Most importantly, a Ziploc with wet wipes and toilet paper. You never know. I added a sun hoody and copper compression sleeves for my shins, which had been flaring up all summer. The real gamble was the shoes: brand-new bright green and blue trail runners with maybe 10 to 15 test miles on them. Running 31-plus miles in basically new shoes is a terrible idea, but they had tread and none of my other shoes did. This was a mountain ultra, after all.

Packed up and ready, give or take a few hours of sleep

Carb loading, taken very seriously

What I didn’t know: with wildfires raging nearby, the director had rerouted the whole course. The 31 miles and 6,000 feet of gain had quietly become 33-plus miles and 8,258 feet. I was blissfully unaware at the start. Probably for the best.

Race Morning

After a late REI run and triple-checking everything, I’d stayed up way too late. The race was about three hours from Seattle, so I faced an old familiar Joshua decision: drive now and sleep in the rooftop tent, or sleep now and leave at 2:30am. I chose sleep, got three or four hours on the couch, and the alarm felt instant.

I drove out tired and stopped at a familiar gas station for coffee, where I watched a black cat cross the parking lot. Surely a good sign. Then nature called, impeccable timing. Looking back, that stop was lucky: my GI settled, and between the black coffee, a classic gas station Danish, and a big carb load the day before, I rolled up to the start feeling amazing.

The lucky black cat, caught in a very blurry snapshot. Surely a good sign

Parking was a mess. I scurried over to a curious crowd of masochists gathered at the headlamps, grabbed my bib, and finally saw some familiar faces. Then a countdown. Oh, shit, the race was starting now. I found my buddy and fellow Ohioan Matt, neither of us out to win, and we got going. Word was the group was shocked I actually showed. Fair.

The Climb

It was cold and dark at the start. I’d remembered my Temres fishing gloves, light, easy, and warm, and Matt and I started hiking uphill. I had no idea how to pace. I thought I was supposed to run, and within the first 10k I learned that wasn’t happening uphill. Before the first aid station we came on one of our group’s elite runners down with a back spasm. She waved us on, said she’d be fine. I knew this was really an eating competition, so I stuffed my face at that aid station and kept hammering gummy clusters. Honestly, I felt great for a long while. The first half was a steady incline and I was cruising.

Gummy clusters in hand, getting cold on the early climb. Fuel for the eating competition

Beautiful meadow colors strung along the whole course

The Ridge and the Humble Pie

I eventually dropped Matt, as one does in an ultra, and headed for the ridge section with some modest exposure. Mountain legs still firing. Then there was a larch. And another. And a lighter one. And then it was snowing, a full blanket of it. Cold, and I was soaked in sweat. Somewhere along that ridge my legs decided they were cooked. Everyone I’d sailed past on the climb started reeling me back in and passing. I could barely move on the descent. Big slice of humble pie. This wasn’t a sprint, and I’d genuinely thought I’d whip up some magic and crush it.

The ridge in the clouds, right about where my legs filed their complaint

Larches and scree up high, the kind of terrain that makes you forget your legs for a second

The Long Descent

We dropped into a long, winding descent, gorgeous with fall meadow colors, larches, and mountains.

Wildfire aftermath near the ridge. Life finds a way

Larches and ridge views opening up as the course dropped down

My energy crept back and I settled into walk-the-ups, jog-the-flats. At the last cutoff aid station I realized I no longer had to kill myself to beat a DNF; I just had to finish. I rested a good 20 minutes, ate, hydrated, refilled the pack, and went. The last 12-plus miles were one at a time. Ebbs and flows. Some lows where my legs felt done, then a vibe would show up and I’d run a mile or two.

The Fake Finish

I was really banking on this being a true 50k. Boy, did I have things to learn. Around mile 30 I hit an aid station with people cheering and ringing bells. I wasn’t quite at 31, so I kept going to make sure my watch logged a real 50k. I even ran uphill past the cars, came back, kept running for the extra distance. Finally someone asked which race I was in. The 50k. Did you go the wrong way? No? You go up there and turn left, man. Oh, this isn’t the finish? No, dude. Sorry.

Excellent. I’d convinced myself the cars meant the end. Nope. Up next: another 5k. One mile downhill on the forest road we started on, then two miles of asphalt. The hard surface hit like a violent shift, and I could physically feel it draining my legs faster. But this was it. I kept spinning the wheels. One step at a time.

The Real Finish

Eventually I hit another section of cars and heard a microphone. Okay, this is actually it, and I even saw my car, phew. Adrenaline took over and I hauled the last half mile to the line. Waiting was a group of Mountaineers members who’d spent the whole day hopping aid stations and cheering. That support made a huge difference. I was immensely proud, of myself and everyone in the group. Someone even ran the 50 miler. Yeesh.

Smoked at the finish, with Tess and the team there to cheer me in

Sitting down, I started getting cold fast, and my truck never looked further away. Some caring mounties offered their puffies even though I was soaked in sweat. Hella kind, and not forgotten.

Cooked and covered in borrowed coats. The kindness was unreal

Eventually I wobbled to the truck, where the real prize was waiting on the passenger seat: a half gallon of chocolate milk, my favorite recovery treat. Gone in record time. Dry clothes on, fighting the urge to pass out, I wobbled back to watch Matt and the rest trickle in, one smile of success at a time.

A hella fun crew. The whole reason I got talked into this in the first place

Onward

Everyone in the arena. Dared greatly, hurt greatly, finished

It was a massive effort by everyone, and honestly a bit of a life-changing day for me. The community, the support, the competition, the rush, it all landed at an interesting time. The race hurt. Pretty bad. But it was just pain. Over and over in the pain cave I’d think, “okay, make it hurt worse, just run harder. How much worse can it actually get?” And the pain would usually back off. When you stop giving things like that power over your mindset, they take up a lot less space in your head.

I knew that day I was going for something bigger. I just didn’t know what yet. I’d blown the pacing, but I still had gas in the tank. I was legitimately running at the end. How far can my body actually go? What am I capable of? What’s the limit? Only one way to find out. Onward.

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