2014 Trail Rail 50-Mile Recap

The Trail Rail Run, my first 50-mile ultramarathon came on the heels of a learning year. After DNFing the END-Sure 100k, I had a crisis of confidence inmyself, in my ability to run, in my ability to persist, despite hardships. In retrospect, with insight that only time and distance can give, I entered my first ultra year during a huge transition – I’d just begun my PhD studies, moved three states away from my family and friends, and was adjusting to a new dark, cold place. Success in ultraracing is about so much more than just physical ability, it’s mostly mental. I went into END-Sure viewing it as the sole savior for a dark year – I was beat down, discouraged, and tired. I put pressure on myself to make END-Sure the redeeming part of a hard, fought-for year. It was too much for one race, a 100k, to bear. I didn’t finish, dropping out agonizingly close to the finish. Upon not finishing, I was forced to deal with the stress, the loneliness, the challenge of starting my life completely over. Had I finished, even won, perhaps I would have continued to put the burden of life on running, but this DNF forced me to mourn, regroup, and come back with a stronger sense of who I was and the runner I wanted to be.

And so I entered the Trail Rail Run with no expectations except to finish. I knew now how hard it would be, and I knew I could run 50 miles, because I’d done that before. I just wanted to finish strong.
I arrived in Montana the night before the race. My hotel, affordable for my student budget, was not the Ritz. But it didn’t need to be. I had no cell coverage, no WiFi, and so I texted my boyfriend good night as I sat by the creek, the only place I had service, and settled in for the night.

I am not a patient person, and I push the limits of what is possible by arriving as late as possible to race starts especially those starts that begin with a long shuttle ride to the actual start. I pushed this one too close, and I arrived just after the bus to the start had left. There was only one bus. With a sinking heart, I acknowledged that this meant I’d have to drive to the start and get a ride back to my car after the finish, but then I ran into the race director who kindly agreed to drive me to the start. This was ideal, as she spent the drive telling me about the race and the course. This was only the second iteration of the race, and it reflected years of work to connect St. Regis to Mullen via the only railroad route between the two cities. I arrived at the start, thanked the race director for the ride, and headed to the picnic shelter where runners were in various states of undress. It was cold at the start, but we knew it would get hot, so disposable layers were the bane of the game. I filled up my Nathan bladder and liberally applied sunscreen.

We all stepped to the start line. The gun went off, and I settled in toward the back, remembering my goal to finish. I planned to power hike most of the first 10 miles of the course, miles that headed straight up. I knew if I ran the hills now, I wouldn’t be able to run the downhills that were coming after we climbed the mountain. So I paced myself, found a friend, and we pushed through the first climb, running when the course leveled or had a decline. Runners passed us as we hiked, and my running partner felt the gauntlet thrown, and decided to pick up the pace. I knew I had 45 more miles, so I stuck to the plan. By the first aid station, I was in the latter quarter of all racers, but I was easily making cutoffs and felt strong. Too strong, too good – this was supposed to be hard! But I continued to hold myself back. It would be hard, I told myself. I didn’t need to make a race harder just because I was feeling good. In many ways, this is the smartest I’ve ever run a race.

After we reached the peak of the climb, we had three or so miles downhill before the course leveled. We crossed beautiful trails, going through tunnels and crossing bridges. I started passing runners, and I caught up with two local runners, both also running their first 50m. I settled in with them for the next 30 miles. We traveled through aid stations, sharing sunscreen and life stories. When I was feeling low, they motivated me; when they were feeling low, I took up the slack, telling abut my Run Across America dreams.

We finished the slow descent and hit the rail trail portion of the course, flat but difficult because of the large unstable rock that surrounded the railroad tracks. Legs and ankles tired, we surrender to walking as every step was unstable, as the large, pointed rocks shifted with every step. We persisted, but now down and demoralized, we were mostly silent, only interrupting our thoughts to ask how much further we thought we had. When I am moving so slow, it’s hard not to do the mental calculations – if I’m moving at four mikes and hour and we have sixteen miles left, that means we have four hours left. Four hours felt impossible.

But still, we persisted.

At this point, the path returned to gravel and was largely flat, but my legs were so decimated I could barely do more than shuffle. That was further demoralizing, as the trail was inherently runnable, and I couldn’t take advantage of it.

This feeling of exhaustion, that I couldn’t do more, was purely mental. Evidence of my legs capability was clear when with two miles left, I was able to pick back up into a brisk running pace. I finished, running, in 11:36. Not a win, but a finish. And I was happy.
This was my fastest 50 time until my Burning River 100, where I crushed my 50M time in the first half of my 100. While I remember the pain of the last 15 miles, the difficult terrain, the agony of shuffling down runnable terrain, I more remember the friendships I made that day, the beautiful terrain, and the feeling of running down a cool, dark railroad tunnel during the heat if the day. In every ultra I’ve run since, I’m chasing the feeling I had that day.