The decision to do the Manitoba Aqua Tech 50k (part of the Manitoba Marathon races) was a last-minute one, but the decision to run a 50k the weekend of June 17 had been on my training plan for months. I just couldn’t find the race that ticked all the boxes: affordability, geographic location, and distance. For months, I’d had my heart set on racing the 50k of the Trail Rail Run in St. Regis, Montana. I’d done the 50-mile race early in my ultramarathon career, and it left a huge impression on me. The course is absolutely beautiful, running along an old rail trail from Mullan, Idaho to St. Regis, Montana. It is well-organized, and my memories of it are completely positive (except, perhaps, for the budget hotel stay where I slept in my sleeping bag on top of the bed and showered with socks and flip-flops on. But the race is a 14-hour drive away (or two flights and a 3 hour drive plus a car rental), and eventually, I had to accept that this race wasn’t in the cards from a time or from a budget perspective. I played around with doing some closer 50k’s, but one closed registration the week before the race, and I didn’t want to register for anything I couldn’t defer to the next year until I knew how I felt after my Sheyenne Grassland crossing on Saturday (June 10).
The Manitoba marathon was completely off my radar until I realized on the Tuesday before the race that I should be searching for close marathons that I could turn into a longer run by tacking on five miles at the end as a victory lap. A little googling led me to the Manitoba Marathon (Grandma’s was not an option – it was completely sold out and even if I could find a bib, hotels were basically asking for my kidney in exchange for a room). I’d ran Manitoba Marathon in 2014, and I had a very positive (albeit rainy) experience – and when I navigated to the website, I saw there was a 50k option. Sold. A little checking to make sure I wouldn’t have to anything surgically removed to book a room, a check-in to make sure missing Father’s Day was okay with him, and I was registered.
After registering, however, I started to think about what I’d just done. Generally, all of my 50k experiences have been on the trails (the exception is the Southern Fried 50/50, which I hadn’t approached competitively). A 50k on trails means, usually, some shade, softer surfaces, steep(er) climbs/descents, and a generally chill approach to aid stations. This meant that while a 50k usually meant I’d be out on the trails for much more time and would be, perhaps, harder overall, they would be easier on my body. Case in point, I did 28 miles across the Sheyenne Grasslands last Saturday and ran a pretty quick 9 miles the next morning. I couldn’t run anything except for my car the Monday after this Aqua Tech 50k). I didn’t know how to approach a tarmac 50k. Worse, I knew that I’d want to win, which would mean that I wouldn’t take it easy even though it was intended to be a training run.
Indeed, race morning dawned at the end of a 47 mile training week. I had a somewhat easier day on Saturday, just 6 miles, but there was zero taper. This is the point, as this was supposed to be part of training for a100-mile race in August, but legs were tired already. I’d also had quite a bit of stress about parking the 24 hours before the race (taking my mind off the stress of actually racing, perhaps?) – I’d been unable to buy parking passes online, and when I arrived at the expo, in addition to them giving me a marathon bib (the 50k ones were gone, they said), the parking passes were, apparently, completely sold out, too. While I’ve been the Winnipeg several times, I didn’t know the city well enough to know where the race start was let alone how I could park, legally, off-campus, and make it to the race on time. Everyone I’d asked at the expo was from out of town or unfamiliar with the area and could tell me nothing about parking. Eventually, I found a spot a mile from the start where it looked I could park, but I still left my hotel at an ungodly hour Sunday morning to make it to the start an hour and 15 minutes before the start. It was way too much time to stand in a chilly Winnipeg morning, but I was grateful to have made it safely and grateful for the perspective the stress about parking had given me: I knew I could run 50k if I could just make it to the start.
Advice from my coach was to float through the early miles, which I mostly did. I couldn’t, however, go on autopilot, because I was wearing a bib for the marathon. If I wasn’t super careful, I would have missed the turns for the extra miles that the 50k’ers had to run. The 50k course ran with the entire marathon course but deviated three times into loops so that our race added up to 50k. The first loop a volunteer told me I had “done an extra loop, but that’s okay” upon seeing me exit the 50k loop, and I had to yell back that I “had the wrong bib!” In retrospect, I suppose I needn’t have done that, but the stress of worrying that I wasn’t on the right course ate at me the entire course. In fact, the 50k loops were, in general, some of my favorite parts of the course. They were quite, often shaded, and mimicked the adventurous nature of ultramarathons, but I worried, constantly, that I’d inadvertently missed a 50k turnoff and would be DQ’ed at the end of the race. You see, as I stood at the start, I decided that I probably wanted to try to place, and I didn’t want my placing plan to be foiled by an inadvertent missed loop. By the end of the third loop, my mileage was tracking for a 50k by the end of the race, so I settled down a bit (plus, I received helpful “you’re okay,” and “yes, just those loops” from race marshals, so I felt more confident that I’d run the whole course).
The race started in near perfect conditions – low wind, mid-50’s – so the first 20 miles flew by. I ran out of water in my handheld, though, around mile 20. This meant I had to rely exclusively on aid stations for water. 31 miles is always hard, but I was feeling really good (in fact, I felt really good except for normal “oh my god, my achilles is literally tearing in half, oh, nevermind, it seems like it healed itself” aches and pains that happen throughout a longer race). Yet, I had to slow to walk through every aid station, and by this point, most of the course was in the sun and it was hot. Temperature-wise, I think it was only in the mid-70’s, but with the direct sun, it felt much hotter. Only bringing my handheld water bottle and not my hydration pack was a big mistake for other reasons, too. Not only could I have maintained my 8:00 pace if I didn’t need to stop and walk, I also didn’t consider how helpful the lil’ pockets would have been to hold my phone, snacks, driver’s license, room key, and etc. Instead, I packed my phone and four Honey Stinger gluten-free waffles into my bra and put my key and cards in the back pocket of my shorts, which were too big anyway, so they hung around mid-thigh until I literally triple-knotted them to stay up.
All of this is literally just race drama and lesson’s learned, because the race was truly fantastic and fun. Of course, it would have been nice to have been recognized as a 50k runner as I literally passed the same 4:30-5:45 pace marathon runners three times after each 50 extra mileage loop. But the course was absolutely beautiful. Much of it ran along the river and an early 50k extra mileage loop took me into the most gorgeous park that was, because I was alone, almost meditatively calm and beautiful. I did, too, end up performing well – both for a 50k race and at the end of a 47-mile training week. I came in 2nd woman, 5th overall, and 1st Master’s woman.
At the finish, after trying to get the right medal (the 50k one), I sat in the infield of the University of Manitoba football field for a little bit to cool-down and to give my legs a little chance to breathe before I had to take the 1-mile walk back to my car (or, the 32nd mile, as I’ve referred to it on Strava). I was feeling pretty beat-up, and my legs were ready to be done – but, if I must be honest, having to walk a mile post-marathon was probably the best thing I could have done to keep blood circulating in my legs after the finish. All things considered, it was a great, not-so-impromptu 50k in my build-up for a 100.
ultrarungal 