RunVeggieRun: Bear Chase 50K and 50Mile

Any race with a water crossing is a good race and running with Liz is always fun.

An awesome race organized by our friend Dave. The race was extremely well run: we were able to get on the shuttle bus to the start immediately, the course was well marked, the shirts were awesome, the race photos were free to download, the course was beautiful, and the aid stations were frequent.

Sean ran the 50 mile race and I ran the 50K. The 50 mile race ran 4 loops around Bear Creek State Park with a total of 12 water crossings and the 50K ran 1 lap of the 10K course and 2 of the big laps like the 50mile course with a total of 6 water crossings.

This was our first race since the LT100. Neither of us were 100% at the start. Sean is still fighting with his IT bands and I have been having some IT band issues as well with some low back pain and some pirformis syndrome on the side. It took about 4 weeks for me to be able to run pain free after Leadville, but that doesn't extend to long distances. I'm not sure if Sean has had any pain free runs yet, but he is cool with running 50 miles anyway. I couldn't let him run so much farther than me, so I signed up for the 50K.

I started the race asking for some tylenol for my back. Clearly, I am getting old. Luckily, rock star Liz had some ibuprofen for me. I only took one because of the risks with NSAIDs in ultrarunning, but I think I did feel some relief. I got to about mile 15 before my back really started hurting again. I stopped to stretch a few times and got some tylenol from an aid station but the low back pain was really cramping my style and hamstrings and glutes.