Pacing the Zion 50

So we got home last Wednesday from Disneyland, and Friday afternoon I headed down to the St George area for a race with my friend Marci.  She was going to run the Zion 50 mile race, and she had asked me to pace her the last 25 miles.  I was a little nervous going into it because my ankle had been bothering me the last week or so.  Thankfully it held up really well, and I didn't start feeling any pain till the last mile.

When we got to St. George (Virgin, actually)  Marci had to check in at the race, then we went to a movie.  We saw Hunger Games, which ended up being a good distraction for Marci because she was getting nervous for the race.

Marci started running at 6am, and I planned to meet up with her at the aid station at mile 27 (that was the first location the runners could pick up their pacer).  She had no idea how long it would take cause it's so hard to predict a pace on trails.  It ended up being really challenging and technical, so she didn't roll into the aid station where I was till a little after noon.  She'd already been going at it for 6+ hours.  She was doing so awesome, but the rough first half definitely took it's toll.  Plus the temps were up there in the 80's and at the finish at a lower elevation it was in the 90's.

We took off and about a mile into it, we started climbing up some hills. The uphill went on for about six miles.  And kinda the rule of thumb for ultra running is to walk uphill or else you'll blow up too fast and never make it to the finish line.  But once we made it past that incline, we came to a really awesome drop off, and had a few downhill miles ahead of us.

The drop off

That visor saved my life, keeping the sun from baking my face.  

You can't really see it that well, but we were following the trail right along this gorge, like a foot from the edge of the cliff.  So awesome!

At about mile 40 (for her, mile 12 for me) Marci started to get pretty sick.  She said she was kind a scared, she just felt so weird.  Thankfully we pulled into an aid station and the medic there told her to take some salt and drink some pickle juice (oh so gross, I don't know how she did it!) and we headed back out, taking it easy in hopes that once her sodium levels evened out she'd feel better.  About 20 minutes later, she felt like a whole new person, and we took off running again, and was able to keep a pretty good pace till the finish line.  The race ended up being about 1 1/2 miles long, so she ended up running almost 52 miles in 12 hours 11 minutes.  She was the 11th female finisher, and like the 28th overall finisher!  Not bad for her first 50 mile race!

Oh, we had so much fun.  Ultra running is a whole different ballgame than street racing.  I think we both learned a lot about the importance of fueling correctly while your out running.  Getting the right foods in at the right time can make a huge difference.  The trail we were running was awesome, and several times we'd come around a bend and both just say "Oh my gosh!" cause the view was amazing.  I think both of us have been converted to trail running :)

After a quick shower, we loaded up the car and headed home.  It was just a quick trip, not much longer than 24 hours total, but we had a blast.