I printed out the course elevation map for Cactus Rose 50miler I'm running at the end of October. It's a big loop, that you run in one direction, then the other way, so essentially an out and back
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As far as I can tell, other than the downhills on the front 10.5 miles, there isn't much relaxation going on. The continuous gradual uphill for the last 10 miles of the race are going to suck. Then again, there aren't many other features of this course that look like they aren't going to suck!
It's not that it scares me, because these are not Colorado mountains you need to climb for 3 hours at a time to 14,000 feet of elevation, but when you're faced with having to run up and down and up and down for essenitally 2 marathons worth on a course like this one, (with hills climbs and descents that are rocky and technical just like the photos below), you know it's not going to be a walk in the park where you'll have tons of flat portions to get some easy distance in.
Want to see more course photos? Here's the race director's photo album. Disregard the meadowns and long straight stretches. Those won't be part of this course.
Time to add some hill repeats to the training schedule. Too bad none of my friends are running this. It's gonna be a lonely 7 weeks of hill training.
In prior years, they've only had a 100mile option. Looks like other than 2 runners that ran super fast in 2008, most of the front of the pack finished in 24-28 hours. That means I should expect my race to take me between 10 and 14 hours.
Hooray for a full day of fun! or maybe I should say YIKES?
1 comment:
looks like fun.
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