Holiday Lake 50k

The Holiday Lake 50k is like no race I've ever run. It's a trail race and I've done those. It's a David Horton race, I've done those as well. It's listed as a 50k but is actually about 33.5 miles, I've even run races that are listed as one distance and end up being a little long. I have no problem with any of these things. My problem is with road marathons. And that is how this race is run.

The trails are mostly flat, and the course is fast. This fact meant I had no opportunities to take any walking breaks except while I was choking on a Gu on my way up a small steep incline. Even though normally I have huge problems during races that are run faster, today wasn't one of them. I felt good and had very few issues.

The start of the race, as with all Horton races, started with the National Anthem and a prayer. I have to admit, we sang the worst sounding Anthem I've ever heard. We must have changed the key 15 times in the 3 minute song. It sort of just turned into a monotone reciting rather than an actual "song," as the word might be defined. Yet, as this group of 300 or so non-singing runners stood in the wee hours of the morning, everyone did our best to sing the National Anthem. And I have to hope that counted for something. No one was "too cool" to give it a shot. I liked that.

Anyway, the race consists of a loop around Holiday Lake and when you get all the way around the lake, you turn around and do it backwards. Not literally running backwards, you retrace your steps. Thought I'd clarify.

The first loop went well enough and I finished it in 8th place, in 1:56 ish for maybe 16ish miles.

See, in a Horton race theres a lot of "ish" moments. The miles are never exact. ISH miles. If you ask him about a section and he says it's flat, just assume it's rolling hills. Flat-ISH. If a climb is listed as being a big climb, it means it's hell-ISH. And there's always lot of food so there are always dISHes. Last one. It was Holiday Lake, so there were probably fISH in there. Okay I'm done.

Regardless of how many actual miles the loop is, the way back was fairly uneventful. I traded places with a few people, some people passed me, and I passed some others. At the end of the race I PRed by 1 hour and 12 minutes, finished in 6th place and in 3:59....ISH.




-- Patrick