Four weeks ago today, I successfully completed my first 50(+) mile race at the 2021 fall Superior trail races. I had tried the distance twice before, in a race and on my own, but both times pulled out after 34 miles (about the longest I’ve ever run). This time, my goals were different: I just wanted to finish, and feel good doing so. I succeeded beyond anything I expected.
As I write this introduction four weeks after the race, my legs are still a little flat, but I am, perhaps inevitably, already plotting my next few long efforts.
Background:
This race was a long time coming. The 2020 Superior 50 miler, had it happened, would have been my first goal race since 2018. I ran a few short races in 2019, but nothing that I would call a “focus” race. Then, of course, the 2020 race did not happen due to the pandemic. In all honesty, that cancellation was probably the best thing that could have happened to me: it allowed me another full year of focused, uninterrupted training.
That the race happened at all was not a given: just when John, the race director, was relatively assured that the race would happen despite the pandemic, a large wildfire sparked near the start line of the 50 mile race. For several weeks leading up to the race on September 11, all the campsites on the Superior Hiking Trail were closed. The air quality bounced from ok to “Unhealthy for Everybody,” sometimes several times a day. The forest-service appropriated the start line area of the 50 mile race as their headquarters and campground. It looked like, despite John’s efforts, the race would be cancelled a second year in a row.
I had all but given up on the race happening at all when, with the help of some well-timed rain, the firefighter succeeded in building containment lines around the fire. John worked tirelessly to make sure the race could happen in a safe way, and only cleared us to run when the agencies involved were not only ok with the race happening, but encouraged him to put it on. So a huge thank you goes out to John and his wife Cheri for always putting so much of themselves into these races.
The Lead Up:
The lead up to this race, at least for me, was a little difficult. September is always a busy time at work for me, and this week was no exception. Work did not want to let me go on Friday afternoon, and my wife and I ended up leaving the Twin Cities about half an hour later than I would have liked. Fortunately the drive to Duluth went smoothly, and we were able to stop for a sit-down dinner at the Corktown Deli before dropping my wife with my parents (this let her skip my 2:30 AM wakeup call the next morning: a good decision for both of us).
The drive from Duluth to Lutsen also went smoothly, and I rolled into Caribou Highlands for check-in at 7:30, a full half-hour before it closed. Checked in and with my drop bags deposited, it was on to Cascade River State Park to set up my tent (I was lucky enough to snag a campsite less than two weeks in advance, unheard of for the north shore in the fall), have a second dinner, and settle in for whatever sleep I could get before the 2:30 alarm.
(Interlude)
I wake up to distant “woos” and the sound of “Ice Ice Baby” blaring through the trees. There’s a wedding reception going on at the lodge near the Cascade River. Unfortunate, but at the same time I find it somewhat hilarious.
I check my phone: 12:00AM. Confused, I check my watch: 11:00PM. My phone thinks it’s in Canada. The reception turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Eventually, after “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” and “Funky Comatina,” I drift to sleep to the dulcet sounds of “Hammertime.”
2:30, of course, came far too early. I had managed maybe four hours of restless sleep, at most. Even so, I get up, start my coffee, make my breakfast (a peanut butter and avocado sandwich), and strikecamp in what feels like record time, glad that the forecast rain never materialized. Then it was back to Caribou Highlands at Lutsen to pick up the shuttle to the race start. The shuttle ride, all 45 minutes of it, passed in relative quiet, a remarkable occurrence for a bunch of trail runners about to embark on an ultra: normally you can’t shut us up.
The start line was a lower-key affair than usual. Since the Forest Service was using the normal start area as a headquarters, we gathered in a nearby parking lot for the race start. The upside of being in a parking lot instead of a building: the stars. Living in the Cities, sometimes I forget just how stunning the stars can be out away from the lights.
During the pre-race briefing, I found my friend Tim O - Tim is 6’5” and easy to spot - and another, familiar looking tall runner and joined them in cheering (quietly) for the start of the race. With Tim’s quick quip of “this is the start line for the 5k, right?” we were off.
Section one: Finland to Sonju Road - An Acquaintance and a Few Lost Souls
The race started up a paved road for a quarter mile before jogging left onto a logging road. After talking with Tim for a minute or so, I decided I could go a little faster, and ended up running side by side with the taller runner, chatting for a bit before he said “Wait, are you Jamie Falk?”
The taller runner, it turns out, was Paul, a runner I met and ran with during the mudfest that was the Hixon 50k in 2018. I’d followed him on Strava ever since, and had actually predicted my own estimated splits and overall time based on his. I guess that was a good choice, as we were now running the same pace in the race itself. And it’s lucky for me that we were, because he caught me as I missed the turnoff from logging road to single track in the dark.
Paul and I ran and talked for a mile or two. He was recovering from meniscus surgery, so wasn’t expecting a lot from the day. I was hoping to finish my first fifty miler, and had two goals: finish the race, and relax and enjoy the experience. Running with another person who was keeping the same pace I was could only help with both of those goals. Unfortunately, after a couple miles, Paul pulled up suddenly and told me to go on ahead, so I ran into the pre-dawn darkness of the Superior Hiking Trail on my own.
Running a trail alone in the darkness is an entirely different experience than running in the daylight. In the darkness, sounds seem sharper, , and your whole world narrows to the few square feet of trail illuminated by your headlight. It is one of my favorite running situations, and one I get to indulge in far too infrequently.
I wasn’t alone for very long, though. I kept hearing voices up the trail, and within a couple miles, I caught up with two other runners, just making their way back to the trail from a wrong turn. They fell in line behind me and a couple minutes later, we nearly ran into another runner coming back along the trail. As it turns out, he had also missed the turn off the logging trail onto the single track, but had continued on much farther than I had, and already had run seven miles to our five. All four of us trooped into the first aid station together.
(Time elapsed: 1:14:29, Section time: 1:14:29, Time in Aid: 43s)
Section Two: Sonju to Crosby-Manitou - Leading a Pack
None of us spent long at the first aid station. I grabbed my drop bag (easily visible with the bright orange duct tape showing my name), topped up my water bottles and led the pack back to the SHT.
It was starting to get light by this point, with sunrise at 6:45AM, an hour and a half into the race, and I started to notice, and point out, mushrooms on the trail. Through this one section, I saw several types of bollettes, a few chanterelles, both edible, and the chanterelle's deadly look alike the Jack o'Lantern mushroom, as well as a large array of non-edible varieties. I am unsure what my companions thought of this practice, but with such a variety fruiting, I could not resist. Indeed, I had to work hard to avoid the temptation to stop and take pictures of all the mushrooms
Halfway through this section, one of the runners behind me, the one who had missed the turnoff to the SHT (wearing a red High Country plaid shirt and using trekking poles) decided I was moving too slowly for his liking, and passed the group. Shortly after that, the sunrise broke through the trees.
It was here that we came across our first hundred-miler of the day: my friend Bill. He had been trying for yet another hundred mile finish, but was clearly in some distress when we caught up to him. When I realized who it was, I stopped, letting the two other runners go by, and gave him a quick fist bump and a few words of encouragement. (I would later learn that he was having some serious back trouble at this point, but was shocked that I would stop to say hi in the middle of what was clearly already a good race for me.)
This allowed the other two runners to get ahead of me just a bit, a fact that gave me some relief as it allowed me to sit back and run my own race at my own pace. It also gave me a chance to take a picture of the sunrise as we made our way into the second aid station. Allowing myself to stop and take pictures of particularly beautiful views was part of my strategy to keep to my mantra “relax and enjoy.” Stopping to give Bill a fist bump was another part.
The last part of the route to the aid station was along a gravel road, heading nearly due east. This gave me the chance to take a picture of the sunrise.
(Section time: 45:51, Time in Aid: 27s)
Section Three: Crosby-Manitou to Sugarloaf - Running Ahead of Schedule
I realized at this aid station that I was already running far ahead of my predicted splits. In fact, if I continued running so quickly, I risked missing my crew entirely at the next aid station. They planned to get there around 9AM for my expected arrival no earlier than 9:30, and I was on track to get there at 9 on the dot. Regardless, I took very little time in aid, grabbing my drop bag and filling an extra water bottle for what I knew would be the longest stretch of trail for the day. The extra water bottle, unfortunately, slipped straight through the front left pocket on my vest (a defect I hadn’t noticed until now), and I was left carrying it in my hand until I drained it.
We were now in Crosby-Manitou State Park, familiar territory to me for the first time of the day, and for the only time until we reached Carlton Peak. My dad and I had gone backpacking here some 20+ years ago, and the trails were just as steep, rocky, and root-covered as I remembered. In what would be a theme for the day, I found myself thinking two thoughts over and over: first, the trail was often steep and technical; second, the climbs on this trail were universally short. I cut my teeth trail racing in Colorado, and even the longest climbs on the Superior course (the climbs up Carlton Peak and Moose Mountain) are short compared to even the shorter climbs in Colorado races.
In Crosby-Manitou, another (new) runner caught up to me. As usual, I could hear him before I saw him, particularly an exclamation of “isn’t this bullshit” on a particularly steep climb (my unsaid thought in response was “did you sign up for the same race I did?”), and noticed that he was not at all hesitant to drop into a power hike in the steep and/or technical sections, but quickly reverted to a run in whenever it got smooth and/or level again. I opted to emulate him, and while he overtook me for a few minutes, I quickly re-passed him and didn’t see him again all day.
Looking at my watch, I realized again it might be a moot point: I was still far, far ahead of my predicted pace. I was on pace to come into Sugarloaf between 9:00 and 9:05. Sure enough, when I ran into the aid station just after 9AM, my crew (my wife and my parents) had not arrived yet. I grabbed my drop bag, filled my bottles (one nuun, one water), and wandered around trying to think how to signal to my crew that I’d already been there. I had settled on describing my father (“6’4”, white hair and beard, looks like me”) to a helpful volunteer (as opposed to the other kind, of which there are none in this race), when I spotted my wife and mother walking down the road towards me. I flagged them down, let them know that I would probably want to change socks and/or shoes at the next aid, and took off down the trail again.
(Section time: 1:50:36, Time in Aid: 4:40)
Section Four: Sugarloaf to Cramer - Settling In
Off again, I again noticed something that I had found happening the previous section: while I was starting to feel the fact that we’d already been running for more than four hours, and my right quad was a little sore, I wasn’t cramping at all, and running felt better than walking did. This would remain true throughout the race, at least until they both felt equally difficult at the end of the race.
So I ran most of the time, and every ten minutes took a quick walk break while I took a drink (at the 10, 30, and 50 minutes after the race hour) or took in some food (at 20, 40 and the hour). This drinking/nutrition pattern has worked well for me for several years now, as long as I adjust how much water I take in depending on the temperature.
Using this pattern, I soon came up behind another runner in blue, whom I hadn’t seen yet. Spencer had been running well but had cramping issues. It was his first fifty, having run the Moose Mountain Marathon when it was last held in 2019, but he seemed to be doing pretty well. I ran with him for a few minutes, glad of the chance to talk, before running along ahead again.
It wasn’t long before I came up behind another runner: the same one who had missed the logging road turnoff at the beginning of the race. He said he was cramping badly and suffering, so I offered a salt tab (which he refused). Seconds after I passed him, he fell over a root, and I ran back to check on him, leaving him with a salt tab after he assured me he could keep moving.
This whole section I was moving well, so inevitably I took an unexpected and abrupt fall on the smoothest, easiest section of trail. Parkour training kicked in, and I turned it into a perfect shoulder roll, and ended up springing back up on my feet none the worse for wear, with all my food and bottles accounted for. Naturally, I only fall like this when I am completely alone. When somebody else is watching, I inevitably fall flat on my face.
Soon, it seemed, I was cruising down a smooth trail into the Cramer Aid station and my first real crew stop of the day.
(Section time: 1:05:14, Time in Aid: 5:39)
Section Five: Cramer to Temperance - Wait, it’s Fall?
This aid station was the longest stop of the day. I opted to change into thicker socks, in an effort to avoid blisters, but keep the same shoes, as they were feeling good other than that minor hot spot on each instep. I had no blisters yet, and figured if they started in the next 12 miles, I could take care of them at the next crew stop (there is no crew access at Temperance for 50 milers). So after again grabbing a third water bottle and my trekking poles (for the climb up Carlton), and saying a quick “thank you” to my crew and the aid station volunteers,I took off down the trail.
The new socks made an immediate difference, and with feet feeling good again, I cruised along for a few miles before hitting the Cross River trail section. While a beautiful section of trail along the river, this was also a series of short, highly technical ups and downs l, and it slowed me down. I was now 6 hours and 50kinto the race, but to my surprise I still felt about as good as I had ten or fifteen miles earlier.
The hundred milers were appearing ahead of me regularly now, and I developed a system for passing. I would run up behind and match their pace, letting them know I was there and that, whenever the trail allowed it, I would pass them. Most still insisted on stepping aside for me, but if the runner didn’t want to stop and step off the trail, this let them keep moving forward (“relentless forward progress”). With quick “thanks” and “you’re awesome,” I would move on down (or up) the trail. I saw several faces I recognized, some of whom recognized me back, and I was again reminded just how small and tight-knit the trail running community in this state is.
In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful sections of the course. After climbing out of the Cross River gorge, you run for a mile along a ridgeline before dropping into Temperance. This is one of the few areas of the course where you regularly get clear views out over Lake Superior, and the fall colors out (already) were simply stunning. I did stop and take a landscape and a selfie, because why not?
But at least I knew what I was in for.
(Section time: 1:26:58, Time in Aid: 3:04)
Section Six: Temperance to Sawbill - Up and Over
With no crew access at the Temperance station, I moved through a little more quickly. I was anxious to get out and on my way up Carlton, but first I had to run along the heavily-trafficked trail along the Temperance River.
After running on my own for so much of the day, 6 ½ hours at this point, it was strange to suddenly be among people not part of the race, hiking, chatting, and playing in the (low) river. By and large, as people are, they were pleasant and polite, stepping out of the way and saying “nice job.” Some asked questions (“How far have you gone?” being a common one. “Is there a race?” being another). Most just offered an encouraging word and stepped to the side of the trail. As I said, it was a strange slice of normal life, equal parts jarring and comforting.
Then the course turned northeast and up again, towards Carlton Peak.
I had been secretly dreading this section. I had heard horror stories from other, more experienced Superior runners about how long and difficult the climb was. I’d even grabbed my trekking poles just for this section. So I was somewhat surprised by how mellow the first mile and a half of the climb really was: mostly runnable even in the second half of a 50 miler.
When the steep section finally hit, I was glad of the trekking poles. While I would have been fine without them, the extra two points of contact made me more sure-footed and I’m sure made me faster overall. But I was shocked by how short the climb seemed, and how quickly it was over. The two steepest sections of the climb lasted maybe a half mile total, gaining about 500 feet over that distance. Steep, yes, but also short.
My perceptions may be skewed by cutting my trail running teeth in Colorado.
Nonetheless, Carlton passed quickly and without incident, up or down (though my right quad was really quite sore by this point), and I cruised into the aid station to see my crew again.
(Section time: 1:12:39, Time in Aid: 4:57)
Section Seven: Sawbill to Oberg - Familiar Territory
This aid station came with an issue: until this point, I had been eating well. Every twenty minutes, I’d shovel down either half a Honey Stinger waffle or half a bag of Honey Stinger Chews (thank you to Honey Stinger: as a member of the hive I get a discount on these). It was working well, and keeping my energy levels consistent, but I was starting to get tired of the sweetness. I was willing to try other options.
At the aid, I tried the new Honey Stinger hydration mix, but that nearly made me throw up. Beef jerky (another fallback) wasn’t going to do it. I grabbed a few options from the aid station, and decided that if I was unable to eat anything else, I could reasonably expect at least one of them to go down. In the meantime, I opted, unappetizing as it was, to continue with what had worked so far. While it wasn’t appetizing any more, it was at least keeping me moving well.
I remembered this section being relatively flat during the 50k, and was mostly correct. There were three smaller climbs, again mostly runnable, and I generally stuck to my “run 9, walk 1 while eating and/or drinking” routine.This section provided a new bonus: I regularly passed the back of the marathon pack, each of whom gave me a mental boost and verbal encouragement. One of the marathoners mentioned that I was in sixth place, the first time I’d known where I was in the pack all day. I was surprised to be so far up in the pack, but I knew I had been running well all day, and would be in the top ten or so most years. At this point, I hadn’t seen another 50 miler in nearly 20 miles, so also wasn’t expecting to change positions again in the race . . .
Illustrating just how well this run was going: I ran this section two minutes faster than I ran the same section in the Superior 50k in 2014, when I placed 11th.
(Section time: 1:09:18, Time in Aid: 3:21)
Section Eight: Oberg to Finish - Bringing it Home
This aid station was the least smooth for me and my crew. I had intended to take my third water bottle on this section, but somewhere between the last station and this one, it was misplaced. Chalk it up to experience: I did not make it clear that I would want that bottle again, nor did I bring an extra water bottle for such an occasion. I’ll know for next time.
Fortunately, it was the last aid station, with seven miles to go, and I knew that even if I ran out of water I would finish the race.
And now I had an added motivation: I could see the fifth place runner walking out of the aid station as I was grabbing the last of my gear for this section. The finish was tangible, if three climbs away, but the runner ahead of me was literally within sight, and didn’t look to be moving well.
This marked the first time in the race I allowed myself to do two things. The first was to use some honest race tactics. Knowing I was just behind the fifth place runner, I took time to prepare my pass. I hit a walk break, had a drink of water, then surged past him between Oberg and Moose Mountain. There’s nothing quite so demoralizing as a competitor breezing by you in the last stage of a race, even if you know they are just putting on a good show for you.
Second, I allowed myself to think about the finish. All day, the only distance in my mind, and on my watch, was the distance to the next aid station. But barring sudden injury, there was no chance I was going to fail at this point. With that in mind, I put in a good pace up Moose Mountain, trekking poles helping me push up and over the top, passing marathoners the whole way.
Down Moose, and the quads were really feeling it now, but I knew there was actually relatively little climbing and descending to go before the finish. Mystery Mountain, as I was now viscerally reminded, was a relatively shallow slope, and while I was having a harder time willing myself to run again whenever I took a walk break (now just washing waffles down with a squirt of water), running itself still felt pretty decent.
At the “top” of Mystery, Amanda “Smashem” Basham made an appearance, cheering us on, which gave the final boost I needed to really push well on the long into the finish. The last mile, as I had hoped, was the fastest of the day in 8:36, and my form in the finish chute looked pretty dang good for mile 53, if I do say so myself.
Thank you to my crew for shepherding me through the aid stations and taking care of me afterwards. Thanks to all the volunteers (1 volunteer for every 3 runners) who made the race run smoothly. Thanks to Honey Stinger for welcoming me to the Hive. And most of all, thanks to John and Cheri for putting on the race despite all the difficulties involved this year.
