AA 50k 2022

Overview

AA 50k is a night race (starting at 7pm on a Friday) that normally consists of up to ten 3.3 mile loops around Albuquerque Academy. It is open to people who wish to do fewer. Back when we had thirty or so people starting, after people had finished they'd be put in the division for the number of laps they had completed and then, within that division, ranked based on their finishing time.

It may be time to retire this race. We only had three starters: Jason Romero, Mark Werkmeister and myself. Jason and I finished 31 miles seconds less than eight hours.

The "Race"

Mark was planning on doing at most four laps (i.e., a half marathon), but complication from his recent surgery limited his participation to a little more than two laps (a bit more than a 10k). Furthermore, Mark has not yet been cleared to run, so he was walking, so Jason, Mark and I walked together initially.

About four tenths of a mile into his third loop, Mark let prudence turn him back toward his car so he could drive home. Although he had been cleared by his doctor to walk and hike, his body was acting up and telling him to stop. He listened.

Being lazy, Jason and I accompanied Mark back to his car before restarting our third loop. You might think that would have caused us to do an extra eight tenths of a mile, but instead we decided to do only nine complete laps, since with all the futzing around, we were at 31.03 miles by then.

Although we stuck together, my GPS watch said my time was 7:59:45, whereas Jason's said his time was 7:59:47, so I stole the win!

What was I doing?

I took this event for granted. I knew Mark was going to be there and was going to be walking a few loops. I also knew that earlier in the year I had run the Cedro Peak 50k in a fasted state until the final three aid stations, where I had a beer at each. So, I figured I could just show up, walk a few laps with Mark, not pay much attention to my caloric intake and then run the remaining laps after Mark was done and call it a night.

Turns out, Mark walks much faster than I do. He always has. He is taller that I am, but I suspect his natural stride is a greater percentage of his height than mine, so at what appeared to be the same cadence, it was hard for me to keep up without running, but my pride didn't want me to run. I did, however want to stay near him, in order to make chatting easier, so for the first lap and change I walked faster than was comfortable and found myself getting tired and hungry!

It was a bit demoralizing to be tired and hungry after a lap and a half when I thought I was going to breeze through the first few laps, but the tiredness was not muscular tiredness, it was a combination of sleepy tiredness and my body saying "why are you walking at an unnaturally fast pace when you could be running?" My guess is the hunger was because I wasn't exerting myself enough to get my body burning fat.

At some point, and I think it was after our second lap, I drank one of my emergency double espressos. I also ate a big hunk of (perhaps slightly spoiled) sweet potato. When Mark called it an early night, my mental focus turned to his situation and even though I knew he wasn't having an emergency, I was still hit hard by the fact that his body was mean enough to make him quit so early.

Just the two of us

Before too long, Jason and I fell into hundred-miler mode where we were hiking the uphill leg of the loop and running the downhill leg and the two relatively neutral legs.

I wound up with some GI distress both from a combination of what I had eaten earlier in the day and perhaps the state of the sweet potato. I had brought a "bucket potty" and kept planning on using it, but I really didn't want to and my urge to go would disappear as I was hiking and the bucket potty was where our cars were and we typically hiked that section.

By the time we had finished our sixth lap it was clear that we'd only need to do nine complete laps this year, so I gave myself something to look forward to at the end of each of the remaining laps: I was going to attempt to use to bucket potty at the end of the seventh; I was going to drink a beer at the end of the eighth and the end of the ninth would be the finish, which would allow me to drive home where I had a real toilet and more beer!

Glad I went

It was great to see Mark. It's always good to see Jason too, but we had spent a fair amount of time together two weeks prior when I paced him the last 50 miles of the Creede 100. I hadn't seen Mark since before his operation, when he, Jason and I did a "shortest double crossing."

AA 50k Origin

AA 50k was added to the Albuquerque Fat Ass series in 2012 to give people training for their first hundred miler a chance to run in the dark on a familiar, accessible, tame, course.

AA 50k Future

There's no longer a need for AA 50k, so perhaps 2022 was its final year. The people for whom AA 50k was initially set up for now have a decade of night running experience. However, hundred milers continue to gain popularity and there's a new stable of runners who might want the stepping stone that AA 50k can provide. If it is to be put on in 2023, a date will be chosen much earlier and more will be done to increase attendance.