White Mesa Fat Ass 50k 2022
Overview
Initially, my goal for this race was to keep it alive. That morphed into getting John Dahl across the finish line after he asked me for some information about New Mexico trail running. WMFA50k was to be his first ultra.
He succeeded. I ran all but the last quarter mile with him. He finished in 8:47:01
History
The White Mesa Fat Ass 50k was created by James Breyfogle. It was the first of the four free ultras that composed the Albuquerque Fat Ass Series. After Jim left Albuquerque (in 2013 or 2014), Perky Garcia became the race director. It continued to be held annually for many years although it never had a lot of participants. In 2016 there were 9 finishers of the entire 50k, but by 2017 it was down to 4 and in 2018 only 2.
In 2019, with Perky's encouragement, RaceNM put on the Dragon's Back Ultra and Trail Races on the same course, but in June (when it's HOT!) and for the next few years, although some people came out to run one, two, three or four laps of the course in November, the event had been demoted to a Dragon's Back training run and was no longer an official part of the Albuquerque Fat Ass Series.
At the end of the 2021 Fat Ass Series season, I put the White Mesa Fat Ass 50k back into the series for 2022, figuring that by November of 2022, I'd free up some time to drum up some interest. But time passed and I found no such time. Instead I got further and further behind in other things, so November 12th rolled around without any mass email having been sent and on top of that, a new race, the Socorro Souls of Sorrow, was scheduled for the same day.
Attendance
I really thought it would just be John and I. In addition to not sending out any email reminder, I only updated the White Mesa Fat Ass web page two days prior to the run. I was surprised, but heartened, to see Roger Squires in the parking lot. Then Dan Clark pulled up. Wow, that's already double my expectations. Just before the 8am "official" start came around (Roger started a 7:30), Miranda identified herself as a friend of Spencer and mentioned that Spencer was on her way.
Dan and Miranda chose to do two laps. Roger, Spencer, John and I did all four. A seventh, Steve, chose to do one lap.
Weather
According to my truck thermometer, it was 22F shortly before the start and 40F as we were driving back home about a half hour after the finish. My guess is the high was around 50F. There was less wind this year than I ever remember.
I typically run with less clothing than most people for any given temperature, in part because I want to run faster and I increase my speed to warm up. However, since I knew I'd be running the first lap with John, I started out wearing a shirt, arm sleeves, fleece hat, with mitten glove shells over wool gloves, with a hand warmer in each hand. I also wore my ultravest and had some emergency gear in it.
A quarter through the first lap, I ditched the arm sleeves, hat, shells and gloves, stashing them in my ultravest and then just holding a hand warmer in each hand. After the first lap, I knew I'd be running the remaining laps with John. There was enough sunshine, however, for me to ditch my shirt, ultravest and hand warmers and switch to a single 20 oz. handheld.
Fuel
I ate some oatmeal and bread in Albuquerque, before picking up John. I also took 200mg of ibuprofen because I've had a mild hot-spot on my right foot.
Before the first lap and second lap, I drank a double espresso. I had brought enough that I could do that before the third and fourth laps, but although John is a faster runner than I am, his body is not yet used to longer distances, so instead of espresso before the final two laps, I had beer. Specifically, I had a Prairie Artisan Bourbon Barrel aged Weekend before our third lap and a Boulevard Sixth Glass before our final lap.
For the first lap I added two 200 calorie, 70mg caffeine packets of Tailwind to 17 ounces of water in the tube for my ultravest. I did the same thing for the second lap, except I used 20 ounces of water in my handheld.
In addition to the 800 calories I got from the Tailwind, I consumed a bunch of gels. I did not pay attention to how many, but my guess is somewhere between ten and fifteen. As far as I can remember, other than a handful of Ruffles potato chips I begged off Spencer, my only other source of calories were a bunch of little Jolly Rancher hard candies.
The Tailwind and Jolly Ranchers were both leftover from the Bataan Memorial Death March Substitute I hosted back in 2020. My rationale for eating what I did was that I wasn't really trying to go particularly quickly, so it made a lot more sense to go cheaply. The gels also were leftovers from various races where I've grabbed a handful of "emergency gels" at an aid station, then never had an emergency.
Minutiae
I only led our tiny pack off course once, on the third loop (after that strong beer), when I thought it was time to head east back to the car a little earlier than we should have. Oops.
I never stumbled hard enough to hit the ground, not even my hands.
It was a beautiful day, and I made sure to take Dan and John slightly off course to see the big hole in the ground with the ten foot drop into water. Nobody fell—nor was anybody pushed—in. Perhaps if everyone knew that I would talk incessantly for the remainder of the course, I would have been.
With seven people attending with my poor planning and poor execution, I decided to do a better job in 2023 and I've already updated the web page to document the 2023 date (November 11th—Veteran's Day).