Deadman Peaks 53 Miler 2023

Overview

Finishing in 14:44:34, I was 13th out of 19 finishers. Five starters Did Not Finish.

I deliberately ran slowly because I was concerned about my right foot.

Experiment in white

I chose to wear the same white shirt and white arm bands during the portion of the race with the most sun exposure. There was ice at La Ventana aid station which helped, but unfortunately none at the turnaround. Overall I think it helped, but it's hard to say because I was deliberately running slowly.

A couple of awesome first fifty milers

I wound up catching up to Carlos, a runner from Los Alamos that I hadn't previously met. We wound up chatting for quite a bit. It was his first fifty miler and he was getting it done. Yay!

In the final segment I caught up with Candace, a Navajo runner and she too was running her first fifty miler. I hung out with her as she made the final big climb and she did it faster than I probably would have had I not had such excellent company.

Darkness

I've been caught out in the dark on that course a couple of times and it is unpleasant. This year I chose not to have a bag at the turnaround and to simply have two headlamps with me in my ultra vest and a complete Kogolla kit in my Mesa Portales drop bag. That worked well, since not only did I have a light for myself, I had a backup in case that light failed or I ran across a runner needing a headlamp (which is exactly what happened).

My right foot

Surprisingly, my right foot held up exceedingly well. I did three new things that may have helped:

  1. I trimmed the custom orthotic that I wear in my right shoe
  2. I wore Smartwool socks instead of my usual Balega or Drymax socks
  3. I wore my final pair of Olympus 4 instead of one of my Olympus 5 pairs

I can't untrim the orthotic, so that change is permanent whether it helped or not. I will wear an Olympus 5 pair for the White Mesa Fat Ass 50k but still use the Smartwool socks. Then, I'll use the result of that experiment to decide what to wear for Socorro Souls of Sorrow. So, two weeks from now I'll probably have more insight into what's causing the trouble than I've had in the previous eleven months.

More later…

Maybe. I'm still pretty behind in everything.