I was supposed to run the Marin Ultra Challenge 50k north of San Francisco on March 11th. March 10th I woke up to an email that the race had been canceled. Having already tapered and having no ideal races to pivot to, my girlfriend and I planned to run the Pittsburgh Stairs 50k FKT on March 19th. Instead, she came down with food poisoning. Then I came down with food poisoning by Monday the 20th. Forced to take a few days of zero movement, several weeks of accidental taper, and a work with what we had, Josh agreed to jump from a longest run ever of 20 miles in two hours to 45+ miles and an unknown number of hours with me and my good friend the RCT.
I’ve been putting hundreds of miles on this transcendental path since I was eighteen years old, but my knowledge of its two terminuses is minimal. We elected for an eastern terminus starting point after eggs and waffles at our house. There is something lackluster about the eastern terminus at 6:30am in the cold rain just a stone’s throw from the Butler Freeport trail which is absolutely nothing like the Rachel Carson by topography nor history. With packs on and minimal knowledge of the trails, the yellow blazes began to drag us on our journey.
The trail was incredibly destroyed, I must say. This was among the sloppiest conditions that I have seen on the trail which was a true delight. We set the over under for falls at 3.5. Josh put up three including a real good one atop Log Cabin Hill and then stayed upright for the next twenty-five miles! I quite enjoyed the serenade of the Spring Peepers and we found their eggs in the ruts of the trail which is always fun. Overall, these sections were easier than I imagined and the nature of the mud made us slower than I would expect to be optimal by quite a bit, especially since we hiked pretty much every uphill at this point in the day.
We tacked on some sweet, purposeful, self-supported mileage in Springdale by detouring to La Nova Pizzeria for a water restock, bathroom break, and a couple cans of pop. Sadly, we arrived as it opened so we were not able to grab a slice or two. Returning to our point of exit on the trail, we plodded away with some great stream crossings and arrived in Emmerling Park which is the hallmark location of my childhood for many reasons. Again, we detoured up to Pizza Roma which turned out to be closed. Luckily, more root beer, water, and a cheeseburger were easily obtained at Emmerling Ice Cream.
Once back on trail, we took the running easy for a bit to let the stomach digest the cheeseburger that had the largest disparity between quality and enjoyment that could possibly exist (it hit the spot for being a garbage burger). We ripped a few good miles on our way to Hampton High School and then made our third out-and-back departure from the trail to restock at the BP gas station on Route 8. The fact our medium-sized bag of chips was $4.79 was criminal, but the selection of beverages on tap was truly spectacular. With Dr. Pepper in my flask, we returned to the trail and kept having a blast until North Park. With the sun out, the magical feeling fleeting, and the extremely boring and uninspired miles of North Park and suburbia left we quickly resorted to just wanting to be done.
There really were no low points to this easy day out. I think on a good day with support we could easily run sub-8 hours, but the point of the day was to just test the waters. I’ll admit that the effort was a bit more than I would have liked with respect to the fact I’d like to run Eastern States at roughly the same pace in August.
It was a great day out there with Josh and a great day to be a Pittsburgh runner. I always feel blessed to have such good vert nearby even if the climbs aren’t as long as I would like.
Comments
What he said!