Heartland 50K

Muddy, yet beautiful Heartland 50 (photo by Mike Miley)

I lay in bed listening to the rain at the Holiday Inn Express in El Dorado, KS the night before the Heartland 50K and 50 Mile races. I wasn't too concerned, because I knew the forecast for the next day called for cloudy and cool conditions with less than a 10% chance of precipitation. What did not occur to me as I dozed was that the roads of the great race would (in places) turn into a sticky mass of slop.

The race began just before sunrise in Cassoday, KS - a blink-and-you-miss-it little burg just off the interstate between Emporia and El Dorado. The town's recreation building has been the nerve center of the Heartland 100 races for years. The Heartland 50s - a variation on that theme - were served just as well by the town and building. 

We raced about a 1/2 mile down an asphalt road and then turned onto dirt and gravel - which would be the running surface for the next 30 miles or 49 miles depending on which of the two races a runner had entered. I was doing the 50K along with my buddy, Paul, who I had paced on the course for 36 miles during his Heartland 100 run a couple of years ago (you can find a report on that experience in my 2014 blog posts). We thought we'd bookend the month of April with a couple of short ultra runs - the slightly-longer-than-a-marathon Rockin' K on April 2, and the Heartland 50K on April 30. 

Anyway, our pace over the first 9 miles was about a minute and a half faster than I'd planned to run. I felt good. We hit the first manned aid station and ate a bit more than we should've. We didn't linger, but we weren't setting any speed records in getting through an aid station efficiently. Paul and I had discussed simply running the race without worrying about time, and eating our heads off at the aid stations. Ultimately, that wasn't the 'plan', but we didn't skimp on the chow.

About a mile past the first station, we started to encounter mud - real mud. It was slippery, but it also clung to our shoes like grim death. Our soles became like lead weights as they collected mud, grass and rocks. To make matters worse, there was really nowhere to wipe or scrape off the slop. At one point Paul, running behind me, mentioned that it looked like I was wearing snow shoes made of mud.

The gooey roads continued for a few miles. We trudged up hills and ran down the other side, flinging pebbles forward and back ,as centrifugal force detached them from the soles of our shoes. We crossed 13.1 mi (a half marathon) in 2:28 exactly. We, and a woman we were running with at the time, commented how that seemed pretty fast considering that we were running through mud. It wasn't a speed record, but we were heartened by the time.

Paul and I hit our turnaround aid station a few tenths past 16 miles. We again chowed down - on Pringles, orange and banana slices, and some homemade protein carb ball things that tasted fantastic. We walked out of the aid station and put on 13 gallon kitchen trash bags into which we had cut head and arm holes. This might seem a little ridiculous, but it was cold, misty, and seriously windy. The bags served as ultralight impermeable windbreakers. I didn't take mine off for the next 15 miles - no matter how stupid it looked. 

As I mentioned, the wind was sustained at 18-20 mph in our faces the duration of the return trip. Initially it was really irritating. But Paul and I were able to have shouted conversation as we ran along. I had brought a couple of flexi flasks of pickle juice - a home remedy to stave off cramping. I drank one of them at mile 17 - I would drink half of the other at mile 23 and again at mile 29. The juice didn't taste too swell since it was at body temperature (warm). But I had it in my mind that I didn't want to cramp, and this would help. So I powered it down each time. 

Around mile 19, Paul started having elevated issues with a troublesome heel. We walked up a hill (and even tried running) for a bit. It seemed, after a time, that it calmed back down and he had it under control. At mile 20, we were running along slowly. There were a couple of runners in front of us that we could see, and a runner behind us way in the distance. For some reason I felt great. And not just like a second wind. It was odd, suddenly I had a ton of energy and felt kind of ecstatic. I took off after the runners ahead of us and exchanged some pleasantries as I went by. For a moment I thought about running with them (they were moving at a good rate), but I simply felt too strong. We were in the middle of the super muddy miles, but I was experiencing no difficulty running up and down the hills. 

I approached the last manned aid station with bottles in hand. I asked for water in one and sports drink in the other. I grabbed 2 Hammer Nutrition gels and a handful of Pringles, and was out of the aid station in under 30 seconds. I didn't want to squander the good feeling. I ran out of the station and into a beautiful valley that looked like something out of an old western. A herd of cattle was freely grazing on either side of me, but I was more concerned with a large mammal in the middle of the road directly in front of me. From where I was, I couldn't quite tell if it was a cow, a bull, or a steer. I clapped and yelled as I got closer and closer, but the animal remained in the road staring me down. About 30 feet away, I stopped and assessed my situation. There was no runner I could see in front or behind me. No house or car. It was literally me and the cow/bull/steer. I made a move toward it kind of suddenly, and the animal finally started to move off the road, staring at me the whole time. A few more sudden movements by me, and it stood just at the side of the gravel. I took that as a sign and started to run. It popped off the gravel, but then turned. The other cows in the herd near it all stared trotting toward the road. I yelled "NOOO!!!" and they slowed down. The incident happened at the base of one of the steepest and longest hills on the route. I made it up the incline possibly at a faster pace than I had coming down it several hours earlier. 

The last few miles were time to make up for some of the muddy trudging on the way out. While I didn't negative split the race, I was able to negative split the second half - that is, I ran the last quarter at a faster speed than I had run the third quarter. It felt great to finish strong.

Later, when the race was over and I was sitting in the recreation center talking to the 2nd - 4th place finishers (I think I was 5th). I mentioned the cow incident. All three of them said - "was it a black cow?" I said that it was. Each of them had had the same encounter with the animal. It was so strange and out of character for a cow to do what this animal had done. A couple of the finishers after me also reported the same occurrence with the rogue cow. 

As I ate a couple of veggie burgers and downed a Modelo, we compared Garmin-tracked distances for the race. We all had the 50k between 32.3 and 32.7 miles. It is always better to have a race be a little longer than advertised than shorter.

The Rockin' K and the Heartland 50 races really made April a special month. I have no other races planned for 2016. I hope to repeat both races next year.