The Tahoe Rim Trail 50-Miler

Photo by Turi

Well, I was hoping for a sub-10 finish, but it was not to be. After just coming back from rainy and cold (and below sea-level) Holland, with some residual fatigue from the 200K the week before, the altitude and heat got to me a bit and I ran a very pedestrian 11:27.
As always, there were lots of familiar faces at the start:

• Turi, who clocked a great time in his first 50K
• Gretchen, who was running her first 100
• Fellow speedgoats Jim and Kelly
• Thomas Reiss, who smoked the 50-mile course record (I knew he would do it)
• Sean Meissner, who flew by between Tunnel Creek and Mount Rose
• Joe Palubeski from Red Bluff, who ran an awesome 50-miler
• Rajeev, training for the Lean Horse 100-miler
• 12 Hours at Cool RD, Nancy Warren, who also ran a great race
• Jessica, who was running her first 50-miler

Since the 100-mile race started an hour earlier on the same loop course, we were able to watch the 100-mile championship unfold with Jon Olsen, Eric Skaden, and Mike Wolfe up front. The last two would eventually share the win after running together the last 24 miles, which reminded me of last year's TRT100 in which I teamed up with Alan to run those memorable last miles.

After the race, I gave Mark Tanaka a ride to the place he was staying, where I met his whole family and was treated to some dinner and a glass of the Tanaka Family Winery's finest red wine--delicious!

Despite the slow time, I really had no issues to speak off, so I just chalked it up as a good training run. After all, even this slow pace was ahead of the record pace (provided I can keep it up, of course). My feet felt great and I've been already been logging some great (mountain and heat) training runs, so I am sure I will be acclimatized a lot better by August 15th.

Thanks to all the volunteers for making this such a succesful run and congratulations to all the 100-mile runners who had to run two loops on the course!

Next up: 12 Hours at Cool, one of my favorite races, which I will use as a final night-running tune-up.