Pura Vida team participants:
Michelle Faucher
Victor Lin

On a rainy Saturday morning one of my Pura Vida teammates and I ran the Potomac Heritage Trail 50k (32 miles). Why? Not really sure except to say I have always wanted to do an Ultra and we have a not so big race? coming up in about 9 months that will be 20 times longer. 450 miles to be exact. So Victor and I, as well as one other teammate Miguel, who unfortunlety never made it to the start, decided to give 50k a shot. Great training day right?

The race was put on by a great club here in the Washington area, the Virginia Happy Trails Club. They put on a series of Trail Ultra’s during the year with two of their races gaining national attention, the Bull Run 50 Miler and the famous Massanutten Mountain Trail 100. Maybe one day I will crawl myself across that finish line?

The race started at a home in Northwest DC on a rainy but mild Sat morning at 8am. There were about 100 of us and we all gathered in the street for the start of the race. The race course and directions were posted prior to the race and the race organizers suggested that we carry a map of directions just in case we got lost. Apparently in previous years several racers have gotten lost on the trail system in Rock Creek Park and never made it back to the finish. Victor and I were prepared with map and directions.

Since this was a training race for me, I came up with the brilliant idea to carry a 40lb pack on my back for the whole race, so I could get used to the weight for Primal Quest next year. I knew that this would make the race a lot harder for me, but I wanted to see how my body, and particularly my feet would respond to having that much weight on my back while running and hiking for 8 hours. Let’s just say next time I do an Ultra I will be running it without a pack? More on the pack later.

So at 8am off we went in the rain through the streets of DC and the trails of Rock Creek Park, which I might add is a beautiful park. Who knew there were so many trails in Downtown DC? Running the trails in the rain was a bit hazardous as several runners went slipping and sliding but Victor and I managed to stay on our feet the entire race. We had several stream crossings within the first few miles of the race so our feet got wet pretty early on but as I always say with adventure racing, it is not a race or an adventure if you don’t get your feet wet. There we aid stations every 5 miles or so and you had to check-in with the volunteers so they could follow our progress and time. Our first aid station came while we were still in DC. About an hour and a half later Victor and I finally made it to the C&0 Canal which we followed to the Key Bridge in Georgetown. Once we crossed over the bridge we came to the second aid station at Teddy Roosevelt Island and the start of the Potomac Heritage Trail. Finally the real start of the race!! The Potomac Heritage Trail in Virginia follows the Potomac from the Key Bridge to the American Legion Bridge. 10 miles to be exact. Half way to the American Legion Bridge we came to the third aid station at Chain Bridge. The volunteers for this race were awesome and they had plenty of hot food for us including Swedish meatballs. Not necessarily the things I want to be eating in the middle of a race but they did the trick.

The next section of the race, a 12 mile out and back to the Legion Bridge was the hardest part of the race. For one we had already gone 14 miles, the pack on my back was killing me and this section had the most hills. But we kept going and got to the fourth aid station at Turkey Run. It was 11:50 at this point and we both felt pretty good. However due to darkness the race had a cut-off time for the next section which was the same aid station after you did the final out back to the American Legion Bridge. From aid station # 4 we had about 1 hour to run out to the bridge and back to make the cut-off. Up until that point we had been doing a lot of hiking while running the flats and down hills. We knew that if we wanted to make the cut-off we would have to flat out run this section, hills and all. With my pack really weighing me down I made the decision to drop it at the aid station in the hope that I would move a lot faster.

To say I ran faster is an understatement. I felt like a whole new person and we were able to do the outback in great time, even passing people on the way. We got back to aid station # 5 (mile # 22) in great time and after taking a quick break and eating a few brownies we were on our way again back to Chain Bridge and the last aid station. About half way back to Chain Bridge my legs were just about shot now that I had my pack back on. I could hardly run and ended up shuffling along. Victor was doing much better than me so I let him go, and off he went. I finally made it back to Chain Bridge and after another quick rest I started the final push (7 miles) to the finish. Victor was just ahead of me leaving the aid station as I came in.

The final 7 miles were tough. Victor was about 10 minutes ahead of me and he seemed to be doing just fine. At this point my pack was really causing me problems and weighing my legs down but I was stuck with it. I wanted to throw it over the bridge but with all my racing gear in it including my climbing gear that was not an option?. We crossed over Chain Bridge and it was nice to see the water level on the Potomac rise just a bit. From there we got back on the C&0 Canal for a mile until we hit Flecters Boathouse and the tunnel that would take us back into Rock Creek Park. From here it was about six miles till the finish as we made our way back through the park on the same route we started the race on. At this point it was about 2:30pm and the weather had cleared and it turned into a beautiful, clear fall day. At 3:57pm I finally made it back to 29th Street and the finish line. Victor finished at 3:40pm. The first thing I did once finishing was grab a beer, a plate of food and a seat. Virginia Happy Trails club put on a great post race party with food, beer and dessert?.

Overall I was very happy with my first 50k dispite my pack. I think that I probably lost about an hour because of it. There is another 50k in December at Bull Run Park which looks like fun as well. Maybe I will give that one a shot and see if I can break the 7 hour mark.