I’m sure I said out loud at some point after sweeping part of last year’s Squamish 50 course that I’d never run the race myself. Co-Race Director Gary Robbins is known for making his courses hard, but this one seemed to lack any flow or ‘runability’ in a serious way, despite being quite beautiful.
Fast forward to August 17th and I found myself on the starting line for the 50k alongside Salomon Flight Crew teammate Tom Craik and local elites like Ellie Greenwood and Adam Campbell. It’s not the 2,500m of gain plus 2,750m of descent but the terrain itself that make this a particularly challenging course, as evidenced by the 11hr cut off time.
My good friend Karl Woll was among the seriously insane attempting the ’50/50′, meaning he’d have raced the full 50 mile course on Saturday before pulling himself out of bed on Sunday to run the last 50 kms all over again. He and I had booked a room at the August Jack which was literally metres from the finish line, so at least he could be carried across the street if need-be.
With it being my first long distance race since getting injured back in April, I really only had one goal for the race – to finish feeling strong and healthy, my peroneal tendon no worse off than when I started. Of course, finishing top 20 and in around 6 hrs would be nice too, and finally beating Tom couldn’t hurt 😉
