They say you achieve peak physical performance at the age of 27. When I turned 27 (5 years ago today, in fact) I didn’t feel like I was at the peak of much.

I had been casually ‘jogging’ and going to the gym, as most people eventually find themselves doing at some point in their 20’s, but never with any consistency. I never thought that just a few years later I would be calling myself a trail and ultra distance runner.

I figured it was time to pause and take a quick look back at the last year or so in trail running as I complete my journey from road to trail; from marathon to ultra.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Winthrop, WA to run the Sun Mountain 50 miler. Since moving from road to trail about this time last year, I had run a few 50 km ultra marathons but this was my first time running anywhere close to 80 km.

Town of Winthrop

The race was a huge success for me and I finished in 8:49 for 16th place, despite several of us taking a wrong turn that may have cost us 15 minutes or so and adding a couple of miles.

My goal was to finish feeling strong, to enjoy the experience, and to learn a little more about myself and about running into what had been unknown territory.

Here are the 3 lessons I learned…