West Seattle Fat Ass 50K

It was supposed to be a nice day with very slight chance of shower on Super Bowl Sunday in West Seattle, but the rain was still lingering by the time I put on my running gears before the start. However, fortunately, the rain held off leaving just a few puddles and muddy spots during the race.

The 50K course was a double out-and-back along the flat paved sidewalks and streets of West Seattle. A shelter in Lincoln Park was the start/half/finish line with some basic ultra foods & drinks. The turnaround point was just before the West Seattle Bridge stretching ~7.8 miles from the start line.

There was a small group of runners (~20) near the shelter in the morning. Most of them were the usual suspects that I already knew. With a brief instruction by the race director, Nic Plemel, we started off for a long run at 8am.

The beginning section for the first 2~3 miles had a slight ups and downs running along the streets of southern part of West Seattle. I ran mostly in the narrow sidewalks but sometimes had to run on the street to go around the blocked cars, pedestrians, or dogs. Then, the sidewalks became very wide along the Alkai Beach to the turnaround point.

On the returning route of the first lap, I had to take a bathroom break. I shouldn’t have taken beer option last night at Joe’s house. I felt much better afterward. Anyway, I was able to make the first lap (25K) inside 2 hours and 20 minutes. After refilling water bottles and grabbing a piece of PB&J, I took off for the 2nd lap.

About 2 miles after the start of the 2nd lap, my left leg was cramping up. I had to take a break for some stretches. After some more steps, I got a HUGE calf cramp. It was so painful that I held the railings along the sidewalk and stretched the calf area as violently as possible. I had a temptation to walk back to the shelter and to declare a “drop-out”, but decided to continue after taking some more time still hanging on the railings. As the pain was lessened, I started a very slow run to make sure not to cramp up my leg again. When I reached Alkai Beach section, I stopped at a bench and took another break for a leg stretch. I also replenished with some snacks and Gatorade there. The following section to the turnaround point was much easier since I got a second wind. I refilled the water bottles at the turnaround and immediately ran back to finish the long run.

The question was by the way how long I could continue to benefit the second wind. As a matter of fact, I could feel I was getting slower and slower noticeably until a major BONK at around Mile 25. I took several walk-breaks for the next 5 miles, and then decided to run last 1 mile in a civilized manner with a smile ;-). The finish time: 5 hours 4 minutes and 39 seconds.

Running was not going smoothly unlike my anticipation, but I had a wonderful time thanks to the RD Nic Plemel and many volunteers to put it together for a fat ass style run on Super Bowl Sunday.