We had 6 Treeline Athletes out for some big events this past weekend, and 2 the weekend before that. The season is here and all that winter work is coming to fruition.
If you've raced in the last couple weeks, what have you learned?
I know one athlete learned that as great as the Topo Athletic Mountain Racer 3 is as a trail shoe, for 50+ mile efforts a little more padding under-foot is nice to have.
Ran my first event this past April, Gorge Waterfalls 50k. My first ever effort above the half marathon distance. A couple of my biggest takeaways:
Came into race with a very basic fueling plan, i.e. water in one bottle, electrolyte mix in the other, and lots of gels/blocks in my vest. Overall not the worst approach, but I did struggle later in the race with dehydration (really dry mouth making it difficult to eat solid foods, cramping around mile 21). Next race will be more dialed in and leaving less to chance/luck.
My hill efforts leading up to the race could have been improved. I mostly ran around my slightly hilly neighborhood, with my longer hillier efforts on Sundays. Gorge Waterfalls was just shy of 6k total elevation gain which my training didn't train me fully for. My next race is in late October and I've already begun incorporating more hill training.