The short version is that it was a race with lots of mud.

The Lord Hill 50K on February 23 was the first race of the year for Evergreen Trail Runs. I’ve done the race the past two years and we’ve been quite lucky with the weather. This year I woke up to snow in Langley and considered just staying home but since I had talked Solana in to signing up (see her race report here), I decided that I should head down.

I left my house just after 5am and made it across the border by 5:30. The CBP agent asked me again whether I was going down to run or volunteer. I guess I just don’t look like a runner. I stopped in Bellingham for coffee and a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks. I think there must have been close to a foot of snow in places in Bellingham. Thankfully, the snow pretty much disappeared around Burlington and I made it down to the park about 20 minutes before start time. Unfortunately, the lower parking lot had filled so I had to park up the hill. The charging connection had also come out of my cell phone and the battery died just as I got there, so I missed the texts from Solana.

I picked up my bib at the start line and hung around for a few minutes before Roger, the race director, gave his briefing. Since it was a cool morning and the aid stations at Roger’s races are usually well stocked, I decided to just go with a handheld water bottle and use the aid stations for nutrition.

The 50K course is three 10 mile loops and a small 1.1 mile loop to make up the full 50K distance. The loop starts off with the namesake Lord Hill for the first mile, some nice rolling trail for about 8 miles and then another climb followed my a more looping decent of Lord Hill and down the road back to the start line. There is an aid station at about the 4 mile mark. There is about 1600m (5300 feet) of climbing over the 50K.

Because it was so wet, by the time 500 people had gone up Lord Hill, the trail was quite chewed up. A lot of the rest of the course was also muddy and quite slick. I wore my Adidas Glide 5 shoes which have less aggressive tread than the Salomon shoes. I could probably have used the deeper tread on some of the mud, but I think the much better comfort was the better choice overall. I might have slipped a little bit but I didn’t slip enough to end up on my ass (or, worse, over a cliff). I also didn’t have to deal with trying to stuff the Salmon laces back in the pouch in the tongue every 20 minutes.

I saw Solana, Shea and Melissa during the first two loops on a lollipop section of the course. I discovered that the directions I had given them from the website weren’t clear to them so they were about half an hour late to the start. Next year, I will give them the directions that I use going down US Hwy 2. They told me when I saw them on the second loop that they would likely drop after their second loop.  Even if I didn’t actually get to run with them, it was still nice to see faces of people I know on the course. Jay also popped out unexpectedly a few times from the woods with his camera.

For me, the first and second loop were quite comfortable and even. I finished the first loop in about 2:07 and the second in 2:05. On the third loop, I got talking to someone coming up Lord Hill and stuck with him until just before the aid station but he was moving a little too quickly for me. My pace dropped for the last five miles, so the third loop ended up taking 2:22. Worse, the aid station ran out of cookies before I got back there the third time. Thankfully, they still had peanut butter sandwiches and Coke.

When Roger did his briefing, he talked about his goal of marking the race in such a way that nobody can get lost. The course was very well marked. There really is no excuse for going off course on the last loop since you have been through twice before. However, I not only managed to go off course on the third loop but I managed to go off course on the third loop in the same place that I went off course last year. I may not have noticed the large amount of flagging marking the trail junction, but I did notice the private property sign a little further along. The only issue was that I gave myself another little hill to run back up to get back on course.

Overall, I really like this race. It’s a great way to kick off the early spring (or, this year, more like late winter) trail running season in the PNW. The marking, organization, volunteers, aid stations and course are all very good.

Watch Data on Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/450552565