I didn’t grow up playing sports and it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I would have even used the title athlete to describe myself. I started running when I was a teenager in my spare time, on a treadmill, by myself. I mostly did it to get in shape but along the way I fell in love with it. Fast forward about a decade and I had succumbed to two femoral fractures, one of which led to surgery and hardware in my leg. It was after my second injury that I decided to train for a trail marathon after never racing before in my life. I figured it was finally time to become part of the running community and hopefully following a training plan would allow me to properly recover and have purpose rather than just mindlessly running myself into the ground. It was also around this time that I found friends that pulled me into the climbing, mountain biking, hiking, and outdoor community. In 2019 I ran my first marathon and in 2020 I signed up for my first 50K in hopes of calling myself an ultra-runner. I was ecstatic to place 3rd in my first ultra-marathon and decided to keep pushing forward to see what I could do. I recently completed my first 50 miler a couple months ago and I feel like I’m just getting started.

For a training run for my 50 miler in Marquette I decided to try my hand at a timed loop course. This was a 2.5 mile loop at Addison Oaks and the goal was to complete as many loops in a 6 hour time limit. I thought I’d be able to easily complete 13 loops (about 33 miles) but I ended up one lap short of that. The 30.6 miles took me almost up to the last minute of the 6 hour time limit. The heat and humidity and the lack of long training runs before hand made this super tough.

With the lack of races happening this year my coach suggested trying my hand at an FKT attempt. The Waterloo-Pinckney trails is about 36 miles that starts on one end of Waterloo Recreation and ends in Pinckney Recreation. I was about 6 weeks out from my 50K that was in Pinckney Recreation. I had recovered for a couple weeks, had a couple weeks of workouts and then tapered before the attempt. I had been dealing with some on and off right hamstring (or IT band?) soreness ever since the race but it seemed to calm down right before the attempt on Saturday Dec 5th 2020.
I had been running in an REI pack but had just picked up the Salomon ADV Skin 8 around Black Friday. While I shouldn’t have done anything new, without ever trying this pack on a run I decided to use it for the FKT attempt. Surprisingly it ended up working great and I’m glad I made the last minute decision to use it. In my pack I had the following: headlamp, first aid kit, toilet paper, pepper spray, backup charger, phone charger, headphones, hot hands, and an extra pair of socks. I also had about 3.5 liters of water with Tailwind, 3 sleeves of Clif blocks, 6 Huma gels, a couple handfuls of pretzels, and some dates. I ended up consuming all of the Huma gels, 1.5 of the Clif block sleeves, a handful of pretzels, and 2.5 liters of water. In total I took in about 1500 calories. I never had any stomach issues but I definitely should have taken in more calories because I did feel hungry about 5 hours in.

My A race this year was the Marquette 50 Miler on August 21st 2021. It was my first 50 miler and it did not disappoint. I knew coming into the race that the course would be unlike any of the trails that I’ve trained on down state. There would be scrambling up peaks and running across rocky areas. I knew it would be tough but I had put in some solid training for it and I was ready for the challenge. I had also convinced a friend who had only ever done road halfs to try the 50K so I was excited for a bit of company.

Yesterday I completed the Trail Marathon 50K race in Pinckney Recreation Area that follows the Potowatami Trail. It was a beautiful fall day and the race began about half an hour before sunrise. I finished in 5:34 which put me in third place for females! This race was fantastic and followed one of the most scenic trails in southeast Michigan.