Baker Lake 50K - 10/3/09

Here is me and my Baker Bear. I was pretty excited to get a bear. I wasn't real excited about my time. But then again I never am and that's what keeps me coming back to races. And now I know what I look like when I'm holding my daughter...a dork!

The Baker Lake 50K is an awesome race. Very low key but lots of fun. The weather was perfect. 40 at the start, 50 at the finish - sunny! With a quick chat from the race directors and final instructions of "Do not feed the bears" we were off. Great course- no pavement except for running across the top of the Baker Damn, great views, nice people, and a lots of "undulating" hills. With a bridge out from flooding the previous year we had to run up a fire road for the first 4 miles, it was a nice 1100 foot climb to get the body warmed up. We turn around and bomb down the same fire road to the single track 2.5 miles later. And then the trail will turn, go up, down, over a log, across a creek, again and again, never flat or boring, for the next 23 miles. It was awesome! The wooden bridges were wet and covered in moss, pretty treacherous - I was using wet leaves for traction -never thought I would resort to that. I ran alone for most of the race in 3rd or 4th place o/a, passing some of the early starters with a quick wave and a smile. It was pretty uneventful for the most part - but memorable for sure. The only problem I had was losing 2 gels somewhere. I still can't figure where they went; running the last 13+ miles on a single gel. Oh well, I bonked a little bit, but it didn't diminish the experience much. I fell once (now called either Wrayed or Layed out) because I'm a klutz and was getting tired, my handheld water bottle cushioned my fall. The finish is at the Kulshan campground and I believe there were about 12 people there to cheer me on. Lots of great food, Subway sandwiches, cakes, cookies, everything you could ask for after 5 hours of running. I ended up 3rd overall and 1st in the Male Open 39 & Under group - the Masters guys rock at the long stuff. I'll never understand why trail running isn't more popular - it is so refreshing to get out on the trails and be miles and miles from electronic leash.