Hears Different Drummer: Cascade trail 50k

In preparation for the NODM Marathon that we did 2 weeks ago my husband and I did 6 weekends of 18 plus miles runs. in this order: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. The last few years I've had a goal of doing a 50k. I don’t go fast enough to make the cut off times for official trail runs, but with the long training distances we did for the marathon and including the marathon weekend I felt this was about a good of a time as any to attempt one on my own. I'd been considering doing one on the Centennial trail since it's 30 miles long but it's all paved and I wouldn't feel like I could call it a "trail run". So my husband suggested the Cascade trail. We've been on it many times for walks, training days and we've also biked the total trail. So I kept up my training for two more weeks in a tapering mode to ready myself for the 50k. My husband would be riding his bike to support me as a travelling aid station and to take photos, so I could document my day.

We rose early on Sunday morning (Father's day) and arrived at our starting place in Sedro Woolley. We got everything loaded on the bike and took a start photo at 7: 25 am. It was sure a help for me to not have to carry water etc. for the day. I decided to pause my watch for bathroom breaks, since it wasn't an official event I just wanted to get my walk/run time. It was drizzling when we began, so I had a long sleeve layer on. I wore my trail shoe gaiters because I tend to get pebbles in my shoes easily when I'm on gravel trails, that turned out to be a great plan as I didn't have to stop to fiddle around with my shoes at all for the day. I did do a blister check on my feet at about 17 miles and put tape where I thought I might get something, but my feet held out fine all day.

Start photo!

The first almost full mile was on pavement, then the rest was gravel. This area goes by the Sedro Woolley Rodeo grounds.

I rapidly got warm, so off came the long sleeve layer and not long after that off came the T-shirt. I wore a jog bra and was determined that if it got hot enough I would go that far in disrobing, That would be my limit if you were wondering😉. Luckily it stayed on the cool side most of the day with a nice breeze off and on. I only got warm a few times - thank goodness.

On to the gravel section. Lots of bunnies, snakes and slugs were on the trail. At times it was hard to keep from stepping on the slugs. I did a walk/run rotation of 5 minutes walking and 10 minutes running. I'm happy to say that I stayed to my rotation for the entire distance.

At about the 5 mile mark there is a creek. We've been there when it was full of water and when it was nearly dry, today it was as I suspected “full of water” since we'd had a lot of rain on Saturday. There is a narrow trail along it for a ways, but my husband showed how thoughtful and gallant he was by saying "hop on my back, I'll carry you across the wide spots so your shoes will stay dry all day".

My hero❤

*we did go farther at the half way point just to make sure that I'd gone the full distance. I'm glad we did because I can also say I was on my feet the whole distance as well in-spite of the creek carry.

The trail goes through farm country and crosses many creeks and ponds with bridges, so it was quite scenic.

By the 7 mile mark we were at the Skagit river banks. There was a section where new larger gravel had been put on the trail. Not long after this river section we went through the town of Lyman. That was the only town to go through after Sedro Woolley.

The trail has a damaged section along it before the trail crosses Hwy 20 so we had to take a short detour along a side road and then we were on the trail again for the highway crossing.

I love the fir needle covered trail in this section. We were near the Rasar State Park at this point. The decision was to turn around at 15.7 miles so we would be sure of our finish distance at the end. So a trip around the support bike and a photo of the turn around Garmin face distance and we were off on the return trip. So far so good!

I found out that Lemon drops really hit the spot if I felt like my head was going strange on me, low blood sugar?? I don't know but they really did the trick for me.

On our way to the turn around we had noticed a few Elk tracks on the trail so my husband stopped on the return and took a photo of one. It was beginning to get a bit warmer off and on. I stopped and leaned on a post along the trail to check on my feet. All was well, except I added a band-aid to a small area on my foot that felt like I had a hot spot starting. I was very thankful for the light breezes and the cool shade of the trail. In the photo below you'll see that I'm back at the road walking detour. This time he took the photo from the other side of the road. There's a nice pond alongside. That was at about the 19 mile mark.

The next photos are from about 24 miles and the 29 1/2 mile mark. Since I was in the open near the river it got warmer and we were now at the larger gravel section, it must have taken more energy for me to run on that gravel, because for about a half mile of that section I got very tired and felt a bit weepy. I didn't want to eat or drink anything and told my husband so, when he said it was aid time. I ran on for a few steps and then realized I needed to keep fueling myself or I'd have a hard time recovering any energy to finish. I told my husband yes, I would take another corner of my peanut butter an honey sandwich, a large drink of water and a lemon drop please.

It didn't take long for the aid stop to take effect, soon I was feeling great and in high spirits again.

I could feel the excitement growing inside as I was nearing the end of my journey and my goal. I focused my breathing and made sure that I kept to my walk/run rotation.

When we got to the pavement and the last section of my course, my husband rode his bike up to get a finish photo for me. As you can see we went a bit farther, so all was good! What a day, I feel great as I'm sitting here typing this post. I'm very grateful again to my husband who supported, encouraged me and took 167 photos. Wow!! *I would've written this yesterday but I happily had a quilt to deliver😉