About a month ago we ran our first Ultramarathon, the River Run 50k. We ran the Missoula Marathon last year; I remember thinking how impossible a marathon sounded at that time. 26.2 miles. But, my goal since starting to run has been to get into the ultramarathon space. I blame YouTube. So after the Missoula Marathon I immediately went for what’s the next race. We took a lot of 2025 off for backpacking and other life events. After hearing about the River Run ~February, we signed up on a whim without any training plans and having not run over 10 miles for a while. We quickly ramped up the mileage, testing using Claude to make us a training plan. Claude was way more optimistic than we were. We got burnt out after a month of suddenly ramping up to ~20 mile long runs every weekend.
The Race
The race itself went well, though I definitely have some areas to improve. We wanted to keep a slow pace from the start to not burn out. At mile 15-16 we had a drop bag where the race started, it was a figure-8 route. I was bonking at this point and luckily had a 48oz Nalgene full of electrolyte water. Chugging the whole thing I suddenly came to life and felt brand new. Calories and electrolytes have always been the hardest part for me. There were bonk spots every once in a while (mile 10, mile 15-16, mile 22). But, after 24 miles I felt great. The end of the race was extremely anticlimactic. They were tearing down the race, there was no crowd, and were handed our medal and told good job. We then hobbled back to the car (I had a MASSIVE big toe blister) and went home.
Things That Went Well
- My aim was to hit 60+g of carbs per hour. With the help of a lot of Fig Newtons I hit this
- Got to finish the race with my wife at the same time (I kept saying “we” in the article, we both did the 50k)
- Again, finished! Time/pace was slow, but the goal was just to finish
Things to Improve
- We got passed by a 70 year old couple from Canada. The goal is to be like them someday
- I got so sick of gels. Need more ways to get carbs and electrolytes
- Heel locking my shoes should of helped tremendously on the down hill
- More Zone 2 training—this I’m bad at
