Saturday was the Carolina Reaper Challenge 50k in Anderson, SC.
The format of the race is exactly the same as the Snowbird Challenge 50k that I did in January, except instead of dealing with the cold (or in this year's case, rain) you're dealing with absolute monstrous heat.
Basic summary:
Run a ~2.6 mile loop starting every 45 minutes. Do this 12x to complete the 50k.
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| The Sparkle City team |
Same format but man, the experience could not have been any different. Looking at my lap splits from Snowbird, not a single one of my laps from this year's Reaper was faster than any of the Snowbird laps.
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| Cutting it close on those last two 😳 |
It was hard from Lap 1, even though I felt like I was holding back on pace and running conservatively, I still went out a little too fast and burned up energy I should have been saving. The last 3-4 laps I was definitely dehydrated and despite draining my handheld water bottle on every lap, I was still not putting in enough fluids. I wasn't able to run much at all of the last few laps, but power walked and jogged when I could (mostly downhill or the few shady spots on the course).
People along course spraying participants with water guns, and the folks at the tents at the start/finish who were so quick to refill bottles, hand over bags of ice, and get the runners turned around for their next loop were incredible.
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| Sunrise in Anderson |
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| Feeling festive (before the race) |
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| Fire Nails |
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| Maybe one lap in?? |
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| Next day = remnants of heat rash on my ankles |
Overall a crazy difficult experience, but amazing to see everyone's determination to finish the dang thing!
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