Pikes Peak Ultra 50k Race Report — Alex Bralower Design

This will be my first race in 21 months which is way too long and I am stoked to use this as a rust buster. This will also be my first time racing at altitude which was the only daunting aspect of this whole thing. Basically not knowing how my body would react this high up. But that is what drew me towards this event in the first place. I arrive a few days prior to acclimate, this definitely was the best choice on my part. I am tapered and ready to run 31 miles through the beautiful mountains here in Colorado Springs.

Fast Forward……….. 7/31/21

It’s race morning and I am up at 3:30 am, eating my breakfast and doing some light stretching. I am dressed and just laying down in my hotel room while I wait to go down for my Uber. I put my shoes and jacket on, throw on my hydration vest and head down to the hotel lobby.

It’s now 5:30 am I get into my ride and we head over to Bear Creek Regional Park East which luckily is only 9 minutes away from where I was staying.. I head to check in by the starting line, find a nice spot to sit and just wait it out until start time. I met a bunch of cool locals and out of towners at this time. Sharing stories and goals for the day.

Screen Shot 2021-08-09 at 6.28.46 PM.png — The Course

6:20 am we begin to line up at the starting line and they give us a quick briefing. The weather is perfect, little overcast with a temperature of 79 degrees F.

6:30 am the “gun” goes off. We follow some smooth runnable single track that followed along the backyard of some houses. After we finish this 3 mile section we continue onward up high drive, a dirt service road leading us to our first big climb consisting of endless switchbacks. We then go through 7 Bridges section. I liked this area just a very lush and vibrant environment.

https://www.trailrunproject.com/trail/7020852/pikes-peak-ultra-50k

I get to the first aid station mile 7 feeling fresh. Chugged some hydration mix, ate 2 gels and some chips, refill my bottles. I head out after spending no more than 2 minutes here.

The next aid station is Cheyanne Canon mile 11. This was a nice 4 mile stretch of rolling runnable sections, I took a spill and bashed my knee something fierce. But it didn’t deter me. I kept pushing onward.

The following aid station was Pipeline this was only a 5 mile stretch but a super challenging one at that. Just endless climbing. Once I arrived to the aid station I re fueled, stuck to my nutrition plan and head out. Next stop…. MT Rosa!

This was a favorite section of mine even though I am starting to feel the altitude more and more. I just put my head down and continued along on this long climb up to the peak. At this point we are just above tree line. After arriving to the summit and taking in the views, I turned around to make my way down. This was a section I liked a lot. Technical , rocky with some steep switchbacks. It was runnable but also a quad burner. This is when I was making my way back to Cheyenne Canon aid station. I was lucky to make the cut off by 5 minutes. After this I knew I was in the clear, cut off for the race itself wasn’t for another few hours. Here I just gathered myself ate some real food, I think I drank 3 or 4 cups of coke too, cleaned up my knee and went on my way. This is when the really bad weather rolled in. Heavy downpours accompanied by some thunder and lightning. I was happy to be away from where it was striking up near the top of Mt. Rosa.

The Turn Around Point. on the summit of Mt.Rosa.

From this point it was only 5-6 miles to the finish. This is when the real bad wether rolled back in, heavy rain, thunder and lightning. At this point I was glad I finished Rosa when I did because there were some gnarly lightning strikes up there from what I saw. I just continued running and enjoying the experience. Once we dropped down in elevation, roughly around 7,000ft I was able to breathe better, this was a fun rolling down hill section that I was able to open up and make up some time.

I am making my way back to the trail from the service road, this is when it got a little dicey a good chunk of this section someone pulled the course markers. I stopped and thought through my options. A) Turn around and lose some time, or B) keep going and hope to see markers. So I risked it and went with the latter. I continued along until about 2 miles in I can see the ribbons again. After exiting the service road I am back on this flowy single track section for the final 5km’s. I was in the hurt locker at this point. As I am weaving around corners I finally get to the top of the hill and see the finish line. All I had were a few small winding sections, out the chute and on the way to the finish line. 10:31:49 was the finish time on my watch.