Chase The Moon 12 Hour Endurance Run Race Report

I had initially planned on doing the Power of Four 50K and the Devil Mountain 50 as lead up races for The Bear, but life gets in the way sometimes and I ended up deciding to do a great race in my own backyard with Chase The Moon 12 Hour Endurance Run.  This made sense for my family as the race was literally in my own backyard, alleviating the logistics and cost of traveling to the other races.  This also made sense for me as I had a little bit of specificity to it with running all night since it is a 12 hour race that runs overnight from 7pm to 7am.  It has a 10.3 mile loop that is run in a washing machine style, starting out counter-clockwise and then reversing clockwise.  Rinse and repeat as many times as possible until the cutoffs start.  Then you have the option of running a 3.5 mile loop until that cutoff kicks in toward the end of the event.  I wanted to see how my body would react at night after being up all day to get a feeling of what to expect at The Bear.  I definitely learned a lot.

I started this race with my friends Mike, Chuck, and Chris.  I made it through two loops with Mike and Chris which put it close to 11pm.  That is when I really started to notice the drop in my attitude and my energy.  I struggled through the next 30 miles on and off through the night.  I would hit a low and then regroup and get moving again.  It was definitely eye-opening for me to see that happen as I did not run into that when I ran my 50 miler at Run Rabbit last year.  I also learned that my heart rate drops to a low level overnight.  It is something that I paid close attention to while running this race.  No matter what I did to raise it, I could not.  I did not seem to have the energy to get my movement fast enough to raise it.  I noted this for what to expect in my 100 miler.

That all changed for me once first light hit.  I was climbing up with someone I had met on the trail.  We were staying together just making our way, but once the light hit, I was re-energized and began to pull away.  I was able to run once I crested the climb and ran it all the way in the last few miles.

I ended up getting 51.5 miles in 10:56:39 but that was all I needed.  It was really all I wanted too.  I had learned so much about what I can do running overnight and was going to think about that as I headed into the next 8 weeks of training for The Bear.

Me, Mike and Chuck                                   My Daughter and Me

Finished

Official Results

Strava Activity