Orcas Island 50k - A Midwinter Adventure!

Orcas Island 50k is the mid-winter run on Orcas Island, 60 miles north of Seattle, sponsored by Rainshadow Running. The run closes quickly in the fall of each year, and I've never had my act together early enough to get in. That was fine because I took a four month hiatus from running this fall. But, a few weeks before the February race, the organizer emailed those who hadn't gotten in and stated that volunteers were needed. Bring a volunteer and you can run!

The race happened to coincide with my birthday weekend, and my partner graciously agreed to volunteer (my birthday gift). So, on a whim and very little training, we were off to Seattle and then the ferry to Orcas Island. From the ferry I got a glimpse of the mountain that I would be climbing more than once and wondered if perhaps I should've bartered for the 25k event held a week earlier.

But, the weather was gorgeous and we waved goodbye to the ferry wearing only shirt-sleeves.

I opted for the early start based on my lack of training and after reviewing last year's stats which showed that over 30% of the runners failed to finish within the 8 hour cut-off.

Kari was scheduled to volunteer for several hours, first helping with registration and then in the kitchen. The race sponsored a full dinner complete with beer and a blue grass band post-race.

The first 6 miles we climbed gradually through the woods. The run was completely single track through old growth forest: gorgeous. It was nice to escape snowy Juneau and take a break from skiing for a weekend.

There was over 8000 feet of elevation change on the course. That's a lot of climbing and dropping, and there were four significant climbs. Here's the view from the top of the third climb with a gorgeous view of Mount Baker.

On the other side of the peak, there was a blanket of soft clouds covering the inner harbor.

After a long, slow climb where I visited with two men from Vancouver as we trudged up 1500 feet, we emerged at the mile 22 rest stop. I wanted to stop running and just sit there enjoying the scenery. After saying hello to my partner, I started heading down the trail -- 8 miles of burning downhill with one more climb in the middle. My quads were screaming at me at this point.

The last two miles of this mountainous course were fairly flat along a serene, wooded lake. I passed a team of mountain bikers preparing for their own race up the mountain and finally turned towards the finish line through some brown log cabins. Finally, I could see the kegs of beer and hear the blue grass band.

Several women around my age finished within minutes of me. One of them literally had two right feet! She explained that she had two pairs of the same trail running shoes and that morning discovered that she had mistakenly brought two right shoes. Okay, if it had been me at 7:00 a.m. holding two right shoes, I would've grinned sheepishly but felt secretly relieved that I had an excuse not to run and headed for the first latte shop. But, this woman ran the entire 30.5 miles wearing a right shoe on her left foot. She did acknowledge that she had a foot full of blisters.

Kari and I were both impressed by this Rainshadow Running event. The course was well-organized and the post-race beer and band were the perfect end to a grueling run in the woods. What sealed the deal were the race shirts. The organizers had gone on a shopping spree to second hand stores and chosen a wide variety of shirt styles from tight, slinky half-tops for the younger female runners to standard cotton fare for the older (boring?) runners like me. On each shirt they had printed the race logo. One twenty- something dude was donning a pink vest with the Orcas logo. Maybe at our next Rainshadow Running event in June along the Columbia River Gorge, I'll break out and opt for one of their floral, silky numbers. Or, maybe not. Here's a link to the rainshadow running trail races held throughout Washington state: http://www.rainshadow-running.blogspot.com/ See you on the trails! AJ