Back in February of this year, I ran my first ultramarathon, the Algonquin 50K. I enjoyed the experience (though it was really hard!) but had no plans to run another ultra anytime soon. Certainly not this year. I was supposed to be focusing on half marathons this fall, right?

But then my friend Staci, who lives in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, forwarded me an email about a new ultra in Allentown called the Lehigh Parkway 50K. “No, I don’t want to run this, but maybe you do,” she said.

I pondered it for a bit and then decided, what the hell. Yolo and all that. I still planned to focus on half marathons this fall and figured I’d take a real laid back approach to the ultra, scheduled for September 16. No one really runs ultras for time anyway, I reasoned. Plus, this 50K had a 10-hour time limit– you could pretty much walk the whole thing and still finish. This ultra was also mostly on crushed gravel, while Algonquin was on an actual trail (a flat trail, but still a trail with roots and rocks and stuff!) Even though I was going into the ultra with less training, I thought I could still beat my Algonquin time just because I am a lot more comfortable on that type of surface! 

Well, I ended up beating my previous time of 6:15 by a LOT. I finished in 4:54 and actually came in 2nd place female, which was shocking! 

Here is how it went down. 

It’s just five 10Ks……

The race was held on a Saturday, so I drove up to Staci’s on Friday after work. She and her family live about 40 minutes from Allentown, and it was an easy drive in the morning to get to the race venue. Staci had signed up to be a volunteer, so we left her house together on Saturday and arrived at the Lehigh Valley Parkway with plenty of time to spare. The weather was expected to get up into the 70s, so I was dressed in a sports bra and shorts. I was cold when I was waiting to start the race, but warmed up quickly and was glad I wore what I did. 

The race was five 10K loops, and my plan all along was to run this as a very easy and very long training run. As I mentioned, my training was not really what it should have been going into an ultra. I’ve been running a lot of miles – my half marathon training plan peaks at 63 miles per week – but my longest run going into this was 14 miles. So, less than half of what I would cover in the ultra. I was pretty much just hoping that the endurance I’ve gained from my hefty weekly mileage would be enough to carry me through. That, and my incredible stubbornness.

The first loop was all about getting a feel for the race. This was obviously my first time running on the Lehigh Valley Parkway and I liked it. There were some hills, though nothing too crazy. The worst one came at around mile 4 of each 10K loop – it was really steep and actually pretty technical compared with the rest of the trail. I ran up it during the first loop, then decided to hike up it on the subsequent loops and give my legs a rest. We ran alongside the Little Lehigh Creek and underneath the historic Bogert’s Bridge, one of the oldest covered bridges in the country. Very scenic, and there was a lot of shade from the trees, which was great during the later part of the race! 

I ran the first loop in 52 minutes, which was faster than I planned and I knew it was unlikely I could hold onto that pace. But I figured I’d bank some time, at least. I know, I know, this is a poor strategy in marathons and probably ultramarathons, too. But it’s not like I had a real goal here other than to finish in one piece. 

Anyway, that first loop felt great, as did the second! Staci was serving as a course marshal right around mile 2 of each loop, so I got to see her multiple times. The third loop felt …. Not great, but still good! At that point, I had run the farthest I had since Boston five months earlier. Every time I finished a loop, I ran through the finish line area where they had the timing clock up and I saw that I was on pace to finish well under five hours if I kept it up. 

Yeah, I said I didn’t really have a goal, but….. A sub-5 50K sounded pretty great. 

At the 20-mile mark, I started to feel like I might be hitting a wall and that my lack of any long runs past 14 miles was catching up to me. It was also getting warm. I was wearing a Nathan hydration vest and trying to drink as much water as I could, and I also had six Maurten gels with me. I had taken the fourth gel at mile 18, but it wasn’t really sitting well in my stomach and I never took the other two as a result. When I finished the fourth loop, the clock showed that as long as I ran my final loop in an hour and 15 minutes or less, I would finish in five hours. I knew I could do that. 

And I did, but it wasn’t pretty! That last loop was a death march. I ran as much as I could, but I did a fair amount of walking, too. To be honest, I haven’t felt that bad toward the end of a race since the Tidewater Striders Marathon in 2021, when I infamously yelled “fuck this shit” at my husband at mile 25. Everything hurt and all I wanted was a damn Diet Coke. I kept telling myself to just keep moving forward and then I’d get to sit down and hopefully get a cold Diet Coke. 

I crossed the finish line and saw the clock said 4:54. I had broken 5 hours – by a pretty decent margin! 

Once I stopped my watch, one of the volunteers came over to me and told me I had finished second place female. I was totally out of it at that point and just said “What? Really? No way…..” I really was surprised. I had no idea where I was in the rankings when I was on the course, because many people ran as relay teams (I was very envious of them in the later miles!) and then it was hard to tell who was on what number loop. She asked if I wanted to sit down and I said yes, and she gave me this amazing wooden plaque! Then she wanted to know if there was anything I needed. 

“Um…. could I please have a Diet Coke?” I asked. 

Sadly, she didn’t have any Diet Coke, but she did bring me water. (Once I felt capable of moving, I dragged myself over to the food truck near the finish and got a can of ice cold Diet Coke, and I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life!) 

Final thoughts

I’m unbelievably proud of myself. This one was effing hard, but I never gave up. Again, I’m incredibly stubborn. But … I should have trained more. Even throwing in one 18-miler and a 20- or 21-miler prior to this ultra would have helped. So next time, I’ll make sure to do that. 

Next time? 

Yeah, I don’t know when that will be. Maybe not for a while. I’m planning to run Boston again in 2024 as long as a spring work conference doesn’t conflict with it. Probably a fall 2024 marathon. 

Right now, I am not planning on any ultras in 2024, but then again I never planned on running this one, so …. We’ll see where life takes me!