So I have been a pretty active runner for the past 15 years, completing in a handful of marathons and one ultramarathon — a 55-kilometer trail race in Iceland last year. Recently, I decided to take a plunge and start running even longer distances as I feel more equipped for endurance rather than speed.
For my first 50-miler, I chose the local Antelope Island Buffalo Run. Antelope Island is a Utah state park that is situated in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. I ran a portion of the east-side of the island a couple of years back for the Layton Marathon and it was incredibly scenic and even caught a glimpse of a buffalo herd! You can check out the coarse map for the 50-mile race below (for perspective, the north/south distance shown of the island is about 12 miles):
The start/finish is denoted by the large green dot, major landmarks (e.g. trailhead starts or major aid stations) are shown in yellow and the course itself is in red. There are several out-and-backs and short loops of popular island hikes — the longest of which is about a 20 miler out-and-back on the east-side. What’s nice is that the 100-miler race is just the 50-miler done twice, so I know that I’ll be able to see everything that a 100-miler finisher will see!
As for the elevation profile, it’s not too crazy. I think there is about 3,800 total feet of climbing which is mostly concentrated at the start:
(Note: Both the 50-miler and 100-miler profiles are shown above)
The race day is Saturday, March 18th and I’ll have a full 12.5 hours to complete the course before cut-off — this works out to be a 15 min/mile which should be easily do-able. I’ll make some posts later on about some of my preparation to give better insight to what long distance running is all about!
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