Leona Divide: The Last Long Training Run

25 weeks. That’s exactly the amount of time since my last race. And now, I’m staring down 4 days. That is, 4 days until I line up for my first race of the year, the Leona Divide 50K.

Leona Divide is a race I’m familiar with and it’s a race I’m looking forward to!

Back in November and December, I began to think of races I’d like to do. Sean O’Brien was one race that popped into my head, and it quickly popped back out even before I could finish saying, “O’Brien.”

But the one race that got my attention was Leona Divide.

Initially, I was seriously aiming to do the 50 mile distance. In November and December I was pretty keen on doing it. When January hit, I was still in the, “I’m totally going to do the 50 miler!” frame of mind. And then February rolled around and my mind went, “Ya know, I’m reallyyy not feeling those 50 miles.”

As time went on, my motivation to train for 50 miles dissipated. Even when I mentioned to a couple of running friends I was thinking about doing the 50 miler, they both had the same idea – register for the 50 and when you get closer to race day and you don’t feel like doing them, drop down to the 50K.

I could’ve done this.

But I just couldn’t get myself focused on actually training for 50 miles.

So I took the “safer” route and opted for the 50K distance instead and I know I made the right call.

I love the 50K distance and right now, this second, it’s my favorite distance. Last weekend, I got close to completing it as the last long training run.

I knew I wanted to complete around 20-24 miles as my last high mileage run before the race, but when a call went out to do 30 from a running friend, I answered. Even though I was still aiming for 20 to 24, I figured I’d have company for some of that run.

This time around, the company I kept was with Liz, Ta’Mara, Martine, Dave, and Jim. Prior to this day, I’ve met all of them except one, Martine. And she’s a firecracker! She has such great energy and I was in awe of the fact, she just ran a 50 mile race the week before and was aiming to do another 30 on that day! Whuuuut?? After I did a 50 miler, the last thing I was thinking about was another 30 the weekend after. I was probably thinking more along the lines of sleeping in and going out to get coffee.

There was a part of me wishing I had done that on this day as well.

The threat of rain was not entirely enticing. Actually I heard it wasn’t supposed to rain on Saturday. And it didn’t. In fact, my weather app didn’t indicate any rain at all for Friday even when someone told me it may rain.

I trust my weather app. Wrong!!! 

It ended up raining Friday night into Saturday morning, but it stopped well before I got to Will Rogers State Park.

The overnight rain gave us a few muddy trails, wet grass, wet clothes, wet socks, and wet shoes…even if it wasn’t actually physically raining on us.

I try not to be fussy about these kind of things, but soggy squishy socks aren’t particularly my thing, you know? Especially when you’re staring down a solid 20 miler and those socks are pretty soaked maybe a mile or 2 into the run.

Should I turn around now? (Nope.) It could rain during Leona. (It won’t.) So suck it up buttercup. (Fine.)

I know I’ve mentioned this before in previous posts but I’ll say it again here, I’m not a yuuuge fan of single track. Yes, I know people love it. People rave about it. People want to marry it. I don’t think I’m one of those people, which funny enough, Leona Divide is mostly single track. Huh. Go figure.

The issue I have with the S.T. is this: there isn’t a whole lot of room for you to maneuver if, let’s say, a long slithering critter decides to come out and play, and I don’t mean checkers.

What’s especially not appealing about the Backbone Trail single track for me, is the amount of high brush and well, low brush, lining the trail so if a long slithering critter decides to cross over to the other side suddenly, it could make you jump into another dimension.

Plus, I just don’t like brush touching me. But there was no escaping it here. I wanted to do this run and so I had to get out of the comfort zone and simply deal with it.

Around 10 miles in, I internally debated with myself about turning around.

I don’t need to run 30 miles today. I also don’t want to run back alone by myself. I could get done sooner if I turn around now. If I keep going I get to see the ocean. Eh, I saw the ocean last weekend. 

I decided to forge ahead with the group, and I’m glad I did. In fact, for the the whole duration of the run, I engaged in conversation with everyone at some point revolving around telling jokes, running and training, travels, pizza cravings, GPS watch distance readings, and other things that’ll remain unmentioned.

While I felt pretty good overall, I noticed I wasn’t drinking enough water when I got back to our water refill station. Not a good sign when your hydration pack bladder is still fairly full after 16 miles. I started to drink up.

21 miles in, four of us stopped for a bit to wait for a couple of people to catch up. They were probably 2 minutes behind us. But it was here when I felt like I wanted to sleep. I made sure I drank my water and CarboPro which sustained me along with a Lara Bar, a peanut butter ball, and a plantain chip from earlier in the run. I’m a little weary of consuming solid food since I don’t do well with it when I run, but I was fine.

Turns out we only had 8 miles left to go. Eight that seemed to drag on and on. The good news was, this was mostly downhill since we climbed it when we started. The bad news was, the brushy single track would soon return.

As we landed back on the single track Backbone Trail, Ta’Mara and Martine were running up ahead with me, Liz, Dave, and Jim following behind. All of a sudden I inched closer around a turn and heard a “STOP!” with Martine holding out her arm to alert us there was a snake.

The snake appeared to be dead and Dave volunteered to give it a closer look.

“Touch it Dave,” Jim shouted out.

“It’s dead,” Dave responded.

As I passed by the snake slowly, yes slowly just in case, it was playin’ dead and was ready to strike for fun, I noticed the flies buzzing around it. Looks like it may have been crushed by a log that fell.

While we all scattered along the trail with some up ahead, some behind, and me smack dab in the middle, I kept thinking about this snake, and wondering if there were others. They could be sitting idly in the the brush that was 2 inches away from my feet. I couldn’t wait to get off this trail and be done with this run.

Not sure if it was simply adrenaline, or not, but my energy kicked into full gear during this stretch which seemed to really drag on forever. Maybe because I was alone for most of the last few miles. Jim was up ahead. Dave and Liz were behind us and I kept playing leap frog with Ta’Mara and Martine in the middle.

Luckily there were no other snake encounters, dead or alive, and I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful for the 29 miles on that day and the company in which they were kept.

Thank you for reading!