The Bear Chase 2018 - Lakewood, CO - 9/29/2018
Arriving at Bear Lake park at around 5:30 AM Saturday morning to this view over the lake got all my outdoorsy ultra feels started. Matt, Rachel, Ella and I drove out to Colorado Friday afternoon. We got in to Lakewood and went to Runners Roost just before sundown. I'm really excited about the book I picked up here about how to prepare home made, real food fuel for long runs and backpacking trips. Rachel and Paul got their packets picked up and whatever other little things they needed before starting 50 miles of trail running.
Soon the sun was starting to peek up the horizon and they were both lined up ready to begin their journey of 50 miles of Colorado trail running. Temps were cool but expected to rise quickly to unseasonably hot. We saw them off then went and found coffee and a bagel nearby. We contemplated dropping me off to do some sections of the Colorado Trail but we couldn't really make the pick-up time work so we drove around Ken Caryl and saw about a thousand mule deer. Then we got back to the race start/finish to wait for Paul and Rachel to come in from their first loop. The Bear Chase is split into 4 12ish mile loops for the 50 miler. The Start/Finish is the only place that you can crew your runner though.We would spend most the rest of the day there at the start/finish crewing each one of them as they came in.We did get a way from there when they were on loop 2 and hike up to the high point of the course. Ella in her berks, up the side of the hill was pretty impressive. We even saw a little bull snake as we hiked up. Here are the views we got from the top.
Paul came in the end of loop 2 in quite a bit of pain from his knee. I was so impressed he got back up to go back out there to fight through it and not let the knee pain stop him. Shortly after they both started loop 3 the gang drove me to a trail head near Morrison so I could get a nice little trail run in. The plan was to run up the top of this mountain and then back to the race headquarters. It was a really beautiful run.
Here is the Strava link to my run: https://www.strava.com/activities/1873918147
I ran back to the Start/Finish with plenty of time to rest up. Matt was out pacing Rachel and Amber out w/Paul. We got to see Cory Logsdon come in from crushing the 100K in a new CR time. and Jen Freeman winning the 50 miler. (forgot to grab a picture, sorry Jen) Nebraska came to play!
Then in a remarkable first 50 miler ever Rachel came in 5th!
So proud of this lady! She put in the work and had one heck of a race!
Shortly after getting her finishing food and pictures here came Paul and Amber!!
So impressed that Paul fought through that knee pain all damn day to keep rolling through miles and getting 50 miles on a hot day in Colorado done. Congrats buddy!
Then they hiked a 14er the next day!!
