Carol's Fat Ass 2016

Run August 6, 2016.

A good number of runners like to "run their age" on their birthday. This is usually done in miles, but kilometers is an equally acceptable unit. I use kilometers because 1) it's August in St. Louis and 2) even if it's not 100 degrees out, it's usually easier to block out a whole morning than a whole day.

In ultrarunning, a "Fat Ass" is an event where the race directory basically doesn't do any work. No t-shirts, no prizes, minimal on-course support, and (importantly) no entry fee. It's basically a group run with a name.

Carol was always pretty good natured about being pear shaped, so when I decided to make my birthday run an annual group event in her memory, the name pretty much suggested itself. We've had as few as 5 and as many as 35 show up for the previous five editions. I've finished every one, but most people are just out to enjoy the company and cut the course short to meet their own training priorities. Still, this is the ultra crowd so "cutting it short" usually means at least marathon distance. There are usually enough folks still around after 5-6 hours to have an impromptu picnic (with birthday cake) afterwards.

Because the course necessarily changes every year to add another K, I usually look for what I think is the coolest new bit of trail in St. Louis and build the course around that. This year, it wasn't really trail, but rather the new bike/pedestrian lane on the Boone Bridge over the Missouri River. This is a pretty big deal as the next closest bridge is 10 miles downstream.

This years route crosses the bridge, does a lap around Howell Island and then comes back to finish with a lap around Lost Valley. When the Missouri rises 10 feet in a single night three days before the event, I have to fall back on my "high water" route, which trades the now inaccessible Howell Island for a lap of the considerably smaller conservation area at Big Muddy. To make up the distance, I tack a lap of the Lewis trail on the very end. The distance still comes to almost exactly 53K.

Map of route

A dozen runners show up this year (plus two more who went out early). As usual, we don't try to keep everyone together but instead break into several groups. The front group is Tommy and Jen Doias, Zdenek Palecek (better known as just "Z"), Greg Murdick, and myself. We stay together until the water drop at mile 17, when Z and Greg decide to head straight back rather than running the loop of Lost Valley.

The course up to this point has been all bike path (both paved and gravel) and fairly flat. As such, we've been running a bit quicker than I'd normally go on a long run in this heat. I suggest to Tommy and Jen that we bump it back a bit now that we're switching to singletrack and get no argument.

While that does make the going easier, it also raises the typical hazard of tripping when you suddenly slow your pace on technical trail. Both Tommy and I stumble several times, but manage to stay upright. Back at the cars, we decide to take a ten minute break to recollect ourselves before tackling the final five miles on the very technical Lewis trail. Feeling better after the short rest and some refreshments, we get through the loop without incident.

We don't hang out for too long afterwards as there isn't any shade at the start/finish area (I probably should have thought that through better). Still, we do stick around long enough to share some birthday brownies and get a shot of our "official" finishers.