Palo Duro Canyon 50-Mile Trail Run

October 15, 2005

By Bob Botto

Wow, what a western adventure this was! This was my first time to run this race and my first ever visit to Amarillo. I accompanied Kim Pilcher, an ExxonMobil corporate lawyer and accomplished ultramarathon runner (she completed the Western States 100 mile race this past June). Kim took along her 13 year old son Devin who was entered in the 20K race. Kim, Devin and I arrived by plane Friday evening. Amarillo is too far to drive if you are going to race. You would be so stiff!

Amarillo is very flat. How flat? Well a local cowboy said that it was so flat that he could watch his dog running away for three days! We drove south to Canyon, a tiny college town with just a couple new hotels. It “closed” at about 6pm each night. Good thing there was a pre-race banquet because there was no restaurant open for 30 miles. The banquet was held on the UT West Texas campus and hosted by Race Director Red Spicer. This guy looked like your stereotype west Texas cowboy: big burley, white mustache and tough as the trails he loves. Landmarks and trails in the park are named after Big Red. About 300 showed up for the 21st running of the Palo Duro Trail Run. The food was great and a slide presentation was showing on three big screens. A pretty lady named Patty Birdwell sat at our table. She told us that she was the 4th great granddaughter of Quanah Parker the famous last Chief of the Commanches that lived and fought in the Canyon area http://www.lnstar.com/mall/texasinfo/quanah.htm. She was running her first 50 mile race.

We drove out to the start in the early morning dark and found a big campfire warming the runners under a starry West Texas sky. The race started at 7:00am, which would be the crack of dawn, but we were 1000 feet below the rim of the canyon and it would take an hour for sunrise to reach us. Flashlights would be needed until then. My GPS showed 2800 feet above sea level even here at the bottom. A bagpiper entertained us while we waited for the start. I was so excited! When we lined up, Red offered a prayer for our safety and yelled “Go”.

I took a camera on the first loop. “Kimmy” (as Mariela calls her) and I started out in the cool darkness with about 70 other runners. Devin’s race would start an hour later. Soon the sky took on a twilight appearance and there was enough light to see the trail. Aid stations are only 2-3 miles apart in this race because it can get very hot. Today was forcast to be a cool one in Amarillo (50 degrees at the start to mid 70’s) but the Canyon has it’s own climate and 90’s is common for this race. As the sky got brighter the beauty of the Canyon began to unfold. All at once a choir of coyotes sang from the canyon rim. When the sun finally appeared above the canyon rim we stopped for pictures. Now every turn presented a vista that made me suck in my breath and yell “Oh, Kimmy look at that!”

The rocks in the canyon are in layers of red, white, purple and even green/blue. The canyon floor is covered with flowering shrubs and cactus. As the morning sun turned the canyon walls all aflame I praised God for all of this beauty while I ran amazed. I knew that the race would get tough later but the beauty itself could sustain my spirit.

Kim and I run well together. We can pace each other closely. I ran behind her comfortably and the pace felt right. If I ran much ahead she always caught up because I tend to spend longer at the aid stations. We both went through a low spot about 18-20 miles. I think this is where the body has to switch from burning stored glycogen (sugars) to fat. Once the fat burning kicks in you “line out” with steady energy.

Speaking of energy, before the race I was given a newly developed “endurance patch” to try out. The man who gave them to me said I would have a lot more energy during the race. There were two patches, a tan one for the left ankle and a white one for the right ankle. The literature said that no substance entered the body but the patches altered your natural “magnetic aura” and modulated your frequency or something like that. Anyway I was game but highly skeptical. I had them on. If I could get FM reception on my toenails it would be a good thing.

The 50 mile consists of (4) 12.5 mile loops. The trail is sandy clay or rock with lots of short steep ups and downs. There are long climbs, but nothing too drastic. In general it’s very runable. The trail is very professionally marked including mile markers. Aid stations have custom signs. Everything about this race is very organized and professional. A large sign marked the “Toad Suck Bog”. It’s a big red muck hole at mile 3 on the loop. Another sign is marked “Big Red’s Rock”. At “Dos Loco Senioritas” Aid Station the two ladies have you run a third of a mile out and back before resuming the loop.

At the end of the loop you run through a gauntlet of flags representing all the states and foreign countries from which the runners came for the race.

Loop 2 began to get very warm near the end. Fortunately clouds moved in during loop 3 and stayed for most of the rest of the day. Kimmy and I ran together until the last part of the third loop. She indicated to me that it would be okay for me to go on ahead. She said she would make it fine. I said “If you don’t get stuck in the Toad Suck!” We finished the first loop in 2:19, the second about 2:31. My third lap was my slowest in 2:42. I still felt pretty strong as I started the last loop so I considered the idea of trying to break 10 hours. My energy patches caused all the protons in my body to line up with the planetary elliptic and I felt the cosmic power (Ha!). My “quads” started to really hurt after about 42 miles from the hill work. Even so I kept pushing as hard as I could but needing more frequent walk breaks. I ran through the flags at 9:56 with a final lap of 2:25. Kimmy came in about 40 min later. It felt so great to be finished! Devin had finished the 20K by 11:00am and spent the day reading in the car.

It took us until nearly 9:00pm to find a restaurant and we had to drive all the way to Amarillo. We were starving too! We finally found a good Mexican feed and that wrapped up our Palo Duro adventure! I’d recommend this race to anyone and I’d love to go back. The next time, though, I’ll leave time the next day for rock hounding. I saw so many interesting rocks on the trail. In some areas the path was littered with sparking crystals and aqua blue rocks that looked like turquoise.