In my spare time, I frequent Ultrasignup.com and peruse various races for an adventure and a challenge. Earlier this year, I was presented with the Volcanic 25K at Mount St. Helens in Washington State. The 25K race was on Sunday, August 2 nd and was part of a race weekend. The 50K race would take place the day before. I would be inclined to run the 50K, but I knew I would be in unfamiliar terrain and elevation, and I wanted to make sure I could finish in the race.
The course looked challenging, yet doable for my standards. It would start off going towards and along the volcano then go along a forest path. As soon as I was able to figure out the logistics and budget, I signed up for the race. I flew into Seattle-Tacoma Airport the Wednesday before the weekend and spent a few days in the area and took a hike at Naches Peak Loop near Mt. Rainier to help me get acclimated to the environment. Fortunately, there was no rain the whole time I was there. The day before the race, I drove three hours south to a resort near the Volcano, about 30 minutes away from the starting area.
The race started at 7:30 am and the course started off like a standard trail race with about 250 participants. It was on dirt and the hills rolled a bit. It was nothing too difficult. After a couple miles, the terrain changes. There was more gravel and large rocks to run around. The course was starting to get more uphill and windier. Single tracks slowed me down a bit as I was stuck behind some runners. However, the biggest obstacle were these large and questionably stable boulders that were a challenge to trek across. My trekking poles helped me keep my balance in this area. The first half of the race had these difficult obstacles. The second half of the course was more downhill
and had a bit familiar forest like terrain overall. I fell down once, but recovered quickly. The last part of the race was uphill and was quite dreadful considering how tired I already was. I preferred trekking across the boulders than having to deal with hills at this point. I finished at 4:15:49.
The 25K felt more like a marathon. This was a very fun race and I am seriously
considering trying out the 50K next year, which goes completely around the volcano. The organization, Go Beyond Racing put together an amazing event. Prior to the beginning of the race, I put on a chest mounted GoPro as a last-minute decision. You can view a condensed version of the race here: https://youtu.be/-
UeHDcYguSE?si=gUsmRYyeJur-UXpl
