Leona Divide 55K - CA

Leona Divide 55K - Lake Hughes, California

Elevation Range: 3015' - 4265' ............ Elevation Gain: 5046'

April 20, 2024 - There has always been a bit of desert rat somewhere within me. I return again and again to the desert to race in hot and dry conditions, and always seem to do well... even though I really prefer the more temperate conditions of damp, rooty, and rocky trails. Leona Divide is one of the classic events in the sport of trail running, steeped in history and legend. Traveling to Southern California to climb at this time of year, I was delighted to work this race into my itinerary.

Arriving early, I was able to sleep in my rental car at a trailhead for the Pacific Crest Trail the night before the race. With event distances of 100M, 100K, and 50M, the 55K was last to start at 0700, allowing for plenty of sleep. Having flown across the country to arrive here a couple days before, I was still sluggish from jet lag. I even had to stop a mere 200 yards into the race to gather myself and find my breathing, falling completely to the back of the pack. It takes me awhile to get into rhythm on any run, but with jet lag there wasn't much I could do except get into queue with the slower runners and alternate walking and running slowly up the first three miles of the course on a service road.

Even after hitting single track in the fourth mile, I was still rather haggard. With some experience now at being an old guy, I have learned to be patient. Sooner or later things come into alignment and I nearly always find my groove. For the next three miles I was actually grateful to be in a slow conga line of runners, at times still having a hard time keeping up... but then things clicked and I quickly passed everyone I had been following with reckless abandon and took off downhill for the next mile or so to the first aid station at the bottom of San Francisquito Canyon at 7.5M in the quaint little community of Green Valley in a time of 1H 50M.

From there I rolled up and over to the next aid station - Spunky Edison - at 14 miles in 3H 30M before backtracking to San Fran Canyon at 20.7 miles in 5H - on average, a very good time for me. Here, I stopped for most of ten minutes to eat and hydrate well before making the daunting 4-mile climb back to the top, again climbing past many runners as I was able to keep my momentum.

Aside from the ups and downs, the trail mostly undulates with the terrain along contour lines without gaining or losing much elevation, so it is a fast course, with no roots and few rocks or obstacles of any kind to slow you down. The manzanita and yucca that populate these mountains in the high desert of the Angeles National Forest reach out to scratch your legs and arms once in awhile, but for the most part, running Leona Divide is perfect for speed. I only had to stop one to lift a snake of some sort off the trail, but two girls I was running with said they saw three different rattlesnakes that I must have run by without notice. The high desert is snakey, to say the least.

I persisted down the long descent to the final aid station at Lake Hughes Road at mile 28 before turning back to run to the finish. By this point in the event, afternoon temps had soared to 76 degrees and were making their impact on performance. Everyone seemed stressed by the hot sun. I felt okay and kept drinking a lot, but I resorted to a walking tempo up the long exposed three-mile climb back to the top before the final descent into the finish. No one was passing me, but my average tempo slowed during these final miles and I didn't have the motivation to fight back to finish faster, just enjoying the final miles of a good day instead.

People were friendly, but I didn't hang with anyone very long, finishing well ahead of any other runners I had engaged with during the race. Even with my slow start, it was a good day with a negative split on performance. I was happy to receive my award and walk away without much fatigue or soreness, even after a couple days as I went on to climb Mt. Shasta two days later without any lingering effect from the race. My only regret is that I wish I had been able to run this race when I had the legs and youth to really zoom as it was the kind of course on which a good runner could really pull a good time.