As quoted from the official El Scorcho website at www.elscorchorun.com, "Created by Ryan "GandaMan" Valdez, Jason "Jballs" Costantino, James "6-PAK" Newsom, and Coach Jim "J-Money" Newsom, El Scorcho is a ridiculously foolish endurance run that takes place at midnight in Fort Worth, Texas in the middle of the summer".
I started running in 2001, mostly to loose some weight. I ran my first marathon in February 2004, the Motorola Marathon in Austin, TX. I have now completed 15 marathons, which include 6 50K's and one 50 miler.
This was my third year to run the El Scorcho 50K. As the name "Tres" implies, this was also the 3rd year of the event. The entire race takes place inside Trinity Park, west of downtown Fort Worth. The course is a 3.1 mile loop that has sections of asphalt, concrete, crushed rock, dirt, grass, and a few wooden bridges to cross. The race has two events: a 25K distance, which is 5 times around the course, and a 50K distance, which is 10 times around the course. One of the things that makes this race hard is the temperature in Texas in July. Even with the midnight start, it's still hot! The other thing that makes it hard is the midnight start. It's really hard to acclimate your body to begin a long run at midnight!
We had 9 runners from our Abilene Runners Club participate in the event this year. Most of our group ran the 25K, with Rachel Fox and myself running the 50K. My son-in-law, Brian Helm, from Flower Mound, TX also ran with me this year. This was Brian and Rachel's first-ever ultra! We all took a group picture before the race started. See attached. The trophy that we are holding was actually a team trophy we won back in February at the Cowtown Half Marathon. No one from our club had been able to pick up the trophy, so one of the El Scorcho volunteers gave it to us that night.
As this was Brian's first 50K, we had two goals for the night: getting to the finish line alive and getting there in under 6 hours. Our plan was to employ a run/walk method on a 10 minute cycle; running for 9 minutes and then walking fairly fast for 1 minute. We stuck with this strategy for the first 6 loops, which was about 18 miles. By the 7th loop, we started doing more of an 8 run/ 2 walk. Loops 9 and 10 ended up being more of a 7/3. Yet, all in all, the strategy worked as we both finished in under 6 hours!
Bib Time Name Sex Event Overall Age DivPlace Pace
89 05:51:01 David McCaghren M 50K 46 53 37 11:18/M
55 05:54:45 Brian Helm M 50K 50 32 40 11:25/M
A couple of things that really helped us during the race was staying hydrated by drinking regularly at the aid stations and keeping adequate electrolyte levels. We accomplished this by taking a Hammer gel-pack every hour and taking Hammer Endurolyte capsules every 30 minutes. These supplements helped to prevent leg cramps and nausea from dehydration.
We finished a little before 6:00 am, just as it was starting to get light in the eastern sky. We were glad to be finished. Rachel finished a little ahead of us, in 5:45.11, making her 9th place overall in the female division. She won a nice El Scorcho backpack for her efforts. Both she and Brian left there that night knowing that they had joined a unique group of athletes known as Ultra-Runners!
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