Last August, the Maryland HEAT became my first 50k. I knew I wanted to tackle one of these, and am fortunate enough to have a friend on the East Coast who is an avid ultra-runner who agreed to pick out a "good" event and run it with me. My goals for this one were just to finish, and he was running the race as a training run, so we agreed to take it slow.

We had another reason to take it slow (more on that in a minute) too.

Doing a race on the East Coast also gave me an opportunity to visit DC for the first time, and see a friend from college who lives in the area. After spending a couple days in DC, and walking a solid 5 miles around the monuments the day before the race, I was ready to roll for my first 50k adventure.

For the race, were are to park at a park and ride in Catonsville, MD and get bused into Patapsco State Park. We had to be on the bus by 6 am, which meant it was an early day. Having to drive up from DC, I had one of those lovely 4 am wake up calls.

Once you're bused into the park, you pick up your race number, and get ready to go. You can pay extra for a shirt (I didn't) and you will receive that at this time as well.

The start is a pretty standard Ultra start. The race director gives you some pointers, how to run the first 1/4 mile loop around a grassy area, and we were off and running.

So here is why I get to the other reason my friend and I slowed it down. If you live on the East Coast, you may remember last August was a bit...warm. When I woke up at 4 am it was already 87 and humid, and it only got warmer. While we were protected by the woods for most of the race, any time not in shade was scorchingly hot.

The race itself is two 25k loops. This is definitely a challenging course. Single track almost the entire way, with some significant hills (gain for the 50k is about 4,000 feet). One of the hills is a steep grade, where you'll basically crawl up. Twice. Going down that hill, the race gives you the option of taking two routes. The "easy way" or the "hard way." The easy way was a little longer. But since you're doing two loops, we decided to do one easy and one hard.

Aid stations are about 6-8 miles apart, so make sure you get stocked up at each one. Every aid station was well stocked with food, water, and tailwind. They also made sure to have ice for us on such a warm day as well.

The highlight (if you will) for the course comes at miles 15 and 30. Here is where you hit the wall. And I'm not talking about "the wall" runners hit during a race (I ran into that at mile 27).

No, this is an effing 15 foot wall.

You have two options: scale the wall, or go around and into the river.

My friend, who had run this race before, did one of each last year and said going over the wall was better. So over we went. And trust me, there's nothing more painful than climbing over a wall 30 miles into your first 50k.

The post-race food and beer is delicious, plus you can hop into the river to cool off after a hot run. I felt like absolute death when I was done (maybe my longest training run should've been longer than 17 miles). But a 16th place finish, heck...a finish, was good enough for me, and my friend walked away with a personal course record here as well.

All in all, it was a good day. Definitely check out this race if you're looking for an excellent and challenging race on the East Coast.