May 30

May 30 Running the Ouachita Trail 50 ultramarathon - Little Rock, Arkansas

Going into 2020 I was on my way to finish visiting all 50 states, and maybe even get to 50 countries. However, my plans had to be put on hold in March when the COVID-19 quarantines began. Although, after the main lock down period, I could make a couple trips. One to New Hampshire for work on essential business, and a driving trip to Kentucky for my birthday. But, I didn’t want to risk more extensive travel until I was vaccinated. Fortunately, I received the vaccine in early 2021 and am back on my way to finishing a visit to all 50 states this year. This post is about my first trip post vaccination where I went to Arkansas to run an ultramarathon, visited a cousin and his family, and had a quick tour of the Little Rock, Arkansas area.

The trip started with a flight into the Little Rock Airport that arrived about noon on a rainy, overcast day. I was hungry, so I headed straight to a popular restaurant in downtown Little Rock, Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro. The space is bright, open and colorful and their menu is eclectic. I chose the truffle mac and cheese, justifying all those calories as my pre-run carb loading.

After lunch I walked through the downtown area and walked past the Little Rock River Market, closed on this day, and then crossed the Arkansas River on the Junction Bridge. The bridge is a heavy industrial bridge that from a distance does not look like you can walk across it, but the city converted it to a pedestrian bridge in 2008. The stairway takes you high above the river and provides great views up and down the river and of the downtown.

As I was crossing the river on the bridge, I saw a WWII submarine, the USS Razorback, parked on the far shore of the river. Given that I didn’t have much of a schedule, I headed over and took a tour of the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum. This submarine saw service in WWII but then continued to be used in other countries and wasn’t decommissioned until 2001. Despite all that time in service, the submarine was relatively unchanged from when it was built in the 40s.

Saturday morning I woke for the Ouachita 50 at 4am as the race had an extra early start time at 6am. Fortunately, the start is only a 15 min drive from the Burgundy Hotel where I stayed for the weekend. The high point of the race, both figuratively and literally, is at about mile 5 when we scaled Pinnacle Mountain. If I’d known at the time this peak would be the best view of the surrounding area I would have spent more time taking it in, but it was also early in the race and I felt the need to keep moving. After coming off of Pinnacle Mountain, the trail became very runnable. There were a few short sections of road, but nearly the entire trail is single track through the forest. The trails are lightly rolling and twist through the trees. The Ouachita Trail 50 race covers a small portion of the 192 mile (308km) Ouachita National Recreation Trail. It’s a popular trail since it is so close to Little Rock.

For my first race in well over a year, I was happy with my 7 hour 30 minute time that landed me 40th out of 111. I was first place for finishers from Ohio (but also the only finisher from Ohio). The results don’t matter, but fun to measure yourself up to the field.

Little Rock, Arkansas makes for a great ultrarunning destination weekend given its central location in the US, an airport with plenty of flights, and very easy access to nature. There are also plenty of things to see and do in Little Rock for when you are not running. I was also fortunate to visit my cousin and his family that I had not seen in over 40 years. If you like to center your ultrarunning travels on races, then I can also highly recommend this well run race. They know what they are doing, they’ve been holding this race for over 30 years!