The Southern Fried 50 | Columbus, GA
The Southern Fried 50 is an ultra distance race on a paved trail system in Columbus, GA. The race is known for the scorching heat & humidity that plagues south Georgia in August each year. This race on paper is an easy cruise along the banks of the Chattahoochee River. This is the trap that the race director has set for ultrarunners seeking to achieve a personal record (PR) at the 50-mile race distance.
The race begins at the trailhead of the Dragonfly Trail on Psalmond Road making your way to the Columbus downtown area. There you will find the main aid station that rests on the pedestrian bridge that links Georgia and Alabama. The course has minimal elevation gain with a scattering of short climbs over bridges or short climbs up humps. The running surface is nearly perfect, paved trail with minimal defects. This allows you to get into your pace to push towards each aid station.
The Southern Fried 50 challenge on the course is balancing your rising core temperature and eating calories as it gets hotter. This was my challenge in 2024 when I ran this race for the second time. The previous attempt at this course I had failed to eat anything causing my legs to shutdown into uncontrollable muscle spasms that lasted 24 hours after my race ended. I began 2024 knowing this was a priority to overcome. I still found myself fighting the lack of hunger or nausea as the heat peaked in the exposed trails at over 100 degrees.
I was holding on strongly to 4th place in the race when this truth began to peak my awareness. I had not been hungry all morning creating a false sense of my current progress. I was quickly burning my glycogen stores in my legs as the race progressed while my pace was fast over the first half of the race. I entered the aid station around the marathon distance feeling good. This would change in the next half of the race where I would battle heavy legs from the lack of calories my body required to maintain my pace.
The stretch from that halfway point to the next aid station I would lose seven spots in the race as my legs got heavier. It took me a while to realize what was happening. This delayed my ability to fix my earlier errors consuming calories. I began taking in as much of my food in my Nathan vest as I could handle. This was not much. I would eat a few orange pieces at the next aid station. I also drank two ginger ales to which this gave me a sugar boost and also settled my stomach a bit. Unlike 2022, I was able to rebuild the energy to keep my legs moving.
The course weaves its way across the city to the outer portions of the Fort Benning military base where the turnaround was located. This point meant you were now on the track to return to the Dragonfly trailhead finish line. This was the point where my race in 2022 got fried like chicken forgotten in the fryer at Popeye’s. In 2024, my miles on the trails and experience dealing with the pain was much greater than the first time I fried here. I pushed on as hard as possible.
The run back to the 40 mile point was super hot with little to no water sources past the aid station a few miles from the turnaround point. I arrived at the 40-mile aid station in 10th place. I had lost a lot of time troubleshooting my depleted calories. I ran out of the aid station with a mission to close fast as I was known to do in most of my races. I planned on tracking down the top five runners remaining in the race. The race leader, whom I spent a good portion of the race running beside had already finished at this point. I was on a mission to finish out this race to redeem the 2022 DNF I had suffered when I was pulled for medical by the race director.
The weather rewarded our hard work with a torrential downpour for a good portion of the final stretch of the race. This cooled the temperatures by over 20 degrees. This would usually have reinvigorated me completely. This day it had little effect. I pushed on towards the finish. I passed several runners taking their time along the way. Finally, after more time than I planned I crossed the line to finish. My son ran out to greet me 100 yards down the trail to run back through the arches of the finish with all the cow bells ringing. Another goal achieved. Another failure faced again to be overcome. This time the only thing fried was the chicken they were serving at the Southern Fried 50 finish line where I finished in 7th Place overall & 1st Place in my age group with the 38th fastest time on the course all-time.
