Over the years, The Run Down has sneaked its way into many ultras, often having to call upon the expertise of Los Angeles-based ultrarunning diva and disguise-artist Jimmy Dean Freeman (ahh, hot sizzlin’ sausage!), but this was a first for us, invited or not: the discovery of an Out-Out-Out & Back ultramarathon, also known as the 2010 Leona Divide 50-Mile Endurance Run.

Leave it to RD Keira Henninger to expand our horizons (in addition to fueling our fantasies about live Barbie dolls). When a race is commandeered by Barbie and Ken (Ken being Kirk Fortini, who was getting a body wax and didn’t show), you expect serious fluff: pink engineless trucks, androgynous volunteers, plastic food, the Backstreet Boys clamoring for a comeback.

The 2010 LD50 should’ve made for a tantalizing tea party. However, nothing could have been further from reality – except a Hawaiian dude being elected president. Wait, that happened?

According to DMV records, the new LD50 course eliminated front-end fire road and replaced the deleted mileage with rolling PCT singletrack and a titanium-packed access road on the back end. I can’t speak for everyone, but I swear Keira took out 17 feet on one side of the course and added 6 miles on the other end.

Each unexpected aid station, past the historical turnaround, resembled a checkout line where the cashier leaves for a cigarette break just as you summit the front of the line. The manager asks nicely if you’d be a sport and move to the next register. Then, like “Groundhog Day,” it happens all over again. The 2010 LD50 was full of surprises including the George Velasco-Molly Sheridan fake aid station, streakers (including the extra-lean Jimmy Dean) and brilliant orange flowers seen from a ridge that were growing in the city of Lancaster, which previously had no reports of any intelligent life.

As with most races starting at lake level, the initial miles are typically uphill as you climb from shoreline to some random peak only previously roamed by Ted Kaczynski-like hermits. The LD50 is no exception. The start at the scenic Lake Hughes Community Center parking lot to aid station #1 is an 8.5-mile uphill fire road. The next 4.4 miles to aid station #2 transitions to singletrack, but again it’s all uphill. However, the next 3.5 miles to aid station #3/#9 is some of the funnest downhill singletrack you’ll find anywhere (note to self: I’m not going to feel the same about this stretch traveling the opposite direction).

As I approached aid station #5, Thomas Crawford whizzed past me going the opposite direction, followed shortly by Jorge Pacheco and then a group of male runners that resembled a pack of wild dogs closing in on injured prey (or a TMZ camera crew chasing Tiger Woods). With the pace these guys were keeping, I wondered if there was a 10k going on at the same time. Or, were these dudes so gifted they decided to cram in a speed workout during a 50-mile race? Certainly, this wasn’t their normal pace. Oh, but it was.

Tom had a great buildup to this year’s race: lots of hills, a new training partner (an exuberant border collie) and solid miles day in and day out. Tom was hoping to run sub-7 but didn’t expect to be in a position to win. The race started out fast with Jorge and speedy Nick Lewis (right) pushing the pace and Tom just keeping up. In Tom’s words, “I figured that we were going way too fast, but got wrapped up in the hype. My race was pretty uninteresting until the steep pre-turnaround descent. Up until that point, I was yo-yoing giving up feet, yards, meters on the downhills and then catching back up on the inclines. On the big downhill to the turnaround, I let Nick and Jorge go, figuring that was the end of the day — first and second places up the road, myself fading fast and feeling flatfooted on the steepish descent. Game over.”

At the turnaround, Tom slugged down a Coke and some solid food, put his head down and suddenly found himself on the heels of the two leaders as they collectively climbed back up towards the PCT. Tom began to create a fairly substantial gap and bombed the return side, only to then realize that Jorge and Nick hadn’t caught up.

At the second-to-the-last aid station (#3/#9), in front and still convinced that Jorge was breathing down his neck, Tom made a pact with himself to run as fast as he could up the ensuing hill. At the top, he would sneak a peak behind looking for that infamous yellow singlet. With nobody in view, Tom would power through the remaining miles as if his life depended on it. It wasn’t until physically seeing the Community Center that Tom realized his pursuers might not catch him “a la Meltzer at Moab.”

Tom would cross the finish line in a course record 6:25:59. In Tom’s humble words: “I have to say that having my name on a board with legends of the sport like Jorge Pacheco, Scott Jurek and Ben Hian is the biggest thrill. So yeah, I’ve won another race, but my dog doesn’t give me any more respect and wouldn’t listen when I told him we should take a week off. I’ve got to admit that the race of the day was a tie between Michelle Barton’s lightning-fast course blitzing escapade and the 80-year-old’s finish. If I can still run 50 miles when I’m 80, I hope I will.”

Words can’t describe Barton’s LD50 performance. Every top athlete has their ups and downs. Barton is no exception to the law of human experience. Where there’s a high, a low usually will follow (just ask California’s housing market experts). Michelle admittedly struggled in her races towards the later part of 2009 and the beginning of 2010. However, starting in February, with a commitment from new sponsor INKnBURN, she found her physical and mental shape peaking as she toed the LD50 starting line.

Michelle’s vegan nutritional plan and daily workout regime is somewhat incomprehensible unless you’re a Russian Olympic hopeful. As a Taco Bell VIP, I don’t recognize and can’t pronounce anything she eats, but her workout is another story. In a nutshell, Michelle completes a fast-paced, Olympic-distance triathlon six days a week, peppered (organic) with a few ultras and trail races for good measure.

If you followed her progression back into form, starting with March’s Oriflamme 50k win in, her breaking Krissy Moehl’s LD50 course record comes as no colossal surprise. Ultra stud and 2010 LD50 overall 5th Evan Kimber (right) sums it up: “To try and wrap your head around it, Michelle was a mere 15 minutes off Meltzer’s 1999 winning time, and 17 minutes from Jurek in 2000. That’s incredible…and only two other times in the history of the race has a female come in at 7:30 or lower. Talk about a statistical outlier of a performance.”

When I spotted Michelle, at approximately mile 28, she was sprinting, feet flying high off the ground all the while breathing and speaking effortlessly. She offered words of motivation – “Hey Chazzie, want to dance?” — and then she was gone. The scene reminded me of my high school sophomore prom when my date went to the restroom and never returned. At least today I wouldn’t have to walk home solo in a rented tux.

Based on where I spotted Michelle, there were a solid 10-plus runners in front of her with only three aid stations to go. Finishing in a record female time of 7:14:00, only three staunch runners would finish before her, so I’m assuming the “Chicking” machine made short order of the previously noted pack of wild dogs.

With $2,000 in prize money, courtesy of The Run Down, the Leona Divide 50 Miler is a top-notch event that has evolved into one of the premiere 50-mile runs in the United States. Aid stations were manned by seasoned ultra runners, the course was impeccably marked and the hot food at the finish line was top notch. When more than 200 people sign up for an ultra in the middle of nowhere, there’s a reason – and it has nothing to do with the prospect of seeing Jimmy Dean Freeman run naked.

Ran, reported and written by Charlie Nickell.