So the story of my race was, a 4 hour Marathon, when I took my first fuel break. The next section for me was a 2 hour1/2M section with other food breaks every hour or so.Then a 4+ hour Marathon, I was being crewed by my wife, who was an excellent crew for me, I normally work with minimal to no help.
The Ultra races were run in conjunction with a 100K 8 stage road relay and this year for the first time they ran a 50K division.
The race director arranged staggered start time for everyone and all the teams.
Three stalwort souls started the 100, two finished. Me and Mat Sessions. He and I have run quite a few Ultras together and as he always beats me, I was not too surprised when he passed me at Parksville . One of my other good running friends ran anchor on his relay team so from my starting first at 6:15 in the morning I saw the tail end of the relay teams running off up the hill on the final stage into Lantzville.
The race director is a great admirer of
Ultra runners, and he asked all the relay teams to give us all the
support and encouragement they could.
The hot favourite for the 100K was a guy who very recesently ran a
blazing sub 4 hour 50K. This guy was flying till before Nanoose, then
he pulled up before the 14K last leg, so yes, I finished 2nd. of two,
with three starters!
I was running with a borrowed G.P.S. watch for the first time, so I was
able to plot and check my progress thoughout the day.
The stats from the Garmin were, total distance:- 99.7K(mind you it lost
it's signal a couple of times so it cut swathes out of some of the
large coastal bays we had to run beside).
Great job by the R.D. for organising the start times, we all came in
within 1 hour of each other, and that sped up the party at the end,
because most everyone stayed for the chicken and pasta and dogs. Yeah,
the beer tent was the place to be for the competitors.
Today I am resting and eating. I have had three or four fueling
sessions since 2 a.m. this morning. I woke up starving and craving
protein, I'm still craving eggs cheese and liquids.
The race was like two separate runs, the first one was cool and with a
very light drizzle, the second half, from Parksville to Nanoose was
hot! I think we were all suffering a fair bit from the dramatic climate
change.
At one stage during the race someone asked me if I needed anything,
and I said I need water for over my head! They didn't have that much to
spare so I moved on, two minutes later a car pulled and the R.D's wife
pulled up andgave me a great roadside shower. Thanks!
As for the Garmin, I turned off the bells and whistles to preserve
battery life, my problem was that I kept looking at it.
All in all, total time:- 10:41:47. (6:27 average pace.) Next time I
will set up the Garmin some-what differently so that I have maximum
"pace smoothing," and not, as I had it set up for least smoothing which
meant that it would tell me I was going too fast or too slow, too
often! I enjoyed using the G.P.S. I would give it, for that kind of
terrain, 4 out of 5 for accuracy.
The 50K were sent off once again starting the slower runners at around
8 a.m.but I never saw them during the run.
One of my other friends ran the 50K. I'm not sure how she did but she
waited to see me in, and gave me a big hug.I started with two of the
Relay teams @ 6:15 and I was the last man off the course, but not by
much..
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