Thursday, April 8, 2010

Some more Umstead stuff............

Umstead 100 part 1
Umstead 100 part 2
Umstead 100 part 3
Umstead 100 part 4

Lap 5, and time to head out with a pacer. I was pleased with the 50 mile split of 11:32, my second fastest - and 16 minutes faster than last year. More importantly, I was feeling good, and ready to tackle the second half.

My first pacer was my colleague Mike. Mike is an Ironman tri-athlete, no way is he used to running as slow as me!


"Pacer Mike" and I - love the way he is strolling along, and it looks like I am struggling to keep up

Remember the egg? Yep, that came back to haunt me. Stomach cramps about 1/2 mile into the loop. Hmmm, decision time, 1/2 mile back to the start, 3 mile to the porta-john. No way was I going to run 101 miles. Let's make it 3 miles. This creates another dilemma run fast, you get there sooner - errr, but stir things up at the same time. Run slow (walk in other words), and you ain't likely to make it. I walked. And didn't.

Thankfully, the trails at Umstead are surrounded by trees, even more thankfully I carry baby wipes.

Feeling much better, Mike and I had a good lap. My pace had slowed dramatically, but to be honest I wasn't concerned about pace, just keeping going. By this lap, though, the hills were definitely getting steeper, and the feet were getting a little painful - but other than that, everything was fine.

Left right repeat.

The beauty of having a pacer is the conversation and the company which makes the time pass quicker, but more importantly, it stops the brain focusing on the miles to go, the pain, and no doubt it prevents thoughts of the shear stupidity of what I was doing.

Lap 5 time, 3:36. Total time for 100K 15:10



Umstead 100 part 1
Umstead 100 part 2
Umstead 100 part 3
Umstead 100 part 4

No comments:

Post a Comment