Saw my friend Alan first (barefoot runner), then Ron and Grant. Also met Chris and Christa before the race started which was great. Sorry to see Christa with her hand in a cast after some surgery on her hand...hope it heals up quickly for her.
My plan if you can call it that, was to find a pace and stick with it at least for the first 4 hours and then see what happens. I definitely wanted to make 50K for the day for sure. The longest time on my feet was Boston with a 4:39 marathon. The longest distance also the marathon at 42.2K.
I started running and quickly fell into a pace of around 1:25/lap. They varied a bit but not much, unless I stopped to drink or something. I decided I'd wait till 3 hours to go pee (something to look forward to
) and had about a 3:50 lap that time. Felt refreshed after the break too. Then I decided on the 4 hour mark to eat my lunch (PB&J sandwich). Again something to look forward to. At 4 hours I stopped, sat down in the chair I brought, and ate my sandwich. That lap 5:30 so not too long.After the sandwich I got a bit of a side stich and had to walk almost a lap. Thanks Ron for the support and telling me it would pass, it did. It came back a bit slightly about a half hour later but not enough to stop, and then quickly disappeared.
I managed to keep running through hours 5 and 6 though the last half hour I was pretty pooped. However when I saw that I was close to making 57K I sprinted the last two laps in 1:12 and 1:10 and managed to cross the finish in 57.2K (246 laps)! My feet were pretty sore come the end (some new blisters and just sore) but otherwise I was ok (then). Did have a sore upper back which I thought was odd!
I'm really happy about that. I had some fantastic support and encouragement out there and thanks for that everyone. It really helped a lot!
I really liked the event, there's a lot to be said about controlled environment. I would definitely consider doing this one again! I'm pretty stiff now but I think that's also from the continual snow shoveling I've done since then!
Later that night I drove up to Casino Rama with my friend to see concert and won $80 in the slots. So a good day all in all.
Thanks again everyone for the support!
Here are some pics. Abdollah Dehnashi was there taking photos of Zarah Dehnashi (3rd overall finisher, first female and ran just under 65K. She's training for Commrades and I think she's going to do great). I attached photos that include the other Maniacs:
Robin & Chris
Robin & Christa
[/URL][/img]Robin & Ron
