In Decatur GA right outside of Atlanta. 8am to 4pm in mid 90's temps and high humidity. I was happy with my effort. I had not been training for any sort of ultra distance run so to be able to rack up 40+ miles was quite nice. For the first two hours I stayed on pace of 9-9:30 min per 1.12 mile lap, by 10am I had 13 miles in. The heat started to take a toll even though the loop was mostly shaded. I wasn't there to run myself into the ground so I started taking longer aid breaks which involved changing shirts, shorts, socks and shoes. I don't like to run soaked in my own sweat that has no chance of evaporating due to the humidity. At 11:03am I had 19 miles in, still ahead of my planned 6 miles per hour for as long as I could goal. I started feeling the effects of my lack of ultra training in the next hour, coming thru 23 miles at 11:50am and 24 miles at 12:11pm (a 21 min lap,ouch). Looking back at my garmin now I must have taken an extended aid stop on that lap because mile 25 was 9:35 (well rested). I went through the marathon at 4:37 and was not feeling very strong, but I was there to at least run an ULTRA distance so I trudged along determined to make it to 50K. My pace had dropped to 11 - 14 min/mile and by 1pm I had 28 miles in, at 1:41pm I was through the 50K mark. I told myself in those last 3 miles that I would be content with that, but me being the competetive sort I couldn't bring myself to stop with over 2 hours left in the race. I decide to walk it out and by 2pm I had 32 miles in. Then I started to feel better and was run/walking, Mile 35 was done in 9:37, mile 38 in 10:49. A lot of runners had dropped out by this point so the trail was pretty quiet. I finished feeling good being able to walk the last 1/2 mile with Eric.
The end of the race was a bit of a let down as the lap counts for several runners were wrong, and Eric Schotz, the actual winner, was placed in 3rd. We politely disputed the results and by the Thursday after the race we received an e-mail from the race director rectifying the results. Eric's total laps went from 39 to 46 (51.52 miles in 7:49:50) making him the winner and new course record holder.
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