6:15a start in Brown County at Mike's Dance Barn (really an open field next to Brown County State Park). Fueling plan: Carried a fuel belt with 10 gels and dropped my 3 prepared SAG station care packages for myself - a bottle of light gatorade mixed with water with 2 gels taped to them. Lessons learned on this to come when I update this with full entry with GPS data.
50.03 mi. GPSed - 9:33:43 for a 5th (or 6th) place finish. I was delirious from about mile 42 through 50, so I think I got passed in the last 0.25 mi. by the first place female... more to come.
DWD 50 Miler
The course goes out about 5miles from the start line to a loop that's about 20 miles around Brown County State Park. A lot of mud, water and up and down, though its mostly covered beautiful forest, so not much exposure. There was a steady downpour during the first half of the race that felt amazing!! I wouldn't say it got hot, but it was enough to need to stay on top of hydration.
I had to switch watches with one of the Quaff guys since my 410 does not have enough battery life. See link above - there's a lot of data! :) I did not dip under 11 minute pace after mile 28. After mile 38, I was walking about 0.5 of every mile.
6666 feet of climbing. Looks like I dipped into the 14 minute range after 38 miles. I remember this point of the day - I was in desperate need of fluids with the next aid station 2 more miles away. Once I had downed a bunch of fluids and calories there, I felt like I could continue. So, with the amount of calories that you HAVE TO take in throughout the day, it also becomes a struggle to not get the side stitches. This became the story of the rest of the day - make it to the next aid station and work through the side/gut stitches that come with eating solid food while trying to run. It was like a car running on fumes in to the next gas station. Refuel, run okay for a couple of miles and then back down to low point or deep breathing trying to get rid of side stitches.
At this point, I am def. going to say this is my first and last "effort" of this distance! Very hard. My hat is off to the people that do these things (and longer) on a regular basis - it is a different level of toughness!!
I'm not really sure how long this will take to completely recover from...
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