It wasn't pretty, but I finished. And I'm happy with my performance, especially given the conditions. I went in thinking a 10 hour finish was unlikely, but possible, and that coming in less than 12 hours would make me happy. So, I'm happy.
44th out of 142 (99 of whom finished), and 35th out of 99 men. Those finishing numbers might change, as I'll explain below. EDIT: Changes made, now that the timing issue has been resolved.
The course is a somewhat challenging 20 km loop. From what I can tell, that would work out to 12.43 miles, but they are calling 4 loops 50 miles, so I won't argue the point. Still, my Garmin tells me I ran 48.65 miles, so I don't think it's quite as long as they say. But again, I'm not complaining.
So, 4 loops. That worked out to an elevation gain of 5,558 feet. As I didn't do enough of my training on the trails (due to snow), my legs took a real pounding.
As predicted, the temperatures were a reasonable 12C/53F at the 6am start and got up to about 22C/72F, with significant humidity. And 2 thunderstorms. And LOTS of rain. And mud. I'll return to the mud (reluctantly) in a bit.
First loop: Just going with the crowd. Steady pace. Walking up all the hills. 30 minutes in, the rain starts. 30 minutes more, and the rolling thunder makes itself heard. It just got louder and louder, and the rain fell harder and harder.
Second loop: Starting to feel tightness/pain in the groin. I think it's from the slipping of the feet to the side. The trail is a river of mud now. No avoiding it. The focus is on keeping the mud below the knees. I failed about halfway in when I fall the first time. Not hard, but what a mess! Now the water is just gushing down the hills, so it's tricky with the footing on both the uphills and downhills. Most of the flats too, actually. Towards the end, my quads are screaming. I'll have to remember to take some ibuprofin at my drop.
Third loop: The rain stopped towards the end of the second loop. The sun came out. It's really humid now. I changed shirts at the drop. But I forgot to take the ibuprofin. It's too late now ... I'll have to suck it up this lap. What a mess out here! In many places, the mud is past ankle deep. I fall again! Goof. Harder this time, but I don't think I hurt anything. Of course, I hurt pretty much everywhere now: both hips, groin, left knee, hamstrings. All of them are screaming at me. Walking up the hills is not too bad, but running is agonizing. Towards the end, I can no longer run downhill, and end up walking down a 3/4 mile slope where you usually make up a lot of time. I don't know if I want to finish. Just kidding - I do!
Fourth loop: Remembered the ibuprofin! Changed shirts again. No sense changing shoes or socks. The pills help - at least they take the edge off. I don't recall ever taking those in a race before. But now I can run the downhills again. Not too many people left on the course. The shorter distances are mostly finished. Just us 50 milers and the 100 milers still out here. Amazingly, only 15 of 51 will finish the 100 miles. Well, maybe not so amazingly on a day like this. So I'm mostly alone this lap. But I'm confident in my finish, and quite emotional when I do. It was a tough race, but I did it!
So, I just got home a little while ago - took a couple of days in Toronto after the race. And, to my dismay, I noticed my results showed a completion of just 3 laps. The time was correct, but 3 laps?!? Thinking I messed up somehow, I downloaded my Garmin data ... nope - I DID FOUR LAPS!!!
So, I e-mailed the timing company and got an almost instant response from the owner. Due to the extreme weather, a few timing chips malfunctioned and did not record a lap. They promised to update the results later today (they haven't yet - I'll report here when they do). EDIT: It has all been resolved; my results are official and correct. It's not that it matters to anything - I know what I did - but it still bugs me. What's funny too, is the day before the race, we all got an e-mail from the organizers telling us we would have to wear ankle bracelets in addition to the bib timers because of the extreme weather predicted. Go figure - even with the 2 chips, I had a malfunction.
Officially, I ran a pace of 12:44. According to my Garmin, I ran a slower 13:06. I'm guessing my Garmin is more accurate, due to the slightly shortened course. But I'm SO happy they didn't have a surprise mile tacked on at the end!
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