Returned to this race after
missing it the last two years. I'm not injured this year, so I didn't want
to miss it. It is a beautiful course along and around the river.
The family came along this time,
which was cool We got a hotel in Greenville, SC, which is about an hour
and a few minutes from the race. I left them sleeping at 5AM and headed
out for the mountains. It was a perfect morning, if not a little chilly.
I really had not trained for long distances since I did the
marathon in March, so I just wanted to finish today. I am not in the best
of shape, so I thought maybe 7-8 hrs. Plus my feet never seem to hold up
for these distances. The goal was just to get out there to see what
happened.
The first 3+ drop about 1100 feet and then you turn around and
climb back up. It is a good way to wake up the cardiovascular system.
I didn't want to take it too hard like I did in 2010. I stayed
behind people who i thought were at a decent prudent pace.
After that section, there is a 10+ mile section without any aid
station. Of course I should have taken both of my water bottles, but I
didn't. It wasn't too hot so it wasn't a huge deal, just not as much
liquid available as I would have liked. I stayed behind one of the other
runners for a while, until I had to stop to collect my heart rate. I lost
a few spots here but wasn’t too concerned about that. I really enjoyed
the section by the river. It is very run-able and is quite beautiful with
all of the waterfalls and such.
After the aid station there is about 2 miles mostly downhill and
then you turn around and run back up to the aid station. Once you hit
that, you have about 11 or so to the finish without aid. Luckily some
saint set out a Gatorade bucket at the road, with a mile to go. It was a
great way to spend the last hill climb/decent.
I finished in 6:45:xx according to my watch. It was within a
minute of the time in 2010 which is really encouraging.
I fought the concept of quitting a lot in the first 12 or so
miles. I wasn't hurting or anything. I think it was just part of
the lazy me that I needed to face. So I just motored on as best as I
could, doing the run walk thing as needed. I think I hit 15 or 16 at 3 hrs
and then slowed down a little after that, as expected.
I felt mostly good at the end. I was tired and started
cramping in my calves but other than that, I wasn't totally wiped out, like I
normally am at the end of a 50k. And for whatever reason, I never really
reached that point of total despair. Usually in one of these long races I
feel like just sitting down and not moving. This time it was hard, but it
never felt hopeless. Maybe having my GPS watch this time helped put a
concrete number of miles to go on the seemingly endless trail.
After I drove back to the city we walked around Greenville that
night and the next day before heading back to Atlanta. It turns out that Greenville has
quite a fun little downtown area.
The biggest plus this year was that the soreness was much less
than years past. I'm not sure if it was because of my running strategy,
wearing my regular running shoes, or that I'm in awesome shape ( :) ).
I usually can't run or do anything normally for several days after a long
race, but I was able to run very normally yesterday (Monday) and today.
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