So... this blog post is coming very late, but oh well... let's jump right into it!!
On April 2nd of 2016 I ran my 7th consecutive American River 50 miler. Back in 2010 this was the very first 50 miler that I had ever ran, and I've done this race every year ever since. This race takes place close to my birthday, so I like to do this event every year.
I had big goals this year. I really wanted to finish in 8 hours and 30 mins this year. This would cut about 20 mins of my best time at this event.
I felt that my training was pretty good prior to the event. I was getting in some good long runs, I was cross training regularly, and my rib was finally healed. My weight wasn't quite where I wanted it, but it was close enough. I wasn't back down to 175 pounds (the weight that I like to run ultras) but it wasn't so much over 175 pounds that it made a huge impact on my run.
I was feeling pretty good for the first 25 miles of the run. My goal was to get the first half of the race done in about 4 hours. When I hit the mile 25 mark I was only 10 mins behind the my goal of 4 hours. It didn't feel like that big of a deal at the time, because I really enjoy the second half of this race and was wanting to try to push the pace the best that I could.
After mile 30, the course started getting to me. My pace kept falling back more and more. I expected this to happen, especially in the Meat Grinder section of the course. When I hit mile 37 I was about 6 hours and 30 mins into the race. At this time I figured that I would have to run a 2 hour trail half marathon, and on fresh legs that's a goal I would totally try to nail... but I was 37 miles into a run and had been running for 6 hours and 30 mins into my run already.
At this point I knew I was going to fall short (very short) of my goal. The last thing I wanted to do was just lay back and feel defeated about not hitting a time goal, so I did my best to keep running as best as I could. Unfortunately as I ran past mile 40 I started feeling more and more exhausted. My legs were feeling super heavy and the desire to run really wasn't there.
During the later miles I felt like my legs just weren't there. They felt like heavy bricks. When I would try to run they just wouldn't move. Looking back on my training, I realized that I didn't do a whole lot of speed work during the last 6 weeks leading up to the race. I think this was a huge mistake on my part. My lack of speed work left my legs had no turnover during the important later miles of the race.
At the end of the day I finished the 50 miles in 10 hours and 35 mins. This was a good 2 hours longer that I wanted to take.
The weeks after AR50 I was able to reflect a lot about what went right and what went wrong at the event. I took almost all of April off from any hard running and made it a point to just run with some friends and have fun on the trails.
I have my next race this coming July and just started for it earlier this week. I'm excited to make some adjustments to my training and have a solid run at this July's Dirty Dozen 12 hour race.
Until next time...
KEEP RUNNING!!!!
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