So I have not posted in quite a bit. Looking back it seems like in April I was talking about base building. Where has the year gone! Well, with a lot of lock downs in place I continued plugging away with virtual challenges, including cycling the coast line of Nova Scotia. I dabbled in a little trail running as well, as I did a small training block in May and June to do a birthday run of a 32 km trail run local to me. With that big block done and no real goals on the horizon, I looked at what was coming up in the Fall.
Many events were still on hold or changed enough that I personally wasn't interested in attending (though more power to events that felt they could do things safely). I saw that the Valley Harvest Marathon Weekend was a go, and since they managed to hold an event safely last year, I felt it was reasonable they could do so again. But I was not interested in another Half right now and the Marathon isn't something that gets me super excited. That left the Road Ultra Marathon 50K. It seemed like an interesting challenge. It was something I knew I could do, but could I do it to the best of my ability, and could I devise a training plan that would get me there injury free and ready to race.
Thus began a summer of training. I opted to treat this event like a marathon as far as training goes. While yes, it is 8 km extra in length, for me, it was still an event that should be less than 4 hours in duration. That fits well into my standard marathon training mindset when I am devising plans for other runners. Now this plan worked for me, but wouldn't be the same for everyone for sure.
I am a lower mileage runner in training in general and rely on cross training for lot of extra fitness. Still, I was topping out in the mid to high 80km range in my biggest weeks and was generally in the 70km range a lot. Visits to my maintenance staff at Seaside Chiropractic (thanks Alan and Dan) were also key to staying healthy.
Finally race day arrived and was I ever ready for it to get going.
The morning was cold and dark. I ate a small breakfast and then we got in the car and drove to Wolfville, arriving super early but in a relaxed manner. As the sun came up, we took to the start line. I was super cold (it was 2C) but knew it would be warming up as the sun came out.
The Ultra and Full Marathon start together so it was a good sized crowd. Soon we were off, and I tucked in behind a few of the top marathoners there as their pace seemed about where I wanted to be at that point.
I had a few goals set, as this was a big race. Hit any of those goals and I would be happy, hit multiple and I would be very happy. I trusted my training, and I knew that my goals were lofty but very doable. Goal 1 was to run a faster pace than my previous best marathon pace, which was a 4:19min/km. Second was to run the marathon portion (first 42.2 km) in under 3 hours, and if those things happened I had a good shot at beating the previous Valley Ultra record of 3:32:32. As always, you hope this leads to wins or high placings, but you can't control who shows up, just what you can achieve.
I had based my training around running a 4:10-4:15 pace (4:15 being just under 3 hours for the marathon). So with this in mind, I started out at about a 4:10 pace, letting the terrain dictate ultimate speed. A little slow on the ups and a little faster on the downs.
This year the Ultra was now 2 loops of 25km. This is the Half Marathon course twice plus an extra out and back. It is slightly less vertical gain than the previous course but neither were cray hilly for an ultra. This year it was a total gain of 338m but the hills are generally all very runnable.
Water stops were approximately 3.5 km apart and alternated with water and water and Gatorade. I prefer drinking Nuun, but opted for course nutrition to simplify my life. I carried 4 Maurten gels with me for my main calories.
When we finally reached the turnaround for the Marathoners, I could finally see how many runners ahead of me were in my race, and it was just a single guy and well, he had a good lead on me. I waved goodbye to my running partners as they headed off to finish loop one of the marathon and proceeded to climb what was the biggest hill on the course.
As I approached the turn around the leader was coming back and I would guess had about a 1 km lead on me, maybe a little less, by this point. But I was actually slightly ahead of my goal pace, so I stayed the course. I watched for the runners behind me, and finally saw 3-5 running about 1 km or so behind me. I felt like I had a good cushion.
After the turn around the course is very downhill and I took advantage of it. I made sure not to push too hard and just run a little faster than goal pace going down. I still had a lot of running to do and I had to save me legs. By about the 18km point, I came across a big group of BLT Runners who came out to cheer us runners on, it was a real pick me up. Sure I was still feeling good, but ultimately any boost to your spirits in a long race just takes a little of the pain.
By now I was mingling with the marathoners and half marathoners again and some 10k runners as well. The course is quite wide though and this wasn't a big issue. As well, I was not pushing to my limits, so had plenty of time to adjust my course as I passed people.
Soon, I was on the small 2km section of gravel trail that leads to the finish line or the start of lap two. Honestly, it is not that hilly but just sucked the energy out of your legs and was worse than the biggest hills. Luckily it was short and we started up lap two. My current average pace was 4:08.
I knew that pace would fall, I had no illusions I could sustain that for another 25 km. I had a good cushion though and still felt relatively strong. So back we went again on the same hills.
The one tricky part of this course is that the road has a good crown to it. So it is not very even. Luckily there is little traffic, so it is fairly easy to run closer to the centre line in many areas to limit the pain of running on an uneven surface.
I was once again passing runners from the marathon, but the crowd was very slim now. Some runners I knew and if possible I tried to wave encouragement. The volunteers were all awesome and cheered as any one ran by, and that helped a lot.
As I ran past the Marathon turning point and headed for the Ultra turning point, I was watching my average pace. I was still at a 4:10 pace. The big hill loomed. I made it up and continued on. The leader was now a good 2 km in front of me and we waved to each other as he passed going back.
I was now approaching goal one, the full marathon distance. I watched my Garmin and as it ticked over to 42.2km I hit the lap button to save that. My average pace was 4:11 now and my time 2:57. Goal successful, a sub 3 hour marathon. Now I just needed to get home.
I'd love to say that it was all downhill from here (I mean in all reality it was mostly downhill) but now my legs started to go. Sure there had been some aches along the way but mostly the aches would come and go. Now that came and stayed. The quads started to yell and that yelling didn't get any quieter. The downhills let me basically stay at goal pace, but the little uphills were tough and I had some slow splits. The final two water stops, I actually walked for the 20-30 m to get a good drink in before starting back up. I think it was worth it.
Then the final 2km. The trail. Oh it was painful. The soft loose gravel, trying to hold a good pace, not quite remembering where the end was. It felt like I was crawling though really my pace was fine, not great but fine.
It seemed to be the longest stretch of the race until I finally could see there turn to the track and the finish line. I pushed hard as I hit the track and finished strong.
I pushed hard enough that after finishing my quads said, "All Done" and I kneeled down on the track. Yes, I got back up right away. I wasn't inujured, just spent. That was tough. I corssed the line with an average pace of 4:15 (goal), beating the previous course record of 3:32:32 by 30 seconds with a 3:32:01 finishing time (goal). I ended up in second place by 14 minutes as Ethan was a beast and crushed it with an average pace of 3:59!
It is amazing how quickly the spirits come back though. The other BLT Runners were there to give me cheer, I got some congrats from other racers, Elizabeth had finished her race and was there for support as well (as always). So it was time to go grab some snacks (it is so hard to eat after a tough run, but there were some good options).
So there it was. Three goals, all achieved. I didn't win, but I did win my age group and did break the old course record, I just did it second, ha ha.
Huge thanks to Elizabeth for the support while I took on the training for this. Craig for running with me sometimes and forcing me to do some extra hard workouts I hadn't always planned to. Thanks to Aerobics First (Luke and Matthias especially) for indulging me as I worked to find the race shoe for me (I fell in love with the On Cloudflow). Thanks to Jacquelynn for driving us to the race.
Thanks to Nuun and Balega Socks for picking me to be an Ambassador for their awesome products. I wore the Balega Enduro Socks for this race and many of my big training runs. Oh and a shout out to local company Anchor Soap who make the best chafe cream available. I put that on 2 hours before the race and had no issues.
Thanks to Stacy, Craig, and Beth for the race photos as well.
It was great seeing some of the people I was coaching out and running as well and even running by them. Looped courses can be a good and bad thing, but ultimately it was good this day.
Now to recover and see what is next.
