Ultracentric Race Report

I had lofty goals going into this race, however the race gods were not on my side. It was known going into the 12 hour run that I would have to leave after 9 hours. When I registered for the race there was a 6pm finish time listed on the website, however after booking I noticed the end time had been changed to 9pm. With a 10pm flight at massive DFW I was planning to leave early unless I was having the race of my life.
This however, was definitely not that race.

The course was a 2 mile out and back on pavement in a beautiful park outside of Dallas. Going into the run, the monotony of repeating an out and back was daunting, but I was hoping it would teach me some mental fortitude for the 100 mile. It wasn't as boring as I predicted, however if I ever do a timed race again I will have to choose one with a loop of at least 8 miles to prevent extreme boredom.

So for the interesting part: the race. Mistake #1: right before starting I ate a strange granola bar that looking back, I should not have experimented with in a race. I had major GI issues for the during the race and just felt all around awful. A lot of times when I am going for a run, my stomach or something will feel off for maybe an hour and it goes away. However,during this race if it was not one thing it was another.Different areas of my GI system continued to plague me the entire race. I got dehydrated pretty fast and tried to push fluids and do what I thought I should be doing,instead of listening to how my body was respoding to fluid and calorie intake. Lesson learned.

As I was finishing my last loop, I got a bloody nose, probably because of the cooler temps that I am not acclimated to at the present. This solidified for me that I would leave early in time to make my flight and not miss it on purpose for the race of my life (that I was definitely not having).

But despite the negative undertone of this post,which is sheerly due to my disappointment in failing to meet my personal goal, I got a lot out of this race. I learned to expect the unexpected, and will definitely prepare myself with a variety of different food and drink to eat during the 100 mile run. Because ultimately, some things don't work all the time. I also got an excellent long run in to help me prep for the 100. I feel great today, I am not overly sore. I was able to push through 38 miles despite not feeling too hot from the beginnig of the race. I have a chance to redeem myself next week when I run the Las Vegas Rock N' Roll marathon as well.

I am still an incredibly inexperienced ultrarunner. Most of the people at these races have been running these distances for years. I know that I still have a lot to learn. But I do know one thing, the beauty of running for me, are the days when everything falls into place and feels right. The days that I can run forever. So I'll embrace the not so great days knowing that the good ones happen when we least expect it. I am hoping that a good day comes on January 12th,but if it doesn't that is okay too. So good day or bad, I will run 100 miles in less than two months :)

www.maliacrushescancer.com

Pre-Race Report: Ultracentric 12 hour Run Grapevine,TX

On Thursday I will be heading to Dallas for the Ultracentric 12 hour run so that I can get a decent long run in before the 100 mile run for Malia in January. This race was sort of spur of the moment, as another 50 fell through in early October. My goal is to get 54 miles minimum during the run, however my departing flight is at 10pm Saturday and the race ends at 9pm.When I booked my flight the website said the race ended at 6pm so I thought I would have plenty of time. I anticiate havingto leave after 11.5 hours or so which is fine with me I suppose. This morning I went for a really quick 3mile run to get some turnover on the legs. I will do 6 miles tomorrow and another 3 miles Thursday and have Friday completely off to rest up for Saturday.

I have created an event on facebook for my 100 mile run so everyone should check that out! Also, I noticed on Malia's website that a bunch of people completed an Ironman for her which is amazing,congratulations to all who participated in the race. In the coming weeks I will begin to advertise the run more extensively throughout San Diego to try and get some more people involved. For now, I hope the race goes as smoothly as possible. I hope to remember to not drop my electrolyte pills halfway through the race like I did during the American River 50 which lead to excessive water retention and fingers the size of sausages during the last 10 miles of the race.

I'll have a race report after the race this weekend. Looking forward to running  the Rock'N'Roll Marathon in Vegas in three weeks as well! I have been trying to incorporate more races into the training to decrease the monotony of running miles by myself around San Diego, which I will be doing plenty of come January.

Have a great rest of the week everyone! Thanks for reading and supporting Malia!