I have mostly recovered from the piriformis syndrome that knocked me out during the early spring. In the thick of working through the injury, I barely felt like a runner, so I dropped down to 12 hour day for Tally, because the thought of running 24 hours was overwhelming.
The training went smoothly, although I felt more tired than usual, maybe because I didn't have as much of a mileage base?
I already knew it would be a challenge to go for a mileage PB for 12 hours on the clockwise course, plus the weather forecast wasn't looking great either. Nevertheless, time to try out my goal minimizing rest between loops.
There was no Burly tent, and I didn't bring mine, so I walked around for a bit looking for someone to tent share with, and found Hanna. It was an absolute downpour before the start, and I decided to go with my inov-8 shoes with the fantastic grip, even though they are narrow in the toe box and I haven't worn them for longer than 20K. In the past, my big toe was irritated when I wore those shoes, so I bought toe condoms to cushion.
After 3 loops, I was totally done with those shoes (save for my big toes which felt great) and switched to Topos. That was also when the route change was announced, which included an extra kilometre uphill on the rail trail, but left out the big and extremely muddy hills on Sawmill.
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| "The Swamp" |
Previously, at every timed event, I just ran without any specific plan. This time, I thought I should do the math (1:12/loop for 70K) and debated different ways of tracking this but settled on, race starts at 9, so start loop 2 by 10:12, loop 3 at 11:24, loop 4 at 12:48...
.
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Obviously, I should never try to math while running ever again, because I didn't realize my mistake until 6 loops in. With the course change, my watch was measuring the reroute loop a bit longer, and while I hit 42K in time, I was still 1K out from the start/finish.
The rain and mud made it a pretty easy decision to take a longer break and not bust my ass to the finish. Greg brought me a slushie and did loop 7 with me, his longest run in a year.
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| Step in time. |
I was really considering stopping after 8 loops, but I met a lady (Natalie) who had been in the Gong Show and she reminded me that there was still 1:40 left, plenty of time to do 1 more loop, even if it was only walking. I bumped into Jer as I was finishing loop 8 and asked him to keep me company, he was volunteering at the aid station but sent Robin to pace me instead.
The silver lining of the course reroute was that there was a nice out and back to see people, and then the last km almost entirely downhill to the start/finish. Robin and I picked up the pace at the end, and I finished in 11:55, perfect timing!
