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Donadea 50k, finish time 4:50:48
When I entered Donadea last year, the sole purpose was to keep me honest over the winter and to try something new. I'm a lazy sod at heart and I need a target race to keep me focused, so I googled a 50k plan and off I went.
14 weeks later, I arrive in the lovely setting of Donadea forest, where the rain had cleared off. I was pretty relaxed before the race, usually the butterflies are dancing in the tummy but I didn't feel nervous at all today. Because of the 5k loops, I figured if it went pear shaped I was only a few miles from the car, I think that helped.
Headed off with CL and Marthastew, but soon realised I wasn’t going to be able to stick to their pace so I eased off. I was aiming for 9:09 pace, that wasn't straightforward, the first half of the 5k loop is slower, it has a few little uphill drags. Not that you could call them hills but they were by the time I got to the last few laps. The 2nd half of the loop is quicker, so you make up what you lost in the first half.
The first 20 miles or so were uneventful, the odd chat with a runner, but for most of it I was running on my own. My one worry before the race was the amount of times I would be lapped, I thought this might be a bit grim. It wasn't a problem at all, almost all of them gave me a word (or a grunt) of encouragement as they passed.
By mile 23 it was starting to hurt, my pace was dropping. It got progressively worse as each mile went on, my legs were tiring badly. I passed the marathon distance without even realising it, but somewhere around this time I took the first of many walk breaks. I really didn’t want to walk, cause its so hard to get going again but in the end I had no choice.
I probably made a mistake with nutrition , I took gels at mile 5, 10 & 15, along with an energy/ electrolyte drink and some water along the way. Picked up a nakd bar at mile 19 but felt a bit queasy so didn’t eat it. I didn’t take on any more gels either, I just couldn’t stomach them, instead I relied on the energy drink.
My splits tell the story, pace was 9:06 up to mile 23, then dropped to 9:30 for the next 3 miles. With the walk breaks, the last 6 miles were done at 10:29 pace. The last lap was like a scene from the living dead, a lot of runners out there at that stage were doing the survival shuffle, along with a mixture of hobbling and walking. Finally I got to the end, lots of lovely cake around at the finish line but the tummy was still rough and I couldn’t eat any (this was the biggest disappointment of the day
)
I am probably making today sound worse than it was, I never once thought about not finishing and overall it was a great experience, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Plenty to think about in terms of doing the ultra in Conn, the reality of almost 5 hours on my feet hit home today, not too sure if I could manage 6.5 or 7 hours of it. Plenty of time to ponder on that. For now, I'm just going to focus on recovery for the next week, then just see how the legs are after that.0 -
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Well done again DJ - your report sounds a little like mine with the stomach issues. Couldn't stomach much at the finish line myself until Mr. Stew pulled out rice crispie treats.
What gels were you using? I'm wondering if it's the fact a couple of my gels had caffeine in them thats causing me problems.0 -
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