Good: Organization and crew. Mom I think was a little nervous as she has never really crewed my races or been at my big trail races but she and my cousin Elane did a WONDERFUL job of keeping me fed, happy, and dressed properly. Mom and I spent a day with all of my gear spread out figuring out the most logical way to organize that made sense to us. We only misplaced one thing (my watch charging cord) but after a brief minute or two of searching, mom remembered where it was. Next time we will make sure it's in the crew box. Even though the main aid station was less than 100 feet away from our crew tent, Mom cooked me broth and made me nutella tortillas to consume. She also quickly spread my honey stinger waffles out in the sun, as the first two I tried to eat were frozen and hard as rocks. She also was good about helping me find any hot spots and lubing those up. She also had my bottles pre filled according to what I thought I might want the next loop, and her and Elane quickly filled my packs. I was probably only at her aid station for a few minutes at a time and that was good practice for when I do a race with cutoffs. I think i probably was only grumpy runner once when they were all videoing me instead of taking my pack from me as I ran in. Mom got some of that on tape:)
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| note: not food I got to eat, food my crew ate at the Friendsgiving dinner |
Good: Nutrition. I liked my plan and honestly I think it would have continued to work if I had been running longer. I think my brain knew I only had a a little over an hour to go, so technically i didn't need to force anything down. If you didn't read my recap, I ate something small every 30 minutes. I broke my Honey stinger waffles into halves and ate a half every 30 minutes plus every time I hit the aid station going into the 4.5 mile loop and the crew tent, I ate something as well. I also carried Tailwind every other loop and tried to get through each bottle during that time. I didn't have any teeth sensitivity issues this time, but I think in the future I will brush with sensitive toothpaste the week before the race and also bring a toothbrush/toothpaste to the race just in case.
Good: Pace. I think most of my 6.5 mile loops took me around 1 hour 45 minutes. I had one loop that went a bit long because I paused for blister prevention, and then I had one loop where I pretty much power walked as fast as I could the entire loop. I will being doing a race with a cut off next, so I will have to maintain a certain pace the entire time The good news, it is not technical and while hilly, it's all gravel roads and I can do my 4 minute run 1 minute walk and try to do a better job of pacing. The technical part of the race was right at the beginning and end was tough mentally for me and I will be happy to not have technical as part of the equation.
Bad: I got my first really big blister during the race which we did attack quickly, but also resulted in a new very big puffy fluid filled blister. I am very glad the RD took the time to tape me up as I truly felt that the original one could have affected my race negatively. I have NO clue why suddenly the shoe and sock model that i have worn for multiple training cycles caused blisters, but they did. The trail was technical at the beginning and the end, but mostly nice runnable trail.
Ugly: My right big toe looks horrendous. I have NEVER lost a toe nail due to a race, so again I am stumped. I don't remember a specific incident that cause my toe to start hurting, but towards the end, I was sure my toe nail was off of my toe and poking me in said toe. When we took my sock off post race, the toe nail was still attached but the nail bed was and is severely bruised and swollen. Time will tell if the nail will fall off but I think it probably will. I just need it to heal so I can wear shoes and socks again because it is winter.
Once again mostly if not all good for this race. I had prayed for an injury free training cycle and an injury free race and my prayers have been answered. Honestly, for my next 50 miler, I am not going to change anything. The next one will be a bit different with the loop being 25 miles versus 6, but there will be 5 aid stations on each loop and I have already told mom she has to help crew me and that Tony can drive her to the crew points. We will have to figure out how to do broth on the go, but other than that I think we have a good idea of what we need to do. Excited to have some down time before starting to run again and excited to try a different training plan with slightly lower mileage. Onward and upward and more good, good, good!
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