After 13 weeks of training, changes, wins and challenges, my week culminated in my first ever running 'ultra-marathon'. This is a landmark stepping stone for me and an important distance at 50km for me to get under my belt on my way from going 0-100km in 5 months! I had a less than optimal run-in to this task with my back issues causing me to cut back my miles dramatically in my last two weeks leading up to this point. But managed to get around the 52km route in a sensible time. The run was made slower and harder by the conditions and a leg injury (I talk about this in my last post in detail), but managed to still jog the downhills and the flats for almost all of the route. It was not fast. It was not pretty, but I did it! My watch battery gave out at the 49Km mark, which I was pretty pissed about, because I hadn't adjusted the battery settings for an endurance distance. This means the record on my stats is incomplete by 2km; however, it gives a good marker for progress.
The week was light, and I did A LOT of rehab work to ease my back off in time for the run, and I'm very glad I did as my back went well throughout the whole ultra.
The week looked like this:
Monday - Rehab
Tuesday - Very light 3km run just to keep legs working
Wednesday - Rehab
Thursday - Rehab
Friday - Work
Saturday - 52km Ultra Run (though watch lasted to 49.4)
Sunday - Sofa
You can see from the route-map that last chunk missing just as i was completing the full circle to my starting point.
I ran the course entirely solo, except for the first 1km where I did a walking warm-up with my two friends who were doing the full route as a speed-hike as part of their training for the same 100k route we tackle in May.
This was an interesting guide as both are fast walkers over distance. I ended up almost 7km ahead over the 52km (even being slowed up with the injury I carried all the way from 27km). That put me about 90 minutes quicker. This gives me an estimate over 100km of 26hours right now. Faster than the 27hours I should be doing it, and slower than the 24hours I'd like to achieve.
I need to get faster for longer. I kept rest stops short as was feasible, and maybe running solo meant i had no measure of pace. The injury definitely slowed up my last 25km pace. This pace is about 25% faster than what I achieved when hiking the same 100km route two years ago. I'm doing my best not to focus on time, as I need to make sure I don't go too fast and burn out. But when you are measuring all the stuff I am, it does need to be a yardstick for progress.
On the food/fuel/energy side of things there was both good and not-so-good. The carbs on the run helped well. I didn't really feel tired or depleted at all until near the end. The problem was I didn't ease into carb loading. Just 24hrs before and 'Bam!' carbs. All the things I'd been missing. This did not play well with my stomach at all. Lesson learned here.
Carbs also mean more water weight. I'd already hit a plateau on weight loss the week before. Now it has been a full reversal and having to kick in the fat adapting again. My hope is it will be quicker than before and should be back to ketosis by the weekend.
Fat loss progress
Starting Weight: 112kg
Wk 13 Weigh-in: 100Kg!
Weight Lost = 12kg 91 days
Remaining weight to lose = 10Kg
Time left before the 100km - 6 weeks
The clock is ticking. I'm pretty sure that I'll come in short of my 90kg target. I'm doing my best to stay positive about it and make peace with it. I think It'll end up be around the 93-95kg region. Still a great result! However, I dislike missing my targets.
Fasted runs await. And, as soon as I am back in ketosis, I'm looking at a fasting day as well. My hope is that the 3 days of carbs and crap I ate will mix the body up and that my system will reward me with some good gains over the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted as to how that goes...
Thanks for reading.
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