Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Vermont 50 Muddier than Finger Lakes Fifties?

1/2 mile from the last aid station (Mile 47)

in short....maybe. I think that the mud at the Finger Lakes was deeper and sloppier, but the mud in Vermont this past weekend went on for more miles. Either way, they both made for very tough running conditions. I passed hundreds of mountain bikers.

A very brief race report will follow (don't have too much time to write about running as my Masters defense is in 6 days and I just landed in San Diego for the WAIS Divide Science Meeting). I did finish the race, with a decent time of 10hrs 39minutes (5 minutes short of a PR). At the 25 mile mark, I was on pace to finish in under 10 hrs, and then it all fell apart. The second half of the course was awful.

For some reason the official results posted on Vermont50.com do not have me listed and I've been emailing them trying to get this error corrected. I missed PR'ing by 5 minutes....which is quite amazing to me since this course had about 5000 more feet of elevation gain than Finger Lakes and was just as muddy. I had fun, and that's what was important. (Although I did manage to run 49.5 miles without falling or wiping out, and within sight of the finish line biffed hard...muddied myself up real good - murphy's law i guess).

This was my last Ultra of 2009 (although not necessarily "race" of 2009 as I might throw in a 5k or something before Antarctica) It's good to say that. I need a break from my year of ultrarunning.



Mile 31 Aid Station
Using the Gutter overflow to "shower off" in.

1 comment:

Eliza Ralph-Murphy said...

You have to be really dirty to look at a muddy water hole as a place to clean up in. Great Job on your second muddy 50 of the year. With all of these Ultras it will be interesting to see how you do on your 5km. I will bet that you PR. sub 20:)