In the week leading up I could hardly wait to pack all the gear. By Wednesday I had everything set aside and ready to go. For the You Yangs 50km I'd picked up a pair of Inov-8 Roclite 295s (the 6mm not 9mm drop version) and they panned out really well for that race, feeling much roomier in the toe box (especially owing to the "endurance fit") and having great traction, even quite reasonable on the rock pools along the beach. I'd also moved away from the Salomon pack due to durability issues and picked up an Ultraspire Omega, with a 12 litre capacity, single front bottle holder, but added flask and more versatile pockets. The rest was fairly standard fare:
- Nike tech shorts and Sphere top.
- Inov-8 Stormshell Elite 150 waterproof jacket with hood - nice and light and breathable.
- Injinji standard weight socks with Inov-8 gaiters.
- Garmin 910XT with HRM and foot pod.
- Petzl Tactikka head lamp.
- Mandatory first aid and space blanket.
For nutrition, I was aiming for 280 calories an hour fueling roughly 60% off perpetuem with a bottle per leg to suit the expected time frame (strawberry, orange, orange, cafe latte) and gels (apple cinnamon and tropical) and a hammer bar to make up the rest. This meant I'd be on almost entirely liquid fuel and hitting the caffeine with the final 22km to go. Since I'd cut out caffeine completely in the week prior, this should have a fair impact. Post run I had the standard protein shake ready to go to help recovery so I would be walking again some time soon. :P
Race day finally arrived after a fairly generous 5 hours of sleep and I was up and going at 4am. Dion, co-founder of SCTR and long time running buddy, was crewing for me on the day and drove me to the event. It was a strange feeling to finally be there, on the day I'd trained for and thought about for a year now. We moved down to the beach with all our gear and lined up ready to go. It had a great atmosphere with all these runners ready to run a leg, the 50, but so many 100km runners as well. I can't even remember the noise that signified the start of the race, but I definitely felt it. Everything felt real, and alive at that moment.
I kept a fairly even pace through that leg and ended up clearing the first half in 4:46, feeling actually pretty good by that stage. After a very welcome, but brief, meeting with the crew again to top up, I headed off nervously to push past my previous longest distance of 55km just after the two big climbs on leg 3, Heartbreak Hill and Hutt Gully. On a walk recovery from the latter I took a photo to Facebook for those following away from the course. From then on the legs just felt pretty good - solid and strong despite the impact that had already been on them. I walked most of the main climbs on leg 3, but ran all the downhill a bit under 5 min/km and made up for it quite well. I hit the end of leg 3 a full hour ahead of schedule feeling fantastic, knowing I could literally walk it in to pick up the goal of sub 12 hours. Since sub 11 was now feasible, I was keen to push on and make the most of the time I'd already made up. The family had recorded a video for me at this point which my awesome crewman Dion had prepped for me and with that spurring me on to the next leg, I set off.
The final leg was time to break out the caffeine with cafe latte Perpetuem and tropical gel. By the time I cleared the Ocean Lookout, headed around Moggs Creek and across to Aireys Inlet I felt a bit spacey from all the caffeine but as it started to settle I felt strong again and kept a solid pace going. By the time I hit the trail after Sunnymead Beach I was feeling okay but keen to get it done. I held out well along there but the slight incline of the previous cliff top run and the endless winding of the trail was incredibly frustrating at that point. I was so happy to finally hit the beach stretch I ran straight into the water to cool my feet. Feeling a little refreshed I put my head down and locked in a pace along the 4km of sand and managed to catch up to a group of relay runners. I paired up with one of them and headed through the last section feeling okay but well and truly spent.
On the final hill I hit a downhill stretch assuming I had covered the main climb and started running but quickly realised it was only half way up. I kept pushing up any way and managed to run to the top and then cruise on down, slowly picking up speed again. Just before the beach I passed another 100km runner who looked completely done at that stage but as I headed along the beach he picked up and caught me and we sprinted together towards the finish. I can't speak for the other guy but I felt like it wasn't competing for the finish line, but pushing each other to pick up and put everything left into a strong finish. He pulled ahead of me on the final stretch but we both sprinted well into the finish line. My wife and daughter were waiting for me at the finish and when I collapsed on the ground after my sprint finish, they came over to help me up. It was all a bit of a blur after that, but as much as everyone was really happy for me and in no way am I ungrateful for all the support, the feeling of having achieved something great and exceeding my own expectations was incredible and after 31 minutes, 10 hours and a year of training, I finally felt relaxed and content.
Looking back over the event there were so many things to take away from it. The gear was great with the shoes holding up beautifully and the layout of the pack brilliant for the nutrition strategy. The top of the bladder in the pack did rub a lot against the top of my back, but stuffing my jacket in there to pad it out not only fixed that but helped the pack sit even better. In terms of nutrition, I never felt weak or lacking in energy and the caffeine option in leg 4 proved to be a huge pick-me-up and I think made at least 30 minutes difference to my time, but more than that it kept my head in a better place moving like that. More than anything I realised that keeping your head in the right place is so critical to an ultra and while pacing well to avoid feeling really crap later on, using the right fueling and knowing the course all really helped, having my little green alien to remind me of the time and support my family had given for this event already and whenever I felt it getting tougher, I held onto it briefly and pushed forward knowing they were with me. Of all the runs I've completed nothing will compare to the feeling of clearing that final hill and being on the downhill stretch to the finish. Even running that same stretch now brings me back to that moment and how amazing it was to have done something that was fairly incomprehensible even to myself.
https://www.strava.com/activities/133638770
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