Notes
My goal for this was 200k in 20 hours. My plan was to eat/drink something every 20 minutes (after the first hour) and run fast(er) for one lap on the half hours. My food/drink options were Maurten w/ endurolytes powder, Gatorade, Tailwind (race provided drink), Vespa, Gu gel, and turkey/swiss/avocado wraps. I had a few other food options as well as caffeine and electrolyte pills.
The race started at noon. Stella was there off and on for the first afternoon/evening as well as for the last few hours, and Dad came a little after 4am on day 2.
The first 17 hours went pretty well. I lost time for bathroom breaks, and slowed a bit (from 2:30s/lap for the first 14 hours to 2:40s/lap for hour 15, 2:50s for 16, and 3:00s for 17). I was not feeling great for hours 9-10 but took a caffeine pill at 10 which perked me up for the next few hours. I took another caffeine pill at 2AM (14 hour mark) which unfortunately seemed to do nothing. Also, at 2AM I felt a twinge/tweak on my right side which made running more painful. My stride was more of a shuffle the whole time - fairly straight-legged with a pronounced forward lean rather than a typical running motion. I did run fast(er) at 30 minutes past for the first 17 hours (fastest was a 1:39 lap, 5:59 mile pace, at 6:30). Even at 14:30 I managed a 2:20, 2:31 at 15:30, and 2:48 for 16:30).
For hours 17-21 I was still running, with each lap now in the 3s. After sitting for a poop break during lap 409 (112 miles, 17:50) it was hard to get the legs moving through the soreness, but I kept pushing. At 19:55 I crossed 122.5 miles and thought I had hit 200k (they did not list km on the screens on the track). But my math skills were lacking after so many miles and being up all night, and I missed my goal by about 25 minutes.
Around hour 21 I started feeling lightheaded, at which point I heeded my promise to Stella "I promise I won't die from this" and mainly walked the rest of the way. My goal at this point was to just keep going and cross 131 miles (second male).
I ended up with 135.57 miles. After I finished another guy (Jeff) came to pick up his bib (he did the Friday race) and decided to use my table for his race. His goal was qualifying for the US team (145+ miles; 6th highest was 149 so he wanted 150+). He ended up running 151 and knocking me down to 3rd place.
Some things learned:
1. Don't do this again. It's fun, but also very painful. Especially don't do this in the midst of moving while selling a house when Stella is headed back to grad school in two weeks.
2. Stay on schedule. I stopped taking vespa after 16 or 18 hours, and I didn't take a third caffeine pill at 6AM as I had planned. Not sure if that would have helped with the lightheadedness, but it might have.
3. Don't try to go too slow, and don't worry about going too fast. Just run at an easy pace.
4. Picking up the pace on the 30s worked great. Used different muscles, gave me something to look forward to, etc.
5. For training, the top factors are your fitness and time on your feet. Get into 2:30s marathon shape on 120 miles/week. That's more important than individual long runs or even having high mileage solely from easy runs. I did 84k in 8 hours as a training run and recovered to near 100% quickly but it took a long time (~5 weeks) to recover to 100%.
Overall I recovered much better physically from this than last year. I was walking okay by Saturday (race ended Thursday) and felt I could have run on Sunday. I had no problem egoing to work Monday/Tuesday. And I did a ton of stairs with moving stuff on Saturday and Sunday. Mentally I had more effects than last year, though nothing serious. I did have a big blister on my inner right toe (despite covering that area with athletic tape), but that healed quickly.
Intermediate Splits (I think these are 'official' in that I could use them as qualifiers elsewhere)
Marathon - 3:58:51
50k - 4:42:02
50 mile - 7:34:36
100k - 9:27:38
100 mile - 15:27:45
200k - 20:23:19