The official times are now posted from my race last weekend. 

 

I finished the 60K Ultramarathon (37.2 miles) in 5:08:30 for an 8:17 pace.  My third time running this race, and a massive 40 minute PR.

 

It's a 1.5 mile out and back start, then 9 loops of the 4 mile loop around Central Park.  That gets kinda boring but I got to see my wife every 30 minutes so that helped a lot.  She has crewed this for me for the last 3 years and does an awesome job!

 

I decided to try a new technique since I was not really going for any time goal, other than to beat my previous best, which I felt was easily doable since I had a huge marathon PR at the beginning of this month.

 

My plan (which worked) was to run at a comfortable 7:45- 7:50 pace and then walk every main aid station where my wife was (there are two aid stations on this course since it is a 4 mile loop, the main one on the East Side has food and drinks and my wife, the smaller aid station on the West Side just has drinks).   So, I kept a solid pace and walked for a little under 2 minutes each loop. 

 

2 Minutes felt like a really long time, especially in the early miles since my body did not "need" to walk, but it did feel nice and each time I started off kicking back into gear and then spending the next loop brining my average pace back down to account for the time lost walking.

 

In the past, once I got beyond the marathon point, I started to crumble.  Eventually wondering how I'd finish and hating every minute. Last year I felt bad at mile 14!!! 

This year, MUCH better trainined, I hit mile 14 in the blink of an eye, pulled into mile 20 feeling like it was mile 5, hit the marathon mark at my second best marathon time and hit mile 30 feeling so fresh I was worried I might be going crazy!   Then only 7 reasonably easy miles to go!

 

I never "had" to walk, meaning, I did walk every 4 miles as planned, but on the rest of the loop I just kept going, knowing I just needed a few more miles till I was able to walk again and this really helped keep my spirits up, and my time consistent for most of the loops.   My loops were as follows:

 

First out and back 1.5 mile:  11:41

Loop 1:    32:10

Loop 2:    31:17

Loop 3:    31:16

Loop 4:    31:05

Loop 5     31:04

Loop 6:    30:29

Loop 7:    34:49

Loop 8:    36:50

Loop 9:    37:58

 

The 8th loop I think I walked a little longer, probably 3 minutes but that was because my wife had my brother on the phone and he wanted to give me some words of encouragement for the last loop.  Plus, I just wanted to walk a little longer that time ;-)  --this actually affects the 9th loop's time, make sense?

 

Aside from a slightly tweaked left ankle, I feel fine.  I ran it at a slower pace than the NYC marathon so it did not take the same kind of toll on my body.  Took me a week to recover from NYC but I think I’ll be fine by Wednesday from this one.

I finished 16^th out of 187.  Next year I’ll shoot for sub 5 hours.

ha, is this REALLY that uninteresting to people on this board!?  I can't possibly be the only one who runs ultras!

 Next time try posting under racing.

Great job on the PR! You beat me by about 7 minutes, so I'm sure that we must have seen each other a few times during the day . 

Great job on the PR! You beat me by about 7 minutes, so I'm sure that we must have seen each other a few times during the day . 

 

 

No kidding, what were you wearing?  We probably did see each other!  Small world!  And, great time btw!