Well thanks for fleshing this one out, and sharing a healthy dose of humility. Stop the presses, Jay is human! No advice from me obv., but you have certainly not done anything to entice me to to leave the warm embrace of my asphalt security blanket. Nonetheless I applaud your bravery in continually pushing yourself outside your comfort zone; you can't win them all on your first try. Although wouldn't have surprised me if you did. I'm sure if you set your mind to it, you can be a world-beater at trail ultras along with everything else.
Dave
It's my guess that road running really does not transition at all, and to do well I'd have had to spend far more time on similar terrain.
Not that I am in any way qualified to speak on ultra events, but my totally Captain Obvious observation is that them cats are cut from a different cloth than road runners. Mentally, they are on a completely different level than their pavement pounding peers.
Our dark place is 3 or 4 miles in the latter stages of a marathon. Their dark place is 3 or 4 hours, sometimes more. And get this; it takes them hours to get there! I lack the desire to subject myself to that, but admire and respect those who do. Even more so those who excel at it.
Kudos to you for giving it a shot. You obviously have the physical skills, the mental aspect is where you need work. I suppose you get that running long for hours upon hours, upon hours, upon hours on trails. And that is just your weekday runs!
Skirt Runner
Sorry you had such a rough time. You finished though....and I know you're not the "finishing is winning" type of runner, but there is something to be said to going way outside your comfort zone on this and trying something new, different, and challenging with your running.....and look how many DNFs are listed! You really did a great job!
I got really excited to see this was in Ithaca. Did you get to spend much time not running while there? I went to undergrad and grad at Ithaca College and I absolutely love it there. Been in Robert Treman many times for hiking......can't say I ever tried to run on those trails though....that is very bad ass!
Great job!
PRs: 5K- 28:16 (5/5/13) 10K- 1:00:13 (10/27/13) 4M- 41:43 (9/7/13) 15K- 1:34:25 (8/17/13) 10M- 1:56:30 (4/6/14) HM- 2:20:16 (4/13/14) Full- 5:55:33 (11/1/15)
I started a blog about running :) Check it out if you care to
delicate flower
Jay, congratulations on the 50 mile PR.
<3
Former Bad Ass
Nice job! Congrats! And thanks for the longer report (I missed the first version, LOL).
Damaris
Super B****
That first picture is awesome. Kind of eerie, but awesome.
Sorry you had a rough time of it... but congrats on finishing nonetheless!
chasing the impossible
because i never shut up ... i blog
Barking Mad To Run
Sorry you were disappointed Jay, but it sure does look like a beautiful place to run. Although...with my running history of falling at odd times, I probably wouldn't run there with all those bridges and gorges, etc, lol.....unless maybe I wore one of those short-altitude quick-opening parachutes, lol.
Hope your recovery goes speedily for you and you come back strong.
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt
Refurbished Hip
I'd like to hear from people who actually do well at these things, about specific training mostly. It's my guess that road running really does not transition at all, and to do well I'd have had to spend far more time on similar terrain.
Bingo. I'm also going to guess that you went out too fast.
What was your longest run in terms of time in prep for this race? Running sub-3 hour marathons isn't going to help much when it comes to slogging for 10+ hours. What did you eat? Were you able to eat? Fueling becomes way more important when you're out there for that long too.
Congrats on the finish again!
Running is dumb.
Even though the result wasn't what you wanted, it's still impressive. You ran more miles in 1 day than I have ever run in a week. Trails are a totally different beast from road races, I've done some trail 5ks and those are tough and way slower than road races.
Way to tough it out even though it must have been demoralizing for you. It's good, though, that you took away the proper lessons from it and will know how to approach it should you decide to do something like that again.
Jay, congratulations on finishing that beast! 50 miles is a long way, no matter what your time was. Sorry you had such a rough day of it, though!
I sort of have a theory that the first time you run a distance, or a significantly different amount of time on your feet, your body sort of has an "wtf! everybody panic!!!!1" reaction. The second time, it's not the same. So maybe just by completing this one, you've brought about some adaptations that would help if you ever attempted this insanity again?
Well, you're not a quitter, that's for sure. Since you're used to being in the lead pack, you could have pulled a Ryan Hall. But you lived the humbling experience of being passed by multiple runners who would not "normally" (on your own turf) pass you all the way through.
Thumbs up for that!