Notes
By far this was the best I've felt in an ultra to date. I don't understand how I got so far down the order. I some how got behind early. My plan was to take it easy the first third of the race. Maybe I took it too easy, not sure. The conversation of the folks around me with comments like "rough start, hoping to rally later" made me wonder what was going on. I hadn't had a rough start. I thought I was doing pretty well. Attacking it according to plan. The plan was to break this race down into three sections:
1) the big climb and descent at the beginning
2) the rolling flat middle
3) the monster climb up to Apple Orchard Falls and descent to the end.
The first section I was going to take very easy, running off HR on the climb and just focusing on efficiency going down. I felt I nailed that. Came into the middle section feeling fresh. I even kicked a little bit on the road coming out of the aid station at the end of the descent.
During the rolling flat section I found myself running with the folks around me. This might have been a lost opportunity based on how I felt at the end. It wasn't until the middle-end of this section that I just started hammering. By mile 24-25ish I felt I was close enough to the end that I could risk running hard. I still wanted something for the Apple Orchard Falls climb but I ran hard. I was passing people like crazy. Got lots of positive comments like "go get it!"
I continued to hammer coming off the aid station and heading up the Apple Orchard climb. It wasn't until about half way up that I felt pretty spent, but good relative. Coming down the descent I focused again on being as efficient as possible. I never felt like I trashed my quads. On the road section coming in I just hammered. Passed a few more people, mostly folks that passed me coming down the steep technical.
At the end I felt too fresh. I know I picked up a lot of spots in the last 10 miles but I think I gave up too much time at the beginning. I need to work on the balance between saving too much for the end and going out too hard.
Nutrition:
On the drive down we accidentally stopped at the same Arby's I stopped at before Terrapin when the windshield wiper flew off the van while we were driving down I-81. There just happened to be an Advanced Auto Parts next door. Anyway after fixing the van I grabbed a Mid roast beef sandwich meal with potato cakes and a partially sweet iced tea. Pretty much the same thing I had before Terrapin. Probably not the healthiest but it works, or at least doesn't cause issues.
Before going to bed I had two Carnation Breakfast Essentials, a total of 480 calories. In the morning after grabbing my bib, about 45 minutes before the start I had two more Breakfast Essentials, another 480 calories. I also grabbed a cup of coffee while getting my bib and checking in. These seem to work well for me. Lots of sugar, carbs, fat and even protein and easy to digest. I would never drink these on a typical day.
For the race I cruised through the first hour. It was a long slow climb for a long time. At the one hour mark I started the Gu Roctane gel every 30 minutes. I used the same flavor, vanilla orange and it actually never got old. I like it better than the Blueberry Pomegranate. I started taking S!Caps about half way into the race, every 45 minutes or so. This helped I think. I was a little, and I mean little, nauseous coming up Apple Orchard but I could make myself take Gu and had no issues. It was relatively hot too, the S!Caps worked well.
One last nutrition note, the ham and cheese sandwich at about mile 15 really tasted good. Also the notes on the water bottle really helped. I was able to focus on aid station to aid station. In fact I never took my watch off the splits view so I never knew how far I was in the race, just how far since the last aid station. The mileage on the aid station chart was off, forgot to do the Horton miles conversion. Kind of expected this so it didn't bother me.