An icy start to the Batona 50 miler. I gave up on the 50 miler, and settled for the '50k' (~34+ miles) after a few key things went south.
#0: got nearly immediately lost (well, not lost, but followed others off course), for a net 1ish miles. And I mean
right away. And instead of being mature and sticking to my already-maxed-out (for me) 10min/mile pace, I joined the frustrated folks and was doing 9:10s - 9:30s for a couple of hours. This essentially caused the rest of the issues. Dangit!
Stick to the plan!
#1: the hard pace inflamed my gut. Likely my
diverticulosis went mildly diverticulitis after jouncing around too much / hard. It's a crap shoot, though. I need to focus on my diet a bit more in my life, to make this happen at least less often
#2: if I'd stuck to a slower pace, the hard (20F) frozen packed sandy ground may not have affected my hips so much. They were really barking after the stupididy with the herd
Thanks
so much to anniemac and hughmac3 for coming out and greeting me
so awesomely enthusiastically after I'd already
dropped switched to the shorter race. :) Thanks to JKoczak and the gals for encouraging me to do stupid stuff like this.
The race crew on this one is special. Super job, team Batona 50!!!
Total aid station time (5 aid stations):
5:33, pretty good!
Times and distances lost (and where):
WHERE | DIST_LOST | TIME_LOST | WHY |
0.42mi | 1.059mi | 10:35 | following without thinking |
22.96mi | 0.21mi | 3:45 | bad signage ... showed right turn, was left turn. Crap recovery |
various | maybe 0.5mi | maybe 6-8 min | miscellaneous 20 second to 3 minute bobbes |
And the whole course has a good extra mile in there, too. It must be that
portal to another dimension.