Overall throughout the WOW I was very positive and never really had any down points mentally. One expects a valley to have to fight through to feel good again but I never hit bottom which was surprising. At the finish I mentally felt like I could easily go on for more, I was stoked, super happy and ready for more.
Physically my body was great. I never got that fiery burning muscle feeling like I've had in the past during the other 50s I've done. That muscle pain where you seemingly are forced to walk. Even on the climbs. Squats, squats, squats! My bodyweight routine shines through! Around mile twenty or so my hips seemed a bit sore but it went away which was good. No problems from my Achilles at all which I had been worried about. Post race my muscles were in pretty good shape. I could easily pain free walk stairs. A little sharp pain in my left hip which was actually hard to get to hurt, but today seems fine. My shoulders were a bit sore from my race vest as was the upper small of my back; both from the weight of the water reservoir.
No blisters! My feet were dirty and full of seeds etc but no blisters or foot problems at all. Sanding my callouses did the trick. I wore my Brooks PureCadence road shoes. The bottoms of my feet were a bit sore during the run but not too bad.
I had chafing on my inner thighs but I did forget to apply BodyGlide there. It would have been an issue in a longer race. I also got a bad chafe/burn/scab from where the liner in my shorts meets the waist band on my lower back. A tiny 1 inch cut almost that was very painful when I touched it but during the race I didn't really notice it. Once again, in a longer race this would have been an issue. BodyGlide may resolve this as it was a very bad chafe.
So overall physically things were good. A few things that are easily fixed.
Feeding. I had initially planned on 300 calories per hour. Every 20 minutes I'd have one of the three options: GU gel (100cal), 5 Jelly Babies (100cal), or 3 Hammer Perpetuem Chews (100cal). In the past I have gone with about 200 calories per hour using GU and Jelly Babies (a British candy similar to a big gummy bear, they are a well used energy source in the fell running community).
This seemed to work well but my plans kind of fell apart since we were talking so much! So I'm actually kind of unsure of how much I ate! I came prepared with all my own food however I did have a few random things from the aid stations, really not much though (juice, watermelon, some cake thing). Maybe my high fat diet helped too making me not so reliant on food? Very likely.
One thing I did learn though is that the Perpetuem Chews suck! They don't taste bad, I know the product works excellent however it's similar to chewing on wet chalk which honestly after many miles will be the last thing I want to eat! I ate about 9 chews early on just so I wouldn't have to force them down late in the race. Maybe I'll get some of the drink mix instead because that stuff works very well.
Water intake. This is more of a gear issue than actual hydration. For the first time I brought a reservoir versus a handheld bottle. In the past I had carried one handheld and would shoot for about 22oz or one bottle per hour. This obviously depends on aid station placements. It was going to be pretty hot so I opted for a reservoir instead of bottles. I had never ran with one before so figured it would be a good test run. I used my UltrAspire Surge with a 70oz reservoir. So I was able to carry plenty of water.
Honestly I really didn't do much pre planning for this race. I briefly looked at the distance between aid stations and didn't plan ahead. I figured 70oz is more than enough to get by even if I do carry extra. This was a training run anyway. I ended up peeing coca cola around mile 45 or so. Not good. I was very dehydrated so I obviously had not drank enough water. I also didn't fill up at the final aid station assuming I had enough since I had the reservoir. So, I ran out of water with about 7 miles to go. Yeah no big deal but I need to be thinking of Superior 100 and getting a plan that works down.
One would think that carrying a reservoir you would drink more, I obviously didn't. I think it was that we were talking quite a bit and also I didn't want to run out. I think I prefer bottles because I know how much is there and how much I've been drinking. Also filling the reservoir was a pain at the aid stations; take off the race vest, pull out the reservoir, open it up, fill it, put all back, no thank you. Bottles I open the top, fill it up, put the top on, off I go. Way way faster.
So I think that is mostly was I came away with. All good stuff in preparation or Superior 100. Only a few more training weeks then time to taper.
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