There are few marathons over the holidays so I signed up for a 50k in New Port Richey. There wasn't much info on the website other than the starting times and directions. Started out at 4:30am, the navigation system on my hybrid delivered me to the right place. It was a small race. Jim Sullivan came running in before we started at 7am. He was running the 50 miler. The course is a 3 loops and flat but somewhat sandy in places and largely unshaded. Temps rose from 71 to 81 degrees at noon. It was hot and humid.
I did a run/walk for the first half; it was to be an easy race with Disney coming up next weekend. Then I learned that the frontrunner had dropped out because his heart was racing. I was in 2nd place at the half. I decided to run the last 16 without walking.
Unfortunately, I was getting the chills after mile 21. It was a sign of heat exhaustion. My pace dropped to 11 minute miles. I got passed by a guy who said heat was no problem for him. As I don't sweat much -- I tried drinking ice water. In hindsight, I should have continued the run/walks and taken a minute to down large amounts of ice cold water.
At mile 30, I saw someone gaining on me, so I tried running 10:30s but did not hold it. It was "just" a woman, who would get first place. Turns out the results would be reported as "overall", so I came in 4th overall, 3rd for men. Had I known, maybe I could have suffered and kept up her in the last 2 miles.
5:05 for 32 miles which is a 9:32 pace. With the heat, it is one of my toughest races. I'd do the race again (there is 5k, 1/2, 50k and 50 miler). The organizers are nice and the runners were friendly. I'd probably run the 50 miler with the 5am start.
The current forecast for Disney is 59 to 83 degrees!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment