Seaton Trail - May 12,2012 - One Tough Trail Race

Just did the Seaton Trail "52K" Trail Race Saturday.    I was up real early with not much sleep and a Gravol hangover.  Leaving home at 3:30 am was tough but I arrived an hour before the race started.   Weather look pretty favourable to a bit on the warm side.   The race started at 07:00 am and I planned on being out there for 7hours and for temperatures in the low 20's.    The start was comfortable until we hit the rive r2.5K in.  The water was a bit of a shock but little did I know it would be welcomed later in the day.   The course is beautiful,  natural but the air sucked.  There was a funny polluted smell to it similar to what I experienced in Sulphur last year.  I realized how lucky I am to not have to deal with this sorts of annoyance.    The course is an out and back.  There were three aide stations but no Gels were out in the first loop.  I drank,  I ate Jelly Beans , Boiled Potatoes and Pretzels.    I had Gels with me but decided that the food was OK on the first loop and I would do the Gels on Lap 2.  The Garmin reported that the turnaround was at the 15K mark...YIKES ,  I didn't plan on a 60K day.   It didn't take long for others to point that out but I overheard that the 2nd time out the turnaround would be at a different point.    Felt pretty good making it back to the start ,  a little hot ,  a little tired and in need of some calories.    The Gels were out and I dug in ,  30K down ...22K to go or so I thought.  It was almost 11am when I headed back out ,  the temperature and the humidity was really beginning to climb.  I was listening to Q107 while running and the were expecting highs of around 26C.    I figured out one of the things that make this course so tough as I headed out.  We follow a river all the way out and occasionally climb the bluffs and dive back down.  What appears to be flat is actually a constant elevation gain that is so gradual you don't even notice on fresh legs.  Put 4 hours and 30+ Ks behind you and its a different story.   The new turn around was 12K out from the start... the "52K" day suddenly became "54K" Not a really big deal but I was getting tired.   With 42K behind me an 12 K remaining my only goal was to keep moving and that's more or less what I did.   In Paris and at PYP I avoided the death march and I really didn't want to practice that at Seaton but I was getting close!  Made it to the rive with a couple of brief "its not a hill" walks but I was still moving OK.  I so wanted to walk it in after the river but managed to hang in there running to the end.      I was really glad to be done ,  Garmin said 54.2K and 7hrs23min  that's 23min off my goal time but give the extra 2K and the warmer weather I was OK with the results.   I felt like I did a slightly better race then PYP.   Looking forward 2 weeks the 50 miles at Sulphur looks like a real challenge but it is an easier course... not easy but not nearly as demanding as PYP or Seaton.