Vulture Bait 50K - Saturday October 15, 2012

Wrapped up the OUS 2012 series yesterday doing the Vulture Bait 50K Ultra.

 The big fuss before the race was all about the weather.   The forecast was for a dry start around freezing and then warming up to around 10C and getting wet towards 2pm.   I had cold forearms at the Toad a couple of weeks ago and wanted to avoid a repeat so I opted for my Mazuno Breath Right Thermal long sleeve shirt / shorts / running cap / gloves.  I went back a read previous blogs and felt reasonably confident that I had the clothes correct but I was afraid that I may be too hot in the later stages of the race.    Once gain I decided on the Ultraspire pack and I made sure I had more Gels that I was going to need.

 Race morning started at 4:45 am.  Woke up to my alarm after a really deep sleep which is rather unusual  the night before!  Couldn't find my Wallet heading out the door,  panicked a bit but came to the conclusion that I had misplaced it in the car or somewhere in the house.  This was  stress that I didn't need.     AT 05:30 am I got gas in Hanover,  picked up Anne Elizabeth then it was  Tims for breakfast.  The 2 hour drive to London  seemed rather short ...lots of run talk with Anne.    Arrived at the race before 08:00 am,  took care of business then  picked up the race kit and headed back to the car to get ready.

  The race start was uneventful.   I headed out on the first of 2 25K loops with a simple race plan that was to run as many 6:00Ks as possible trying to finish in just under 5 hours.    It didn't take long before I remembered just how fast this trail race is.  There are lots of flat straight sections where you could comfortably open up and bank a little time.   5K in I was thinking I would aim for some where around 2hrs25  for the first loop!     Gelled on schedule at 45 minutes then on the hour I did an S cap followed by another Gel at 90 minutes.  Did a second S cap at 2 hours and my third gel just before I finished the first loop at 2hrs15mins.   Passed by the clock completing the first loop in around 2hrs28mins,  a little slower then I wanted but I felt confident that I still could finish around the 5 hour mark. Heading out for loop 2  I was starting to feel a little bit tired bit was still moving well.  I need some more calories and started Gelling every 30 minutes .... 2hrs45min, 3hrs15min, 3hrs45min and the last one a 4hrs15min taking an S Cap at the 3 and 4 hour mark.   Temperatures had increased to the middle to high single digits  at around 30K I noticed that I was getting a bit warm.  The wind had picked up and there was a little rain that helped to cool me,  I would say that I was comfortably warm.    30-40K I was watching my avg pace tick up a second or so every couple of Ks.  I was slowing down and was really trying to keep it close to a 6:00 pace but it was getting more difficult.  Just past 40K I tripped on a root and went down and rolled on my right shoulder and ended up back on my feet and caught another root almost falling again.    It took a bit out of me but I set my focus back on what I was trying to do.  With 10K to go the avg pace had crept up to 6:06 and I was beginning to see my sub 5 hour goal  become unattainable however I felt confident that  I  could PB my previous best VB of 5:13:38.    I was now thinking 5hrs3min  and I was quite satisfied with that goal so I pushed hard to running as many 6:00 Ks as I possibly could.   I kept a pretty close eye on the Garmin redoing  the math every K that ticked by.   With 5K to go I noticed that the legs were really starting to hurt but I was still moving along well and was no longer seeing the avg pace increase.  I continued to push hard to the end.

 I finished in 5hrs5min34sec logging an average pace of 6min7sec / km  good for 25th out of the 79 finishers,   18th of 51 men and 4th in my AG.   The overall winner was in my AG so I  received a 3rd in my AG  the first podium finish in a OUS event!    This was  the fastest 50K Trail Ultra I have ever done.  My previous best time for this distance was a VB in 2009  5hrs13min38 seconds so this was a PB by 8min4sec.  I am looking forward to doing the one again next year with a sub 5hr goal as the objective.