Seaton had it all , a true trail runners paradise! Mud , swamps, elevation , rivers , dry stream beds , dangerous cliffs and just as you feet started to dry out more of the same , what a blast!
I did the 26K run , Garmin said it was 25.49km with a +1713m/-1765 meters in elevation. My Garmin time was 2:52:22 with an average pace of 6:45 min/km. I am not sure where I placed yet but I suspect it was somewhere in the middle. .
Race day started early , left the house at 04:15 arriving at the race just before 06:45. Couldn't have been better weather, light overcast with Sun and a starting temp of 13C. Before the race I finally meet up with Kinga Miklos and Steven! Also chatted with a fellow from the Owen Sound area, Wayne Spahr.. in for the 78K race...Ouch! Watched the Ultra /Ultra guys go off at 07:00.
The 52K and 26K races started at 08:00. It was an out and back 13Km course. Chatted it up with Steven Miklos for the first few Ks , got off to a speedy start 5:42/5:37/5:49 hmm! Goal pace was somewhere around 6:00 . The river crossing came at 3K , after that things got tough. I passed the 26k leaders at their 15K point , just past 11K for me , figured they were out 3.5K ahead! I knew they would finish around 2hours but I felt I was well positioned for a 2:35-2:40 finish. I gelled at 12K , was really starting to feel the beating that the legs were taking. I haven't done any trial running yet this season and this trail was a challenging start! I was feeling pretty good at the 13k turn around , my split was 1:19:48. If I could keep it together I had a chance at 2:40 but I knew at this point it would be tough. Ended up walking up 9 hills on the return , as compared to 4 on the way out. What really killed me was the stairs half way back , I stopped for close to 90 seconds , the rest caused me a 9:13 pace for this Km.....d'oh! With 7K to go I started downing sport beans, the picked me up a bit but I was still off pace. I was passed by a dozen or so other folks on the last 10K , I wasn't alone as I managed to pass a few others. At around the 24K mark I was passed by Steven Miklos , he said that he had been trying to catch me and said " your doing the 52K "... moment of being rather humbled I would say. I felt like I should have apologized just in case he was trying to keep pace with me thinking I was going long too! Its too bad that the race bibs don't ID the race you are in , especially with three different races on the out and back. Passed Pat Burk from Hillsburg at around the 25K mark , he was also going back out for another loop.
So , I have some trail running to catch up on. Going to include some of the good stuff... river crossing , swamps , lots of mud and maybe some big steep hills that you need stairs or a rope assist!
On a good note I didn't fall , came close twice. Managed to roll the right ankle, nothing major was able to run it off and didn't have any problems with it afterwards.
After the awards we had a great pasta meal. Chatted it up with Dianne the Dirty Girls Race Director and Henry. Dianne said that there were two runners doing the 78K that were running Boston on Monday!!!!!! Now that really blew me away!
