I wrote up a small race report for Wired about my ultra so instead of repeating myself go check it out!
I do plan on talking about the race more in depth in the future and the aftermath in terms of did the race change me? So if anyone has any questions for me to answer let me know!
The return to double-digit miles has gone far smoother than anticipated. After an assessment of the miles I needed to cover before June I decided to slightly adjust my training. Instead of simply running the miles I decided to do a run walk split. This involves running for 25 minutes and walking for 5, I feared this might impact my average pace; surprisingly it didn’t. It had the opposite effect it made me faster.
Running for smaller segments allowed me to increase my pace slightly and eek out the miles over 1-2 minute per mile faster, meaning the walking didn’t have such a detrimental impact on my pace. My heart rate also stayed incredibly low throughout the entire run and muscle ache was kept to a minimum. The new run walk training is definitely here to stay for the weekend runs.
I have also begun to experiment with nutrition, during the run I have started to use gels. I had been determined to stick to easily obtainable foods, but the gels have snook in. I will be mixing it up with normal food and gels but for now I am enjoying experimenting with the different flavours.