{"id":1577,"date":"2019-11-14T22:05:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T22:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esicygh.cluster028.hosting.ovh.net\/?p=1577"},"modified":"2019-11-14T22:25:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T22:25:35","slug":"going-long-100k-ultra-marathon-july-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/?p=1577","title":{"rendered":"Going Long. 100k Ultra Marathon, July 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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New territory. An ultra, RTTS (Race to the Stones) 100km non-stop. Fully recovered from the marathon I started planning my training program. I read articles and blogs from experienced female endurance athletes and felt inspired. As the training began, I soon realised I was mentally drained from marathon training. Having put so much into my training over the past 4 months I had no interest in following another structured program so soon after. I wasn\u2019t running when I was \u2018meant\u2019 or covering the intended miles. It was getting me down; I threw away the plan and ran as and when I felt like it. I wouldn\u2019t recommend this approach but for me it felt like liberating. I needed to be \u2018free\u2019 from my own pressure. I was fortunate to have the base miles banked from the marathon and could rely on my overall fitness to get me through. I knew I could do this. For me it was this ultra was about completion, not chasing a time or worrying about pacing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole set up and race day morning was very relaxed in\ncomparison to other races. It seems odd going off in waves barely breaking a sweat\nand hearing other runners casually chatting alongside you. I planned to cover\n10k per hour, this included stopping at feed stations to refill water and scoff\nas much as I knew my stomach could digest. I must have eaten my weight in high\ncarb chew bars and bananas that day. My peanut butter and jam bagels come for\nthe outing and weren\u2019t consumed. Lesson #1 you really don\u2019t need to take additional\nfood with you unless of course you have special dietary requirements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The race was incredibly well sign posted at every km so\nthere was no chance of getting lost. Perfect for a first timer. I pre-arranged\nfor a few friends to run\/ride alongside me for part of the course. What a great\ndecision this turned out to be, nothing like a chat up on route and a grateful\ndistraction from the discomfort that set-in post 80k. I passed base camp and\ndidn\u2019t stop for hot food in the marquee purely because I hadn\u2019t done this in\ntraining so wasn\u2019t about to tuck into a 3-course meal. My pace stated to slow\npast 80k due to stomach cramps and constant need for the loo (no need to go\ninto too much detail here!). Lesson#2 eat more at the latter pit stops even\nthough you just want to keep running. The final 10k were horrid, I was tired,\nmy legs hurt every stride (now in the walk\/run territory) and the 3k descent\nfelt 100 times worse than the earlier ascents! My body shouting at me to STOP! The\nterrain wasn\u2019t kind at this point either, mental strength was needed. As I came\ninto Avebury, I saw the 99k markers only to be told you must run a further 2k\ndown the road and run through the \u2018stones\u2019 before looping back and coming back\nto this very point. So cruel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was more than ready to see the finish line ahead of me and\nwas greeted with hugs from my boys. One plodding around in a nappy, eating\nchips and covered in ketchup, the other like a limpet attached to my led legs.\nI saw the pushchair and literally fell into it, quickly consuming 2 x pints of\nmilk to aid recovery. What an accomplishment, I had completed 100k in 11hours 07minutes,\nand was 8th<\/sup> female\/458. I pretty much collapsed into a heap before dragging\nmy aching body into the car and crawled over the front doorstep once home. My\nbody was spent, I would have slept\/passed out for a few hours anywhere that\nnight! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drank electrolytes that night as I had lost a lot of fluids\nand salts. In the 3 day lead up I intentionally gained 2kg in carbs for maximum\nglycogen storage. Post-race I had dropped 3.5kg so knew I had to rehydrate and eat\nonce my tummy eventually settled the next day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt smug, I finished without any blisters but within a week I lost a toenail! I\u2019m just pleased I completed and now have my very first ultra under my belt. Two marathons and an ultra to my name hardly qualifies me as being an experienced distance runner but I do hope my A-Z list (next blog) helps other athletes wanting to give it their best shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t limit yourself to someone else\u2019s opinion of\nyour capabilities. Be you. Dream, plan, execute!\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr\nSteve Maraboli <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New territory. An ultra, RTTS (Race to the Stones) 100km non-stop. Fully recovered from the marathon I started planning my training program. I read articles and blogs from experienced female endurance athletes and felt inspired. As the training began, I soon realised I was mentally drained from marathon training. Having put so much into my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99bnz-pr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1578,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions\/1578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreprogress.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}