109 days - I think.....

Well its been over a month since I last posted, time flies when you are busy with all sorts of things except sitting for long enough to post about running.

Work has been flat out, I've had family visit briefly, no. 2 son's birthday, my lovely wifes birthday, store 3rd birthday sale, 3 VIP sale events...... etc etc.

I've been running well - with a renewed focus on running hills. This after a couple of wake-up runs telling me that I was not running well going up.

Some pretty tough and fast(ish) hilly and long runs.

2 most significant runs have been 34.5km with 2 team mates from Team Muttley covering part of the TW course. Mostly OK, but struggled later in the run. Hindsight says contributing factors knocked me about and in different circumstances I was up to running better.

Then Friday just gone I ran on my own for 4hrs48min, covering 50km!!
First section I ran with a pack weighing about 5kg as a tester before Bogong to Hotham. I covered approx 36km in 3hr20m (approx) Garmin went flat which was annoying. This was run on the Warby Trail from Woori Yallock to Millgrove, then covered the final section of the TW course again to Wesburn park. Then back to the Warby Trail via Settlement Rd.

The pack was generally good and I found I was still able to comfortably sit on about 5min/k pace on the flats. Having the water 'on tap' was quite good, but I don't know that I would use it too often for runs shorter than about 3hrs.
Also ran again with my headlamp and also a little handheld. The headlamp was perfectly fine again but I was unable to get the hang of using the handheld effectively.

Once back to the car I changed my shirt and my shoes/ socks then dumped the pack and headed off to finish the run with a goal of getting to 50km. Unfortunately with the flat Garmin I was guessing on time / distance / pace etc. But with my mobile in hand for time checks I covered approx the right time.

The running time was approx 4hr38min due to 10min or so of stopping for water / food / changing etc. The time was lengthened by walking all the serious uphills on the TW course.
Overall happy with the running pace even towards the end, when roughly 5min/k was achievable but mainly to get the hurt to finish sooner.

Upon getting home the approx measure and manual manipulation of the course shows I got the desired 50km. The last few km were pretty tough and had me questioning why on earth I would want to run this distance and more again....

I think a few things contributed to the feelings......
1. Waking at 3am after less than 4hrs sleep.
2. Previous days running included tough 14km in the steep hills, then 10km with ave pace of 4.13m/k, middle section at 4min/k, last 7km ave 4.05m/s.
3. Running alone.

After the run I was able to chill for a little while, then I had to work from 12.30 to 10pm. Through the day the legs loosened a lot. By the end of the night I could run up the stairs at work. Today the legs feel very good, but not tested in a run (that will happen tomorrow).

No niggles, no pains.

Very happy and pleased that I feel strong being able to run reasonably quickly and definitely long.

For the record, its my second 'official' ultra run. My 4th marathon. My slowest for both. But there was a run I did with the ESRG which was possibly more than 42km, but that distance can't be verified, it was over 4hr15min on my feet - so the previous longest running session.

Hopefully everyone else is going well at the moment.

BTW - happy to recruit people to come with me for part of my next 50km adventure, since I know it might be hard to convince someone to run the whole way with me......