My only real goals heading into the race were (a) to finish and (b) hopefully set a new PR. The old one (3:59:56) had stood since 2003 and based on my recent marathon performances, I secretly expected to chip away a big chunk of time. However, looking back at my performance, I probably should have respected the distance a bit more and I definitely should have adjusted my race plan to account for the challenging conditions.

The early pace felt comfortable and I soon found myself isolated in about fifth place overall with my personal pre-race favorites (Ryan Carroll and Tommy Holland) clear in front, an unknown guy who blasted out at a seemingly suicidal pace in third and marathon-pacer supreme Tommy Neeson in fourth.

The first 3.4 mile leg down the exceedingly wet and muddy Cape Henry Trail wasn’t too bad, and it actually felt like one of my usual weekend long runs. Just after mile three I stopped to re-tie a shoelace, quickly breezed through the first aid station (no need for fuel at this stage in the race) and made the right turn onto 64th Street and up to The Narrows. Typically I avoid this section of road if I can at all help it; the camber is quite severe on both sides of the road and I still vividly remember a painful long run back in 2006 where an ITB issue flared up and I had to walk miles back to my car at the other end of the trail.

At the turnaround at the top of the road I couldn’t understand how I’d seemingly moved into fourth spot, but it was soon apparent that Tommy N had been forced to make an early pit stop. Through the aid station and back onto the trail I soon noticed how muddier it was; I guess almost a couple of hundred runners and a nor’easter will do that do a trail. I still felt good though, and my mile splits pretty consistent.

I reached the end of the trail (and the other well-manned and enthusiastic aid station) in good time and felt pleased that the race was already one third done. Despite the rain still lashing down, temps were fairly stable in the 40°Fs and the tree-lined trail offered a good deal of protection from the wind. I reminded myself how bad it could have been and set off on my second out-and-back.

Somewhere on this stretch of the trail, I caught Tommy N and moved into third place. Looking back at my splits, I expended way too much effort at this stage of the race – we weren’t even halfway done and I was knocking off splits in the 6:30 to 6:40 range. Very foolish. It wasn’t intentional, and looking back I should have been more in tune with my pace. I’m not one to make excuses, but a dodgy Garmin 405 in the rain wasn’t helping much though.

The handheld bottle of Perpetuem seemed to be doing its job as my primary fuel source, so I breezed through the aid station once again and headed up towards The Narrows. Halfway up the road, I was somewhat surprised to see that high tide had kicked in and about a 50m section of pavement was now flooded. I splashed my way through, enjoyed the cooling sensation of the chilly water and pressed on to the turnaround where I was surprised to see Ryan C and Tommy H not that far in front of me. Either they’d slowed down some or I’d picked up the pace a bit too much. It turned out to be the latter….

The next surprise came at around 19 miles; Ryan C was walking and not looking great. I asked if I could help, but Ryan said he was dehydrated and encouraged me to keep pushing. (I guess a couple of sleepless nights while your wife is having a baby will do that to you. Congrats Ryan and thanks for your support on Saturday).

Now I found myself in second place overall and at the mile 20 aid station still felt very strong. With only one out-and-back remaining, a big PR was there for the taking. However, and this is quite a big however, a couple of miles down the trail the wheels totally fell off. My left ITB flared up, so I stopped to stretch it out. The stretch helped, but the stopping didn’t and I found it really difficult to get going again. To make matters worse, Tommy N soon breezed by to retake second spot. I dug deep to stay with him for a while but the pace was too quick and I soon lost enough ground to start thinking about holding onto third place.

At the aid station I grabbed a handful of pretzels and a cup of Gatorade. The sweet and salty combo perked me up a little, but the ITB was not happy and I found myself snaking along the road trying to find the best/least painful route. I really couldn’t help but walk every half mile or so to keep the angle of the knee joint to a minimum. To make matters worse, the flooded section of road was now about 100m long and at least a foot deep and wading through the water was definitely a challenge. Muscles were starting to scream with the extra resistance….

On the way back I made sure to avoid the water and navigate a path through the trees on the side of the road, but it must have been comical to see me hacking my way through the branches looking for a spot to exit at the other end. In my head I was trying to work out how many miles remained and what pace I had to run/walk to break four hours. I couldn’t do the math so just pressed on looking for the guy in fourth place who I was certain would be chasing me down.

I stopped again at the aid station, stretched and grabbed some trail mix/Mountain Dew. I even stopped for a quick chat with local ultrarunner Joe Wood and started talking about the Holiday Lake 50K and next year’s HAT Run. What I was thinking, I’m not quite sure, but I soon realized I had less than four miles to run and I better get moving.

The last four miles are very much a blur. I do remember feeling cold, hungry and sore, so I made a deal with myself that I would walk a minute every half mile. I shuffled along from mile post to mile post; first the 3, then the 2.5, then the 2 etc. I kept reminding myself how many times I’d run this trail and tried to conjure up some positive vibes from the past. If nothing else, it helped pass the time and finally I found myself at the end of the trail facing a left turn and about half a mile of pavement down to the finish line. I continued the shuffle and told myself no more walking, although I did manage a couple of sneaky looks to make sure I wouldn’t be caught. And there it was in the distance – the finish line banner and clock reading 3:56 something. I crossed the line, came to an abrupt standstill and thanked the volunteers who had braved the awful conditions.

I ended up sitting in a warm RV for about 15 minutes. I didn’t realize how cold I was until I stopped moving, and looking back think I must have been that way for the last eight miles. Shivers took over and the tingling sensation in the hands/feet wasn’t pleasant, but it felt SO good to change into some dry clothes and munch on a couple of chocolate chip cookies. By the way, thanks Fess for ferrying me back to the aid station to collect my drop bag, getting me to the comfort of Gene B’s RV and then dropping me back at my car. Think post-race recovery would have been even uglier if you weren’t around to help.

So, in the end I got my PR (by the small margin of about three minutes). I also hung on for third place overall and won a rather cool award — probably the best quality award I’ve ever won. On reflection, the Seashore Nature Trail 50K was one of the toughest races I’ve ever run; partly because of the conditions and partly because of my very poor race strategy. I learned a lot and hopefully will be a lot wiser when next year’s HAT Run rolls around. It’s also been a challenging five weeks — two sub-3:00 marathons and a tough 50K — so recovery is definitely the name of the game for the next couple of weeks. Happy Holidays everyone!

50K Results — thanks to TidewaterStriders.com
Event Photos — thanks to TriDuo.com
My Photos

Latest forecast: temperatures will be in the low to mid 40s during the night/early morning, but then getting colder and dropping into the mid 30s by late morning.

Winds will be out of the north east at around 25-40 mph with gusts. Rainfall may reach one inch (which could make the Narrows section of the Cape Henry Trail *interesting* to say the least).

My only other *ultra* experiences were back in 2002/2003 at an unofficial 50K staged at First Landing State Park. I managed to duck under the magic 4 hour mark on my second attempt, so that will probably make a sensible goal tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy a celebratory Samichlaus on Saturday night as I toast a new PR.

Link to 2003 Virginia Beach 50K results.

List of Seashore Nature Trail 50K entrants (as of 12/17/09)

Event logo design by me. I’m curious to see how it looks on the tech shirt and other race merchandise….

The more I read about the event, the better it gets!

Course description: The course is mostly single track trail with a mix of open fields, dirt road and some paved road and features nearly 9,800 feet of climbing. The starting loop of 3.6 miles is followed by two identical loops of 13.7 miles and there are four stream crossings that can be challenging depending on the water level.

(course profile courtesy of www.hatrun.com)

If you’re interested in taking part (better hurry as at the time of writing there are only 179 slots left), check out this great article about the 2008 HAT Run that was featured in TrailRunner Magazine. Still not sure? Take a look at this tremendous HAT Run video by Geoff Baker. If this doesn’t convince you to sign up, nothing will!

No doubt I’ll be writing more about the HAT Run as the months pass by, but meantime I’ll need to find some hills to train on and start increasing the miles to cope with the longer-than-marathon race distance. Exciting times.

PS The 2010 HAT Run takes place on the same weekend as the 2010 Shamrock Marathon, which means that for the first time since 2002, I won’t be lining up on Atlantic Avenue to brave the cold March winds of Virginia Beach. Kind of sad to end a seven year streak, but in the big picture, not really….