Racing again.. Odyssey 40 miler

Friday- 3 miles- 26min
Saturday- 40 miles- 7:19- 2nd place
Sunday- 0 off with mildly sore quads

This weekends race at the Odyssey 40 mile...(also a 1/2 and full marathon) went very well for me although some of my friends unfortunately had trouble and stopped after two loops of the 3 loop course.

I ran much of the first 13.3 mile loop with Goat Powell before he pulled away on the 1500ft climb. But, I did stay with Jeff Wilbur through the entire first loop running a 2:16 split ( followed by 2:28 and 2:34) where we cruised the seemingly 6 mile downhill to the start finish strongly. My quads were a bit shaky and I wondered if I hadn't just blown them out and would regret the semi-hard run down on laps two and three, but ended up having no trouble.

Jeff had asthma trouble on the climb of loop two and I moved on ahead running some with a few who were in the marathon race. I continued to eat the clif shot blocks and drink 3-4 bottles of NUUN per loop as it got muggy and temps climbed into the 80's but had no stomach trouble at all. This is honestly the best my stomach has felt in an ultra in 3-4 years. It was GREAT!!!!!!!!!

And though I liked clif blocks and NUUN before, I had not used them exclusively in a race until this. I ate nothing at all other than 1600Cals of shot blocks and drank nothing but NUUN water all day.

My energy stayed constant and I just ate the blocks on desire rather than according to a set time schedule. This worked really well and I surely will continue this again. Laps 2 and 3 went pleasantly with me pushing myself pretty hard and hoping to catch the leader on the last, but heard he had a 56 minute lead on me with 6 miles to go....so obviously I am not in THAT good of shape yet, but it was fun to run strongly in an ultra again after so long.

A big congrats to friend and VHTRC/Montrail-Nathan teammate Sophie who finished an impressive third overall in 7:53.

Quads are a bit sore and stiff but nothing too bad and I am feeling excited for the coming weeks.