#25 – 50 runs in 100 days spring edition
#59- 100 Days Of Miles Challenge

Got up 4 am this morning to leave at 6.05 to my second ultra race (first this year) – Hallands Ultra 50K which is a new ultra race.

I had decided I would run in my regular running shoes since I had realized that Salomon Fellraiser does not work for me on longer dirt roads and we would be on some today. Hopes that I wouldn’t run into any major issues and hoped to finish around 7 h, knew that the last 13K would be tough.

Peter from Coach K Runners was the driver for the day and in the car was also me, Malin who was going to do her first ultra and Lisa.

On our way up we discussed the weather, it had been different reports changing during the week, in the beginning of the week it looked like it would be 15oC (59F) at 8 am and 23oC (73F) at 2 pm but a couple of days ago it looked like it would be around 17oC (63F) and rain  urgggg

So I had a linen under my t-shirt and packed a long sleeve in my ultra backpack.

Here we are at the parking lot 2K from the finish line, waiting for the bus that would take us to the start (were we were not allowed to park) and we could also get our bib.

Before start it started to rain heavily and I thought oh no not a rainy day but it stopped 🙂

Off we go. Early we saw a guy taking the lead and a small group after him.

Before I left I checked that water came out of the hose and it did but when it was time for my first water zip after 15 min, no water. So typical so I had to stop and open the valve and there were two people behind Malin and me (who would stick together as a team during the day) who stopped and I thought why are they stopping? It turned out that one guy was not racing just joining us and Susanne was the ”collector”, she didn’t race but would be last and make sure that everyone were fine. It turned out later it was good to have her as company.

So what happened. At around 12K I started to feel issues with my lower right leg but could still run. Susanne turned out to be a running coach (did not know that at the time) and she asked me if it was the periosteum but I did not think so, could be electrolytes or tight knots. At the second fuel station I had my own little cheering squad. Friend’s sister and her husband lives in Halmstad and I meet them from time to time on social occasions and had informed them about the race and that they could come and cheer and they did, well appreciated 🙂 Had to stop and stretch and then we continued our journey. Susanne gave me a very good advice today. Do not stop and stretch because it won’t do you any good, better to just stop and walk and start run again after some time and we tried that. Very good advice. She also said she would show me some exercises that I could do, she suspected bone tissue issues.

Malin and I decided that if we would stick together we would run through the finish line hand in hand.

We were running in the woods, across a golf course, at the ocean on rocks, smaller portion in the city, Along the river Nissan. Very Beautiful run, very green.

At 29K there was a 2K hilly part where it was a sprint price for the fastest runner but Malin and I did not even try, no risk we would win 🙂

But the real challenge started when it was 13K left and the fuel station was between the finish line and where we would continue. Runners were finishing the race while we still had 13K left. Some narrow parts in the woods, very gooey because of the rain during the week where we tried to not run straight through it.

Because of my lower leg issue we ran during the flat parts and walked up the hills and down but when you have very tired legs which I got at the end, down hill can be a real pain so we walked down on some parts. At the end I didn’t care about the googey parts and ran through them. Might show how tired I was.

Really good cheering and super nice functionaries at the fuel stations.

When I thought it was 6K left the fuel station showed a sign with 43K (so we had probably circled a bit down hill and up hill (not run wrong though).

Before those 43K I had really tired legs and started to walk but Susanne really pepped me to continue and after that I got my energy back but Malin was getting a dip and I felt she needed Susanne more than me and I was running solo. So when my pulse watch showed 50K I thought it would be 1K left but that 1K felt VERY LONG. It turned out that when I had run for a while in the Woods after my pulse watch had showed 50K, two functionaries stood and cheered me on and from there it was 1K (which I did not know) but the last part felt like it never ended and I felt hot on my cheeks, I guess I was very tired 🙂

 

Here I am after the finish line

Finish time: 07:27:27 h

Results: (I thought that I had saved the run just after the finish line but turned out that I didn’t so the distance a bit longer and time too, also problems with finding the pulse belt so not all results)

Altitude: