Josef's Journey Since Ironman Lake Placid 2008: Ultra's are fun

I entered on the spur of a moment an ultra race yesterday. I went to the Niagara Ultra 50.
http://www.welovetorun.com/newsite/Niagara_Ultra/ultra_index_7.html

I only did the half mary with my friend and Neighbor Brian Chew who asked me to go out with him in support of our running club members from the Barrie running Roadrunners who were doing the 50k Ultra race, and specially one of his friends Roger doing his Fiftieth marathon as well as others doing the marathon. Brian e-mailed me Friday to ask if I wanted to come with him to support the runners and Roger who was doing his 50th marathon, I told him no as I was planning a long ride for Saturday in prep for my half Ironman next week in Welland, which in fact isn't far from where the Niagara Ultra was being held. Well long story short? I thought about it and thought I could ride Sunday and I would like to go to the ultra to support his and my friends! And in the same thought, I decided I may as well enter and do the half marathon for a good long well needed training run for next weeks half Ironman I will be doing.

So Brian and I entered the half marathon as they had same day entree still open. Brian who is a Boston qualifier won our age group with a 1:40 and came in 8 overall in the half, I finished with a 2:42 and wasn't last! Finishing 26 out of 30 I think?

I started my day getting up, well actually I didn't sleep. I got home from work 12:30am and planned to get a couple of hours sleep and getting up at 3:30am to get ready to meet Brian for 4am to leave. It's a 2 + hour drive to Niagara on the lake where the Niagara Ultra race was being held. So as I get ready to go to bed at 1am the neighbors behind my house decided to start partying outside with the music cranked! Ok I though maybe it will only be loud for a song before someone realized it's late out and should turn it down! Well that didn't happen! I kept tossing and turning trying to sleep but couldn't because of the noise. Finally I had enough and at 3am I got up and took a shower. I had the coffee maker pre-set before going to bed to start at 3am so it would be ready when I got up at 3:30, so in any case my coffee was ready when I got out of the shower.

When I went downstairs for my coffee I grabbed a couple of stroopwaffles to eat and a banana and a few cookies, then filled a thermos with coffee for the road. now I'm ready to go and meet up with Brian.

We got to the race site in plenty of time and registered for the half which started at 8am. until then we met up with all our racing friends and watched them start there races before ours.

We started our race and away we went! I started near the back to let the faster runners go and off I went at an easy pace. It was humid and hot out but not as bad as Disney half Ironrman I did last month in Florida. my plan was go easy doing 10 and 1's and I felt good.
I have to thank Joan Van Hilten who caught up to me around the 3 k mark in the run, as I was doing 10 and 1's and told her I was just going easy today putting in a needed long run to get ready for my half Ironman next week.

Joan stayed with me and we worked together as she was having trouble with her foot cramping and wanted to ease up on her run for a while and decided to help pace me since she had a garmin on to pace us. We decided a good pace to run at this time was 6:30's, for 10 and 1's but she seemed to have problems keeping the pace and was slowly creeping up and pushing the pace up to 6:00s pace before she realized we were off pace running to fast before slowing back down. I also noticed the change in pace and was having trouble keeping the pace and started to drift behind her saying I won't be able to keep up at this pace?! when she checked her garmin to realize opps where going to fast! lol.

She stayed with me to almost the to half way mark sticking with me for about 7k before moving on when she was feeling better and I told her I was holding her back. I held my slower pace and kept moving forward and finally got to the turn around and half way mark and continuing on with my 10 and 1's. About 2 k later I caught up to Joan again as she was sitting and massaging her foot which was cramping. I stopped to see how she was doing and she told me she was hurting bad but got up and kept going in front of me only to stop a few hundred feet ahead as I passed her and never saw her again the rest of the way.

I was doing ok until I hit the 15k mark and my feet were starting to kill me and was quickly reverting my 10 and 1's to 3 and 1's the rest of the way until I came to the finished.

I had fun running along the Niagara river, along some beautiful paved paths with only the start and finish being on grass. The whole day was fun and I got in a solid run while being there. I'm glad Brian asked me to come along.

The group who raced the 50k did well. Catherine, and Shannon, a couple of our running junkies finished with great times, with the last two woman in our group Cindy and Tracy finishing together around 7:30 with beer in hand!( one of our group handed her a well deserved beer before the finish line.) Theo, Bill Brendon, Jim, Rick, Keith, Roger,Klint, Glen, John, Jen, Lisa, Victoria, Nancy,as well as others all did fantastic in the 50k and marathon. Congrats to everyone!

We all had a great time after the race some puking from the heat of the day, No I didn't puke! but some of our group did from the hard day as it was very humid with temps around 30C but they quickly recovered with free beers being served, as well as pizza snacks and regular drinks. It was a fun day.

I can see now how fun Ultras are now. Maybe I'll try a 50k one day? ....or maybe not! :)

Some of the group for the group shot. I'm waving over Catherine to get into the shot...