Last Saturday, November 17th me and Robin together with 350 runners participated in 50 miles trail run in Montgomery county. Robin is long time ultra runner, while for me it was the first ever ultra. The course went through parks of Montgomery county from east of route 355 in Gaithersburg along Muddy Brunch and Seneca Creek all the way to Potomac River and back. Most of the time we ran on newly created mountain bike trails, thanks to MORE. Exact distance was 51.02 and despite general flatness of the area total elevation gain was more than 5000 feet.
The race started before sunrise at 6 am. My goal was to finish before sunset and for the first 35 miles I was following Robin at better than 10 minutes per mile pace. Somewhere at mile 36 my body decided that it enough for today and I had really hard time to override stupid brain systems that tried to shut down my legs. As the result my overall pace fall well below 11 minutes per mile, but i finished before the dark in 9 hours and 45 minutes. Robin beat me by more than 10 minutes. Overall I finished in 70th that is not bad for the first ultra.
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