Please help me pace my first 100 mile run
Being with EN 1.5 years, I've always thought that execution was my biggest strength. I am planning to run my first 100 mile ultra on 4/20 and feel somewhat in the dark about how to pace myself. I've done some 50 mile events on similar terrain, so I have an idea on how fast I can go, but would love some advice from someone who might have some experience at the longer distance.
For example, if a 50 miler took me X hours, how long might a 100 mile event take?
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Start slow! Walk up all the hills.
Make sure you have your nutrition/hydration/salt intake nailed, then execute that intake like your life depends on it.
Feel good? Eat. Feel bad? Eat.
If you're flat out racing at 50 miles, 100 miles looks like X2.5. When I finally "raced" in a 100 miler I started out easy/steady. I was shocked when the race started as everyone just took off like it was a 10 km race. I was in dead last place with nobody in sight. I began passing dozens of people at mile 50, before that it was the odd lone ranger, so be patient. Here's my biggest advice, race your own race and don't do what everyone else is doing. I raced on HR and held it for 20 hours. I negative split the race by 45 minutes ( 2 loop 50 mile course in the mountains) and finished 2nd, by racing my own race. I never walked any sections, including 2 hills 9 miles long. My longest break was less than 3 minutes at an aid station. My wife (support crew) met me at every aid station and had a spreadsheet so she knew if I was behind on my calories, electrolytes and hydration, everything was charted. If I was behind she'd hand me everything I needed and said that I had to finish it before the next aid station. After 60 miles I wasn't thinking so clearly so this was huge. I also was paced for the last 50 miles and he knew what pace I wanted to hold (confirmed in training) so that was the icing on the cake and running my way to a podium finish.
Lessons learned: Have a plan, try to stick to it, start slow, ignore others, manage the pain by being mentally tough (it's 100 miles.... jeez), never give up (at mile 70 I was vomiting profusely and every cell within me wanted to DNF, but I had my one thing that kept me going).
@ Sukhi - that's a great story and sounds like you had phenomenal execution in that race. I'm sure this race will be a big test of "patience and discipline."
If anyone else with ultra experience wants to chime in, I'll take all the help I can get.