Green River Urban Adventure Ultra

The short:

Total Distance: 35 miles (34 continuous, 1 mile broken up)
Total Time: 7:58:28 [13:40 min/mile pace]

Breakdown (mile values are rounded off):

Home to Marathon Start: 6 miles @ 1:17:45 [12:57 min/mile pace]
Green River Marathon: 26 miles @ 5:33:09 (Officially recorded as 5:33:40) [12:42 min/mile pace]
Marathon Finish to Water Taxi: 2 miles @ 41:29 [20:44 min/mile pace]
Water Taxi to Light Rail: 0.5 miles @ 19:55 (too many damn stop lights)
Final stretch home: 0.5 miles @ 6:07

The Long:

Now, after last year's bomb-out at Mile 16 at the Green River Marathon, I wasn't going to be defeated this time. But I also wanted to be a bit eco-thrift-conscious. The race itself is free, but transportation efforts usually involved me driving to the finish line and getting a ride to the start, finishing the race and driving home. I didn't want to drive this time and I didn't want a ride. So this is what I figured to do. I would run from my house to the start (about 6 miles), then run the marathon (26 miles), then run to the SODO area of Seattle to take the train and bus home (6 miles). So I was looking at 40 miles of pavement to beat my body down with.

I got up and headed out the door at 5:30am on an empty stomach and started the first 6 miles to the race start. I decided to maintain a 3 minute interval setup where I would run for 3 minutes and walk for 3. For the most part, this worked out very well for the whole race.

My hydration was my 2 liter pack and a 24 oz handheld bottle. I had a bunch of GU's along with a peanut butter and honey sandwich for later, some S!Caps, painkillers (Aleve & Canadian 222's), and some Tums. I primarily lived off of the bottle, but did need to take some from the pack when my bottle refills ran out along the course. I didn't consume anything more solid until I got 4 hours into the run. I was quite surprised by this. However, when I reached MY marathon point, the wheels came off. I was tired as hell and had to walk hard for a good stretch. After pounding half the PB&H sandwich, two Aleve and two 222's, along with another GU before then, I was able to rock the 3 minute intervals again.

About 2-3 miles towards the finish, the blisters on my feet decided to bust open. HURT LIKE HELL. I was still functional otherwise. Muscles weren't sore like I'd expect and joints (especially ankles) were feeling good. Blisters and just being tired were my two issues that plagued me after crossing the finish line.

After eating the other half of my sandwich and drinking some more, I set off to tackle the 6 miles to SODO to get to the Light Rail station and take the train home. But two miles of struggling to run, eventually walking the whole way - I decided to just take the Water Taxi to Downtown Seattle and then catch the Light Rail and eventually get home another way to where I would have less distance to run.

In the end...

Original Plan: Run 40 miles collectively
Actual Outcome: Ran 35 miles collectively.

When I got close to home, I didn't take any breaks in time and ran the whole 0.5 miles. Figured I needed to man-up at the end.

Didn't crack 40 miles for the week, but it was a solid effort. Now I just have to get these blisters fixed cause they hurt!