Kepler Challenge v2

Last year’s Kepler Challenge was my first ultra distance race. I was well prepared, all went smoothly on the day and I came away with 3rd place. I’ve done one more ultra since then and some long runs recently and my confidence with these longer distances is increasing. This year’s Kepler further added to my growing experience at these distances and my goal this year was to repeat my nutrition and pacing strategies from last year. This went largely to plan, but not exactly.

In terms of fitness, I was not as well prepared this time around. Last year I had a light, but active, August and September and a very consistent build through October and November. Whereas this year, I had 7 weeks of no running after my surgery at the end of August to fix the ankle impingement which has been bugging me for 2 years. I then had 7 weeks of running before Kepler. While I made good progress in this time, I simply had too much time off and not enough time on to get back into the same shape I had this time last year.

So while the expectations shifted to a finishing time of around 5:30, my plan for race day remained almost identical to last year. I had my heart rates dialled in, and knew what my legs ought to feel like at various stages around the course. I targeted 60 grams of carbs per hour from a mix of Awaken Bars, SIS gels and the Pure sports drink at the aid stations.

The start of the race was relaxed as usual for me and my legs felt fresh in the early kilometres. I did the flat section to the exact same heart rate as last year and it felt very much the same, although it took 1 minute longer over the first half hour. The climb was also similar and I began to reel in some of the runners ahead of me. I pulled in a few more coming into Luxmore Hut and continued to run my own race. I was eating as normal and taking down water too. All felt good and I was looking forward to seeing who I might get to spend some time with for the long and flat second half of the race. Similarly to last time, I didn’t know how many people were up the road, but down the long alpine ridge line off Mt Luxmore there was no one to be seen.

I protected my legs on the long descent to Iris Burn and knew that the race could only be lost by going fast on the steep descent. I was 10 minutes behind last year’s time at this stage and 5:30 seemed about right at the finish. My heart rate was exactly the same as in the previous year. I needed to be in control for the long valley. At this stage last year I had the company of experienced ultra runners to set the pace for me, but this year I felt very alone. Regardless I did a good job at pacing myself, but so did everybody else. It seems that there were a number of us, running minute intervals from each other for 2 hours without seeing each other, like there was some sort of agreement to all suffer in loneliness for as long as possible. And that way it remained, until 5 km from the finish, where I did a rapid backwards ejection from the train.

The problems started just before Moturau with 15 km to go. Although my heart rate and perceived effort were bang on, my stomach was tying itself into a knot and I became very uncomfortable and then nauseated. I’m not sure that mild nausea itself is a problem, and I was open to a quick vom mid run, but I was really concerned that my gut was no longer accepting deliveries. I only took 2 gels in the last 2 hours of the race because I suspected that much of my earlier nutrition was not making progress from my gut into my blood stream. So vom, or no vom, the tank was never going to be topped up.

This was confirmed when I hit an abrupt wall with 7 km to go. I was in 6th place and caught 5th briefly before I started my slide backwards. I knew 7th had been breathing down my neck for an hour and he passed me easily. To my shock, 8th and 9th were also close behind and I slipped almost instantly back to 9th. It seems probable that the massive effort was too much for my body and my gastrointestinal system was put on hold while my body focused on other things.

The last 5 km were slow. A true wall bonk. My legs were really sore too, reminding me of the limited conditioning.

The last half of the course was wetter than last year, and collectively we guessed that the last 30 km were about 10 minutes slower because of the spongy surface. This combined with my slow last 5 km gave me a finishing time of 5:46. I’m satisfied with this as a mid point in my training towards the 50 km race at Tarawera in February and I’m confident that I can get through the 5 hour mark on the Kepler Challenge in the years to come.