At 50km, the Grizzly Ultra is barely an ultra-marathon. Which just goes to show how perspectives change – when you’ve started hearing all about other people who are out doing 300km+ trail races, 50km barely seems any sort of distance. Which isn’t the best mind set to fall into.
Despite having the best of intentions when I signed up for this race, I managed to yet again fail to train properly. I definitely got in a lot of long, slow runs, but apparently that wasn’t enough, and I really did need to get in some more shorter runs that actually involved some running.
I was noticing reticence on the downhills even just 15km into the race, and by the time I’d hit 30km, there was no doubt about it. My knees were unhappy, no part of my legs wanted to hammer down hills. Or on the flat really. They were vaguely accepting of hills, but mostly they were trying to convince me I should just go and lie down, and pulling out of the race early wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I told them to shut up, and tried to ignore their whiny complaints. Because there was nothing serious going wrong there, it was just a case of legs going “Waah, we’re tired, this hurts, we don’t like it, we’re hungry, are we there yet?”
So apart from that, I did actually manage to have fun. The first leg I ran with Lincoln, before he disappeared into the distance like a lanky mountain goat. Then I came across other people to chat to. Or to harass with my terrifying race outfit. Here I am, endeavoring to look as threatening as possible as I leap across the finish line.
After which I sat down for some time.
Distance: About 51.5km
Elevation gain: ~1450m
Time: 5hr32:30 (40 seconds slower than last year, 13 minutes slower than 2012, grrr!)