Chris runs ultras

This was only the second year of the St. Edmunds trail 50k ultra. I had attended the inaugural race a year prior (in December of 2021) but had to DNF at 30k due to a couple of pre-existing injuries that flared up. This time around the race would mark the final ultra race of a relatively successful, and injury free, 2022 season for me. 

The race starts in front of the grand Ickworth House, and has you run a loop of the large estate, and the local village of Horringer, twice. Followed by a further smaller loop within the estate.

The path within the estate is a multi-terrain surface that is quite hard, and not dirt trail. Then there is the tarmac road around the car park and the long road into the estate that you need to run along four times. Perhaps half of the route around Horringer is also on relatively quiet country lanes. So this race is mostly road running.

At the end of the approximately 53 kilometres my quads and hips were very sore. But I did manage to get a 50k PB of 4 hours and 58 minutes. 

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have ran the race in my Hoka Speadgoat 5’s, because they had about 1100 kilometres in them when I started this race.

The training block was good, although I was a week behind somehow, and was expecting 2-3 more long runs before the race. I think this also played a role in the extra soreness I felt.

My fuelling strategy was very simple. I had about 4 High-5 gels; two of which were caffeinated, plenty of water and a small bottle of Orange Lucozade which I consumed about half way.

I did also have salt tablets, which I forgot to take until around 40km. This may have also played a part in the muscle soreness I felt.

Overall, I am happy with my pacing. Initially I expected to stick to no quicker than 5:45/km, but for the first half I was averaging more like 5:30/km. In the later half I did gradually slow down to around 6:15/km to average out at around 6:00/km. I didn’t intend to run ‘quickly’ but the course was mostly flat and smooth tarmac, that I couldn’t help myself.