Major Runs: July 2015

Seaton Soaker 50K - 9 May 2015 - Pickering ON
6:54:05
43/67 Overall and 14/26 M40-49
3rd 50K of 2015 and 7th career ulta
197.8 Miles Raced in 2015

Laurel Highlands Ultra Marathon - 13 June 2015 - Ohiopyle to Seward, PA
Drop at 46 Miles and 13:16:26

Both of the ultra's were ugly events with a bad result at the Seaton Soaker and DNF at Laurel Highland Ultra.

Seaton Soaker 50K. I had added the Seaton Soaker since it worked well to fill out three targeted high mileage weeks and it was less than a 45 minute drive from the house. My race plan was simple, run comfortably and hopefully take advantage of a relatively flat course to go for a sub-6 hour trail 50K. The course was two loops of a mostly out & back along with Seaton trail with only a few low climbs and a major water crossing over Duffin's Creek. The first lap went well and I came through midway in under 3 hours feeling good. Unfortunately it was the first really warm day of the spring and soon into the second loop the heat along with a cold and allergies caught up with me, slowing me to crawl extending the final loop to nearly four hours. Garmin Connect File.

Laurel Highlands Ultra Marathon. The Laurel Highland Ultra is run along to 70.5 mile length of Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail from Ohiopyle to Seward PA in Laurel Ridge State Park. I had signed up for the Laurel Highlands Ultra as my spring goal race in hopes of achieving a Western States Endurance Run lottery qualifier. In the weeks prior I had lost three weeks of training following the Seaton Soaker 50K after getting sick. Although I went into the race not having peaked as much as I had wished, I still felt decent. I had talked with a veteran of the race at an Ontario Ultra Series event earlier in season who had told me that the course itself was not overly technical, unfortunately I didn't confirmed that their definition of technical trail matched mine. I had travelled down on the Thursday prior with my wife and daughter who were crewing me and used Friday to scout out the crew access points. Although I had a couple of looks at the trail during this, I didn't really think about how technical the trail really was. My race plan was fairly simple, take it very easy on the climbs at the start onto the ridge (2600' in the first 8.5 miles) and then aim to cruise at 12:00-13:00/mile along the trail. Race day arrived cool but very damp and humid, with the course having received some good rain overnight. After the 5:30 am start, I was largely able to stick to my race plan until on top of the ridge when I discovered that the course which was soft but not overly muddy was also much much more rocky then I had planned on. I found that I was rarely able to run more than about a half of each mile because of the rock nature of the trail which cost me considerable time. Despite that I still felt fairly decent through to the Pennsylvania Turnpike crossing at 36 miles and was still harbouring some hopes of an 19:30 finish along with a Western States lottery qualifier. I really started to lose time in the next miles and around 43 mile suffered a hard bonk. I shambled into the Checkpoint 3 at 46 miles running already three hours behind my race plan. I made a hard assessment at that point, well behind time, struggling for pace that still might meet the 22 hour cut-off which would mean over 8 hours on headlamp on ankle breaking rocks and decided to call it day & return to fight this course on another day. Big thanks to my wife and daughter for their support and crewing on a challenging day. Garmin Connect File.