Into the Darkness
When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Mazathon
Ida Grove, IA
2018-08-11
Results
- 5:21:07
- Pace: 12:15/mi
- Overall: 1/10
- Age group 30-39: 1/3
- Male: 1/5
- First trail marathon
Gear
- Ultimate Direction Jurek FKT vest
- Newton Distance III
- Mudgear socks
- Puma shorts (4" inseam)
- Syryn waterproof MP3 player
- Damasko DA-34 on rubber zulu
- SPF 50 sunscreen
- Lots of Vaseline
Nutrition
- Clif Bloks
- Hammer HEED
- SaltStick salt chews
- Aid station bananas and grapes
- 1st Endurance Ultragen Recovery
Recap
The Mazathon runs concurrently with the Trail of the Dragon 50K and 50 Miler. It was a loop course 8.8 miles around featuring some seriously steep sled hills. I was able to run most of the first lap pretty strong, but by the second I was sucking wind and my hip flexors and hamstrings were hurting.
My race nutrition strategy was to just eat Clif Bloks which was a mistake. I nearly choked on them at one point and after about 3 hours in, I could no longer stomach them. Thankfully, the race provided Hammer HEED, and since then, HEED has become my go to energy source.
Once again, Newtons failed me. Not only were the Distance IIIs not good for trail running, but the insoles bunched up on the downhills forcing me to take them out on the first lap.
I was able to pull out a win here, even though my time was abysmal, mostly due to the lack of competition. The only guy I was competing with took a wrong tun somewhere and DNF'd himself. A nice race, all in all.