Race report of the FINAMA 80 km night run 1998

To:	ultra@listserv.dartmouth.edu@internet, ius-l@american.edu@internet, cvrt-l@uidaho.edu@internet
cc:	 
From:	Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt/Germany/IBM @ IBMDE
Subject:	race report, 80k night-run Karlsruhe, Germany



At 5pm on Saturday, 28th June, I did my 3rd ultra and 
2nd 50 miler. Weather was sunny and around 30 degree Celsius, 
but the heat didn't bother me for the first 3 hours and after
half an hour of heavy rain there was no heat left.

The course is very hilly for the first 41k, but after a 
steep downhill from there the course is only flat and
a little downhill for the remaining 34k.

I did the same run last year as my first ultra in 10:01:40h
and had the aim to do it in sub 9h this year. I finished
in 9:23:15h as 71st of 183 starters and 15th in my age group,
male 30, but felt great because of the problems in the second 
race half this time.
The race was won in 5:55h, and the course record is 5:18h.


 

Last year I did the first 41k in 4:45h and did lots of walking
in the second part even where it was not necessary in a
retrospective view, but it was the first time I ran beyond the
marathon distance and I was running for 8 month only at that
time without doing any sports before [besides playing chess :-)].

This time I started with a 10k/h pace and was able to maintain
it on the hilly parts; I only walked the very steep uphills
and ran the rest. This leads me to a very surprising 3:20h
at the 33k aid station. 

At 3:10h very heavy rain began for half an hour with lightning,
but I was able to continue quickly and reach the 41k aid station
in 4:18h, only 12min above the 10k/h pace.

The 41k aid station was the 8th of 17 aid stations on the course
and I passed the first aid stations in the following manner:
before reaching a station I put two mineral tablets into my
water bottle, at the aid station I got the bottle filled with
water quickly, drank a cup or two of coke or water, took some
banana pieces and ran out again.

I continued this until the 6th aid station (33k) as I recognized
stomach problems (constipation) perhaps of eating too much bananas 
and from that moment on I only drank for the remaining 6 hours of 
the race. The very big problem was not the stomach, it was the 
shoes after rain. I did 3hour runs completely in rain recently
without any problems, but this time some part inside the front
top of my right shoe grew due to the water and did a lot of 
pressure to my right foot. Since I didn't make use of drop
bags (there were 4 aid stations with drop bag facilities) and
don't have a second pair of running shoes inside my fanny pack
[but much other useful things :-) like pen-size maglite lamp, 
reserve bulbs, reserve batteries, mineral tablets, ...] I had
to continue with lots of walking, sitting down and rearranging of 
shoes and/or wet socks and the times at the aid stations got bigger.
As I reached the 75k aid station in 8:55h, I started running
in the same fashion I started the race and did the last 5k in
sub 30min.

During the race I talked to some people and was able to help
a first timer at 30k with lots of information about the ongoing
course as I was helped at my first time last year by some other
runner. I met this runner again at 72k and we ran and walked
together until the 75k aid station where I had to continue 
running to finish in sub 9:30h.
Several times I met a runner doing the complete run together
with his little dog! On the way to the 46k aid station we had 
a talk and he told me that he finished 3 times before with times 
between 7h (!) and 8:40h, each time with his dog; the question at 
that point was not, wether the dog was able to finish, but he!

I took a paper timetable with me with times for each aid station
of last year, a 8h, a 8.5h, a 9h and a 9.5h pace. I wrote the
actual times on it during the race. At the 53k aid station I had
to ask for a new piece of paper for writing because the other
was too wet to read or write something on. After finishing it was 
an interesting adventure to receive all times by a combination
of remembering and the things "written" on both papers.
(Perhaps it is time to replace my stop-watch by one with >=30
separate stop-times ...)




Despite the problems I had and despite the hills I beated both 
results from the 6h run on a flat 1523m track at Nuernberg in 
march, as I reached the 50k aid station in 5:15h (5:28h) and 
the 57k aid station in 5:55h (54.165k in 6h)!

At end of August I will try my first 100k in Leipzig on a flat 
10k trail-loop (altitude difference per loop: 15 meters). Perhaps 
there a sub 5h time will be possible for the first 50k :-) 
Targets for the run are first to meat the cutoffs (13h overall,
starting the last loop not after 11:30h) and perhaps doing
a sub 12h finish ....
 
Bye,

   Hermann.


Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt
Neckarsteinach
Germany
stammw@de.ibm.com

01/98 Dielheim              10k  0:53:30h
03/98 Nuernberg              6h   54.165k   (50k: 5:28:23h)
04/98 Heidelberg          21.1k  1:59:31h
06/98 Karlsruhe             80k  9:23:15h
08/98 Leipzig              100k             (first 100k!)
10/98 Schwaebisch-Gmuend    50k 
12/98 Schoenau            14.5k