Afton 50K fueling/hydration experiment results

I ran my first 50K on Saturday. I'm new at longer distances and am trying to correct as many of my mistakes as possible from my earlier race. I say race because my only long distance race before Afton was the Fargo Marathon in May. My issues from Fargo that I wanted to focus on were: GI problems, dehydration, muscle cramps. I know that some, if not all, of these problems are inter-related.

I read much of the available info from Hammer Nutrition. As a guideline, I decided that 22 oz of water per hour was a good place to start. I didn't drink anywhere near that much at Fargo and I have also read it is not good to drink too much. I bought a hand-held water bottle and have practiced with it three times at Afton and other long runs since May. My plan for the race was to down one hand-held per hour.

Fueling. I determined that any breakfast before a race, especially when I have GU or Hammer Gels while running a race or training run, can upset my stomach. I'm not a fan of finding a porta-potti on short notice so I'm skipping breakfast on race-day and not using any kind of GU or gel during the race. I settled on Sustained Energy (SE) from Hammer. I have a belt that hold two 10 oz bottles. I also have an extra two bottles. I planned to take about 220 calories per hour of SE. Assuming about a 3 hours 25K loop time at Afton, I mixed 3 scoops of SE per bottle. The calories per hour would work out just right if I finished both bottles by the end of a lap. I had anther two bottles (on ice) in my drop bag to swap-out when I finished lap one.

For electrolytes my plan was to take one S-Cap every hour on the dot. I kept to that plan throughout the race. I don't know if this means anything or not but I did not ever see any salt accumulating on my skin or shirt. I think the one S-Cap per hour was just about right.

I felt just OK at the start of the race. About 4 miles in, I had a little pain in my foot. At that point I was wondering about a DNF. I wasn't wearing my new running shoes but wore my old ones with my heel lift in the right shoe. I was questioning that choice of shoes for the day and then told myself the pain was just temporary and things clicked back into place and I was pain free again. I was up in the sun of the Africa loop now. Still I only felt just OK. About mile 8 or 9 I started to feel good. I kept to my plan of 22 oz of water per hour and finishing one of the SE bottle about every 1.5 hours.

At around the 4 hour point in the race I was nearly finished with my 3rd SE bottle. I was becoming more dehydrated and a little hungry and I was dreading one more taste of SE. I was just fine with the SE up to that point. Somewhere around this time I was at my final pass by Aid station 4. I had refilled my bottle a little while earlier from the other side (Aid station 3) and drained it. My thirst had been increasing so I let myself consume more water. My stop at aid station 4 was my first time I had stopped for food. I had 3 orange slices and a big piece of watermelon. Yummy. My stomach wanted to switch over from SE to fruit. I let it.

Now I just needed to make it to the finish. I'm still feeling good. I took a bit more SE up the meatgrinder hill but it didn't taste good. But does SE ever taste good? :-) I stopped at Aid station 5 and filled my water again and ate three more orange slices. I was fishing for encouragement so I told Jeffrey that every step I take is a new PR. He told me I was doing very well and will have a good finishing time. I don't remember what my time was then but I was on track to finish under 6 hours.

I said I felt good since mile 8 or 9. I felt good up to mile 29. Then I got some minor cramping in my quads. I changed my pace a tiny bit and fought with my mind again to make the pain go away. It did just as my foot pain had disappeared 25 miles earlier. I was lucky to just have that minor cramping for only one or two minutes. I steadily worked my way through the last two miles. As I approached the finish, a few runners were passing me and more were stacking up behind me. I let my heart rate go up beyond that soft-limit of 150 I held for the nearly 6 hours and ran as fast as I could towards the finish. I am very pleased with my 5:50 finish.

No major GI, Cramping, or Dehydration problems. This experiment was a success.

A few hours after the race I went to my health club to use a foam roller on my hamstrings and shower. The foam roller was not the best idea at the time. Using it put me on the edge of hamstring cramps. When I tried to get up off the floor from my mat, both hamstrings would cramp and I had to sit down. After a minute or so I tried again, cramped up, and sat down. I just sat there for a few minuted wondering if I was doomed to sit there all day. Maybe I would have to crawl my way to the locker room. :-) I had an idea. I rocked myself up onto my feet in a squatting position and then stood up. Hurray! No cramps.

I can't wait for my next 50K.

--Mark