Vermont 50: 424 Miles This Weekend ...

... and I only had to run 50. I drove to and ran the Vermont 50 50-mile race this past Sunday. Along with 550 other runners (some there for the shorter 50k version) and a ton of mountain bikers, I took off at 6:35 AM on Sunday to see the best of autumn scenery Vermont had to offer.

The run was quite manageable when compared to my Wapack experience from earlier this year. No need for a 7 installment blog series.

There were ample aid stations and only one run of 7+ miles between stations - in fairness, it was only going to be 6 miles, but course re-routing due to Hurricane Irene damage from a few weeks prior added some mileage. That said, the entire run was a bit over 50 miles, but what's a few miles between friends once you've already run 50? Right?

The day started "looking" nice - overcast, but you could feel the humidity and when the sun broke around 11 AM and temperatures reached close to the 80's, I knew it was going to be a bit uncomfortable. I kept up with the hydration and food at every chance possible - never going more than 45 minutes without eating (even if it was only a Gu packet between aid stations). I did run out of water on the 7 mile stretch between 40 and 47 miles with about a mile to go. I expected I would what with soaring temperatures just after midday and little shade on the open pastures we were running across at that point. I made it into the aid station after passing 3 runners in that last water-less mile, my thirst more of a motivator than a higher finishing spot.

Official results put me in 1 second faster than my watch at 9:15:49 at a pace of 11:06 minutes per mile. I finished 62/254 and 21/71 in my class (Male: 30 - 39).

My splits times according to my watch:

Vermont 50: September 25, 2011
Aid Station	Mileage	Split Time	Spent at Aid	Cumm. Time
Coon Club	4.2	37:22	0:41	38:03
Dart's	8.5	43:42	0:00	1:21:46
Skunk Hollow	12.3	39:04	0:54	2:01:44
Garvin Hill	19.3	1:06:25	1:50	3:10:01
Cady Brook	23.2	39:03	0:51	3:49:54
Margaritaville	27.6	52:27	2:19	4:44:42
Dugdale's	31.9	42:51	2:45	5:30:19
Fallon's	37.3	54:02	2:39	6:27:00
Goodman's	41.1	45:12	2:37	7:14:51
Johnson's	47.2	1:18:19	2:01	8:35:15
Finish	50	40:35	--	9:15:50