The story of my first 12H race. Started running yesterday at 22:00 and finished today at 10:00.
Drove my car to Trollhättan and arrived several hours before race start. Walked the course and checked the sorroundings before i drove back to the centre to hunt down some food.
Found a Sibylla that had some minor problems with my no-carb order, but after awhile I got two decent hamburgers with cheese and bacon. To fatten it a bit I used majo and bernaise.
Then back to Knorren, the race area, and found I nice spot near the water to rest some hours before the race.
Pre-race snooze in the grass
Sleept to-and-from for about three hours, before it was time to change into running gear, pay and get the bib.
It was a bit colder now at the start, but I felt like my body had accumulated a lot of heat energy during the hot day so the chill in the air was nice.
The ultra running legend KG Nyström started us at 22:00 and soon enough I was on the third lap.
Running lap 3
I started to count each lap, but after passing lap 10 or so I lost count. So at the moment I have no idea hove many laps i ran.
A couple of hours passed and I felt great, pretty good speed and light feet. It was getting darker and darker, but the course had no pot holes and apart from some sharpe corners and very small hills it was a smooth ride.
Midnight snack at the car
As you don't see in the picture, I took a short break for a snack at midnight
After 02:00 I was very very sleepy. The rest I had before the race was not sufficient. So at 03:00 I took a nap for about 45 minutes.
Sleepy - will take five minutes on the short pin
Felt pretty good after the nap and it was relatively easy to start running again.
Back on track
After a few hours I got very very sleepy again and took a second nap on a hard bench. When I woke up I felt fine, apart from sore feet, so in a moment I was back on track again.
With two hours left I say the light in the tunnel and new I would be on track till the bitter end.
With only 30 minutes to go I had half-a-hand of nuts and some water. Now the end was near.
Water and nuts before spurting to the finishing line
The last half an hour when fine and before long it was time to stop running.
Finished!
When the bell rang I put down my shoes, hat, and BIB at the side of the track and walked 100 meters to the water where I called my wife and took a bath i the cold waters of Göta Kanal. Nice!
The feet were a bit sore and the legs stiff as logs, but I will probably feel a-okey tomorrow afternoon. The blister will hopefully be treated by my wife this evening. I will personally teach her how to puncture it - I'm a master of blister punctuation ;-)
Mister Blister
I you look close you see and old blister(from running to Onsala two weeks ago), the white area, the new one is partially under the old one.
As a summation of the race I think it was a bit harder than I thought it would be, I definitely did not achive my goal of running 81 km, and I was very sleepy.
But atleast it was a good training run and a new experience. Next time I will run a 24H race...
/UltraCalle
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