I caught up to Thomas just before the first rest station at 21 km. We covered that distance in about 2:08 which is a good pace for a trail run. This was the first running of the race so the support crew was a bit overwhelmed by the number of runners pressing around them for water and stuff to eat. They had bananas, raisons, sugar, chocolate, crackers and I grabbed a few handfuls of that while filling up my water bottle. I had my small 750 ml water bladder in my backpack and carried a 750 ml water bottle each with a GU electrolyte tablet added. Since it was a cold day I was not consuming a lot of fluids and didn’t bother to fill up my backpack container. I also was taking a salt tablet about every 90 minutes to prevent against cramping. This strategy has worked for me in the past.
After a break for a few minutes we started off a bit refreshed for the next 20 km section. Somewhere in there I pulled out the Snickers bar that Thomas graciously thought to bring and that gave me a great energy boost. There were a few slippery, sloppy, up and down slopes to negotiate. The trail was treacherous and sometimes it was best just to take a direct path straight through ankle-deep mud rather than try to side step and risk a full face plant. We got separated somewhere in that mess. At this point the pace had dropped significantly with a lot of walking on the uphill portions.
Here we are going down an easy descent.
At 3:58, I got to the aid station at 40 km and again the support crew was overwhelmed. I was fortunate to have water and filled up my bottle halfway. This was all I needed since I still had some in my backpack and only had 13 km left to go. By the time Thomas got to the aid station they had no more water. After 4 hours of effort, when you’ve already consumed all your water and still have 13 km to go, not having any water is an insurmountable obstacle. A lot of runners understandably dropped at this point, including Thomas. The after-race comments and evaluations were critical of the race organization.
The last section of the race was relatively flat, but seemed very long with my tired legs. I attempted to jog along for 1 km, then rest and recuperate by walking for a few minutes, then repeat. I was in a group of about 15 runners that were doing the same and we leap-frogged each other repeatedly, occasionlly exchanging encouraging words when we had the energy to speak! There were several sections when we had to cross fields and were exposed to a cold head wind. I was wet and not moving too quickly so I had to stop and put on my wind-breaker.
At the start, they had annouced the course as being 51 km + 2 km “bonus”. Well, on my Garmin, I reached the 53 km point and was still in the middle of the forest with no end in sight. I kept going and eventually saw the chateau at Rambouillet in the distance. It was great to finally get to the finish at 53.9 km on my Garmin. Here is the photo. Finish line pic.
I finished in 270th place out of 418 overall and 65th out of 106 in my category with an official time of 06:40:58.