Nutrition - 3oz homemade energy gel (malto, flavouring, sodium, potassium) total 300 cal spaced evenly every 20 min with water from aid stations.
Some issues with foot and achillies tendon pain.

My plan for this race was to push myself hard and keep my heart rate at the low end of the threshold range until mile 11, then give it everything I had left. This worked out well, with a PR of approx 15 minutes over my last open HM and 7 minutes over the HIM run split from 2 weeks ago at Mooseman.

Didn't seed myself properly, and the course was quite congested the first 7 miles. I think that I managed to seed myself with the 2:30 crowd, so there was lots of slowing down and surging to pass - this probably was not ideal. Finally settled into a group of runners at my pace around 9 miles in. This probably contributed to the negative split (7:38/mi first half, 7:29/mi second half). The last 3 miles were tough, and the last mile was REALLY tough - could not have gone much faster at this point.

Lots of great volunteers, aid stations had plenty of water and sponges.


Seed myself properly to help avoid congestion and surging to pass.

Lots of great snacks afterwards, and some intense stretching of calves.


Training and planning. I had only been running approx 20mpw and there was no taper. Didn't plan to race until the week before, so there was no specific training for it.