Langenzersdorfer Lauftage, 50 km, 17. April 1999

Dieser Bericht basiert auf einem Beitrag, den ich an die (englischsprachige) DRS-Mailingliste geschrieben habe. Er ist daher in englischer Sprache gehalten.

Although I've done just one marathon so far (Aug. 1998; 3:38:10), I ran my first 50K race last Saturday. Of course that was not a spontaneous decision. Having learnt before ("by doing") that it's not good to do too much too soon (especially regarding the length of the long run), I re-set my long run distance to only 16K last October (believe me, that wasn't easy!), and started to slowly build it up again: every other week I added about 3K, so that my bi-weekly long run has reached 45K in April.

This works great, especially in combination with the intervals I do at a local running club. I really felt ready for the race. The event took place in Langenzersdorf, a suburb of Vienna (where I live). There were four distances to choose from: 10K, 50K, 100K and 24 hours. The time limit for the 50K and the 100K was 24 hours.

The course was a flat 10K loop, about 60% of it were on asphalt, the rest consisted of (easy) trails. The start/finish area was at a school building, where there were also excellent sleeping facilities (which I didn't plan to use). At noon, the weather was good: the rain had stopped, it was still cloudy, the temperature was 6 degC, which is a lot cooler than the days before (we had already had 20 degC). Exactly at 2 p.m., after some final words from the RD, the crowd (well, 81 runners total, 38 of them did the 50K) began to move down the road. I tried to find a comfortable pace and then slowed down; I wanted to do the thing on negative splits, so I had to take care. After passing some people on the first 2K I approached a group of four runners and decided to stay behind them for some time. At that time I had already realized that there would be no km markers.

The first part of the course consisted of a mix of roads and bicycle paths, all asphalted. A light wind was coming from behind. Everything went easy here. After about 4K, the first aid station appeared, but it was still under construction, so we skipped it. The course changed to an easy trail leading along a river. Sometimes it was interrupted by crossroads. Near the end of the trail, I expected the second aid station, but I didn't see it. The final 2K were on asphalted roads and bike paths again. On the second half there were some annoying (wind) gusts.

When I approached the school building at the end of the first lap, I looked at my watch, and nearly couldn't believe what I saw: I ran the first 10K in 45:42 which was much too fast (four minutes faster than planned)! Now I knew that I had to forget about the negative splits. After a stop at the aid station inside the school building I began the second loop much slower. Anyway, I felt great. The four runners from the first lap had disappeared (they had only done the 10K); unexpectedly, I was quite alone now. However, after some time I approached a 100K runner and asked him to slow me down a bit ;-) We were talking about this and that, about marathons, 100K's, DNFs, the weather,...

In the second lap, the aid station #1 was already open, and we could eat some fruits and energy bars. We could even choose the colour of our drinks, everything was there: red, orange, yellow and even green. Only blue was missing...

After some time on the trail, the 100K fellow said that he had to turn right now. Well, I let him go, and when looking after him, I saw that he was visiting the second aid station which was

1. at the border of a crossroad, about 50 metres away from the trail,
2. hidden behind trees, and
3. still under construction (during my second lap).

So it's not surprising that I didn't see it before. An important thing is that all aid stations were to do lap counting, and I'm sure that I wasn't registered at that station at least during the first two laps... (I talked to the RD afterwards, and he said he wouldn't disqualify anybody who had this problem).

I finished the second lap in 49:42. I was satisfied with that. And I still felt fresh - like at the start of the race. I decided to do the next lap at about the same speed. From now on I was really alone. On the third lap, I passed only two 24 hour runners. I spent a bit more time than before lurking around at the aid station #1, but there was still no other runner in sight, so I continued. Later I was passed by a 50K runner. Again I skipped the second aid station (the running felt so good), and finished the lap in 48:31. Seems that I had become faster again...

In lap #4, I increased the effort a little bit, in order to do it in 48 minutes. This time I stopped at both aid stations. During that lap I didn't see any other runner, which appeared strange to me. Only a boy on a bike asked me how many kilometres I would run. I answered "Fifty!". He seemed to be a bit confused and disappeared quickly. But I was slowing down: in spite of the bigger effort the lap took me 51:05 minutes. Excuse: the wind was remarkably stronger (really!). But there was no wall or anything similar in sight. I felt great. The people in the start/finish area told me that I was the first runner who began the fifth lap. I really couldn't believe that. I can't win an easy 50K with a finishing time of more than four hours.

I started into the last lap, and tried to increase my speed. At the first aid station I asked whether I really was the first one to run the fifth lap. As expected, this wasn't true. They had registered already ten 50K runners who were in their fifth lap. I continued and passed one 50K runner who was still in his fourth lap. But I still can't imagine where all the 100K and 24 hr people were. Near the end of the trail section, after skipping the second aid station, I passed a 50K runner who was also doing his last lap. Then I saw two 100K'ers, one of them was really struggling. He ran about 10 steps and then walked 10 and so on. I think this was not the right kind of run/walk strategy ;-)

Soon I approached the finish line. I had done the last lap in 49:56. I was happy that it wasn't my slowest one. My finishing time was 4:04:56, quite close to the 4:05 I had expected :-) I still felt good and asked myself: "Did I really run 50K now, was that all? I could still go on!"

Nevertheless, I did a short cooldown run, took a shower and hung around in the finish area for some time to chat with the people. In spite of the (too) fast start, the race was a very enjoyable experience. And due to the small number of participants I could even place 3rd in my M30-39 age group and 10th overall! What a surprise!