Ben Nephew's Race Report - Rhode Island 6 Hour Ultra

As always an amusing, but well written report on Ben's come from behind win at the Rhode Island 6 Hour Ultra. Also congrats to Ben for winning the Grand Tree Champion Title, the New England trail running series has races from 7 miles to 50 miles in distance, and counts your 6 best races for the overall title.

Rhode Island 6hr Ultra and Relay 2009

One of the first things you do when writing a scientific paper is to explain your rationale for doing the study. The Rhode Island 6hr Ultra and Relay was definitely an experiment for me, and I’m glad I ran, but I’m still not sure why I did it. My initial reason for running was to get a fast 50 mile time. Unless you travel all over the country to compete at some of the big trail races, it’s hard to know how you compare to other trail ultra runners. However, a fast road course is the ultra version of a track time; the confounds of terrain and topography are at the very least minimized. My other related rationale was to replace the North Face San Francisco race. I was hoping to attend that race, but it doesn’t fit with my work schedule, so this would be my last big race of the fall. I also love running in cooler weather, and try to take advantage of races in the late fall and early spring. I had heard that Martin Tighe was running, and figured we might be able to help each other out, as he had just run a 2:32 marathon at age 51!! I have no idea what kind of road marathon shape I’m in, but my long runs had been going well, similar to when I ran my 50k PR. My plan was to run 6:45 pace for a while, and go from there…

The race consisted of 2.7 mile loops through a park just south of Providence RI. I straight out hate roads, but this paved bike path is about as good as it gets. It was protected from the wind for most of the loop, ran past a scenic ocean bay for about half the loop, and was pretty flat. I’ll present the race loop by loop, with cumulative distance, time, pace, and my position relative to Martin Tighe (aka “The Race Maker”).

1 2.70121 – 16:58 (6:18) ----------- even with MT

After a 6:07 opening mile that felt easy, but was definitely not a 6:45, we slowed, a little. This was my first and last lap with my Inov-8 singlet on.
2 5.4024 – 17:36 (6:31)------34:35 – 1 sec down on MT
I was trying to convince Martin to back off, to the point of exaggerating a few mile spits. Didn’t work.
3 8.104 – 17:37 (6:31)-------52:12 - even with MT
Felt slower. Wasn’t. Oh well, I didn’t feel like running alone, and we weren’t too far from my pre-race pace. Martin gives up on wearing a singlet at this point.
4 10.805 – 18:01 (6:39)------1:10:12 – even with MT
5 13.506 – 17:58 (6:38)--------1:28:40 – even with MT
6 16.207 – 18:14 (6:45)--------1:46:24 – even

We were finally settling into a nice pace. Martin’s family had mastered his bottle handoffs, and I was doing fine with self-service.
7 18.908 – 17:26 (6:30)-------2:03:50 – 51 sec. down (MT ran 16:35 for that loop – 6:08 pace!!)
I went for a new water bottle, and Martin went for the win. I chased him for the first mile, and when I went through one mile 10 seconds behind in 6:18, I immediately backed off. This was my first road 50 mile, and I was pretty confident my legs would not take many miles at that pace. I do about 90% of my miles on trails.
8 21.61 - 17:51 (6:37)--------2:20:41 - 1:00 down
9 24.31 – 18:09 (6:44)--------2:39:57 – 2:48 down
10 27.102 – 18:18 (6:47)--------2:58:09 – 3:19 down
At this point, I was running my own race, hoping to settle back into 6:45 pace. My legs were starting to get tight from all the pavement. The marathon passed in about 2:52:50.
11 29.713 – 18:38 (6:54)--------3:16:48 – 4:07 down
12 32.414 – 18:54 (6:59)-------3:35:42 – 4:56 down
13 35.1157 – 19:26 (7:11)-------3:55:08 – 5:58 down
My legs started to cramp at times over these miles. I was pretty sure I wasn’t low on electrolytes, so I thought seriously about dropping out. If my legs were just not ready for 6 hours of road, I would probably continue to deteriorate, and I wasn’t prepared to risk injury just to finish.
14 37.817 – 20:22 (7:32)--------4:15:30- 7:12 down
15 40.518 – 20:05 (7:26)--------4:35:35 – 7:16 down
After hearing of Martin’s 7 minute lead, I began to wonder if I would be lapped. My legs were able to handle the much slower pace, but I was disappointed with how much time I was losing.
16 43.219 – 20:33 (7:36)--------4:56:08 – 5:27 down
I was somewhat shocked to hear that I was gaining on Martin. I thought that there might be a chance that he was also hurting from the early pace, but was also aware that he is an actual road runner.
17 45.92 – 20:35 (7:36)---------5:16:40 – 1:36 down
Obviously Martin had some issues, and while I just wanted to run it in after 5 hours, I could not let my current pace slow after making up that much time. I gave Paul Kirsch a “Are you kidding me?” look when he informed me of the shrinking lead. After the race, Martin told me he went down to the ground to stretch his hamstrings on this lap. I was amazed that he was able to actually get back up. I would have had to be lifted back up with a crane!
18 48.623 – 20:22 (7:32)--------5:37:02 - EVEN
I felt like a bad person on this lap. I slowly closed on Martin and a blonde female running companion. He eventually broke away from his pacer as I neared, and she yelled, “RUN DADDY, RUN! HE’S COMING!” I thought she might trip me, so I faked high and went low when making the pass. I finally caught back up with Martin after 30 miles right at the start of the loop.
19 51.323 – 21:39 (8:00)--------5:58:41 (6:59) – 1:00 up
Stupidly, I tried to surge right at the start of the last loop. After both hamstrings tried to tear themselves in half, I slowed to a manageable pace, and hoped that Martin wasn’t going to drop down to 6 minute pace and roll on by. By the last mile, I had a comfortable lead, and tried to preserve what was left of my legs. I went through 50 miles at 5:47. My legs were toast.

Apparently, I ran too fast over the first 20 miles. I knew I was taking a risk, but felt that this was a good opportunity to be a bit overly optimistic. I would have preferred to run a more evenly paced race; the last 15 miles were not pleasant, at all, and winning did not make my legs feel any better. It is possible I would have slowed in the last few miles no matter what pace I started at, but I don’t think I would have faded as badly with a more conservative first marathon. Although I would have liked to run with Martin, he was right on 6:35 pace through 40 miles, which is pretty impressive for anyone, not to mention a 51 yr old! Even with our crawl home, we both managed to run under 5:50 for 50 miles.
It is interesting to note that I last ran an ultra in Rhode Island 2003 at the Nifty 50. My 50k time, a slow 3:14, ended up being the fastest 50k in North America that year. Six years later, and the American 50k Record is at 2:47, there usually is one sub 3 hour 50k a year, and US men and women are some of fastest ultra runners in the world. It is an exciting time to be an ultrarunner in the US.
I have to thank Bob Jackman, Ray Nelson, and the rest of the race staff for putting on a fantastic event. It was very well organized in my opinion, and I’ve been to a race or two over the years. The course is perfect for first time runners, as well as experienced ultra runners looking to set a PR. You can easily crew for yourself, and the aid station staff definitely knew what they were doing. Ray is the absolute master of measuring courses. We had 1 and 2 mile splits on the loop, and 2 different ways to get to fifty miles (there was a 0.9 mile add on loop). The marathon, and 50k points were also clearly marked. The relay race was great, and I especially appreciated the relay runners during the 30 miles while I was running solo. Both the relay runners and my fellow ultra runners were extremely supportive throughout the race. I apologize for my lack of responses over the last three loops; the pain in my legs had me splintering my teeth!

While I feel that I certainly worked hard during my 6 hours, there were a few people that I passed that were definitely working much harder. Some of them were much older than I, while others had to overcome physical challenges. Their efforts were truly impressive, and extremely inspiring. Congratulations to all.
Full Results:
http://coolrunning.com/results/09/ri/Nov15_RhodeI_1_set1.shtml