24 hour race in belfast

Robin,

These links might give you a starting point... http://www.ultrunr.com/track.html and http://www.ultrunr.com/24hourpacing.html

Check out William Sichel's site for loads of tips.

Keith

Robin - I'm gonna do this race also. Will be my first 24hr track race. I guess it's tougher mentally. I done the ultra in Connemara for the past 2 years and the scenery is just wow.

I'm just back from doing Western States 100 - again, scenery - wow. I think after this race, we'll never want to see Mary Peters Track again It's a tough old mental grind to run in circles for 24hrs.

As for strategy - I'm gonna cover as much distance as I can over the first 16-18hrs. Then I'll go on how I feel. I may adapt a run2/walk1 lap. It'll all depend on how I'm feelin mentally.   

graeme  running mate and me have decided last minute to give this a go to see how we can get on, were thinking of aiming for connemara 100 next year but thought this would give us a idea of running for long time esp at night.Means dont need extensive back up to follow you and if cant finish then only 400m from end

I am not sure how We will feel going round and round but looking forward to the challenge but cetainly not as scenic as connemara the heat was something else for ireland,maybe not as hot as Western States.

We are going to go overboard with kit/food to be on the safe side.and do run/walk strategy like we tried at connemara

Hope to see you there

Good luck guys, i'm currently trying to make the next step from marathon to ultra and can't imagine running round the Mary Peters track for that length of time! A nice scenic ultra such as Connemara will hopefully be a nice starter ultra. Well done on the WS100 Graeme, that really is some going and at altitude! How do you train for altitude in NI?

Cheers and good luck WR

WR they are taking entries now for Connemara next year.Robin and me done it as our first ultra in April and i have to say it was fantastic.The course the people everything  i loved and i will be back.You should enter the track race for the crack and use it as a long training run

Graeme WS 100 thats fantastic stuff well done you will have to tell us all about it.

Really looking forward to this 24 hr race no idea how far i can run/walk and what it will feel like after a few hours mentally.

Cheers lads. Connemara was my first ultra back in 2009. Absolutely loved it and a great starter for the ultra world. I made the mistake of running the marathon route the day before the ultra this year and kinda crumbled.

WS was a great experience. Hardest thing I've done to date. WR - done zero running at altitude, just a LOT of hills. Thankfully the altitude didn't affect me at all and the quads held together. My pacer took me out the Sunday prior and we ran parts of the course which was a huge benefit.

Looking forward to this challenge. I don't ever run with music but I reckon the mp3 player will be coming with. It's not like we can enjoy the scenery - pretty sure there'll be good company though, which will be a great help in our hamster wheel.

Definately no to the track race, furthest i've run is 26.2, got Palma marathon in october and then planning an assault on an ultra next year.

Good luck WR

I've only done one 24hr race and it went really well so I can tell you what worked for me.

I ran the first 70km (not planned, just ran for as long as it felt comfortable).  I then switched to my planned run 3mins, walk 2mins schedule.  That lasted until I got a bad case of trapped wind at about 11-12hrs and I had to walk for about 2 hrs.  Someone gave me some bicarbonate of soda, I chundered, cleared the gas and then felt fine.  From then on I ran 700m and walked 300m (every 50m was marked on to the 1km track) until the end.

I think the most important thing is to be able to change your plans.  

I'm doing another 24hr run in November and will aim to do a similar thing (without the 2 hours of trapped gas as I'll be taking my own bicarb of soda).

Good luck with Belfast!

manx thanks for the advice (i will add bicarbonate of soda to my list to bring).I think we will do something along these lines,ie make it up as we go along.

What food were you taking. did u get hot food brought in by helpers.i like the idea of proper food being delivered

There was food there but it meant stopping and ordering and waiting for the order to be made (unless you had a support crew who could do that for you).  Personally, I always have as big a variety as I can get when I do an ultra.  I find that I tend to crave things (eg. prawn cocktail crisps, milk, scotch eggs, ham baps etc) and you never know what the cravings will be or when they'll hit.  If I have a smorgasboard I can take my pick.  Mind you, I normally only eat a fraction of what I bring but it's nice to have stuff available just in case.

Full fat milk is an absolute must for me though.

dream on jim,if i break a hundred i will be over the moon

Manx that is some distance,how many were doing the race.they have a maximum of 50 for belfast