The OC100K race went pretty well for me, though there were definite ups and downs (not on the course, that is!).

The start was smooth, as I was able to keep pace with the winner (Akos) along with Fabrice for the first 24 miles but needed to settle down as the three of us were running like it was a track race. At the 50K mark I turned in a time of 3:44 which was a Boston marathon qualifying time (7:15 mile pace). When I noted the time I said "oh Sh**" because I knew I had gone out WAY too fast for 100K. Akos and Fabrice continued to race fast and had turned in times of 3:38 at the 50K mark.

So, realizing my frontrunning shortcoming, I painfully slogged through the last 50K and was in 3rd place for much of the race. Fortunately, my routine training weeks of 140+ miles has given me a level of pain threshold that allows me to run even when I have nothing in the tank. Meanwhile, Akos had permanently taken the lead from Fabrice at about the 70K mark and never turned back. Though Fabrice could not catch up to him again, he continued to run very strong and remained a solid 7 minutes ahead of me going into the 90K mark.

The most exciting part of the race for me was at the very last 5K loop. By the time I reached 98K, I had finally caught up to Farbice and passed him, as he could no longer hold up his fast pace. Not only was he passed by me at the 98K mark, but another runner (Brian) who had run a much more strategic race also passed him. I felt bad for Fabrice as he had sustained runner-up position for 98 kilometers only to slide to 4th at the very last 2 k's of the race. But I felt he ran one hell of a good race.

Initially, upon passing I was elated at the idea/concept that I somehow transformed into runner-up position, all the while running in monotony and with no sustainable energy left. Akos was far in front of me, in fact was already finished, and I was running as hard as I could knowing Brian had been surging in the second half of the race and was gaining on me at every loop. Unfortunately, my thrill of passing Fabrice at the 98K mark to take the 2nd position lasted a whopping 5 minutes only as I heard footsteps and saw Brian nearly sprinting after me. I picked up the peddle myself but the monotony of the flat course had screwed up my hamstrings which constricted my ability to sprint in long strides. He finally caught up to me at the 99K mark, and though we exchanged sprints for about a minute he clearly had more energy than I did and passed me up for good. We were very close to having a photo/sprint finish which would have been cool. If you look at Brian's splits, he ran the last 10K of the 100K race FASTER than the first 10K, and faster than Akos's last 10K pace. That's one hell of an amazing feat to run a negative 10K start/finish split on a 62 mile race! I was dumbfounded but it's because he ran smart and did not chase after us in the first half.

Anyhow, I crossed the finish line in 8 hours and 20 minutes, still good for an 8:04 mile pace sustained for 62 miles. The winner (Akos Konya) broke the course record (which was his own course record from 2 previous years) and Jay and other volunteers said it was the most competitive year they've ever seen by far. My official time would have won last year, and in fact the winner last year came in 5th place this year.

I felt exhausted after the race, but as usual, my body recovered very quickly, and I found myself on an 18 mile run 2 days later. I'm very pleased with the effort and have come to the clearer realization that the monotonous flat courses are just not for me, as all my training is done on hills. I look forward to the end of March where I'll be tramping a 50 mile, 12,000 elevation gain course in the Cleveland Nat'l forest. Good times!