The total distance between Port McNeill and Woss is approximately 75km. Even though I like to test my endurance, I did not run 75k in one day this time. In order to run that far at once, I would need to train much longer than I already have been.
I know my current limits and I wouldn’t recommend that kind of mileage increase that quickly, even for more advanced runners. One day, I would like to race an ultra, but until then I will stick to marathon distances or slightly shorter.
With that in mind, we split the treck from Port McNeill to Woss into two days. Somehow, in the midst of it all, I forgot what the total distance between the two towns was, so I only did 28k the first day. Then, I ended up doing 47k the following day. In addition, some of the distances between towns that we looked up on a website (which will remain unnamed) turned out to be inaccurate.
Above: Beautiful Northern Vancouver Island, running in a remote area, surrounded by mountains. Photo by IMS FotoGrafix.
The 28k felt fantastic! For the first 20k, I was going nearly at half marathon race pace. I don’t really know why I was pushing for sub 4:30 kilometers, given that this is a charity run and not a race, but at the same time I wanted to run a bit faster. I slowed down a little bit towards the end just to make sure that I’m not totally spent for the next day. It’s completely opposite of long distance racing strategy, where you start out slower and then speed up further into the race.
The following day, the 47k felt quite long. Like I said, we were not entirely sure what the distance between Port McNeill and Woss was. Therefore, for the longest time, I was unaware that I was running 47k. Because I forgot to recharge my Garmin, the battery in the watch died at 30k. After that point, the next 17k felt like forever. It’s one thing to run long distance and know how far you’re going but it’s completely different when you don’t.
If all the distances between the towns were accurately listed on the site and if I hadn’t forgotten how far the two towns actually were, back when I lived on the North Island, then I would have ran around 37k on the first day and 38k on the second day.
However, the sudden jump from 28k to 47k did not seem to negatively affect me. I don’t recommend people run longer than a marathon unless they have an extensive background in endurance training and have completed some marathons.
After the 47k, I was extremely happy to see the Woss sign. It represented yet another distance over a marathon completed within the same week. However, on my way to Sayward from Woss, the first day was only 15k. I called that a “rest day”.
[…] total distance between Woss and Sayward is around 70km. Given that to get to Woss, I ran 28k and then 47k the following day, I knew that I needed to cover the 70k in 3 days instead of […]