Rauðavatn Ultra was held for the first time last week and I competed. What a race! Official timing gave me 57.948 km in 6:00:00 and a silver medal.
After the Stockholm Marathon, I had unfinished business. That marathon left me with the sense that my real limits had gone untapped. Rauðavatn became the place to fix that. The build was anything but clean. Just weeks ago I was dealing with a quad problem that changed my gait and had me weighing up a DNS. Nobody knew about it outside my close circle. I made the call to manage it quietly, cut the right sessions, and arrive with enough in the tank to take a swing.
The race plan was simple: aim for 60 km, run my own race, and execute the fueling I had drilled for months.
I opened at 5:15-5:30 per km, sitting in solid mid-high Zone 2 (150-155 bpm) with cadence holding around 185 spm. That first 22 km in two hours was right where I wanted to be: smooth, efficient, and fully in control.
Hour three saw a natural slowing to the low 6:20s, still controlled, no panic.
Between 12:00 and 15:00, the course was buzzing with every event happening at once. Having other runners out there lifted me, and the constant cheers from the sidelines kept me sharp.
When the 3-hour runners stopped, the atmosphere thinned and reality hit: I was only halfway. This is where I could have drifted. Instead, I shifted into a mental framework I have used in training: breaking the remainder into 60- and 30-minute blocks.
With 90 minutes left, I told myself, “only three 30-minute runs left, and I can always run for 30 minutes.” That reframing was a game-changer and kept the legs moving.
Fueling was flawless. I averaged over 100 grams of carbs per hour and approximately 0.5 liters of fluid with electrolytes. No GI distress, no dips, no missed feeds. I even hydrated enough to take a bathroom stop: a clear sign that my fluid intake was right where it should be.
My heart rate actually trended down in the later hours, a sign that the fade was muscular, not aerobic. The early pace had loaded the quads, but crucially they held together.
The result: my longest run ever, a marathon PR of 4:19:50 and a 50 km PR of 5:18:04 inside the race, and a podium finish!
The 37 percent slowdown from first to second half is a reminder that pacing can still be refined, but here it did not stop me from meeting the core goals.
This was more than a set of splits. It was the payoff to months of fine-tuning, from the gut training that let me take in over 630 grams of carbs without a hint of distress, to the cadence work that kept me above 180 spm for six hours, to the mental tools that stopped the halfway mark from breaking me.
Stockholm left me hungry. Rauðavatn fed that hunger and then some.
I ran almost entirely alone, on my own terms, and left with silver around my neck.
Recovery starts now, but this race will be one I carry into everything that comes next.
