Bad day but Butcher does okay

Having a "bad day" wasn't too bad at all for Masterton's Graeme Butcher when he contested the Commonwealth 100km ultra marathon championships in Keswick, England last weekend.
He placed 19th in a time of 8hrs 51mins 50secs, four minutes quicker than when he last represented New Zealand on the international scene in Japan in 2005 and all of nine minutes faster than when he won the New Zealand 100km title earlier this year.
In fact, only once has he run quicker over the torturous ultra marathon distance and that came without the broken arm which so severely disrupted his training programme on this occasion.
Even the hard-to-please Butcher could see at least some merit in his performance. "I don't suppose I can grizzle too much.....I might have had a bad day but I guess my experience meant I was still able to perform reasonably well," was his typically under-stated comment.
The days leading into the Commonwealth event were not all beer and skittles for Butcher.He did manage a few training runs but the travel to Britain and a lack of sleep-there were eight athletes in the one room-was always likely to rebound unfavourably on him.
And there was also the concern of just two days out from the race being told he wouldn't be allowed to wear his Garmin watch which includes a heart rate monitor and GPS. The organisers considered they were a pacing aid and banned them.
It was a big shock to the many runners who used them mainly to ensure they were running at a pace suitable to their fitness levels and some of them had a "major argument" with the organisers over the banning decision but to no avail. "I just went out and bought a new stop watch and made the best of what I could" Butcher said.
The Keswick course for the 100km event was quite hilly for the first and last 15km and the middle section involved seven laps of a 5km up and back couse (next to a lake), making it 10km per lap.
Butcher started at the back of the 23-strong field with the intention of working himself into a rhythm without getting too worried about what any of the others runners were doing.He felt "reasonably smooth" for the first 15km and went through that point in 1hr 14mins 43secs, almost bang on the 1hr 15mins he had been hoping for.
There were, in fact, no real problems for Butcher through the first 30klms but between 35kms and 50kms he started to feel drowsy. "I could have quite happily laid down for a sleep," he recalls, knowing from past experience it was a case of the body starting to hit the wall because of an electrolyte imbalance.
Butcher had been relying on fluids supplied at the race which included water and some sports drink he hadn't encounter before and the tiredness prompted him to have his support crew change his drinks.It proved a wise move but the down side was quite a bit of time being lost during this period and he made the 50km mark in 4hrs 11mins, slower than his objective.
The next problem came just after the 50km mark when it started to rain and temperatures turned cold Attired in only a singlet Butcher found himself losing energy just trying to keep warm and while the situation improved when the rain stopped about an hour later again more valuable time had been lost.
Butcher admits keeping his mental state together through the middle 40kms was a real struggle with the battle being to "stay focused and push through". His expectations then were his finishing time would balloon out to about 9hts 15mins, especially in view of the fact there were a number of hills to counter on the way home.
The last 30kms, however, went, his own words, ok. "I was pleased to turn things around and actually finish stronger than what I was expecting", he said, adding he had managed to keep running while doing all of the hill climbs. Indeed his time for the last 30kms was the fastest of any of his previous 100km events, taking as it did 2hrs 47mins.
Reflecting on his effort Butcher can't help wondering what might have happened had the broken arm not occurred and he would have been able to get another four to five weeks hard training under his belt. "I think that might have helped ward the demons off during those middle stages...........but then again you can't look back on what might have been, can you?" he said.