50 K report!

Well, I didn't get much sleep the night before the race as I was afraid that I would oversleep and not hear my alarm. I ended up getting up around 3:30 AM and left to pick up my friend Theresa.
We drove up together and discussed our pre-race strategy. The drive was traffic free and we arrived in Niagara Falls at about 5:45 AM. We were surprised to find out that we both received a very nice sweatshirt.
The weather was great and it was nice to see so many familiar faces at the race. I mentioned to whoever was listening that this was our first 50K race. Everyone was so supportive and wished us the best of luck.
The race started promptly at 7AM and things seemed to go well for the first 20K or so. I was on target for a sub 5hour 50K which was what I wanted.
However, things went bad from there and I started feeling pain and for the first time in my short racing career, I was having negative "self talk" along the way. I couldn't seem to shake free from this and while my pain was minimal, the mental games were agonizingly tough to overcome.
For whatever reason I couldn't seem to keep my pace and this was getting me more and more frustrated. Theresa tried to keep my spirits up but nothing seemed to work.
Although Theresa and I had planned to finish the race together, it became clear that this wasn't going to happen. Theresa decided to keep going at her pace and I told her that was fine with me. My only regret is that I didn't have my mp3 player with me so the final 15K I ran alone.
I tried to use the 5K aid stations as "mini goals" to keep me going and this worked for awhile but my pace was so slow that I got more and more frustrated by how long it was taking me to get to each station.
I used some walking breaks to catch my breath but tried to keep running as much as I could so I wouldn't stiffen up completely.
The final 10K was probably the hardest 10K I've ever done. Amazingly enough, I was still on pace for a 5hr finish with 10K left to go. The last 10K was a series of walks followed by slow runs. It wasn't until I hit the 48K mark that I knew I was going to finish and finish strong. I dug in as deep as I could and ended up doing the last 2K at a 5:30K pace.
I ended up finishing the race in 5:04. It was an amazing experience and something that I will definitely try again. I realized, though, that I have put myself through lots of races in the past 10 months (over 15 I believe) and that it's time for some much needed rest.
I've already accomplished my 2 racing goals for the year (complete my first marathon and first 50K) and while I still have several more races to go, I can relax a little now and just enjoy them more.