Day 11, Short and pretty

You know that you are in the swing of ultras,when you look forward to a day that is "only"49k, but certainly that was my mindset this morning.
A sleep in with lights on at 5:30 and a 7 start talk about luxury.
rather nippy but pleasant, running downhill through the the town. From then gentle uphill, I don't really do running uphill on the first half in multi day races but did run some just to stay around my normal people, we were starting at 420 metres and going to a bit over 800, but no really steep climbs.

First aid station at 13k really only topped water into the handheld of Tailwind mixture and a bit of fruit, I could see Jean-Pierre and Philippe just ahead they always run together and a steady pace usually early on just faster than me, so happy to just follow along, often losing them on the many twists.
Beautiful scenery reminded me of days in the Bavarian part of Deutschlandlauf, cattle, sheep, lakes.
Next aid station at 26k finally took off my gloves, sleeves and buff, picture perfect day.
From then on it was a case of knowing people were around simply because there were crew cars about,I occasionally got glimpses of the two in front but they appeared to be slipping away.
At the next aid station La Faux Mpuntaine we were cheered and called out by microphone, that inspired me a bit although accidentally put limonade instead of water into my Grenadines Sirop, silly mistake.
Just enjoyed the scenery to the last aid station on a massive lake and could see those two a few hundred metres ahead, really doubted I'd catch but there was much more downhill than I thought, to be honest would have been happy just to run in with them but just not a comfortable speed so pulled away, then the interminable vlimb into town and the finish line, admit I did look back a couple of times but breathless crossed the finish line 12th in 5:39. Time to rest tomorrow is much longer.