50km Championships - Boddington

my first 50km (31mile) was in Boddington near cheltnham, and was the 'English Ultra Championships road race'. It was a qualifying race for an international race in Ireland, but one had to finish in the top two in a time of 3.15 or below. This was my target time which turned out to be too ambitous as i ended up going out probably faster than i should have considering i am new to these distances. It was a looped course around 2.5 miles of flatish country roads, with a drink/food station half way round. this time i took my own bag filled with food and drink. i had calculated how much food and drink i needed to take on bored and grabbed what i needed on each lap. I was aiming to do each 5miles in about 32min. I ran the 1st 10miles (16km) in 1 hour 5min.Went through the half marathon in about 1hr23min then i hit 20m (32km) in 2hours 5min. Ahead of schedule, a little too fast maybe. It was after mile 25 i started to slow from 6.20min miles to 7, 8 and then 9min miles. my legs were heavy and i could no longer keep my pace going. Maybe i still had not eaten enough or my body is not yet used to these distances and i need to run them slower. it was a shame as i was on target for the time i wanted until the last 5 miles, but it was better than my last 32 mile race. Also my marathon time was a p.b. as i went through in 2hours 50min, which would be good enough to win some races.
in the end i finished in 3hours 37min meaning that the last 5 miles took about 48min rather than 32min. this placed me in 5 place. with 1st in 3hrs 8min.