I finished in 7:42:08, which put me into 78th place out of 108 finishers, 12th female out of 22, and 4th in my age group, out of 7.

 

So it was not just my impression, the pack was really speedy fast this year!

Great job! An "off" day and you still did well.  Good training for OC I suppose to get yourself through an "off" day.

You pushed me on Sat to keep going and do better (even though you may not have realized it).  I will share more on that in my RR.

And I agree, I felt like people were doing better this year than last year.

Glad to see that you all did so well. My ankle was pretty much wore out by the time I got back over to my vehicle and with it being so cold and windy ( I froze after I finished), I decided to not go back over to the finish line. Now I wish that I would have because I don't think I would have had to wait very long for everyone to finish.

Overall my ankle held up well and I'm glad I did the 25k instead of just not starting. While it was sore and tired at the end it seems like the strength has come back real well and I think that this will speed up the recovery time.

My quads are a different story. They're still trashed. Those down hills are just brutal.

I started on the very back row, got caught up in the bottlenecks and stood around a lot at the beginning. But it gives a different perspective on the race. This is where you get to see the person that is still 100 lbs overweight starting out, the person with the prosthetic leg that I passed on the first hill, and the 8-10 year old kids that are doing it with mom and dad. This is one of the things that makes this run great and I'm trying to figure out what compels some of these people to do this race. But in the end it doesn't really matter because at least they are out there moving, not sitting on a couch.

In retrospect though I'm not sure I would do it again if I couldn't start closer to the front. It was just too frustrating standing in line as much as I did.

Great job, Couch!

A quote from long ago - "Uphills can slow your race, but the downhills can end your day".