Hi Everyone, here's my race report for the 50 miler i did last weekend. It's on the long side so skip to the end if you want the results I'll try to add a picture or two soon. Finger Lakes Fifty July 5, 2008 We left Charlotte, VT around 11:30am on Friday and about 6 hours later after only a couple stops and getting slightly off course in Ithaca, we made it to the Potomac Campground in the Finger Lakes National Forest in Hector, NY. It’s a primitive campground with no water or electricity. It was a short walk down a trail from the parking lot to the camping area where we set up our tent and picked up our numbers. There wasn’t a pre-race meal and Google didn’t find many restaurants nearby so we had brought a camp stove and made spaghetti and meatballs before we left and warmed it up for dinner. Along with a salad and bread there was our pre-race meal. By 10pm the lights were out but since it was July 4th it seemed like I heard fireworks all night long as well as a two year old in a nearby tent who took a little while to settle down. 5am came way too soon and no worries if your alarm didn’t go off. The camping area is not very big and the race director walked around banging on a pot announcing it was 5am. Breakfast was provided with bananas, muffins and coffee. I found a loaf of bread and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. We walked out to the start line around 6:20am for a pre-race meeting which was short and to the point-don’t let the cows out! The course goes through 3 different cow pastures where you have to go through gates and it’s very important to make sure you close the gate behind you so the cows don’t get out. Most of the gates closed with a simple rope loop to hook over the post so it wasn’t a big time consuming ordeal. However, for the whole race the race there were no cows in the fields we went through! I was so bummed I didn’t get to run with any cows! The start was on the dirt road outside the campground, going downhill for quite a ways before turning right onto a trail in the woods. The course is a 15.69 mile loop, (2) 15.53 mile loops and a 3.48 mile loop for the 50 mile race. The big loop was the same except it’s longer from the start line then from the start/finish area. It consists of forest trails, paved and dirt roads and pastures. There weren’t too many steep uphills but long gradual uphills and long gradual downhills with some flat areas too. The sun was behind some clouds for most of the morning helping to keep the temperature down for the first loop and some of the second. I drank 2 of my 8 oz fuel belt bottles and ate 2 GUs. I quickly switched out the empty bottles for 2 six ounce bottles and grabbed 2 more GUs and was on my way for the second loop. At the first aid station on my second loop, a volunteer told me I was the 3rd place woman. I knew who the two women in front of me were and that one of them was doing the 50K race so that meant I was in 2nd place! Knowing that kept me motivated to keep going for fear that I could be passed at any time. I finished the second loop in about 2:50 and in my haste forgot to grab more GUs and had to run back to get them. I almost decided to go without but thought better of it since I wasn’t eating much from the aid stations and didn’t want to have to start stopping to eat. I also had drank all four of my bottles and had to switch those out as well for four full ones I had ready to go. On the third loop at the first aid station, the volunteer told me I was in first place for the women. She was a new volunteer so I’m guessing she didn’t see the first woman go through and didn’t know the 2nd woman had finished already. At the next aid station I asked and sure enough the first woman was still ahead of me. I was fine with that but was fearful of being passed so that kept me going and occasionally looking over my shoulder. I finished the third loop in about 3 hours (I forgot to click my watch). When I got to my cooler Jack was sitting there cheering me in and had 3 eight ounce bottles ready for me to take. Two of the bottles had water and the third had his leftover formula which has extra electrolytes in it. He said the loop is sunny and to take three bottles just in case. I was excited for the fourth loop because it meant when I got to a ‘T’ in the trail I finally got to go right instead of left. I was imagining the loop to be some short and easy cruise-not focusing that it was really 3.5 miles. I came out on a road and had a hard time believing the arrow I was to follow. I looked around to see if I missed something and a woman who was sitting in a car asked if I was OK and said yes, that was the way to go. I went down the trail and eventually popped out on the same trail as the 15 mile loop and was not happy only because I knew what was ahead of me. On the one hand, it was good to know but on the other I knew it was mostly a grass trail which is not always the easiest to run on and that it was mostly an open area so it was going to be hot! Glad I had the extra water. I remembered that there were two bridges to get across some muddy areas but it wasn’t so muddy that you couldn’t run through them either. I ran over the first one because the mud there felt like it could suck your shoe off. Once I crossed the second one I knew the finish was around the next couple corners. The finish area was pretty quiet except when a runner came through and everyone started shouting “runner!” It only took a moment for the timers to figure out I was finishing and had their trigger finger ready on the button for when I crossed the line. I didn’t even have a chance to catch my breath and settle down before they started giving me my prize for First Female Master. Jack was there with the camera and I thought I was smiling but not very well. My heart rate wasn’t that high when I finished and I usually recover pretty quickly but this time seemed to take longer than usual. Once I sat down, I was able to realize how thirsty I was and that my head felt like it was spinning. All I wanted was something cold to drink. My legs felt like they wanted to keep going and I just couldn’t get comfortable. I had a couple bottles of flavored water and started to feel better. There was a huge tank of water with a faucet sitting on a trailer that runners were using to rinse off under. Jack made me go get cleaned up which meant I had to take my sneakers off. Somewhere on the second loop I kicked a rock or root and it sent me flying. I didn’t fall but my middle toe got the brunt of it and I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Sure enough I had a pink blister under my toenail which I popped. It hurt when I did it and it hurt again when the water hit it. After rinsing off I was ready to eat something. They had grills set up with burgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers. Potatoes, pasta salad, cookies and candy were available also. We spent the rest of the evening cheering in the runners and relaxing. There were quite a few people there who were getting ready for the VT100 in two weeks. We had a good night’s sleep and the next morning we went for a little run to start working the kinks out. After cooking breakfast, we packed up our stuff and headed home. I have my finishing time as 9:10:59 which placed me 10th overall, 2nd for the women and 1st Female Master. Jack finished 2nd overall in 6:55:?? and 1st male master. His time set a new master course record which he set last year. Leigh Schmidt won for the men and my friend Aliza LaPierre won for the women setting a new course record as well with a time of ~7:42:??. Kelly

Hey Kelly, well done on your first place. You made it sound remarkably easy; I guess it wasn't Thanks for the report; I look forward to these and purposely won't read them till I'm fat with time so I can savour them!! I look forward to a few pics. Congrats again on a great run.

Here are some pictures. I don't have any of the course unfortunately. This is the finish line. You had to run through the tent to be recorded for your laps and then to finish. Here's me after the finish with my prizes. I thought I was smiling but I was still breathing a little hard. At my feet is the 12 pack of beer from a local brewery that was one of the sponsors and a large bottle of Hammer gel. My shirt, fuel belt and cow statue are in my hand. This is me after rinsing off. The black trailer has the big water tank and the ground was all wet and dirty so I didn't want my toe withthe popped blister getting all dirty again. Here I am with some clean clothes on, food in me and I what I did for the rest of the evening-nothing! I did get up every so often to move around so I wouldn't tighten too badly Thanks for the congrats. I'm feeling good. I ran 10 today and have 20 planned for tomorrow to make 60 for the week-just as I planned! Kelly

Nice report - congrats on a good run!