Notes
Day 3 - 20K
I woke in the night with slightly achy knees and took an Ibuprofen. When I got up I felt pretty good and decided to take 2 more Ibuprofen just for good measure. I was feeling good and ready to run a race. I did not have that feeling the first 2 days. Last year I had felt completely beat up by the 3rd day so was happy to feel so good. I was actually looking forward to the 20K and not dreading it.
Originally, we were going to run back up the hill for the 20K, but since we had already done that twice the race director decided we would do the out and back that crossed the creek. After crossing the creek, we then had to run a short while on roads to a rickety bridge before turning around. I managed to stay right behind a group of faster runners until we crossed the creek on the way back. For some reason, the cold water must have been a shock and I had a hard time getting my pace back up to speed. At one point I did catch them later when I sped up.
As I was speeding along to catch them I fell on some rock and landed on my water bottle. The bottle sprung me right back up on my feet which was quite amazing and too bad no one could see this. I caught up to them as they had made a wrong turn. They were on fire and although I felt I was running fast I could not keep up so kept my own pace.
About 1 mile before the end a girl that had been running with us earlier caught up to me. I told her to go around and I would try to keep up. I ended up finishing with her and we were 2 minutes behind the group we ran with earlier. I was quite happy with this run and overall it went very well.
20K - 1:49:25
13 of 53 men
14 (tied with second woman) of 64 overall
Temp was 48.
Overall - 15:42:50
9th of 31 men
10th of 39 overall
Once again even with the lack of trails, this proved to be a fun and low-key event. There were great single-track trails with rock faces, ledges, and the not as fun forest roads. There were even a few trees to climb over but the trails we ran on were pretty clear so not as bad as last year. Also, this year we got 2 different shirts, a finisher’s glass, and coffee travel mug. I also won a pair of toe socks in the drawing. And as always there were other supportive runners that offered a lot of encouragement. I ended up feeling good and not like I had been through hell after the 3 days. My feet were in good shape as I had thoroughly coated them in Body Glide. Legs felt decent and joints felt good. Even though the course was less difficult than last year, it wasn’t easy. I am still new to this but it seems like it does get easier each year.