Notes
When we left on Thursday we knew the weather forecast was not looking good for Sunday. When I went outside to load the car it was lightly raining but a few minutes later it had stopped. I had planned to wear my Mizuno Cabrakan trail shoes. I bandaged and taped my blister on my left little toe and put on the shoes and they just seemed to rub right up against it like the Ascend. My Innov8 Rocklite 295 had dried from Friday and I put those on and perfect fit and no rubbing. I wished I had worn them for the 50 miler. They are more foot-shaped (at least my foot) than the Mizunos. The Mizunos are usually fine though but not for the beating they I put my feet through on the 50 miler.
We headed over to the race and stopped for coffee. The cashier checked and said an 85% chance of rain at 9 am and 100% at 11 am. Five minutes before the race started it started to rain. It was 50F but felt cold so both Jeff and I and many others wore our rain jackets. It rained the entire race. I was warm at first but ended up being the right decision since I was comfortable the rest of the time.
The 20K course is actually closer to 14 miles and this makes up for the first day being a little short. Starting out did not feel good at all and I started extremely slow. After 1.5 miles my legs suddenly felt better and I picked up the pace a bit and passed quite a few people (some which would pass me later). I could not run up most of the hills since my calves were very sore. Downhills and flats I was flying, but with the uphills average pace wasn't that great. There was a girl I passed back and forth about 2/3 of the race. She had not run the previous 2 days and could run up the hills but I could run faster than her on the flat and down. I caught up to Paul and Stuart and passed them. A few miles later than go flying past me. It is weird how everyone feels better at different times but you just go with it on this last day.
Around mile 8 or so, Teddy, caught up to me and said I don't want to go around so I felt like she really wanted to run with me. I was still running okay but not feeling as good as I had earlier, but we still had several 10-something miles. I was glad she ran with me since it really made the time go faster. Near the end a guy said take a right at the next intersection and when we got there we doubted what he had said for a minute or so. Our minds just weren't working at this point in the race. If we had gone the other way we would have completed another loop which we were warned someone had done so a few years ago.
We crossed the finish together in 2:33:55 and 13.8 miles on my GPS. I went to soak my legs again in the creek. When I was done I decided to shower while waiting for Jeff since I was cold and it was raining. The shower really made me feel better and I had a coke and 3 small cookies. I really didn't feel like eating much. Jeff finished about an hour after me. He was going to shower but they were full so he just dried off, got dressed and we headed home. We stopped to eat around 3:30 pm and I was starving by then. It rained on us all the way home except when we stopped to eat. When we went out to the car it was pouring rain.
No official results yet, but first day I placed 22nd, 2nd day 18th, and 3rd day 32nd. There were other runners in the races not doing the stage race or ones that had to drop out for various reasons so not sure how I placed overall yet. My overall time should be around 19 hours and 2 minutes. This is about 51 minutes faster than in 2008 when I think we pretty much ran the same courses. It is really hard though to compare on these events when there are so many factors that can change things.
There is something about running for 3 days that really clears the mind so I will likely be running this race again. Even though this is a very difficult race, I am thankful it was a little easier for me 4 years later. I am also glad we got to run on the trails like in 2008. In 2009 it was a lot of forest roads which made it easier in some ways but was kind of boring.