Notes
start:66+66 = 132
end: 85+64= 149
Short version:
2nd place woman. 2:29:4x (official times not yet posted), about 10 minutes behind the female winner. Hot. Temperature and humidity ranged from 65 degrees, 99% to 82 degrees, 60%. No snakes :D
The course:
~7 miles out to the turn around and then ~6 miles back to the start (there was a section of road at the start that we didn't do on the way back). The outbound leg had more downhill.
-The trail was a lot hillier and a little more technical than I remember. The average grade was 3-5%(?) so not bad but not flat.
-We crossed several ankle to calf deep creeks which felt awesomely cold on the way back. I stopped at the last one on the way back and spent a minute splashing cold water on myself... felt soooo good.
Play by Play:
We had a typical trail race start with everyone just sort of milling around the vaguely defined start area, while the race director said a few words that no one could hear. Then the "GO!" came came out of nowhere and we were off. About one third of the field went out faster than I wanted to, but I did manage to hang on to the back of that group. And then pass several of them over the next few miles :D
Once on the trail, the group I was running in walked the steeper/ longer hills. I debated passing them with myself but the running pace they were maintaining was great and my heart rate was already over 85%. So I stuck with them until they started to slow down, a couple of miles into the trail. Once I got by them I had clear trail ahead of me so I could set my own pace. One guy stuck behind me until the turn around at mile 7, giving me plenty of incentive to keep the pace up. We didn't converse much... I was working too hard to say more than a couple of words at a time.
About 1/10 of a mile before the turn around the first place woman passed by me looking strong. Just before the turn around the second woman ran by. Realizing I was in third already gave me a nice shot of adrenalin! And second was in sight... and remained just barely in sight for the next 3 miles.
This was the worst part of the race. I was starting to feel way too hot - nausea and chills - and was hovering just on this side of the red-line of heat exhaustion. There was too much uphill and not enough downhill. I had lost the guy on my heals and was running alone for the first time. Mentally I lost it for a while. My pace really slowed and I walked too many of the lesser hills.
Then a long downhill revived me. I quickly closed with and passed the second place woman and with only ~2 miles to go I became less concerned with overheating and more concerned with finishing strong. I hadn't seen the first place woman since she flew by so my goal became to finish as close behind her as I could manage and try to pull off a time of under 2:30. So, after a brief stop to cool off in a creek, I put my head down and gave it what I could - which was a somewhat disappointing 12-13min/mile pace. Even that had my heart pounding at over 90%.
I could hear a cowbell the finish from over a mile away, and you actually have to run right by it with a half mile to go... cruel. When I finally turned the corner and saw the clock was still under 2:30 I managed to kick it in for a 2:29:4x finish.