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Ahhh! 100 miles. Where do I begin to write about this under taking? The biggest driving force behind signing up for and running this race was I did not think I could do it. I really wanted to see how my body would feel after 100K.

This race takes no time getting to the climbing.  Right out of the start gate you run out of Fairplay, CO up to Silverheels mine nestled up at a comfortable 12K above sea level.  At this point the race felt like every other long distance mountain run I have ran.  Nothing hurt, I was sucking down the tailwind, and I was taking in solid calories.  To prove we went out to the mine we had to grab a card and bring it back to the High Park aid station.

The section between High Park 2 (13.75) and Poor Mans Gulch aid stations (21.3) flew by really quickly. This section is mostly downhill on a fire road so it was easy to get into a rhythm.  Oh but wait it would not be a Human Potential race with out having to find your way through a marsh filled with shin deep mud 1 mile before you roll into Poor Mans. I rolled through the mud and into the aid station.  This is the first place I got to see my crew Kim and Michele. My crew suggested I sit down and take some calories in.  I did not argue.

This is where the course just starts to blur together.  I left Poor mans with a 10 mile trek to the next aid station.  On this section I made the decision to pick Michele up for the way back.  I knew I would be running this section in the witching hours on the way back.  It was hard during the day, I had a feeling it was going to be pretty rough at night.

About 500ft from the Trout Creek Aid station I tried to get fancy and run on top of a rut in the middle of a muddy 4×4 road.  This ended up with my legs flying out from under me to the side and me flopping into the mud side first.  The whole right side of my body was caked in mud.  Thankfully the aid station volunteers had towels to give me an impromptu bath, even though I wanted to keep the mud on me, you know for the story.

I rolled into Tarryall 1 (31.9) and met with my crew again.  I took a good break here, changed my shoes, ate some sold foods, sat in a chair, and picked up my trekking poles for the first time in the race.  Its really hard to not get too comfortable at aid stations! Lucky I had a badass crew to kick me out of the aid stations!

I knew it was going to be a really long haul until I came back to this aid station, roughly 20 miles.  I set off on my way to grind out those miles.  At this point I was still in pretty high spirits. Things really started falling apart as soon as I hit the road mile 46.  This was the road from hell! The road was 12 miles, down hill and 100% exposed to the sun.  This is the first place I came to the realization that I am not solar powered.

In my run drunken stupor I mistakenly forgot to pick up my headlamp when I left Tarryall. I thought for sure I would make it back with plenty of time before it got dark, I mean who thinks about a headlamp at 2 in the afternoon!? Luckily an aid station Volunteer let me borrow theirs for the last 3 miles back to my crew.

It took me roughly 7 hours between Tarryall 1 and 2 and this is where I started making mistakes.  I should have stayed in my original shoes, my feet were good when I left Tarryall the first time.  I ignored a pebble under the ball of my foot, And I stopped eating around hour 5 of the loop from hell.

I let me crew know I stopped taking in calories about 2 hours prior.  Kim made it her mission to load me back up on calories. I sat down and wrapped myself in a blanket and proceeded to find a place to hide all of the food Kim handed me.  The last thing I wanted to do was eat, but I managed to choke down a good amount of solid food.

At this point I had one 9 mile out and back before I got to pick up Michele to pace me!  It was also dark at this point and was getting pretty chilly.  I threw on my gloves, tall socks, and warm clothes. That’s a lie, my crew did all of that for me! As a 31 year old adult its kind of weird having someone dress you.

I made quick (retaliative term) work of the 9 mile out and back and made my way back to Terryall 3.  At this point it was very late at night and it was getting really cold.  I really wanted to take a nap at this point but my crew highly recommended against it.  Instead I sat in my comfy chair and was force fed sold foods again.

For the first time in 68 miles I had a pacer! Weee! Michele picked me up at the hardest part of my race.  I am so glad I had her with me because things got real dark, literally and mentally, running through the night.  This is the first time all day where I started doing math and looking my pace.  I was 100% convinced I would not finish the race.  Good thing I am really bad at math. All joking aside going into that mind set is toxic during a race this long.  I was so ready to give up, if I did not have Michele with me I would have called it. Michele had a positive attitude all the way through the night and put up with me being in a pretty rough spot.  She kept me moving and did not let me quit.

Eventually the sun came up and I started feeling optimistic about the race for the fist time in hours (ok maybe I am a little solar powered).  Michele ran me back across the muddy swamp and into the Poor Mans (Mile 83) aid station again.  This is where I was picking up Kim, my final pacer for the last 21 miles. After taking another short break here me and Kim ventured out back across the muddy swamp for the 3rd time (Thanks Sherpa John). At this point I knew exactly what I was in store as we were retracing my foot steps from earlier in the race all the way back to the finish line.

Kim earned the reputation of “slave driver” from some of the other runners crews.  She definitely lived up to this when she was pacing me.  Ok maybe slave driver is a little harsh, but she was laser focused on making sure I was eating, drinking, and moving fast enough to beat the 36 hour finish line cutoff.  The 21 miles I was with Kim went by relatively fast, minus the last 4 miles of gravel road in the sweltering sun (definitely not solar powered).  At that point I was so ready to be done and every mile felt like an eternity! Eventually we found our way back into Fairplay and across the finish line.

I have never experienced that range of emotions in a 36 hour period in my life.  I felt my lowest lows and wanted to cry tears of frustration and pain, and I felt my highest highs where I wanted to cry tears of pure joy (Thankfully I was wearing sunglasses). After a riding this emotional roller coaster for hours I just accepted the lows and knew they would go away and was grateful for the highs knowing they would not last for ever either.

This race 100% would not have been possible with out my crew and pacers!  Its pretty incredible what you can accomplish if you surround yourself by the right people.  Again thanks a ton to Sherpa John, All of the volunteers, Michele, and Kim!

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This race was originally not on my radar for the year.  I planted the 50K idea in Michele’s head earlier in the year and she picked this race.  There was no way I was going to let her have all of the fun so I signed up too!  Run the burn landed 5 weeks before Dirty30 which put it in a perfect place to use it as a training run for that and my 100 miler in August.

Run the Burn takes place west of Portland in the Tillamook State Forrest.  This was my first time in the pacific northwest, this ecosystem is so green and lush, I felt like a t-rex could pop out of the Jungle-esq surroundings at any moment.

Me and Michele stayed about 40 minutes away from the race location so we were up bright and early on race day.  The drive to the race was filled with the normal butterfly in the stomach sensations.  I knew this would go away as soon as I started running.  When we got to Tillamook we found our parking spot and wondered over to pick up our bibs.  We had about 30 minutes to kill before the race started so we explored around the start / finish gate and warmed our butts by the camp fire that was burning 50 feet from the start of the race.

Before I knew it 8AM rolled around and we were off running.  I knew there was a big 1500ft climb in the first 3.5 miles so I forced myself to take it easy on the climb.  The best thing about grinding up a big climb is knowing that you have a big downhill to follow that up.  The 5 mile rolling descent off of the first big climb was my favorite section on the way out.  This descent took you down a perfect piece of single track that switched back and forth down into a gulley.  I was very distracted by all of the waterfalls I passed on this section of the trail. At this point of the race (mile 10) I was on cloud 9.  I had hopes of a sub 6 hour 50K and a PR for the day.

This race is designed as an out and back with the turn around point being at a huge waterfall.  I reached the waterfall around 3 hours and 15 minutes into the race.  At this point I started fighting the mental battle I normally fight half way through a race. The bad thing about an out and back means you have to run back on the exact trail you ran out on.  The good thing is I got to see Michele a little bit after I turned around and started heading back.  I ran into her about 15-20 minutes after I turned around.  We exchanged some nice words and a quick hug and we were both back on our way.  Seeing her picked me up out of the low place I was going to mentally for a little bit.

I was dreading that 5 mile descent I wrote about earlier because I knew It was going to be a pain in the ass (literally) to run back up.  As soon as I started the climb I did my best to just zone out and grind up the hill.  At the top of this climb there was an aid station, I moved through it quickly because I just wanted the race to be over at that point.  The last downhill was a quad, knee, and toe killer!  I did my best to grind out the last couple miles of down hill and ran my way into another 50K finish.

After I finished the race I hobbled back to the car, changed into my comfortable neon orange shoes and plopped myself down at the finish line to cheer Michele in for her first 50K finish.  Not too much behind me Michele came running across the finish line, I was incredibly surprised how well she looked for having just ran her first 50K.  She absolutely crushed this race and I am incredibly proud of her.  I am happy I got to share the race with her!

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There were 4 wave options spaced 5 minutes apart, I chose to start in wave 4 to avoid the congestion that comes with large races that funnel into single track.  One word of caution here though, if you start in wave 4, the aid station cutoffs are not adjusted for this time.  I had a friend who missed the cutoff by a few minutes and if she had started in the earlier wave she would have made it with time to spare.

My race started at 6:20 am, it was a balmy 30 degrees out, but honestly 30 degrees felt very comfortable once we started running.  My first mistake was wearing my Salomon down jacket, I always under estimate the power of down!  I took my down jacket off about 10 miles into the race and unfortunately it fell off my pack someplace up on the first big ridge crossing and I did not notice until miles later. (Farewell favorite red jacket!)

The Rut takes no time kicking your ass.  Right out of the gate you are faced with a 1500ft climb in the first 2 miles.  My goal for the day was to take it easy and pace myself for the first 15K of the race, which for some reason is hard for me to do, I always burn myself out in the first half of the race and then suffer the last half.  For the first 10 miles of the race I leap frogged with familiar Colorado faces.

The first real big climb comes at mile 15. This is where The Rut starts to show its true colors.   I was so excited when I hit this section, this is why I signed up for The Rut, I crave that big mountain terrain!  This was what I was saving my energy for, as soon as I hit this talus I went into 14er power hike mode and did not look back, ok I looked back a few times at the scenery.  This race becomes so much fun at this point, you top out on this climb and run an incredible vertigo educing ridge line for about a mile.

After this fun ridge line you descend back down a couple thousand feet and then have another brief climb back up to the mile 17 aid station.  Right after this aid station you start the biggest most intimidating climb up to the top of Lone Peak.  This climb is also very 14eresq, very steep grade, lots of crawling on hands and knees to get over features.  It was a mental and physical grind all the way to the top.  But I knew this was the last major climb of the race and I was pretty much home free after that.

Once I topped out on the summit of Lone Peak, I got a good look at the terrain ahead.  It was not going to be as easy as I thought.  Coming off of lone peak was almost harder than hiking up it.  The trail down lone peak was full of slippery lose talus.  Anyone who has tried to run/hike on this stuff knows it is a rolled/Bloody ankle waiting to happen!  I took my time coming off of Lone Peak, but it was pretty painful.  Long downhill’s destroy my toes and knees, so I was incredibly happy for any slight uphill that came after that descent.

The last part of the race was kind of a blur.  I do not really remember much between the descent off of Lone Peak and the last aid station.  The last aid station sits on top of another 700FT climb.  As soon as I hit the last aid station at mile 26ish I started doing math and realized I had a real chance at finishing sub 10 hours.  I zoned out and forced myself to run every single section of downhill to the finish line.  With about 3 miles left I felt my fingers and face start to go numb, for me this was a sign that I needed to put more calories and water in.  I choked down the 4th full sized snickers bar for the day and drank the last of my water.  Right before the finish line is one more mini climb, this climb was a sole crusher for me because I was really chasing that sub 10 hour finish.  As soon as I hit the top of that last hill there was a volunteer cheering people on.  I told her I really wanted to finish sub 10 hours.  Immediately after I said that she started screaming and cheering me on and shouting words of encouragement.  Its amazing how someone cheering for you turns everything around.  I came out of the trees and could see the finish, I had 9:54:00 on my watch and began to sprint the last section of the race.  I managed to finish in 9:56:00, which I am incredibly proud of!  This is a definite repeat race for me!

The most important thing I learned on race day was I love doing this, I love running ultra distances, I love being in the mountains, I love the community, and I love feeling like I am a part of something bigger!  And the people who Volunteer for these races make them what they are.

Here is my snapchat story from the day!

Distance – 30.8 Miles
Vert – 10,620FT
Calories Burned – 5,201 (So many gummy bears)

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I knew going into this race it was going to be much different than any other race I have ran. This much climbing crammed into a 50K is just nuts!  The race started out at the bottom of a ski run, the climbing started immediately after the race started.  I tried to remind myself to take it easy on the climbs.  The first couple climbs reward you with brief stints of runnable downhill. You do not hit the first aid station until about mile 8 and about 3K of climbing.  At this point I was still feeling pretty fresh, I had an aid station and I had just met Mare-Bear on the trail just below the aid station, she had the gopro and was taking pictures.  I took a Banana and pb&j from the aid station was on my way.

After the first aid station you immediately drop back down 3,000 FT, followed by a few miles flat and then the climbing starts again.  This section of the race was one of my favorite sections, it was filled with fast flowing single track though waist height wild flowers.

After the mile 22 aid station you are thrown one of the hardest climbs of the race, you basically straight up a black diamond bowl.  Throughout the day I heard a lot of people curse the race director, Karl Meltzer, but this hill is where I heard most of it.  Seriously who puts this kind of hill 20 miles into a race!  After topping out on this climb you are rewarded with spectacular view on the surrounding mountains.

The wheels started falling off for me on the last climb back up the the first aid station.  I am not sure what happened, my legs felt fine for having 25 miles on them.  Thankfully Mare-Bear was waiting for me at the top of this climb, I was in a pretty bad place mentally until I saw her.  She hiked with me the rest of the way up to the last aid station.  I took an extended break at this aid station to cool off with a popsicle.  In theory the rest of the race should have been a cake walk.  This was not the case, the last 5 miles of the race destroyed me mentally.  It was mostly downhill, but the little bit of uphill there was was really difficult. There was no real trail, it was a lot of bushwacking, and it seemed to never end.  After you finally top out on the last climb and earn you 11,000 feet of climbing you are dumped out on a dirt road that eventually funnels you onto single track back down to where the race started.

This race was a very humbling experience, It was by far the hardest thing physically and mentally I have ever completed.

I want to take a second to thank this beautiful lady for being out there to support me and take photos all day.  I would not have finished with out her support leading up to the race and on race day.  Its pretty awesome how she turned the race around for me every time I saw her.  She took me from a bad place mentally to a place where I knew I could finish the race.  Sorry about the sunburn!

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Training philosophy – Training for the Dirty 30 was pretty low key with the monsoon-esq season we have been having in Colorado this Spring.  My only goal going into the Dirty 30 was to beat my time from last year.

The Course – This course is an ass kicker for sure, its 32 miles with 7500+ feet of climbing with a huge chunk of that coming at mile 26 with a summit of Windy Peak.

Race Day – I opted to drive up to the race area before and catch some sleep in the back of the Forrester.  There were about 10 others cars in the lot too so I was definitely not alone with the idea of car camping the night before.  Sleeping in my car at the took away a lot of the stress of having to be up at the butt crack of dawn and then finding my way up to the race.

This was by far my best race ever, I nailed the nutrition, had no cramps and was surrounded by incredibly supportive people all day, everything just fell into place!  In the first 5 miles of the race I recognized a familiar voice coming up the hill behind me, it was the voice of Sherpa John (The badass HPRS race director).  I ended up sticking with him for the next 25 miles of the race,  chatting about life, running, and video games made the race fly by.  Having someone to pace off of was a new experience for me and I think it was a huge contributor to my awesome race day.

I came into the mile 17 aid station and instantly recognized Meredith and Kim, it was awesome to see these 2 at the aid station.  Up to this point in the race I had been taking it pretty easy, just saving my legs for Windy Peak.  Last year Windy Peak kicked my ass!  John had picked up the pace a little so I lost him before Windy Peak.  Luckily Meaghan caught up to me half way up Windy Peak so I had someone else to ninja pace off of.  Its shocking how much having someone to talk with just puts your mind in a different place and makes the miles tick by.   I was on cloud 9 at the summit of Windy Peak because I knew it was mostly downhill to the finish line.  The last few miles of the race flew by and I managed to knock just under 1 hour off of my time from last year.  I had Meredith and Kim waiting at the finish line for me, it was really nice having my peeps at the finish line.

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Another 50K in the books! This race caught my eye because it was held back in my home state of WI.  I use the race as an excuse to go back home and visit some family and friends.  Meredith was even introduced to a real life Wisconsin beer festival.  You can’t get much more WI than that.

Training philosophy – I went into the Chippewa 50K with the goal of a 50K PR and a solid Dirty 30 training run.  I stuck with the same training plan I used for the Tarawera 100K, yoga + climbing a couple times a week and longish runs on the weekends. None of my runs felt forced, and they were all fun and rewarding.

The Course – The course was a lot of fun and consisted of a 16 mile out and back with never ending rolling hills, which kicked my ass.  Race day took place on a section of the Ice Age Trail. The race was made up of almost 100% leaf covered single track, with about a .25 mile section of dirt road.  The only word I can think of to describe the trail is Wisconsin-esq.  I spend my child hood in the forests of Wisconsin and this race was a perfect reflection of what the Wisconsin outdoors is like.

The course went through woodlands, over beaver dams, past endless beautiful lakes, and through some marshland.  By Wisconsin standards this is a hilly course with about 4,100 FT of gain.  Take these hills seriously on the way out or they will kick your ass on the way back, I learned that the hard way!  My favorite part of the race was the sketchy bridges over the beaver damns, because I forgot my arm floaties.

Race Day – I went in way too confident and did not take the climbs seriously. The course is an out and back, and I ran every damn hill on the out and made it to the half way point in 2:38:46. I thought for sure I could pull off a sub 6 hour finish. But it just wasn’t in the books, around mile 25 I gave into “The Blerch” and started walking.  At that point I feel like I nailed the nutrition side of the game, but my mental game was off.  Honestly it was a classic case of pushing way too hard in the first half of the race.

Meredith was incredibly supportive through out the race, she drove around and met me at random aid stations and made sure I was still surviving.  It was extra nice to see her at the last aid station because I was on the pain train at that point.  She encouraged me to push on the last 3 miles and finish the race, by that point my hopes for a sub 6 hour finish were gone, but the sub 6:20:00 PR was still very attainable.  I just shut my brain off and ignored the pain for the last 3 miles and managed to grind out a 6:09:00 finish which I am very pleased about.

I am also incredibly proud of Meredith for running her first race ever, which was a brutal trail 10k.  She has so much heart and is a complete badass!  I will let her tell that story.

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Training philosophy – I took training for this race very leisurely. There were never any forced runs and I would only go out for runs when I felt like running for fun.  Yoga and climbing with friends a few times a week were used to trick myself into keeping active. Strength training also became a part of my regimen, I took the HCB class with Revolution Running on Monday nights.  Basically I never forced myself to go out and get miles with out a purpose behind it, weather it be joining a friend for a long run on the trails or just going out to dick around with my camera.  My longest long run to prepare for this race was a 24 mile fat ass put on by HPRS.  I honestly was scared going into this race because I thought I was extremely undertrained, but I walked away from this race with a blister on one toe and one day of pirate leg syndrome.

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin!

The Course – I will start by saying this race was incredible! From what I can remember of the course it is made up of single track, a small amount of pavement, and a lot of what looked to be fire roads through the forests.  You start out in a redwood forest right in the heart of Rotorua and make the 100K journey to Kawerau.  Along the way I ran by many beautiful lakes, waterfalls, dairy farms, and breathtakingly green forests.  The support from the locals was incredible, we ran through many smaller villages with local kiwis sitting in lawn chairs cheering on runners, I almost felt like I was in a parade and felt bad for not having candy to throw.

Glorious aid stations!

Gimme dose pretzels

Race Day –  I arrived at the starting gate around 5:30am ready to run!  I found my place in the endless sea of headlamps and began going through my mental check list.  I attended the elite athlete Q&A the day before the race and something Mike Wardian said stuck with me through out the day.  He said something to the effect of “treat your body like a vehicle, pay attention to the low fuel and check engine lights”.  Going into this race proper fueling was high on my list of things to pay attention to, I really did not want to repeat the Bear Chase 50K cramp fest.

6am rolled around rather quickly and the race was off to a start.  In typical ultra fashion the first couple miles were very congested as everybody funneled into the first section from the double track off the start line.  With this being such a large race it took a little longer for things to thin out as people found their pace, it felt pretty congested for the first hour or so.  This was kind of a blessing in disguise for me because I am notorious for going out way too fast and then suffering the last quarter of the race.

The nutrition game started right at one hour into the run with an electrolyte tab followed up by a gel 15 minutes later. I had a couple emergency snickers in my pack just in case, but I planned on getting most of my solid nutrition from aid stations.  Luckily there were a metric shit ton of aid stations stocked to the brim with pb&j’s, fruit, salty snacks, and soda galore! I can not say enough nice things about the aid station staff, the first aid station I came into there was a lady spraying runners down with sun screen.  Coming from Denver where it is winter, sunscreen was the last thing I had on my mind.

Right away I made the decision  to ignore the urge to push myself too much until I made it to my drop bag at the 60k aid station where I had my Hoka’s and a fresh pair of socks waiting for me.  My race up to the 60k aid station went flawlessly, my feet were incredibly happy to get into some new socks and my squishy Hoka’s, and I knew the rest of the race was a net loss in elevation minus one big climb on the loop of dispair just before mile 50.  It started to heat up a little bit after this aid station, luckly there were water access signs located through out the race pointing you to streams and rivers just off the trail.  I dipped my hat into almost every stream I came across just to keep my body at a comfortable temperature.  The ice buckets with sponges at the aid stations were a nice treat as well!

Cant wait to get my Hokas on

As I got closer and closer to the end of the race I kept looking at my watch and doing math.  With about 8 miles left I realized a sub 14 hour finish was possible if I buckled down and ran out the rest of the race.  It was all mental at this point, my muscles were not going to hurt anymore than they already did, there is nothing my nutrition can do for me now, I just had to fight with that voice in my head that likes to talk me into walking.  I did manage to dig deep and win that mental struggle and finish at 13:56:59.  I am incredibly pleased with my time and how I felt the days after the race.   The best part is this means I get to try my luck at the Western States 100 miler lottery!

Can you point me to the finish line?

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This summer I have not really been running as much as person should to prepare for a 50k, instead I have been hiking and running where its comfortable on my 30by30 adventures, and grabbing a few midweek short runs or hikes on the trails of Boulder.  Elevation gain has been a big focus of mine this summer as well, and I feel like that alone as helped my running a ton!
Early on in the race, Oh if I could only tell you to slow down!
I went into Bear Chase feeling really good about the race.  The race was in my old back yard and I used to bike and run there all the time, so I was excited to race on trails I was familiar with.  Unfortunately I showed up about 5 minutes after the 50k pack had taken off, but the RD was nice enough to let me still start the race!  Stupidly ignored the urge to start slow and conservative, I went out way too fast and by mile two I had finally talked myself into reigning it in a little.  The first small lap went really well, I was feeling strong, nothing hurt, I was eating and drinking.  Issues started creeping up about half way through the first big loop (Mile 15ish).  It started warming up quite a bit and Bear Creek Lake Park is very exposed, I quickly realized I was not taking in enough salt as I started fighting off cramps in my quads and calves. The water crossings were a nice quick relief to my cramping muscles.  At every aid station I made sure to grab the saltiest food possible and to make sure my water bottle was near empty before getting there.  The aid station volunteers were extremely helpful and refilled my bottle while I scavenged the table of food for potatoes chips and pretzels, one volunteer even suggested salting some watermelon.  I tried out the watermelon salt concoction at the next aid station, it was icky, definitely the 1st and last time I will every try that!
You are running way too fast you noob!

Forgot my arm floaties!
Done and done!

Around the 20 mile mark I started riding the pain train, my IT band and knee refused to cooperate with me, that along with the cramping muscles made the last 10 miles drag by!  At the last aid station I started chatting with a random runner running the 50K as well, I decided to stick with her for the remainder of the race.  We had the most random conversation about the zombie apocalypse, its very interesting the stuff you think of when your body 25 miles into a run.  I could probably write a book out of the goofy shit I think of while running!  I was shooting for a sub 6 hour finish and managed to finish in ~6:08:00 which I am happy with. Just gives me something to shoot for next year!

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Running in the dark was a lot of fun!

Still running while most of Denver is still asleep.

I arrived at the race with my cooler of Mountain Dew, Snickers, and mindset to run all night .  The tent and sleeping bag were in the car but I opted to not set them up to avoid the temptation of running one lap and crawling into my sleeping bag!  We were off and running at 7 p.m., honestly the 1st couple laps were a blur.  I do remember the even laps seeming easier than the odd laps, it felt like there was a lot more down hill.  Either way there was only 800ish ft of gain per 10 mile lap which is not that much compared to other 2 long distance races I have ran.  Lap #1 flew by with only a short Mtn Dew break at the car.  Similarly lap 2 seemed to fly by as well, I recognized some familiar faces at the start/finish line and used that as an excuse to stand around and chat for 10-15 minutes until they started calling me out for standing around!  The few issues I had with this race started about 1/2 way through lap 3, I could tell a blister was forming on at least one toe (nothing a little duct tape wont fix). I took an extended break at my car after lap 3 to tape up my toes, change my socks and dump the pound of sand out of my shoes.  The next 2 laps were uneventful, I started walking every uphill and it started to become a mental battle that I refused to lose!  Thank goodness for the extremely supportive aid station peeps, they were all awesome and started recognizing me by this point and gave words of encouragement.  I felt like the aid stations were stocked perfect, I am fairly certain I consumed my entry fee’s worth of PBNJ sandwiches, pretzels, and honey stingers.

Cant go wrong with a glow in the dark shirt and medal!

I really started to struggle around the end of lap 4, I had already beaten my PDR by 10 miles, but I had plenty of time to get another lap (even if I walked the whole 10 miles).   The sun was starting to rise at this point, my body was tired and confused, but I talked myself out of the start finish area for 1 last lap.  Lap 5 consisted of a lot of power hiking/walking, but I pushed through and finished the lap with about 30 minutes to spare.  At this point the race course was shortened to a 10K loop, but I was happy with 50 miles. I felt very tired but was extremely happy to have just smashed my previous PDR and completing my 1st 50 miler!  The rest of the weekend was filled with naps and lots of eating.

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