The HUFF 50K Trail Run (Relay) - RunUltra Marathon

Team Name: "Tri-N-It" Placement: 10th in the Mixed division At 5:20:38

After some of the stories coming off the course from the early relay runners I got plenty nervous. The first guy I ran into said there was waist deep water in at least one place and others that were knee deep. I began to hear from more people that they didn't encounter anything deeper than knee deep so I began to get a little less nervous and began the idea of embracing the pain.
The race began as I ran up the first hill and quickly made a WRONG turn. I got side tracked by another friend and completely blew by a sign marking the right way. Had I not noticed as soon as I did I would have turned 10.35 miles into 15.5. I had gotten about 150 yards onto the wrong course prior to seeing my error.
The rest of the next 2 miles were fairly uneventful. The route was a little slippery in a few spots but nothing like what I was about to face later.
At 2.25 miles I hit the first of the water logged areas. I thought I might be able to navigate around it but about 50 feet into it I was already ankle deep and decided I was going for the gusto and headed right for the middle of the trail. It was now knee deep and freezing cold but I only had another 50 feet to the end. After getting through that I made it a couple hundred feet and thought I was "pretty good." The water was gone and I was warmed back up...........Then more water......RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE. I fully embraced this one without even thinking about going around it. There was only about 50 in this one altogether.
Once past that first 3 miles or so things got much worse but it was miles 3-6 that weren't that bad either. There was mud and a little more water but it wasn't horrible.
Then mile 6-8!?!?!?! These were the most rugged of all! The conditions were torturous to say the least. The mud was so bad that all I could do was manage to jog using very short steps and, at times, run on the side of the trails to get ANY traction whatsoever. The mud was more like pudding and it was ankle deep for a as wide as the trail and a little wider because of the other competitors that had been through. There was almost a mile where this type of slippery mess was encountered very often. All said, it might have been up to a quarter of a mile of that in one mile of the course.
The last 2.5 miles were pretty hilly and a lot less mud. The trail was more and based and allowed the water to drain and run off much more quickly from the huge amounts of rain. I finally had a firm running base and could turn up the speed a little bit. (With no GPS I don't really know my mile paces and I hate not knowing!)
I encountered a lot of water again in the last mile and it was getting close to the knee many times. Again, as with the early miles, I decided to embrace the wet, cold, pain and finish with water running from my shoes and clothes. I barely slowed down for these last couple of water holes.
The final half mile was on firm footing and a little bit of downhill. I tried to lay out a solid effort for the last part of this race and see how bad I could hurt myself in such a short distance. There was n't really enough distance left to get real nasty but I was still suffering.

First: I would have payed closer attention to the signs. The mistake of running the wrong trail probably cost me about 1 minute.
Second: not worry about the conditions of the trail. This race was so much more memorable because of the horrendous conditions. Basically I would have embraces the pain sooner.
Third: Go into the race with full intention of diving into the middle early and often. That was exhilarating to run through and know I was going to be fine in the end.

No warm down. It was a freeze down.
I walked back to the truck with Adam and Jayne.


The course!!!!
I am certain I could have nailed a 1:15:00 or better under solid footing. the course would have been challenging but I am sure I would have been fine to hit something MUCH faster given the right conditions.


The start was late because people were still coming into the venue but I didn't see it as a big deal.
It seems like VEEP Races is a little slow to post results to their races. I think this should be an area they should work on. Also I think it would be a good idea to advertise what sites the results will be posted on the soonest.