Started off nice and easy, my running partner was not at all prepared for this distance so I promised I would stick with her for at least the first 7-8 miles. The first half went smooth, got across the streams/creeks without getting soaked. The hills were pretty much constant, but bearable. At the 2nd aide station around mile 7.5 (apparently water stations every 4 miles is pretty close together by ultra-marathon standards) my partner gave me the okay to take off. I kicked it up gear and dropped the pace to around 8.5 a mile, then the course chose that time to increase its difficulty by a factor of 4. The trail more or less ended and you got to follow yellow ribbons tied to trees every few dozen yards. I was all over the place trying to figure out where to go, it could have been worse though, a chap behind me went almost 2 miles down the wrong road. After 25 minutes of running top speed to only have a net gain of 2 miles the trail popped out again on a nice steady half mile climb to the final aide station. Things get pretty blurry from there. The sun came out as oppresive as it could be and I simply could not satisfy my thirst, combine that with at that point every step I took was further than I'd ever run before. I remember thinking mile 11 was probably what hell was supposed to be like. Nothing but up and down the whole time, with one climb so steep I was pulling myself up by saplings (Remember that cartoon with the runner trudging up the side of the mountain with a gremlin on his back saying, "This is the last one, I promise" and in the back ground you see a whole mountain range, it was like that). Finally hit the 12 mile mark and the last half was on the road leading into the campground so that spectators could look at us as if to say "Why are you all muddy, you're just running on gravel".

Maybe a few more calories, two GUs, a banana, orange slice and 10 ozs o gatorade is probably not enough to keep me out of a calorie defecit. Other than that I was just glad to survive. My previous long was 10 miles on flat paved roads.

Stumbled around, watched some guy get carted off suffering from heat exhaustion.


Not being a world-class ultra runner.


Mad props to anyond who has ever done an ultra. The 50 mile course was 4 of the loop I did once, I am in awe of people who willingly subject themselves to that. And I still can't get over the fact that they kept saying that this wasn't that hilly a course (they also said it was much drier than last year because the streams didn't come up to our chest.) The 3 - 4 miles I have to run are going to seem like nothing now.