So I began my first leg and I ran as hard as I could. My HR came up nicely and was int he mid to high 160's to low 170's. I felt sick to my stomach when I got up into the 170's but could recover when the road went downhill a bit and settle. I really turned myself inside out to try and throw down as fasta time as I could. I gave no thought to any other running I might have to do later, it was 7.12 miles of pure, glorious pain. When i handed back off to Jim Presscot, runner 1 from Van 1 43:21 min later, I knew I had given our team time in the bank and was very pleased. I averaged a 6:05 pace with 161HR.

We now had some downtime, so we wnet ot Denny's in Wickenburg. 3 of our guys went in to eat and the rest of us stayed in the car and caught a little sleep. I fell aslepp for sure, just don't know for how long. We then drove down towrads checkpoint 18 when word of the on course accident reached us. A memeber of another team had been struck by a car somewhere around Leg 19. He later died of his injuries. Our Van 1 was still completing the legs leading towards meeting us at checkpoint 18, where we waited to hear what the RD would do as a portion of the course was now closed due to the accident investigation. I got some more sleep, kind of on and off for about 90min or so when they announced that the race was going to skip legs 19-25 and all teams should proceed to checkpoint 26 where the race would be restarted. Our Van 1 did manage to comlete all of their 3rd stint and made it to 18 after we left.

At 5:40am, we restarted and took over the running duties, switching with Van 1 to give them a break. Now I would run only one more time, a 6.3 mile stretch leading into my home town of Fountain Hills, a run a do every week! I once again received the handoff from Dan at 8:41am and once again ran as hard as I could towrads town. Jamie and our friend Joan came out on their bikes to cheer me on and Joan's husband Matt ran out to meet me. He ran about 1 mile with me until the pace forced him to drop off, but it was nice to have a little support. I cam flying into town and handed back to Jim with a split of 39:01 for 6.3 miles, 386 feet of climbing, a 6:11 pace, 162HR. I was done and it was time for pancakes!

Pancakes and then beer at the finish line in Tempe Marketplace to see our final runner cross the line. We all joined him and crossed as a complete team. We still don't know the final results due to the accident and course change, but I'm sure we were in the top 3, 1st Masters team. Despite the tragedy of the runner's death, it was a great event.