We were all required to wear head lights, reflective wear, and most of us also had glow sticks attached to us. It was fun watching all the glowing runners at the start. Within the first couple miles, I decided this whole running at midnight thing was stupid, and I didn't want to do it. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and mentally I lost it. I started walking, and I walked and walked. There was no scenery to watch in the darkness, and I felt like I was on a treadmill ( I despise treadmills). My husband and I had decided to run this one together, since I was a little unsure what it would be like out there in the darkness by myself. As it turns out this too was a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly and it was really sweet of him to stay with me when he definitely could have finished faster, but had I been on my own I think I would have wanted to hurry a bit more. Running (well mostly walking) with him made it seem less like a race to me, and I had someone to talk to while I was walking, making it not quite as boring as it would otherwise had been. We also fed on each other's negativity. He was the first to suggest we just do the marathon. Poor guy was probably just wanting to get this over, with all the walking and bitching I was doing. This is very unlike me during a marathon, I am usually smiling and really positive the whole way, but this race had me in some very dark places both literally and figuratively. The decision was made to just go to the marathon turn around and in that moment I didn't care at all about finishing the ultra distance.

Then a couple miles later, from behind us came Crystal and Stacey. They were beaming! Crystal asked if we were doing the 51k. I responded, "not anymore", and she said, "Come on we have plenty of time. We have 3.5 hours and only 14 miles to go." As they trotted past us, Gary mumbled, "yea, maybe if your running" and that set something off in my mind. I COULD do this, and I DID want it! I started to run. Once I started running again, I didn't want to stop because I was afraid I wouldn't get started again. Crystal and Stacey stopped to take some pictures of the Extraterrestial HWY sign, but as much as I would have liked to take pictures I knew I didn't have time for that. And, I knew now that I did indeed want to finish 51k tonight. About 5 miles later, the sun rose and I finally got to see the beautiful landscape of the Nevada desert. We were surrounded by mountains in the distance, sharply contrasting with the flat plains. the full moon was still up in the sky, and it was absolutely breathtaking. Again, I would have loved to have a photo, but knew we were cutting it really short time-wise. We passed the Little Aleinn (the finish line) and headed to our turn around, a police car with lights flashing about 5 miles ahead. I watched those lights flash, seeming never to get any closer, as we passed the marathon turn around and knew I was now committed.

We leap-frogged with twins during this section, running some and walking more. They were from Georgia, and the funny thing is, we discussed the different road kill we had seen along the route. You know it's a bad sign when the interesting sights are road kill, a few rabbits and snakes and one scorpion. We did see some amazing shooting stars too, so that was cool. After finally reaching the police car and turning around, I was wondering where Crystal and Stacey were and hoping they would make it. About a mile past the turn around we saw them, still smiling and moving forward. I saw a police car following them and figured it was a sweeper car, taking that as a good sign that they would let them finish so I had plenty of time. I wanted to slow down. Gary kept telling me we needed to pick it up to beat the cut off, and he kept a speedy walking pace and I kept up with him. I saw the twins in front of us and rallied enough to run and catch up with them. Shortly after this, with about 2 miles left, someone drove up and told us we needed to pick it up if we were going to make the cut off. So, I started running to street signs or mile posts with walk breaks in between. It was a good thing Gary hadn't let me slow earlier. With .2 of a mile left, the guy drove by again and told us we had 2 minutes to get to the finish line or we were done. It pissed me off that he was so rude about it, but it did inspire me to run it in the rest of the way and finish at 8:00:40. The twins finished about a minute later, and Crystal and Stacey were picked up. I felt so bad for them, because I knew how much they wanted to finish, and without a doubt, I would not have finished 51k without them. I do hope that they at least got credit for the marathon, since they went well over that distance.

Not stay up the two nights before and just sleep in as long as possible the day of the race. I don't think running at night is for me, so I wouldn't do another night time race unless it's a short one or perhaps part of a 100 miler :)

Got back on the bus for the long ride back to Vegas.


Lack of sleep, mental attitude, not enough consistent training


I don't really know how the post race activities were, since I got directly on the bus after crossing the finish line. I do think they should allow a little more than 5 minutes between the race cut off time and when the buses leave, but all in all it was well organized and definitely a unique event. It's also impressive that they had so many volunteers willing to stand out there all night to support the runners