Started out with about 3 some miles on the pavement and then we got to the trailhead. Wow is all I can say, straight up! for quite some time.

I don't know if I can remember all the course, but the first few miles in the woods were tough because it was so rocky.

We worked our way through the woods and then all of the sudden you could see this big white spot, like an ocean.....well it was an ocean of boulders and we got to climb up and up. It is hard to describe what it was like. But it was similiar to when you go up Pikes Peak and above the tree line there are just boulder, no dirt. That is what it was like.

Thankfully it was cool out because otherwise we would have had to watch out for Rattle Snakes sunning themselves. I pushed it climbing the rocks, my quads started getting tired. It was similar to doing step ups on to a bench at the gym, except that it went on forever.

At the top I waited for my friend, I think I waited about 10 minutes and I started getting cold. Did I mention it was so foggy you couldn't see very far? This may have been a good thing because this way you didn't have to see how far you really had to go.

I don't remember many details after that....just running, walking. We finally got to the first food stop. I couldn't believe it took us 2.5 hours to go 7 miles.

At this point we go to run on some fire roads and this is where my friend said to go ahead.

It was relatively flat for awhile and I ran to the next checkpoint. Somewhere along the way we climbed another very steep hill but it wasn't as long as the others.

Finally got to the checkpoint for 17 miles. Yipee! From here to the next checkpoint it was downhill and flat... I ran all of this, walked a few ups.

Last check point only 4.2 miles to go!! It took me an hour to do these last miles. This was the 45 degree angle climb with more rocks. There was a rope for the first 45 feet to help get up the this steep sections. Thank god it wasn't raining or this would have been tough. I started running out of steam here, so tired and my quads weren't liking me and here I was climbing up more rocks.

Finally made it to the top (this was the powerline section) but now it was down the other side and it was really steep to walk down. It hurt to walk down the hill it was so steep, I tried different methods of going sideways, faster straight....all of it painful.

The last 3 miles were on a paved road - even though they were paved and flat, it was hard to run and it seemed to go on forever.

The race was very well organized, lots of food, volunteers....very well done!

Tried to walk around without limping too much. One toe is purple, not sure what that means. Ate pizza!!


Even though I did some hills in my training runs, I needed to do more.


Very well organized!