Okay, I am officially tired now.

I woke up this morning at 2:30 in the Hampton Inn, in Laurel, Mississippi.  I was freezing!!!  MFH felt my forehead and I had a temp.  I went to the bathroom and my cheeks were flaming red and my eyes were glazed.  I was sick.

It was race day.

This was bad.

Advil to the rescue!

I think I took, let me see, 10 Advil(?) over the course of the day.  I’m letting it wear off now and I’m feeling pretty awful again, but I got the race done.  Successfully!  That is what counts!  And that is what you want to hear about, so here goes…

I had been hearing horror stories about the course this week.  Someone even sent me a pic of the trail.  Mud and water were covering the course and this was just on the trail!  It was not one of the many water crossings.  I was in a panic (but I have a tendency to do that).

I am fortunate that I have a lot of running buddies who are patient with me and offered me some very sound advice on how to handle the obstacles I would encounter on the race today.  That advice (and a pair of gaiters I was able to borrow) saved my patoot!

Yes, there was mud.  Lots of mud, but it wasn’t as horrible as I had been led to believe.  At least not on the first loop.

It was super cold at the beginning of the race so the mud was almost (almost!) frozen.  The stiff mud made circumventing it pretty easy.

I had been told that the water crossings were around waist deep.  Most of them were only up to my knees.  Not so bad.  I charged right through those things while most runners were trying to tip toe around the water and walk on slippery logs.  I passed a lot of people doing that.

The second time through the big loop, the temps were rising and the mud had thawed.  That mud took on a life of its own!  Holy Cow was that stuff slippery!!!

I came up on one of the water crossings and of course, I had to go through mud to get to the water.  That mud grabbed me and I went down in the knee deep water.  Face plant. SPLOOSH!!!  I was very, very wet for the remainder of the race.  HA!

I fell a total of three times today.  The other two times were in the exact same spot on both times through the big loop.  There was this hidden tree root and it had my number on it.  Both times that thing grabbed me and I went DOWN.  Not a frantic, flailing your arms trying to grab onto anything you can, but I mean, DOWN!  An immediate fall.

Ouch!

Between that root and the water, that was it.  The rest of the time, I was vertical.  Whew!

The trail was actually very, very nice!  It didn’t get super hot out there today so I was comfortable the whole time.  Lots of nice people to chat with.  The aid stations were well manned and I found my new race drink.  Coke!  Fizzy Coke!

I know some races will give you flat soda, but there was nothing flat about this!  Bubbles and all.  That stuff was great!  Put a spring in my step, that’s for sure.

MFH (My Favorite Husband) did a great job crewing for me today.  We had chatted the night before about what I would want on each of my loops and he was there, ready with exactly what I needed.  He’s a keeper, that guy!  I think a good crew (ie: MFH) is worth their weight in gold on an Ultra.

My time was going incredibly well and I was looking to finish under 7 hrs.

About 3 miles from the finish, I came alongside this guy who was limping.  Poor guy.  I stopped and walked with him for 1.5 miles.  He had an injury and was going the best he could.  I left him after that to finish the race.  He was going to be fine.

My finish time was 7:04:15.  I was the 8th overall woman in the 50K (there were 300 runners today). 1st AG with a 3hr 11 min PR over last summer’s 50K.

A successful day of racing!!!

Thanks for all the kind words and thoughts today!  I knew you were there and that kept me going.