{"id":2957,"date":"2015-03-07T18:38:09","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T00:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=2957"},"modified":"2015-04-22T14:00:07","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T19:00:07","slug":"34-76-miles-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=2957","title":{"rendered":"34.76 Miles. BOOM!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I am officially tired now.<\/p>\n

I woke up this morning at 2:30 in the Hampton Inn, in Laurel, Mississippi. \u00a0I was freezing!!! \u00a0MFH felt my forehead and I had a temp. \u00a0I went to the bathroom and my cheeks were flaming red and my eyes were glazed. \u00a0I was sick.<\/p>\n

It was race day.<\/p>\n

This was bad.<\/p>\n

Advil to the rescue!<\/p>\n

I think I took, let me see, 10 Advil(?) over the course of the day. \u00a0I’m letting it wear off now and I’m feeling pretty awful again, but I got the race done. \u00a0Successfully! \u00a0That is what counts! \u00a0And that is what you want to hear about, so here goes…<\/p>\n

I had been hearing horror stories about the course this week. \u00a0Someone even sent me a pic of the trail. \u00a0Mud and water were covering the course and this was just on the trail! \u00a0It was not one of the many water crossings. \u00a0I was in a panic (but I have a tendency to do that).<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0That advice (and a pair of gaiters I was able to borrow) saved my patoot!<\/p>\n

Yes, there was mud. \u00a0Lots of mud, but it wasn’t as horrible as I had been led to believe. \u00a0At least not on the first loop.<\/p>\n

It was super cold at the beginning of the race so the mud was almost (almost!) frozen. \u00a0The stiff mud made circumventing it pretty easy.<\/p>\n

I had been told that the water crossings were around waist deep. \u00a0Most of them were only up to my knees. \u00a0Not so bad. \u00a0I charged right through those things while most runners were trying to tip toe around the water and walk on slippery logs. \u00a0I passed a lot of people doing that.<\/p>\n

The second time through the big loop, the temps were rising and the mud had thawed. \u00a0That mud took on a life of its own! \u00a0Holy Cow was that stuff slippery!!!<\/p>\n

I came up on one of the water crossings and of course, I had to go through mud to get to the water. \u00a0That mud grabbed me and I went down in the knee deep water. \u00a0Face plant. SPLOOSH!!! \u00a0I was very, very wet for the remainder of the race. \u00a0HA!<\/p>\n

I fell a total of three times today. \u00a0The other two times were in the exact same spot on both times through the big loop. \u00a0There was this hidden tree root and it had my number on it. \u00a0Both times that thing grabbed me and I went DOWN. \u00a0Not a frantic, flailing your arms trying to grab onto anything you can, but I mean, DOWN! \u00a0An immediate fall.<\/p>\n

Ouch!<\/p>\n

Between that root and the water, that was it. \u00a0The rest of the time, I was vertical. \u00a0Whew!<\/p>\n

The trail was actually very, very nice! \u00a0It didn’t get super hot out there today so I was comfortable the whole time. \u00a0Lots of nice people to chat with. \u00a0The aid stations were well manned and I found my new race drink. \u00a0Coke! \u00a0Fizzy Coke!<\/p>\n

I know some races will give you flat soda, but there was nothing flat about this! \u00a0Bubbles and all. \u00a0That stuff was great! \u00a0Put a spring in my step, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n

MFH (My Favorite Husband) did a great job crewing for me today. \u00a0We 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. \u00a0He’s a keeper, that guy! \u00a0I think a good crew (ie: MFH) is worth their weight in gold on an Ultra.<\/p>\n

My time was going incredibly well and I was looking to finish under 7 hrs.<\/p>\n

About 3 miles from the finish, I came alongside this guy who was limping. \u00a0Poor guy. \u00a0I stopped and walked with him for 1.5 miles. \u00a0He had an injury and was going the best he could. \u00a0I left him after that to finish the race. \u00a0He was going to be fine.<\/p>\n

My finish time was 7:04:15. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n

A successful day of racing!!!<\/p>\n

Thanks for all the kind words and thoughts today! \u00a0I knew you were there and that kept me going.<\/p>\n

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Okay, I am officially tired now. I woke up this morning at 2:30 in the Hampton Inn, in Laurel, Mississippi. \u00a0I was freezing!!! \u00a0MFH felt my forehead and I had a temp. \u00a0I went to the bathroom and my cheeks were flaming red and my eyes were glazed. \u00a0I was sick. It was race day. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,8,3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3080,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions\/3080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}