The last few days have been a whirlwind. Thursday was my last full day at school this week and it ended on a SUPER NOTE! I was in the office with Ben the principal and I was running a field trip by him and he said, "If it's okay with you I'd like to switch the subject.... I'd like to offer you the job!!" I nearly jumped out of my chair! Talk about a super birthday present! So I have been officially offered a full-time social studies position in the fall!! It was a great moment! :) So excited! On to the race... 6:00 am - Woke up on Friday morning and drove with Emmy to her Dr.'s appointment and then to Syracuse. We grabbed lunch at a diner and then headed off to find Highland Forest. We checked into our hotel after driving back from the forest. Highland Forest is absolutely amazing and I plan on running this race again! They have one of the best state park lodges and setups I have ever seen. It is immaculate and maintained and the admission price is ONLY $1.00!!! Friday night we relaxed and went out to a restaurant in Syracuse called "Pastabilities". Mmmm mmm good! Went back and tried to sleep in the hotel but it was difficult. I kept waking up and tossing and turning.. nerves. Saturday morning was spent getting ready by about 6:30. Race time was 8:30 am. Grabbed breakfast as soon as the continental breakfast started at 7:00 and then we were off for the 35 minute drive to Fabius, NY. Fabius is a very small town. I believe the 2005 state census listed only 344 people! Had a very small-town NY feel (much like the town I grew up in). We pulled into the parking lot right around 8:00 am and headed over to the registration table. I got there and gave them my name for the pre-registered runners, only to find out he DIDN'T SEE MY NAME! My heart started pounding and I was like, "what? I sent it out in March!". Thankfully the RD decided that he wouldn't hold it against people if they sent in their registration and it somehow got lost. I filled out the sheet again and they said the fee was waived! Phew. Time to relax and get ready for the race. Emm was there to keep me talking so nerves wouldn't get to me. I was just excited and ready to go! I was wearing my custom made running jersey I made a few weeks ago that quotes Quentin Cassidy from John L. Parker's "Once A Runner".. "The Trial of Miles... Miles of Trials". One last sip from my Amphipod and I was ready to go! Loop #1 : 2:02:07 (Miles 1-10) I started off in the back of the pack. Didn't know the course so wanted to be conservative. My goals : 1. start off slowly, 2. walk all uphills, 3. Finish with a smile on my face! I fell in behind two groups of runners and immediately started listening to their conversations. One group consisted of two couples and from the sounds of it they had done a 5-6 hour bike ride yesterday and were pretty beat (perfect for pacing off of). Another group in front of me consisted of two barechested 20-somethings and an older gentleman with a heavy accent. He knew his running however and immediately struck up a conversation with me about running books and what books were my favorite (I told him I worked in a bookstore for four years and know every book out there!). He was quite funny and I ended up following the three of them the entire loop. There were aid stations at about miles 3, 6.5 and 8. I filled a bottle at each station, drank it down while I was standing there at the table scrounging for other goodies like granola bars, and then refilled it again for the distance in between the next aid station. It was already warming up by about an hour into the first loop. The projected high was 83 for Saturday (a big change from the initial 68 projected at the start of the week). I knew hydration was key. I kept plugging away and was astonished at how EASY the course actually was! The 5k loop I run @ Olivia's Lookout is way harder than this course was! I was stoked for a good time. Some mud here and there but overall nice. No significant hills after the first mile until mile 7. Most of mile 7-8 was spent walking up to the highest point on the course and from there it is a nice and fast downhill to the start/finish area. I kept about :30 to :45 behind the pack of 3 chitter chatters after leaving the pack of 4 bikers in the dust at mile 6 for good. Turns out all of these I paced off of were only doing 1 loop. Came down the hill and saw Emmy waiting with a smile on her face to greet me after the first loop. I was drenched in sweat but smiling like crazy. I told her I felt like a million dollars :) . She talked to me for a few minutes while I refueled. (I spent about 3 minutes refilling my bottles and grabbing pretzels and cookies.) As I left the aid station Emm wished me luck and headed back to the hotel. Loop #2 : 2:06:58 (Miles 11-20) Much of the second lap I ran alone. I didn't see anyone for about twenty minutes and actually thought I had taken a wrong turn, until I caught a glimpse of someone ahead of me as I approached the first aid station. It was the first of four people I ended up catching on the second lap. I like the mentality of trail runners. They are always up for a conversation and the sheer nature of trail running is much simpler and basic than the fast-paced fury of road racing. The man I came upon told me I looked strong as I plugged along to the next station. Picked up a banana and GU and took off. Ended up seeing two more runners (a man and a woman ahead of him) as I started up a long .5 mile uphill. I worked out that it was more efficient to eat as I walked rather than eat while running, so I had carried the banana about 1 mile until I got to the uphill and then I gulped it down. I really relied on HEED during the race to keep me going. Love that stuff! Caught up to the guy and we started chatting and he ended up following me on my heels for about two miles down the downhill. We caught and passed the woman and then I kept plugging away on the flats through knee high grass that made a double-track a single-track. Really beautiful scenery though! Pulled away by about :02 going into the next aid station, but as I refueled they ended up catching me. Pulled away again and never looked back. Put serious distance on them going into the 8 mile aid station. I was feeling super strong going into the last part of this loop. Despite the sun beating down I thought I was hydrating okay. I knew I had to. I ended up downing 16 x 20 ounce bottles over the course of the 4+ hours for the two laps. I think I was sweating HEED for days afterwards! Didn't really start to tighten up until after passing runner #4 on the second lap going into the long two miles of downhills leading to the start/finish area. I really started to feel my quads tightening up. I let who I thought was the winner of the 3 lap go past me and I exclaimed, "Wow you're fast!" Turns out he wasn't the winner of the 3 lapper. Hhaha. Saw another runner in a red shirt ahead of me and I really thought I could catch him. My 5k/10k racer mentality told me I could, but it is amazing after 4 hours of running how slow the body is to react to normally "easy" tasks. Despite only being :15 to :20 seconds behind him, I never could close the gap. Looking at the results the day after, if I had only known how close I was to others, I might have been able to make up some ground and finish close to the top 10. There's always next year though! 20-Mile FINISH : 4:09:05 (15th place of 24, 2nd in age group) So, if you are still reading you'll notice I wrote "FINISH".. sans 30 mile split. It turns out it was too sunny and hot for many runners on Saturday. Many other of the 20 miler finishers that were welcoming me in after the second lap said they too had succumbed to the heat and decided against a third loop. After talking with the race officials who informed me I was indeed within the cutoff time of 4h30m, I decided not to go back out. The last person to attempt a third loop left at 3:42:00. I would have had a 27 minute deficit from the beginning of the 3rd loop and would have come in dead last. This way I finished smiling and feeling accomplished and knowing I could have gone a bit farther. Oh well, there's always next year. This gives me something else to shoot for next time! They had really yummy soup and snacks so I got some of that and watched the first place man and woman for the 30-miler come in what seemed like effortlessly. Truly amazing! BUT, I didn't get lapped! Woohoo! :). Waited for Emmy to drive back from the hotel. Felt kind of bad she had to come all the way back out to get me. We went for a 1.10 mile cool down around the nature trails leading up to about mile 19.5 of the race. I remarked to her that this was the first trail race I hadn't actually fallen! Though I had one close call as my quads seized up and I started to hobble at mile 19.5 and just couldn't lift my legs over the fallen tree in front of me! Like I said, amazing how easy tasks become not so easy. After the cool down and congratulations from Emmy we went to an Alpaca Shearing Festival (how cool is that, huh?!) at Springside Farms for a few hours before going back into Syracuse. Really had a great day with her, minus that evening when I was starting to get a little cranky and we went to a Chinese restaurant that didn't give you silverware. In retrospect I must have appeared really funny to all of the Chinese in there trying to eat with chopsticks and not being able to pick up any of the rice or stringbeans! I almost resorted to just stabbing them! haha. So in conclusion, 1. This was by far the most fun I've ever had in a trail race. 2. This was my longest trail race EVER! 3. This was the best I've ever felt in a race ever! 4. I DID finish with a smile on my face! 5. I have to thank EJC for being the best fiancee in the world! :)
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