Oooh it was not a good start. We got down there late and had to set the tent up in the dark but thankfully it was not raining. They had already cleaned up the dinner by the time we got there and the shirts ran really big!! I was just one tired, stressed out cranky chick. Plus the rain/lightning/last minute course changes weren't winning me over.
Morning came and it was beautiful we had great weather. Kelly, Smooth, Leslie, and I were there and I recognized some friends from LocoMotion. We were out in the middle of nowhere and it was lovely. Had to try very very hard not to go out too fast because 31 miles is quite a distance for me. Somewhere around mile 10 I think the was a tombstone shaped rock that had RIP painted on it. My response to that was oh that is so funny, to that is just wrong, but I loved it all the same.
The view was gorgeous, temperature was great, jumped over a fairly large crack in the road and didn't jump far enough and fell into the hole up to my thigh! I felt like a billy goat with some of the hills I had to climb. I ran with Leslie until the turn around and then picked up the pace a little. Turn around was too early because the road was impassible, and the race ended up being only a little over 28 miles. Running back I was feeling ok but was having some girlie problems. That just made me mad. If anything was going to make me hurt and slow down it definitely wasn't going to be that so I picked up the pace a little more and started passing some people. That is a new concept for me. I was ooing and ahhing over all the pretty rocks, strata, and intrusions I could see. It was secluded and beautiful. Chris rode his bike out and caught me about mile 18. We had some fun conversation and then when I stepped right in front of the two foot snake that was crossing the road and screamed Chris giggled for the next few miles. Not so funny!! Oh I was a little annoyed with the tag a long girl scout cookies at the aid stations. I love those but can't really tolerate them during a run!
The last segment throught the goblins was hilarious. It was like an obstacle course, up, down, around, find the next pumpkin and head to it until you see the next one. Bad part is if you are sufficiently messed in the head exhausted it was a little hard to too but did really take your mind off the miles. Another bad thing was I had such a desire to find stuff in the pumpkins but alas there was nothing.
Later that night we had smores and chatted and played with Kelly's family and we had a blast. In the end I really enjoyed it and even it is was short I was still way ahead of my previous record of 8:45. | 