What an adventure today! I was really excited for this race because I felt like my training has been pretty good. I was optimistic to see what I could do in this race. I really got slapped in the face and was given a rude awakening. We all started and Clyde took off towards the front. I wanted to conserved my energy so I stayed back a bit but within striking distance. We dealt with snow right from the start but it wasn't that deep. I thought we were going to luck out. Boy was I wrong! From about mile 4-14 or so, we ran uphill in 1-2 feet of snow. I did not know what to think about this but I decided to trudge along and not worry about it too much. I was sitting in 7th place and then picked up the 6th place guy about mile 16 which just happened to be on some downhill. I was happy to be out of the deep snow. It really threw me off.
I was feeling good all the way up until mile 21 when I stopped to get some stuff at the aid station. I don't know what happened but both of my legs from the bottom of my feet all the way up to my quads cramped up. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty for the last part of the race. I think I may have cramped up due to the uneven terrain while running in the snow. My gait was all messed up and I was using muscles in my body I have never used before. I slowly started to get passed by a few people here but just wanted to be done with the race. I ended up passing a bunch of the 33k runners which helped me push the last little bit. I was going along and got lost for a little bit. It cost me about 5 minutes. I was running up a hill and heard Clyde behind me. He was looking great at the first of the race and was really moving. I knew he must have gotten lost. He caught up to me and said he got sidetracked by about 30 minutes. Yikes! I still remember getting lost at the TOU Half and running an extra mile. The memories! I felt bad for Clyde because he would have won the race. It was his day. I tried to salvage the last couple miles by trying to "push" the pace. I finished and was quite disappointed. I wanted to do much better but was not prepared for all of the snow we had to encounter. It was probably 15+ miles of it. Everyone had to deal with it but I know it affected me. Still I don't want to make excuses. This is really only my second ultra so I am still learning all the ins and outs. It took me a while to get the road racing down so we will just have to wait and see. It was really nice to see Clyde run good again. Steve also ran awesome. I will try and learn from this race and do better at the next one. I really need to respect the longer distances.
At the finish line Katey and Norah were their waiting for me. Norah was asleep and missed me finish. Oh well! Hopefully she will be awake for the next finish.
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