My training since mid September has been hit or miss with work and an injury so I didn't really know what to expect. I'd only had 1 week of the last 10 that was over 50 miles and that was last week. I'm running off endurance that was put in the bank early in the year. Dizzy consists of running multiple figure-8 loops of about 10 miles. 3 laps to 50k, 4 to 40M, and 5 for 50M. The huge majority of people do the 50K (80+ %). Jon Elmore and I ran with DeWayne Satterfield the first loop until we got to the one steep climb of the course (takes about 3 minutes if you are sprinting). Dewayne left us when we got to the steep switch backs when we started power walking. We were feeling good- weather was nice (~50's). I learned that Dewayne also has a pre-race tradition of eating sausage biscuits- it works well for us. When he ran across TN (350 miles in 4+ days) , he said he ate at least a half dozen per day along with a Taco Bell burrito lunch. A 19 YO college student, Aaron Bush, tagged along and ran with Jon and I the remainder of the loop. He was running his second 50k and wanted to improve upon his 4:50 at Black Warrior where it sounded like he bonked big time towards the end. Although it wasn't his intention, he served as a great pacer for me and ran on my heels for the next 20 miles. I was feeling really relaxed on the 2nd loop and started to really let go on the downhills and caught back up to Jon (both Aaron and I had stopped to use the facilities at the end of lap 1). Jon wasn't able to latch on and that was the last I saw him until the finish. Jon ended up with a 4:51 50K which was very impressive considering he ran a 50 miler just two weeks prior. I stuck to my nutrition strategy of Gu and a bottle of Gatorade every 1/2 lap and a salt tab every lap. My stomach luckily can handle it since Gu is such an easy fuel to put down. Aaron and I kept steadily moving along - keeping it around 8-8:30 pace. The south section is very curvy and gets monotonous so it was nice to have someone to run with. I had my typical day of clumsiness. I tripped about 7 times and had a head first dive into leaves each time. They were luckily soft landings. Only drew a little blood. The only sigh of the fall were leaves that got stuck in my calf sleeves. Linda S. had one fall and but scraped and bruised in several different places . Her left leg will be a mass of black and blue today. Towards the end of the 3rd loop, Aaron started to cramp and with 2 miles left in his 50K he started to walk. He ended up with a 4:20 which smashed his old PR. So from there on out, I was on my own. I came through the 50K at 4:17 which was my course PR for that distance but I refueled and headed out for more. I held it together in my 4th loop. Slowed a little but maintained motivation and actually caught a glance of DeWayne at one point were the course doubles back on itself. When I finished the 4th loop (40 miles completed), I saw that DeWayne had called it a day as the winner of the 40 mile loop (4 minutes ahead of me). I headed out for my final loop knowing that the leader of the 50 miler had a 50 minute lead on me (I was in second). A half mile in to the final loop, my motivation waned. I had already sewn up a 2nd in the 40 miler and had over an hour more of painful running to go to get a 2nd in the 50 miler. This in a race that I was doing for fun. Before I descended off the plateau (which I would have had to climb back up), I unpinned my race number and jogged back to the start line to claim my 40 mile finish. It was a fun day. Ending at 40 miles kept it that way. The last 10 would have been very difficult especially without a pacer. Now I have 3 weeks to recover before the Rocket City Marathon.
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