A muddy day

I am not so good with race reports but I have been told to write one. We traveled up the night before the race to Ithaca, NY and stayed at the Super 8, a lovely spacious room, even though I hate staying in hotels. I had a terrible night’s sleep as usual not being at home, however this one was particularly bad. I woke up at least 3 times with right hip pain and once with a numb left side of my face, cheek and bottom lip, I thought I had Bell’s palsy. After calming myself down and realizing the tingling was a good sign, I regained feeling and fell asleep for the 2 hours before we were to be up to get ready to go. A slow start but we made it to the Potomac Campground in plenty of time. We checked in and headed to the start. It is a loop course, for the 50K – 2 loops 15.69 for the first loop and 15.53 for the second loop, so I put a hand held bottle by the pass through, deciding to run the first loop hands free (not the best idea of the day).

We started about on time at 6:30, down the road and into the first single track trail section… and into the mud!! I contemplated slowing down but really did not want to be stuck behind a group of walkers so when I could, I passed slipping and sliding up the hill. The loop had multiple sections of single track with ankle deep mud, cow pastures with ankle and sometimes lower calf deep mud (with plenty of water in all of it to made really great splashes!) and 2 quick sections of road both uphill of course. We opened and closed I don’t remember how may gates (to not let the cows out) which were also surrounded by mud. Occasionally I did try to walk but the mud threatened to pull off your shoes if you sunk too deep and it was a much better idea to run through all of it, it seemed if you splashed into it enough your foot came out easier, and of course it was better to go straight through because the edges of the trails made you slide in any way! I will say, my feet were weighed down a bit by the thickness of it and the streams were welcome to wash the weight away, even though it lasted only a couple of minutes.

OK- enough about the mud, I wish I had some pictures to show though, it really was something!!

SO, the race continued on and later in the first loop one of the runners mentioned something like “hey, did you know you are the first female?” To which I asked, “how could you possibly know that??” He said it was not that hard to keep track of the women out there. I let the comment go really not believing him figuring if he was way back here with me how could he possibly know who was in front of us. Well, it turned out he was right, at the next aid station, the gentleman there confirmed it…I did not ask either he just said, “first female”. Honestly my reaction was less than enthusiastic. There is quite a bit of pressure in that knowledge. I really was at this race for training and a nice long run, I did not feel like I had enough umph to run any harder than I was already running, but who doesn’t want the chance to hold onto first place. I continued on deciding to just push for as long as I could push. I completed the first loop in 2:44, with exhausted legs from fighting with all the mud and trying to run all the uphills because at least the mud was runnable on the way up (for the most part).
Second loop, I picked up my hand held (thankfully since I was not drinking enough at each aid station) and went on for more of the same although a bit worse since everyone had been through one time including the 25K runners who started at 8am. I held onto first until another woman came really cruising by with about 5 miles to go… and just kept on moving (haha get it:) I could not chase, I was too fried. Not too long later a second woman came by and asked me how far she was from the first woman who flew by, I told her about 20 mins ahead, it was a rough estimate at best. She mentioned they were running the 50M race. Hum, but in this particular race, you can change your distance at any time, so all bets are off. I continued on and plugged through to the finish mostly running but some walking. I finished in 6:01 and some odd seconds and kept walking through the finish tent toward more water, when a woman stopped me and said ” wait up, you are the first female”. I was surprised, pleasantly! I was given a section of tree with a gold cow tacked to it for the award, a gift certificate to Dick’s Sporting Goods and a 12 pack of beer. The race was well run with plenty of aid, manned and unmanned! Carrying the beer to the car however, was no easy task… at least there was no mud on the way to the car.

Loopy