One of the best parts of the race was the facilities at the camp, it was at a boy scout camp. They had a million bathrooms and showers too! No waiting in a long line to a smelly outhouse. There also was boy scout tents that anyone could use with cots, which was nice not having to set up and take down my tent in the morning.
The race started out pretty casually, we were on the road for a good mile and a half before getting on the trail. I was in the lead with a couple of guys right behind me for the first miles which helped with navigation because I had no idea where to go for the most part. After getting to the top of the first climb I made a move on the downhill and soon gapped the field and was running clear. I would soon hit the road again which I didn't understand because the website said it had around 5 miles of country dirt roads but these are definitely paved. I was a little worried on the road because I knew I didn't have an advantage there. I kept pushing my pace which was mid to high seven minute pace hoping there would be trail soon. Turned out to be around 4 miles of paved road before I got back on the trail, which I gladly welcomed. The only problem was this section wasn't marked, the entire trail itself had its own mark on the trees but these were hard to see while running and not knowing the course. And that's were I got lost...
It was around mile 12 or 13 and I was looking for the trail markings on the trees when I crossed a creek and the trail split into a cornfield and up a mountain. Didn't see any flags so I headed up the short little climb only to realize that I was going the wrong way, I turned around and went out into the field but also saw nothing. I was kinda pissed that I could get lost in the race considering I was working hard on keeping the lead. About two minutes since I crossed the creek, second place comes to the field and we start to try and find the trail and back track a little to the last course markings and went back out into the field when I heard third place but couldn't see them. I yelled out and he was on the trail. Turns out it went through the creek we crossed, go figure, so both me and the other guy hopped a barbed wire fence and crossed the stream and caught up to the other racers. The guy I was with then made a move for the lead but I was tired from navigating through the middle of nowhere so I took a lax approach and let him go off and decided to run my own race and not get caught up in racing after using so much effort for basically nothing.
We soon got back on the roads again, which surprised me the second time as well that there was soo much road in the race. I kept a comfortable pace and wasn't pushing it by any means at this point. I could see that the guy that was in third( who was keeping me going in the right direction) was falling off a little bit. I was worried that I would get lost again so I kept an eye out for markings. The following miles were pretty uneventful until I got to the aid station and got some more gels. Soon after I get caught up by another racer, Madison. He was a super chill dude and we ran basically the rest of the race together until the end.
Madison asked me what place we were in I said second and third and first place is some distance ahead. He said this was his first ultra (congrats!) and asked me if it would be worth it to chase him down, I said go for it... but he never ran too far out of sight. We ended up running together because one of us would get cramps or get lost whenever we pulled ahead of each other.
The second half of the race was really muddy, the first half was a little but the second was super mushy. I also had the worst luck stepping in mud, always finding the ankle deep parts. I mentioned to Madison that I saw fourth place coming into the second to last aid station. Neither of us wanted to be caught so we kept a pretty good pace going into the last aid station. Both of us out of water and hot we finally saw the last aid station and we goofing around a bit going to it, and I slipped on some mud and nearly fell completely upside down. We laughed it off and took our time at the aid station getting some salt pills and drinking water. I thought there was no way the last guy would catch up to us but about a minute at the aid station we see him coming down the trail adn take off. This didnt last too long becuase their was a good climb right after we left. I had drank too much water at the last aid and felt it in my stomach and knew I had to puke so I told Madison to go on and I puked up some water and then ate some shot blocks and struggled for a bit before I felt good again.
It was only three miles to the finish but I wasn't feeling great. Forcing myself to run most of the climbs I was feeling pretty weak. I was sure I would be caught by the end. It was about the last 2 miles when I saw a sign that said it was all downhill to the finish I told myself to run as hard as I could. I looked back and saw that I was only a couple hundred feet ahead of the guy behind me. So I took off down the trail as fast as I could. The trail flattened out a bit and I was losing pace and struggling with cramps, we crossed onto a service road and I had to stretch. It wasn't 5 seconds later I head the finish line announcer and knew I had probably less than a mile, so I took off once again. I ran so hard that I missed the trail markings and went the wrong way around the small pond to the finish in 5:13, it was the same distance so it didn't really matter as fourth place ended up around 3 minutes behind me, but I thought it was funny. Crossed the line and immediately laid down as I basically ran threshold intervals for the last 3 miles.
I was really happy with my race, I only wish that I hadn't gotten lost. I was aiming for a 4:45 finish but it was super humid and muddy on the trails so I felt like it was a pretty good time. The top three of us finished less than five minutes apart so it was a good close race. Now that its a couple days later I feel sick again so ill take a day or two off to recuperate.
