I bought a new skirt for the race and debated whether or not to wear tights underneath. Finally, a friend told me she ran through the night in 8F weather in shorts and didn't regret the choice. I told her if I got frostbite that I would blame her.
The only time I regretted the bare legs was before the race. It was very windy and everyone was hiding out in cars instead of socializing as usual. Jeff, the RD made the announcement that due to the weather, anyone registered in the 50K could stop after 1 loop and be considered as a 25K finisher, instead of a DNF.
And we were off. I have run the trails at Hilton Falls many, many times, but never in that particular order (the time I thought I did 25K of the race loop was not exactly close to the official loop) and I never was in the mood to voluntarily do the technical sections more than once. So it was much harder on race day, having to do the technical bits 4 times. I was running with Bogdan and K, taking it easy on the rocks and running the double track at a decent pace. Our main goal was to finish before sunset. Saw Matt at the AS at the top of the orange loop and Steve & Tucker out by 4th Line.
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| Early stages. 📷 K. |
Nothing really eventful happened until 20K, when I slipped on a rock and rolled my left ankle - the same ankle I'd rolled already twice in the past 2 weeks. Normally, I would sit until the pain passed completely, but I limped my way to the AS which was thankfully less than 1K away and Cynthia found an extra strength Advil which pretty much saved my ass, as it got me to the end of the loop and my ankle brace in my drop box.
We walked a lot more on the 2nd loop, but the running pace remained constant. I didn't want to push it too hard on the running and put myself in the pain cave. My legs actually felt great, there was none of the dragging fatigue that usually plagues me, maybe the cold had numbed my legs?
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| Game plan during ultras. Art by Jez Kemp. |
I knew there were still people behind us in loop 1, but Bogdan reasoned that they would have taken more than 4.5 hours for the first loop, and did not go out for the second. We saw a porcupine in a tree - Agnes and I once saw a porcupine in pretty much the same area, and Bogdan was so delighted that he shared the news with everyone we saw for the next hour.
Home stretch after the final time through the rocks and we saw Jeff driving the trails in the Happy Trails-mobile. He told us that we were way ahead of where he expected to find us and that we would have no trouble finishing before the cutoff. David met us by the stile in the final kilometre and ran us in, Jeff and Heather made a human arch for Bogdan and I to run through, a very thoughtful touch.
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| Plenty of daylight left! 📷by David Varty |
