#13 is finally the lucky one

I was feeling a little bit nervous, as it's been a couple of years since my last long ultra, and I feel like I've been on a bad streak for the past few months with slow performances and DNFs.
Arrived at the race with 5 minutes to spare, but did not trip on my shoelaces and face plant, which already made the race better than my previous other 50 mile in 2016. Someday I'll make to to Sulphur race start without having to rush around like a crazy person!  The race started off in really good weather, cool and cloudy. Soon after, the skies opened up, huge thunderclaps and I fully expected to see someone or something smitten by lightning. The parts of the course that are always muddy were muddy, and parts that usually aren't (G. Donald) were muddy as well. Finished loop 1 in just over 3 hours - a normal day on tapered legs should have been around 2:45-2:50 but oh well. Lost a couple minutes because of the route change after the Martin Rd. AS, we have always turned left after the AS to access the lollipop, and even though there were marshals there, they were busy chatting, and I had to ask them where to go. Dudes, #youhadonejob!

Loved these witty signs, distracted from the pain of climbing the Three Bitches!
(pics with me in them were taken by Agnes)

I was surprised by how quickly loop 2 went by. It seemed like barely a few minutes before I was already 5 hours and 30K+ in. I saw a guy scoop up some muddy water with his hands, I was almost frozen with horror expecting him to drink it, but it turned out he was transporting a salamander to safety. I kept going back and forth with this 100 miler guy, when The Crew (Greg, Matt, Spenny, Beth J) found me on the lollipop descent, and Greg started talking to the 100 miler. Turns out he was SIL#2's high school boyfriend - small world!

After 40K Greg helped me change socks and shoes and we headed out for the first half of loop 3 together. It was warm and sunny at this point. In the frenzy of changing, I realized I forgot my watch charger and I sent Greg back early to get it, he met me at the Martin Rd. AS before the lollipop and I recharged while doing the lollipop.  Saw Steve on the way to do his final lollipop and he was behind, he was going to pace me for my final loop but was way behind pace. It was ok though, I had backup plans. Finished 60K in under 10 hours, considering MOTG (65K) took me 12+ hours..I was 🔥🔥🔥!!

Nurse Spenny making sure his Fake Mom was doing fine.
📷Agnes

I have always said that figuring out the blister game would be the key to Sulphur success. I started with the shoes and socks that got me through 40 miles at MOTG with zero issues, but I felt a small hot spot on my toe and taped that up after loop three with another sock change. In hindsight I should have brought one more pair of shoes, but even just a sock change felt good.

I had my rockstar pacing team of Agnes and Lindsay for the final loop. The weather went very quickly downhill and we experienced some of the scariest weather ever on Monarch, the winds and rain were practically hurricane force, and a large tree branch crashed down between us!

Hard to believe we were in the downpour minutes after this.

The G. Donald loop was horrendous, Lindsay was brave enough to mud surf down the hills but Agnes and I could only pick our way down inch by inch. I'll still say Palmer's Pond was worse in terms of how muddy the course was, but this was by far the worst conditions I have ever seen on the Sulphur loop in the 5 years that I have been running there.

So much fucking mud!
📷 Agnes

I felt a small twinge of cramping in one calf before the final lollipop, but a pickle from the AS made it go away. Lindsay and Agnes kept me moving, and although I can't say the last 20K went by in a flash, it was tolerable with their company.

The Orange Teletubby (Agnes) and Miss Mud Ass.
📷 Charlotte Varsarhelyi 

In the final stretch, Lindsay reminded me of one of my favourite Ann Trason quotes, "It hurts up to a point, and then it doesn't get any worse." That gave me the strength to run the best part, the downhill lollipop. Greg met us at the bottom of Martin Road, I ran the final stretch strongly, and met my goal of sub 15 hours in Patty-watch time. I'm super happy with my performance considering how completely shitty the conditions were.

Rugged Raccoon 25K

My first Happy Trails race of 2019 was Rugged Raccoon 25K. I thought it was on new to me trails, but upon looking at the map, realized I ran there in 2015 during the Avon thru run.

Agnes and I signed up for the early start, a) because we are slow and did not want to be stressed to hit the cutoff and b) wanted to be home before the wee hours.  So this was technically a night race but for us, only the last 90 minutes or so were in complete darkness.

I was kind of relieved to see quite a few others opting for the early start, the first kilometer or so was on road, through the campground. The trails were very very runnable, punctuated by the occasional muddy section. I heard people saying "OMG SO MUDDY!!" but compared to Palmer's Pond and Round the Cape, it was absolutely nothing.

Déjà vu.

I saw a side trail named Field of Burrs on the map, and was careful not to step off trail there, since burrs (and unleashed dogs and mosquitoes) are my nemesis.

After being overcast for most of the day, the skies started clearing, making for a beautiful sunset.

Wildwood Lake: The Golden Hour.

Magical pine forest at dusk. Photo by Agnes.

I can't say enough about how gorgeous this trail was. Lots of magical pine forest (my favourite)! and I loved how the course was just one big loop, so the scenery was always new.

Cleaner shoes, for a moment.

I had checked to make sure my headlamp was working, but what I failed to notice was that the light was quite dim, due to old batteries. What can I say, I was sitting at my desk, it was hard to tell. Thankfully, Agnes had a spare headlamp, and combined with my headlamp worn around my wrist, was quite adequate.

We had stayed ahead of the last pack of early starters, but Agnes said "look! someone is catching up!" and that kept me motivated to stay ahead. The course was very well marked, but we missed one marker at a road crossing, and the person behind made the same mistake, it was Ryan, the leader of the regular start. Fortunately we only were off course by a couple hundred metres but still lost a few minutes there.

Agnes took off with less than 5K to go, I was getting lapped by a lot of the faster regular starters. I was still running a lot, despite my fear of tripping in the dark. The final kilometer was on the park road again, I really turned it on and finished strong. Due to a new request by Happy Trails that everyone stick around for 10 minutes after finishing to cheer on fellow runners, there were a LOT of people at the finish, and I heard people yelling my name but could not see who they were, it was appreciated anyways!

My finishing time was quite slow despite running most of the race at a hard effort, walking through the muddy sections really slowed things down.

Next Sunday I run my first road 5K in many years...then Sulphur 50 mile!