WASATCH100- Well it was a strange but amazing race. I ran the last 25 as pacer with my friend Ryan M. I met him at 1:20 a.m. at Brighton and ran with him through the night to the finish. He as in o.k. shape for someone who just ran 75 miles. Most people actually looked o.k. a few looked like death!! The call the Brighton aid station "THe Morgue" for a good reason. From brighton the trail is steeep and sandy and dark and cold and everyone is out of it!!! Ryan kept lying down and falling asleep. My job was to keep him awake and moving. We ran into a bull moose in the dark and were scared to death! The first 8 miles went on this way. Up and down and up and down and just trying to stay awake. He was not very talkative at this point and i tried my best but soon ran out of stories. Each aid station was like heaven!! We ate pancakes, sausage, brownies, candy, etc, etc. It is a rad race when you eat brownies at aid stations! At one point around 3a.m. I fell asleep while running and endo'd off the trail. It was enough to keep us both laughing for miles. we also ran into some awesome crazy guy who had camped out in the middle of no where all night to cheer the runners on. He had beach balls, a radio, a hawain shirt, ect. He made us so happy , I think I told him I loved him. Finally the sun started to rise and ryan got some more sausage and he was a new man. We put on our ipods and started to run, really run. I was having a hard time keeping up which was a blow to my ego! Ryan was on mile 90 and he was cruisin!! We did the last 17 in good style and it was hard terrain. Very steep up and down, very rocky and dusty. I really wanted to do this race until those last few miles. It never gets easy, ever! The last mile is on the road in Heber and it's uphill! To summarize it was an awesome thing to be a part of. I cried at the finish because I was so inspired by all those runners who made it! What an accomplishment. I am in, I just need a couple years and some 50 milers to see if I am mentally tough enough. A beautiful, amazing course though, so fun to see how all the wasatch mts. are connected. Ryan finished in 31 hrs. in 54th place. Our friend Jared got 4th in 22hrs!! He's a maniac! I just wanted to add for future reference.. The miles from Brighton to Ant knoll were steep uphill, lots of walking, and soft sand. From the top of LCC it's steep downhill and rocky-would be very painful after 80 miles of running-bring ski poles for this whole section. Climb out of ant knoll is aweful, so steep and slow. Then there is some runnable sections, flat and nice trail, to pot bottom. Then it's steep again, on a road and very hot-you'd have to save something extra for this next section. From pot bottom to the end it's up and down, up and down-felt like we were running in circles for hrs.! This would be mentally very hard! Then finally at about mile 95 it's downhill again but steep and rocky-my ankles hurt! The last few miles were nice, downhill, soft and heavenly. Then out to the road and about a mile to the homestead. I would really want to finish in 26-28 hrs. before the heat got bad again. Yea right, that's a long ways off! I may be dreamin!
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