me and my crew of 2 friends (the 2 loudest girls
in los angeles (which i think rnrjoe can attest to))
arrived on friday and went through check in and ate
monster sized burgers at the burger shack at the bottom
of pine. we thought about doing kareoke that night
at the yoddler, but decided to sleep instead. i have
a tent that fits the back of my truck, so we slept
right across the street from the starting line.<br>up
at 4am.<br>it was fairly warm even in the wee hours;
i only needed my silkweight top and a beanie for
the first few hours.<br>start at 5am.<br>i felt
pretty good; i got stuck in a good slow pace and was
determined to take it very slow for the first 100
miles:)<br>my other focus was to save my quads for the second
half of the race, and not go storming down every
downhill, and i think this was the key to finishing for
me.<br>by 20, 30, 40 i felt great!!! i saw rnrjoe at
cloudburst(37.54) and i think that was a good time to see someone
because i really felt good. i think the hammer gel was
keeping my head clear and my taper gave my legs time to
heal and store energy. my crew was new at this, but
they were talking to everyone and their questions
became more and more informed and i could tell they were
getting good advice. they also had very cheery signs for
me at every station, and i liked that.<br>i kept
going strong to 3 points, hillyer and chilao (52.8). i
barely needed my flashlight going into chilao, and i was
on pace to run about 28-30hours. i got out of chilao
and noticed slight pain in my left knee, but pressed
on. i was still strong out of shortcut(59.3) but on
the downhill to newcomb's, my knee pain became more
pronounced. as it turned out, i could either run in pain,
walk very quickly pain free, or drop. i chose to
powerwalk, and i had to powerwalk the last 32 miles of the
race. i got out of chantry as quickly as possible
because i didn't want to dnf there and knew that if i
left there, i could finish the race. i have intimate
knowledge of the last 25 miles, and i think i have every
switchback and boulder named along that stretch (some
include four letter names) it hurt; it just plain hurt. i
also started getting veeerrrrryyyy
sslllleeeeeppppppyyyyy as it was after midnight. i have chosen a drug
free lifestyle which includes caffeine for me, so i
was left to my own devices to stay awake. i took
about 10 5-minute knaps on my way up to mt.wilson toll
road. this was the darkest stretch for me, but i kept
pushing forward.<br>sunrise!!!!!!!<br>i was a new man. i
knew i would be way slower than i wanted to be, and
was targeting 31:30-32:30 for a finish, but i knew i
could finish. and i powerwalked, boy did i powerwalk.
huffing and puffing, i did not run for more than 10 feet
at a time for the last 30 miles, but i made my way
down the hill.