The Featureless Face

Kettle Competition/ Age Factors

Looks like out of the 69 registered runners for the 100k, I'll be the youngest one. I only have one girl to beat to win my female age group- 25 year old Summer.

I calculated the average age of these 69 runners and it was around 42.7. I'm sure I messed up a little while counting all of those numbers but it's close enough. 42.7 is 18 years older than me. For this reason, I HATE when I tell people at work or wherever that I run long distance and they say "Well...it's because you're younger. Do it now because you won't be able to later on when you get old". Give me a break!!! Don't try to say that the only reason I have endurance is because I'm young. I'm always the youngest runner. I feel like to an extent, people can control their physical health based on the desicions they make everyday. I can either choose to make exercising a priority and be disciplined to get my workouts in, or I can choose to put other things first and let exercise slowly dwindle out of my daily life. I know that for myself, I am going to choose to continue running, or at least being physically active, even when I have kids and get older and what not. Just like with relationships- friendships, marriages, etc. You can either choose to love your spouse everyday and spend time with them and make it work, or you can choose to let other things get in the way and slowly stop getting to know one another.

That's all I have to say about that. It's just frustrating when people make excuses for one's success or one's ability to do something.

Cleaning the Camelpak (Camelbak?)

First off, is it called CamelPAK or CamelBAK? I always get confused! I think I've been calling it Camelpak. Why haven't you corrected me? Probably because you don't know the difference either. When I was in the store a long time ago looking for one, I remember just saying the word really quickly to the salesperson because I couldn't remember which one it was: Camelpak or Camelbak. I figured if I said it quick enough, he wouldn't know the difference. It worked.

Well whatever it is, mine's nasty. It's been stinking really bad lately...and not the inside of it that holds the water, but the outside cloth has a nasty BO funk to it now. Awesome.

I filled it up this morning and had it in my car on my 45 minute drive to work. The whole time it just reeeeeked of old sweat. After about 20 minutes I got used to it and forgot about my pack.
Then all of a sudden I started to question my own BO. I knew something stunk and I smelled my armpits to make sure it wasn't coming from me. I had just showered and put on deodorant so it couldn't be me...haha. Then I remembered it was my nasty funk bag stinking up the car.

It's just like when I cut onions for my salads in the morning. I always try to make sure my fingers don't actually touch the cut onion because I don't want my hands to smell like BO all day. I'll be at work and touch my face and smell something nasty and think it's me...then I thankfully remember it's the onions.

So anyway when I got to work, I googled "Cleaning Camelpaks" and that's first how I realized I've been calling it the wrong name for the past year. All of the results that came up gave instructions on how to clean the actual "Hydration Bladder" (that's a gross name for it):


I don't care about cleaning the inside...I just put water in it (although the last couple of times I carried it, the mouth piece was salty). I want to know if I can actually put the outer covering of my "bladder" in the wash or something, or if I should just play it safe and live with the awesome smell.

Until then, I'll just keep on wearing the dirty thing.

If you're interested in learning more about Camelbaks, click here.

Entry Fee Comparison

Yeah...races can be pretty pricey. I don't know how people do races all over the country every month. You have to pay for gas, hotels, flights, food, running shoes/clothes, gu, glide, etc. Crazy. That's why all of my races are relatively close.

Chris sent me this:

Entry Fee Comparison

I would like to run a race in CA or CO sometime soon, though.

Randomness at Eagle Creek

• It was hot out yesterday and muggy. Yuck. Why didn't I bring water?
• My new shoes were okay, I guess. I was aware of my left arch...it didn't really hurt but I was aware of it after 20 minutes. Hopefully after I break in my shoes they'll be fine.
• Where do all of the deer go in the summer? I never see them anymore.
• Why do all of the nasty spider webs come out in the summer?
• Why are my legs a little sore after only running 35 minutes yesterday? Hmm.
• Today's weather is awesome and I hope it'll always be this nice out. Maybe I'll run this evening.
• I cut my ugly toenails off today...don't worry, I'll get pictures. My big toenail looks like a featureless face, like a ghost. It's scary and ugly. Looks like my time for wearing sandals has been postponed even longer now.
• I had a great run yesterday because I was stressed and in a bad mood. Crappy workday = awesome run
• Less than two weeks until race day...crazy!! Too bad I'm not riding with Chris there. I hate navigating on my own and printing off maps and what not. Darnit.

Trail shoes

Today I stocked up on goods for the big race coming up. I had totally forgotten about blocks!! I love those! They're like fruit roll-ups. So I bought about 5 packs of blocks, 8 gus, and then a Snickers protein bar. Of course the protein bar had a tons of calories and fat but oh well...I'm trying to branch out on the food. I have so much food and only so many places to carry it. I'll have safety pins all over my body because I will NOT be wearing an old man fanny back.

I also bought some new trail shoes. I'm lazy when it comes to actually researching what kinds of trail shoes are good, and what ones for long distances and what ones for my type of foot. So I went to Dicks today and bought the only pair I saw...Adidas Exerta Trail W. I didn't talk to any of the sales people about it because I highly doubt they'd know what the heck they're talking about and I highly doubt they've run long distance on trails...so I just bought them and I'll hope for the best.

I normally don't run in Adidas. They felt fine when I ran 2 feet in them at the store.
They look like they have more traction on the bottom than my current Nike trail shoes.
I need to break them in these last two weeks because I plan on using them for the race, but I won't be doing any long distance running beforehand. I'll just bring them and my Nikes to the race in a drop bag.

At first when I went to the shoe section an employee referred me to another section for trail shoes. So I went upstairs and they had a lot of trail shoes but I don't know if they were necessarily shoes for long distance running. I saw a lot of hard core looking shoes from Colombia and Merrell (I think it is). Since I don't know anything about shoes I was tempted to buy one of those big, rugged pairs...but then leaned away from them since I don't remember seeing any other runners in those types of shoes. They're more for hiking, I imagine.

Any thoughts? I hope they'll be okay considering I didn't research Nike trail shoes before I bought that pair. I tried them on once, and then starting running a lot of miles in them and they felt fine. I don't even know why I buy specific trail shoes. When I'm on the trails and it's muddy, I still slip in them and still trip over stuff...can't really tell a difference. Oh well, it's all psychological. :)

If only it could always be like this...

I have not been getting much sleep lately and I've had nice dark circles under my eyes for the past week. I went to bed at 11pm last night and knew it'd be a beautiful day today. I really wanted to wake up around 6am so I could walk Ruby and then hit the trails at 7am. I forced myself to set the alarm at 7am so that I could actually get 8 hrs of sleep. When I woke up this morning I definitely could have kept sleeping another few hours but I knew I'd regret it later.

So I forced myself out of bed and put on my running clothes. After I walked Ruby I was going to head straight out but since I'm tryyying to be a smarter runner, I made myself make me an egg and had some coffee with coconut creamer. YUM! I knew some calories would do me good. (By the way, how come that egg that I ate only 25 minutes before running didn't upset my stomach or feel heavy? Should I start running with hard boiled eggs then??)

I made it to Eagle Creek around 8am and it was awesome out!!! It is the perfect day today...just like CA. Why can't it always be like this???
Anyway...yes, I carried my CamelPak with me again and it did me good.
Rachmaninoff and I had the best one hour run in a long time. We ran by the lake and it was beautiful and relaxing....By the way, I didn't know so many people fish down there. There were millions of people at every little opening.

I think I get kind of bored if I run for more than an hour at Eagle Creek. I'm sure it'd be better if I was with somebody. I still don't know the trails that well either (and I hate maps) so maybe with time, I'll learn some set paths. One guy from another race said he does the same 7 mile trail loop there each week. What path is that??

I've run in some new shorts the past two runs and I think I like them. Think I'll run the Kettle in them. They're differnet because they're some spandexy material, but not super tight like biker shorts.

I still need to get one longer run in before Kettle. Maybe next weekend. So far, feeling pretty good.

Oh ya, I took Mark's advice and bought some protein drinks at the store yesterday for my longer runs. I ended up getting a vanilla shake or something from Ensure. At first I was looking for the drinks with high protein, low fat, low calories. Then it dawned on me that duh, when I'm running for 50 hours my body will be completed depleted of everything and I will want more calories. That's the whole point. So I think this one had 260 calories or something. Good enough. It'll be annoying to carry a separate bottle while I run but oh well.

Until next time.

Got in just 30 minutes of hills today...nothing too exciting. I think I was the only one on the trails out there. It was pretty nice to be alone and with the rain. I'm going to have to wear a t-shirt for the 100k, dangit. That CamelPak rubs against my shoulders too much not to. But I really don't want to wear a long t-shirt....it will be so annoying to wear for that many hours. What should I do? Just put on tons of glide every aid station?

I think if I have a good 100k race I'll try for a 100 mile race this year. However, I don't know of any that are semi-close to IN and in the later summer/fall months. Anyone know?

Josh and I at the wedding the day after the race. I survived it but was still a little sleepy.

My nasty, ugly feet

If these aren't the nastiest toes you've ever seen, I don't know what are. This is after the dwd race. More to come.

Raynaud's disease

I think I have Raynaud's disease. This is what I was thinking about earlier when I talked about my freezing, color changing, numb hands. Check out this site for some interesting info.


I just found a picture that perfectly shows what my hands always look like, especially while running. It's really gross looking but it's exact. I think I even said after the 50 mile race that my hands looked like raw meat. They were purple, orange, and white. Yum.



Below is how my finger looked after one mile during a half marathon race. I didn't have gloves on and it was probably 45 degrees outside. It scared the crap out of me because that white finger started tingling and I thought I'd have to amputate it off.

Recap of races

I need to do a quick recap of my recent races so I can remember if I'll want to do them again next year or not. I don't think I've blogged about them all.

Tecumseh Marathon- Definitely do again. This race was so fun and like a long follow-the-leader game. There were a lot of big hills and sharp turns and narrow paths. That's what I like- a lot of course changes. I could be wrong but it seems like part of the Gnawbone race was on this Tecumseh path.

Huff 50k- I don't think I'll do this race again. Maybe I didn't like it because it was my first 50k on trail- I don't know. There were 3 11.something mile loops and the path was pretty boring. I don't think there were too many hills. You run along the road some of the time, too.

Buckeye 50k- Wow. I can't even remember this race. I believe it was in OH. I really liked this race a lot and I would do it again. I believeeeee it was 3 5 mile loops and 2 8 mile loops. There were hills but nothing too hard or terrible.

Land Between the Lakes 60k- Yes. Definitely do again. It was 3 11.something mile loops. Dangit...unfortunately I can't remember much about the course. I think I enjoyed it all. Again- some hills but nothing terrible. The last 1.7 miles sucked because you were uphill against the wind on the road with traffic. You can get over that part, I guess.

Sam Costa Half Marathon- I guess I'd do it again only if I wanted to do a race. It was a small race around residential areas and then busy streets. Nothing difficult, nothing super exciting.

ORRRC Marathon- This was the crappy Xenia race in OH. I'd never do it again. It was only $20 but it wasn't even worth it. You run on pavement the whole time and part of it is on a bike path and then the other is out in the country on boring, long roads with nothing to block the wind. No hills but it didn't matter- it was a boring path!

Lakeshore 50k- This is a paved path and the path isn't super interesting, but I liked it enough to do it again. It's close to home and cheap. It's fun seeing the same people as you pass each other since you're running a 5.something mile path a million times. The Spring path is different than the Fall one and the Spring one definitely had a ton more people on the course, since it's open to the public. A lot of times we had to wait for walkers or bikers to move out of the way so we could get by and you do a lot of dodging...but it was still fun I guess.

Dances With Dirt- Gnawbone- 50 miles- After much thought, I'd do this one again. The course itself was awesome and I enjoyed it all- it just sucked getting lost. Next year I'll try REALLY hard to pay attention to the course markings, and if I get lost, oh well. There were a LOT of rolling hills but they were good walking breaks. It wasn't too difficult to do.

Running awards???

I surprisingly got an envelope in the mail today and inside it was a TrailRunner buff. I guess it's from the Land Between the Lakes race in KY a couple of months ago... Who would have thunk. The letter said they give points to each runner for each mile you run and then what place you come in and then count your age group and all of that stuff. Nice. I'll take a picture of it later.
When would I wear it? It'd look funky on my head since I'm not a guy and I have long hair. Oh well...we'll make it work somehow. How long was that race, anyway? I think that was the 60k.

I don't think I wrote about this earlier but first off, the Xenia marathon was terrible for me. I had a super slow time because I walked the last 3-4 miles...and it just sucked. So as I was talking to Chris on the phone about that particular race, I walk into my house and see a package from OH. Inside was a plaque for the race saying I placed top in my age group or something like that. Then my slow-ars time appeared on it too. Funny.

Another good run

Has it only been one week since the 50 mile race? That is ridiculous. It seems like it was a couple of months ago.

This morning I ran for the second time since the race and my legs/feet/toenails felt great. No zebra legs this time, either. I ran for a good hour at Eagle Creek.

Chris had washed my mudddddy shoes from the race and they looked brand new. I wore them today and had forgotten it's been raining the past two weeks. So after running on the muddy trails this morning, my shoes are gross again. Dangit. At least I know I can still get a few more miles in them. They seemed to hold up pretty well. I will, however, need some new ones for the 100k race in 4 weeks. Any ideas on good trail shoes? I'm clueless.

I normally wouldn't have carried my CamelPak for a one hour run but I'm trying to put my "lessons learned" to use. I carried by CamelPak and was glad I did. However, I was wearing a small-strap spandex tank top and forgot to put on glide...that darn CamelPak killed my shoulders! I think I reopened the healing wounds from the last time I wore it. It kept bouncing around and hurting my skin so I carried it in my hands for the last 20 minutes.
Other than that, I felt great. I'm thankful for a surprisingly quick recovery.

I also packed two gus just in case I needed them...but I never used them. It's the thought/effort that counts.

I'm going to buy some salt tablets stuff soon and then hopefully I'll be good to go.

Nasty toenails

My toenails are disgusting. They were already gross before the race so now they're even uglier.
See Nasty Feet and Goblin Feet and The Featureless Face and Ugly Feet.

For the first time my big toenail is going to fall off. It was big and purple and I could tell the toenail already "died". So last night I decided to pop the blister underneath the nail and drain it. I noticed that my whole nail was already gone and I couldn't feel it. It kind of just was hanging there, ready to come off. SO, I decided to start cutting down my nail. Sorry- it's gross. I didn't cut the whole thing off because I got scared I'd have some funky infection or something. There's a half-nail there now and I feel like there will be a huge hole if I cut it all off. There's no new nail under there yet. Now I have a bandaid on it and I'm limping. I'm scared I'll take off my sock and my foot will be green and I'll have to amputate it like that guy, Andrew Wells, who ran in the snow for 10 hours.

The little toenail next to the big one is nasty, too. I started to cut that one off and then the same thing happened. I just saw a big hole underneath and no new nail. I stopped cutting because I was afraid of what I would see if I kept going. Haha. Welp...wish me luck. I hope I didn't just screw myself and I won't be able to run forever now.

Vamos a ver.

Medicine- good or bad?

I've always taken about 2-3 ibuprofen before my runs and then a couple during my runs. I do this to prevent any pain I might feel. Good or bad idea? I know I'm covering up a problem that I have with my legs, but aren't legs always supposed to hurt during 5-12 hour runs? Mark said that if I'm drinking enough water, taking enough salt, and eating the right foods then my legs shouldn't hurt and medicine isn't necessary. Chris doesn't take it anymore and said he read some article about it that he can't find. :)

Any thoughts?

Zebra Legs

Today I went for my first run since Saturday and it felt pretty good. I started running and I first thought, "ehh..this isn't so bad. I'm fine". Then after 1 minute I could tell my thighs were heavy and a little sore. I kept going and thankfully I had a really good run- 7 quick miles. However right after I finished running, I looked at my legs and both of my entire legs looked like they had brown polka dots all over them! They still look like it now. Of course I got scared and called my mom, the nurse, and she said it's probably just the blood underneath and I should just elevate my legs- Or that it's broken capillaries. That's gross. Will it go away? Hmm.

Should I not be running yet? If I feel fine already, isn't it okay to start running again? I've heard of other people doing it. Am I going to be one of those people who everyone thinks is a healthy runner and then all of a sudden I die of a heart attack? I hope not.

So instead of elevating my legs, I took my parent's dog, Ruby, for a walk- which brings me to my next topic. I need to practice speed walking. It's seriously a hard thing to do. AND, I've noticed during my previous races that a lot of runners walk a lot faster than I do. So...maybe instead of running I should just start walking fast, especially up hills. Good idea or waste of time?

50 miles completed!- Dances With Dirt- Gnawbone

Well…this race was bittersweet. I’ll explain that at the end of this post. First I’ll talk about the beginning experience.

This was my first 50 mile race. I wasn’t really nervous because I had confidence I could do it and that I had trained enough for it. I had run 37.5 miles previously. I knew it would be a hard course and I could walk up hills if needed.

Packet pick up was at 5am and the race started at 6:15am. We (Chris and his girl friend, Jamie) got lost a little bit on the way there because it was so foggy and dark. It was 5:30am and we hadn’t arrived yet. I was a little nervous that we would start late and I was trying not to worry about it too much.

Thankfully we made it in time. The t-shirt looks pretty nice and they actually had women’s sizes- which is wonderful.

They told us the aid stations were about 4-6 miles apart. So after a lot of thinking and debating, I ended up planning on wearing my CamelPak for the entire race. I was nervous about that because I normally don’t run with it and when I do, it’s only for about 25 miles and my shoulders usually end up hurting. I figured I could drop it off halfway through if it bugged me too much. Inside my CamelPak I packed extra batteries for my MP3 player, gum, ibuprofen, 2 gus and a pack of blueberry sports beans- my favorite. I think from the whole race, I only thing I used out of all that stuff was the beans. Oh well.

Normally I don’t drink much water on my long runs (like I now know you should) but I’m glad I had that water with me because I did get really thirsty from the hills and such.

So anyway, I didn’t know how to pace myself since I’ve never run 50 miles before. I thought I should just start out extra slow and then I can always go faster if I need to. There were runners doing a 50K race and a 50 mile race, on the same path. It’s mentally frustrating though when you have a bunch of people passing you. I start to second guess myself and my pace, and just hope those people are doing the shorter distance.

The course is marked with little pink ribbons on the trees and on the ground. I’ve read stories of how people have gotten lost so I was trying really hard to pay attention.

The first 6.5 miles are on one course, then the next 18-19 miles are on another, you repeat that loop again, and then you run back on the same 6.5 miles. The first quarter mile of the race starts up on a huge muddy hill that everyone walks up.

This first 6.5 mile course was not too difficult. It was on a trail and there were small rolling hills, but nothing too big. I was waiting for the huge, hard hills that I kept hearing about. I thankfully did not have a hard time following the pink ribbons on this first section. Chris and a few others did get lost for about an hour, and then Mark and two others got lost for about 3 hours.

I started my first loop of the 18-19 miles. I talked to a few people for a few miles and then I was by myself for the most part. I was feeling GREAT the WHOLE time! I was going fast and passing a lot of people. I kept getting scared that I would burn out my energy too soon, but I didn’t want to slow down since I had a great pace going. My legs didn’t hurt, I hate a lot of gus, and I was listening to some nice music.

There were bigger hills that we all walked up, but you always later went downhill so I didn’t mind it too much. Most of the course was on a trail that was easy to follow. There was one section were you really were just running through trees, logs, bushes and you had to search for the pink ribbons to stay on track. I really enjoyed it because it was just fun jumping over stuff and trying to not get lost. There were all sorts of thorny bushes that cut up my legs, and falling in one of those bushes didn’t help. I’ll have pictures of my battle wounds shortly.

The 50k people run the 18-19 mile loop and then head back on the 6.5 mile path to finish. I remember Chris telling me beforehand that if I could just get passed the first loop and quickly start the second loop, I’d be fine. So when I passed that point, it wasn’t a struggle at all. I was feeling great and knew I’d finish strong.

I did run slower on the second loop and I walked up smaller hills. The people I had passed on the first loop had not caught up to me. I saw another female runner who was right with me and I knew she was my competition. I also noticed she spent a lot of time at the aid stations (something I’m trying to stop doing) and so I ended up ahead of her on the second loop. However halfway through, I took a wrong turn and luckily realized it after 5 minutes so I backtracked and got back on path. I had wasted about 10 minutes and right when I got on track, I saw that female girl about 2 minutes ahead of me. Dangit! She had caught up. She was a fast runner and I figured she’d just beat me.

I finally finished the second loop and stopped at the aid station before I finish the last 6.5 miles of the race. I felt awesome and I knew these last 6.5 miles would be quick and easy. My CamelPak thankfully was not a big hassle to carry and didn’t hurt my shoulders, but I started to get a few blisters from it rubbing against my skin. There was no water or aid station on the last 6.5 miles but I made the STUPID mistake of dropping off my water at the aid station (that also included my food). I figured it’d be nice to not have that extra weight for this last hour and that during training, I’ve run more than 10 miles without water at all. I’d survive. WRONG IDEA.

As I started on the last loop, I met up with Mark who I mentioned had gotten lost earlier on. He ran ahead of me but he was still in eye sight. As I was running, a person walking came by and told me I was in 4th place and 2nd female. I was happy I hadn’t gotten lost and that I would finish in 10:15 hours. I would have run a great race, no injuries, no pain, and I easily finished a 50 mile race on a hard course. Welp…right when my ego started growing stuff changed.

Mark and I caught up again and we were running on an obvious single path. There weren’t any pink ribbons but at the same time, there weren’t any two paths to choose from so we figured we were going the right way. After about 30 minutes on that path, thinking we’re close to finishing, I tell Mark that I haven’t seen any ribbons lately and that they’re usually closer. We decided to make it to the top of the hill and then make a decision from there: to turn around until we find a pink ribbon or to keep trucking on the same path.

We walked up the hill and that’s always hard, especially after running for 10+ hours, and it was hot, and I didn’t bring any water. We made the decision to go back down the hill and find a pink ribbon. For all we knew, the path we were on could have taken us to another city.

So, we run down the same hill for about 15 minutes until we finalllly saw two pink ribbons on the ground. They were pointing in the direction we had just come from. At that point, I was feeling dizzy and sick and dehydrated. Thankfully Mark was nice enough to give me some of his water and his children’s lifesavers. We figured we were going the right way the whole time and they didn’t put any ribbons out because there was only one obvious path to follow. SO, we went back up the same dumb hill that we had just gone up and back down. We were both beat and annoyed. Again I was feeling sick and Mark gave me some of his protein drink- I think it was Ensure. Is that a brand? He had the good idea of carrying that around during races so he could get more calories and protein.

We headed up the same path and finally hit the campgrounds. We knew we were close since during the first 6.5 miles of the race, we briefly ran by a blue dumpster in the campgrounds. Once we got to the campgrounds, there was not an obvious path to follow and there were no pink ribbons (or runners).

We asked a bunch of campers if they had seen runners or ribbons or a blue dumpster or anything. Some people had no idea what we were talking about and some people said they saw runners running in the direction that we had just come from. We were scared to take that path since there were relay runners who finished up at that last aid station we came from.

We walked all around the campgrounds looking for some huge blue dumpster and we were exhausted and already 11 hours had passed. I wanted to steal the hotdogs and beer that the campers were enjoying.

FINALLY after a million hours of walking deadly around, we found the pink ribbons that connected between one trail path to the campground and then out onto the last trail path. We obviously had taken the wrong route and didn’t know it.

We followed the path and it seemed like it took forevvvvvver before we hit the finish line… I think it was at least 1 ½ hours that it took us to get there. We saw a huge rattle snake, yes, a rattle snake, in the middle of the path and I’m so lucky Mark saw it and we didn’t run over it and die. J

We kept trucking and hoping to be there. We knew about every runner had already finished by that time. FINALLY we are about ¼ mile away from the finish line and Chris actually was finishing at the same time. We ran that last stretch together. I was in a bad mood because I was disappointed about our detour and our slow time, after such a great start.

I don’t know what time I finished and I don’t care. (Skip this portion if you don’t want to hear me complain…this is the “bittersweet” portion) I know it’s a good thing that I finished a 50 mile hard race and that I should be happy, but that’s not enough for me. The fact is that on my first race, I ran the whole 43.5 miles great and fast and was going to finish in 10:15 hours in 4th place. Instead, I think I probably finished 3rd to last and about 2 hours slower. None of you can understand because it doesn’t affect you. It’s just my own personal problem and disappointment and my stupid pride.

OVERALL, I had a great time and I think I would do it again. Even when I was lost, I still had fun. The course itself was awesome. It was difficult, but definitely doable. Don’t let the difficulty scare you away. I can’t believe I’m not sorer than I am. Sure I’m walking slow but I didn’t think I’d even be able to move. The sorest I’ve been after a race was still after my first 50K in Chicago on a paved, flat course.

Oh ya, when I finished I learned that Jamie had sent out EMT for me and other race directors were looking for me. They knew that I should have finished beforehand and that I didn’t have any water on me. Sorry to them for making them worry and look for me- and sorry and thank you to Jamie for being such a great support and crew member along the way!!!

My lessons learned:

#1) No matter way, always bring water with you. You especially need it during the last part of the race!
#2) Always have food with you or a drink, like Boost or Ensure, to fill you up with calories.
#3) Take salt capsules regularly. Once you have the right amount of water, calories, and salt, no more ibuprofen is needed to cover up your pain.
#4) ALWAYS PAY ATTENTION TO THOSE DARN PINK RIBBONS!!!!