DWD Devil's Lake 50M Race Report

Last year I ran this race and thought it wasn't that much fun. It was hot and hilly and I was tired. I somehow finished it in 11:07 and I remember being really disappointed with that time and feeling like I should have gone a lot faster. So anyway, I must have forgotten the pain over this past year and I signed up for it again. Hopefully I won't make that mistake next year. I'm done.

Well, crap; this year it took me 12 hrs 27 minutes to finish it! I've never been that close to the cut-off time. What the heck is wrong with me? I know it was nasty hot and all but dang, I'm definitely not making progress. Maybe it's this new running crew I have that's holding me back?? Ya right!

So anyway, Chris, Bernie, Bryan and I ran another race together which was very fun. Chris was having an awesome day and took off at mile 30 to finish an hour before us. I was dragging after mile 20 and Bryan and Bernie made me finish. It was super hot and I was really hungry the whole time and I'm sure it didn't help that I had only run twice in the last three weeks.

I tried out my new Drymax Maximum Protection Trail Running socks and I guess I'm pretty pleased with them. I still went through three pairs of socks/shoes during the race since they were soaked with sweat but I came out of it with only one small blister. I can't use this race to determine if the socks help prevent blisters since the course wasn't as technical and rooty and some other painful ones.

I camped out at the start and crashed early after the race. I woke up Sunday morning super hungry and chowed down on a McDonald's burrito, hashbrown, bagel sandwich and large Coke. That food would never have sounded good before but it was great this time. You can only take so many saltine crackers, quarter-sized PB&J sandwiches, and pretzals.

So anyway, I'll try to average a few runs per week until September's Hallucination. Here's a video from the race. I look pretty dead in it at the end.