North face 50 miler DC

Here is my recap of the North Face 50 Miler in DC. I am not saying this is anywhere near perfect but I wanted to get the thoughts on "paper". Enjoy. KAG

Well where do I start.

The day before the race a friend of mine Kelsey post on the Facebook that the DC area was in a tornado warning. I did not think anything of it. But when the rain started coming down my way to Neil's house, I started to think this might get a little wet.
The gun went off right at 0500.  We started out running around a golf course. At this point it looked like what I thought last night was correct; it was wet. Everyone around me was trying to keep their shoes dry.  Well thanks to my fast drying MT110s and no sock combo; I just hit the water right down the middle. Or as a friend, Shane, would say "hit the meat."

The first three aid stations went by really fast. This put me about a forth the way though the run and I was feeling great. I was sticking to my new plan of eating a chocolate #9 every half an hour and eating some food at the tables. I also found myself running more of the hills here. I would just drop to an easier gear and move up the hill. Before I knew it the three loops at the far end of the course was over with and I was on my way back to the start. This last bit was by far the worst. After having about 1000 people run out and back, the  50k and marathon ran on the same trail. After having about 1000 people run on the same mud line. It just looked a brown slip and slide. But you just have to keep moving on. Step by step I knew that this was going to end up as one my better days on the trail. 

As I got about one mile from the finish I hit a really low point. I just want to walk it in but his wonderful person in the marathon relay was running near me. As I was about to take a short walk break she looked at me and said something like, are you really going to let this girl beat you. I quickly replied yes. Well she took that as a challenge to get me running again. We she did just that. I think with her pushing me I ended up with a quickest mile of my last 15 or so. I ended up crossing the line in 9 hours and 34 minutes.

Looking back there was way to many loops on this course. The loop that started at Great Falls had  two out and back sections on it. This would not have been bad if the parks had limited trails but there were trails all over to be used. Then to top it off we had to do this loop 3 times. That must my biggest problem with the course. But, other then a lot of repetitiveness it was very well marks and the volunteers were great. 

I want to thank North Face for putting on a great race.  

Until next time.

KAG