Notes
What a Blast! 2:51 PR!
Rain for the past 3 days left the course looking like a swamp, but with running creeks too.
Andrew led us out for effing 5:53 first mile. Crap! Jacob and I followed and were joined later by Jobie Williams.
In the first half of the race, I tripped and fell to one knee (my right) later discovering two cuts in there. Nearing the turn-around point, while rounding a left-turn, I landed firmly on my left buttock. Amazingly I bounced right back up and never lost a stride to Andrew. After that I nearly went down two more times (caught myself with my hands). The mud nearing the TP was buttery slick and those near misses zapped my strength and confidence. I began losing ground to those three after the water stop turn-around. Halfway back I felt recovered and pushed to stay within eyesight of Andrew. I wish I'd had the strength to bridge the gap. But the course was a bloody, muddy mess from all the passing runners.
I am very pleased in my time though. When I reached the 8 mile mark (posted thanks to Charles Sharp), my time was 53:30. So I must have run the last mile <6:30. I thought I'd be happy with <1:01 at that point.
We all ran well to run that fast through all that water, mud, rocks and roots.
Thanks to Andrew for cheering me on in the end, and me able to sprint to get in under one hour. I was only 24 seconds behind Andrew and 1:04 behind Jacob the winner.