The Weekend! THE DAY Saturday 12/6

6:15am: Whoooo hooooo its THE day! This was the text message I woke up to (after my alarm and back up alarm had not gone off...) Yes, it certainly was! There was a gentle snow starting and there was frantic activity going on in my head. But with relatively little commotion we got breakfast, ALL the required gear and piled in the RV for the days fun. After a 45 minute ride in the RV, Bridget, Mo and I piled in a school bus for another 50 minute ride to the start. By now the snow had been coming down for ~2 hours and no signs of stopping.

The race started at 10:20am (Eastern), and in a word it was INCREDIBLE. It started out very easy on a flat/straight dirt single lane road, but with in a couple miles it went to tight tree lined single track trail, which is what it would be for 90% of the marathon. The single track in itself was fine, but soon we realized that with the snow and the fact that of the 600 runners ~550 were in front of us, the single track became ice packed in various spots, especially on several down hill and up hill twists and turns. In those spots the runners would slow dramatically causing a traffic jam on the trail, but passing those areas slowly was in everyones best interest, and still didn't guarntee safe passage.

Looking back it seemed like the first 1/2 (~13.1 miles) went really fast, although clock time it had been > 3 hours. I was feeling good, but then we came upon Indian Hill, yeah I know it's just a hill! But cripes it's a BIG hill, one that as you keep turning corners, it's still going up, and after running 13 miles, it's a bit of an obstacle. Once we got over it though it was quickly forgotten, for one there would be other hills to climb!

There were also several ravines where you would have jump down 1-2 feet go through a small creek and then up the other side 2-3 feet. Again, this was after ~550 runners went first, making the ledges very icy. I would say with all the obstacles we were dealing with Mo and I actually did very well with staying up right. I will admit I did take my share of falls, but of course Mo still gets the award for the most memorable. Her's typically involved more of an audience and falls in immediate sequence when called for. Although I give her a lot of credit, after a couple down hill slick spots she just took the hill on her arse, before the hill put her on her arse. But seriously, we knew we were up against it when at one hill they strung rope up between the trees so that you could just pull yourself up ~30 yards of hill cause it was too slick/steep to take on foot.

But the moment I will remember most, is when we got to the aid station at mile 21, and although we had started 20 minutes late, per the "race rules" we needed to be to the 23 mile aid station by 4:30, else they would need to pull folks from the trail, since nightfall would be coming and the trails would become more treacherous. Up to that point we had been on a >16 minute mile pace, which would put us to the 23 mile cut off past 4:30. There was no conversation about the situation, and certainly no concern that after 21 miles on an icy trail that we wouldn't make it. With Mo in the lead we headed out for those two miles as if it was the first two miles of a 10K on a sunny afternoon. When we came through the trees at the 23 mile aid station, Mo asked the first volunteer we saw if we made the cut off, he responded it was 4:20, and the cut off would be at 5:00, so we were fine....

For all practical purposes at that moment we had done it, we still had a few miles ahead of us, but hell that was only a 5K we could knock that out as a wheel borrow race!

Mo and I crossed the finish line just under 7 hours to cheers from family and friends AND the volunteers at the finish line singing Happy Birthday to me.

Watch the FINISH for yourself (Note it was a bit icey and we were on the .2 of the 26.2 miles...)

Crossing the finish...