The sickness has begun! With no full marathon experience under my belt, I decided to take on my first ultra marathon. This was an ultra marathon, in Texas, in the middle of July, during some of the hottest weather we have seen all year. I had been training for this for some time, really picking up on the training schedule provided by Coach Jim at the Fort Worth Running Company. July 20, 2008 finally arrived. The run was scheduled to start at midnight. We carbed up on spaghetti with the Tanner's. Then we tried to get some sleep before the race started. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Got up, got everything loaded up, and we headed out to the race. We arrived at Trinity Park and was directed into a large parking lot. From there, we lugged all our stuff about a quarter mile to the race site. The race was capped at 400 entrants, period. That was the 25K and 50K combined. They sold out. And had more crazy people trying to convince them to let extras run. Glad I'm not the only nut out there. The 50K folks got started first. The course was a 3.1 mile loop that we, of course, had to run 10 times. It varied from dirt, to concrete, to crushed limestone. Deb, Amy, and jimmy set up our pit stop area. Deb working the camera, Amy was my refueler. Every time I came through, she had a water in one hand and a gel pack in the other. She told me, "I've got you Daddy. What do you need?" That kept me motivated through the night. Somewhere along mile 21, I caught a hole in the road and twisted my knee. Did I mention it was dark out there?? I kept running but felt a sharp pain in my right knee. I was able to limp my way through the next two laps. Final lap to go, Hollee laced her shoes back up, after finishing the 25K, and ran it with me. Deb, Amy, and Jimmy cheered me on. I finally finished with a time of 5 hrs 29 mins. I FINISHED IT!! Deb and Amy gave me a huge hug and made it all worth while. I did it! And I'm looking forward to doing it again! once the pain goes away of course.
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