John Bryan 50k

Life has been busy with little time to set down and post anything until now!!

Last Saturday April 24th my husband and I drove down to Yellow Springs, OH so I could run in the John Bryan 50K. It had been only 6 days after running the Forget the PR 50k but I felt fairly recovered. Gotta love my husband, Mark! He loves to go to these races and crew for me but I actually think he likes the adventure :) We got up at three in the morning so I could be there in plenty of time for the 7 am start with only about three hours of sleep because of a Keith's track meet the night before! Oh, well, who needs sleep!! LOL

The race actually started alittle after 7, with runners running a figure eight loop four times. I told myself that this was to be a training run but once we started, I got caught up in the excitement and away I went!! The first part of the loop was very technical, with rocks, roots and wooden bridges, all on single track trails with some up hills. This part proved to be more difficult than I thought because of the drizzle that was falling, causing everything to become wet and slippery. After about 5 miles of running, you came back to the start/finish where there was an aid station and then headed out on a flat single track bike trail. This trail also proved to be technical not because of the footing but because of all the switchbacks and sharp turns. You then came back to the aid station and started all over again!

I was feeling good for the first two laps and could see the lead woman ahead of me! However, heading out on the third lap, I could feel myself getting tired and slowing down. I was eating and drinking but I think running two 50k's that close together was alittle much for this old body!! Since the hills were not very steep, I tried to run the whole race until the last three miles, where I stopped to walk a couple of times. I finished 2nd woman, 15th overall, with a time of 4:47. I was happy to break 5 hours and overall pleased with the race since it was suppose to be a training run!! LOL After the race my legs were trashed! I was so wiped out that I finally took an entire day off on Sunday!!!!!

I would like to thank the race dirctor and all the volunteers for putting on a great race! Also, congrats, to my good running friends Michael Patton, David Huss and Stephen Zeidner, who all ran awesome races!! I would also like to mention, David Huss is the lucky one who will be pacing me at MMT in two weeks! Poor guy!! I hope I won't be to rough on him in the middle of the night when I'm exhausted and he wants me to keep running!!LOL