Saturday
I Thought the race was Saturday. I drove 90 minutes north ready to race. The gate was locked. I called the Race Director at 6am. I quickly hung up remembering her telling me how she laughs when she gets the calls on the wrong day and that she doesn’t answer. I returned to the website. It was the wrong day! Yikes! The Holder Mine campground was locked so I drove south then west then north up a dirt road to Tillis Hill. I parked and ran 14 miles on the D loop of the Citrus Tract. I saw signs. I knew this was the course. I was glad I went because I didn’t remember that technical section that well.
Sunday
It was the right day! I got my bag and moved my car out of the campground. I returned and left a bag of goodies at the finish line. We got a pre race briefing. The winner of Western States 2013 was there. So this race appeared to have a winner called already. I’m not going to get into too much detail on this race but I feel as if I should encourage all runners who can make it to attend any of the Ultras on Trails events. The runs are donations only to help the organizer cover gatorade. Terri Hayes, the organizer, is a badass Angeles Crest 100 finisher and long time veteran to ultra running and let me tell you after having been out there and eating a DNF at mile 37.5 at Cloudburst Summit on the AC100 course that I went to this run eating crap. I respected this lady on a whole new level and had to explain to her that I am not near the runner that she is. We shared a laugh about AC100 and how hard but beautiful the course is.
The Event
I went out slow and got a 50k PR! I ate chocolate Hammer Gel and Bacon Jerky which ended up tasting like I was running powered by chocolate covered bacon. I passed a gal I couldn’t seem to catch for 22 miles in the technical section where she had ran way off course down by a pond and she never caught back up. I flew through the rocks remembering every turn from the day before, although I ran it the other way the day before. I finally checked my Strava data at mile 28 and was on course to PR! I wasn’t even going for it. It just ended up that way. A day well spent.
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