Sunday, June 15, 2008

Day One of Seven

Temperatures:
High: 90 & Sunny, Low: 62
(Thunderstorms in early evening)

The race banner (at left) hangs quietly at 4:55am. I'm now at home for a quick lunch break. It's currently 88 degrees and sunny! That wears you down pretty quickly. I just took a quick shower, ate lunch, changed clothes, and am now ready to head back for more miles. I ran 30 miles before lunch. Not bad for a warm day. The banner on the left was as fancy as this race will get--hand written race name on a roll of paper towels. It could have been toilet paper, but this is a classy event.

The two runners behind the banner (Jeff & Chris) were in the "first wave" start at 5am (kinda like Badwater Ultramarathon). Jeff sprained his ankle around the 1/4 mile mark. Other runners showed up at their convenience throughout the morning. I think I saw about 20 runners before noon. More race reporting after I get in a full afternoon of running. Storms are predicted around 5pm.

Afternoon update: Well, those storms came! There were thunderstorm warnings around the area--we had ferocious winds, heavy rain, and thunder (lightning was a bit away). At least things cooled off after 5pm. I ended up with 57 miles for the day. The trail now has water and mud, but it should dry up by tomorrow afternoon. I have my Wilderness First Aid course so I'll leave Monday around 3pm to freshen up, eat, and head to class. That only leaves 10 hours for running. Guess that means less sitting around with my legs up on the cooler! At 2pm when it was around 90 degrees, this was pretty comfortable.

Stage One Winner: Chris (57 miles)
Overall Leader: Chris (57 miles)
Runner of the Day: Jeff (the guy sprained his ankle in the first 200 yards and kept going for quite a few miles--and he brought a homemade banner!).

Check out the updated list with mileage totals (some haven't reported yet).

5 comments:

Jim said...

Glad things started off well. 57 miles with a lunch break and thunderstorm is pretty impressive for day 1! Keep it up....

Anonymous said...

Great job Chris, keep up the awesome run.

The link to the results didn't work for me, but this one did:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pNf4Exqswfg8H4lnyoPAlIQ

Unknown said...

igotsky

Unknown said...

oops. didn't mean to leave that last post - fat fingers.

This is Chris's older, wiser, brother. He really has too much time on his hands, but I wish him well, and will track his progress. (BTW - where's the update for today??)

Run, Chris, run!

Chris Ⓥ said...

I'm tired. New post coming in a few minutes. That link to results/participants was my personal (editable) google docs link. I changed it to the public one. Older wiser brother? Well, at least one of those is true! ;-)