Tremendous Success at Umstead 100: Sub-28 hours!

With a bunch of my friends before the race looking fresh, happy and ready for our 100 mile journey (note everyone in this picture finished, some with minimal damage and some less so...I think I would give Bob-red shirt on my left the award for awfulest running induced injury with blood seeping out of his shoes at mile 99--eek!)

Right after the start (at the airport loop), Gilligan decided to join the race for just a brief moment. Sadly while he is a big dog, he can't run with the big dogs, so bailed after just a few more steps.

With Tristan and Gilligan just past the second aid station I think about mile 20 in the race. Gilligan is a smart dog so tends to not run the race but hangs out by the aid station (just after in fact). There is plenty of discarded food for him to partake in (because he eats like an ultra-runner)

With my excellent pacer team: Tristan and Cindy as well as the race director, Blake Norwood about mile 58.

Taking some time for some "preventative maintenance": changing out my sneakers and drymax socks at mile 62.5 (the start of lap 5). By doing this I can happily report I have no blisters on my feet now (and ended the race with only a few small blisters). In fact other then troubles with getting up, walking stairs or moving very quickly, I am doing very well. I would equate my pain to be significantly less than my previous 100 milers and last night was in some discomfort, but not excrutiating pain:-)

I will write more later and include several of my over 350 pictures, however, I just wanted to report that I finished Umstead 100 mile race in under 28 hours (word on the street--as per Anthony's blog my time is 27:46:48!!!). Sadly I do not know my exact time (it's definitely under 27:56, but how much is up for debate). This means at Umstead I have a 29+ hour, 28+ hour and 27+ hour finish. Since last year my time was 28:52, I may have PR'd by a full hour (like I said I have no idea what my finish was after "sub-28 hours".

As a brief summary, my first 5 laps were uneventful and I was running a little over 3 hour 12.5 mile loops. My 6th loop I slowed a bit to 3:30 (and had a shoe change). My second to last lap I really started walking a bit more and was closer to 4 hours. And finally my 7th lap was well over 4 hours. But my last lap may have been about 2.5 hours for the first 7 miles, then I just decided I wanted to break 28 hours, so I put the pedal to the metal for the last 5.5 miles which took me just a little less than 2 hours. In fact in the last 5 miles, I was tending to run about 16 minute miles (as per my garmin) to ensure I broke 28 hours, which I did.

Of course this accomplishment is thanks to my pacers: Tristan my great husband, and Cindy my sister, Pacer Deb, the AWESOME race volunteers and organizers, all my wonderful fellow runners/friends on the course!

Congratulations to all finishers!