A Quick Summary of My Rocky Raccoon 50 miler

Here I am before the start of Rocky Raccoon 50 miler in Huntsville Texas. This is a super well organized 50 and 100 miler about 60 miles north of Houston, TX in Huntsville State Park.

This past weekend I ran my third Rocky Raccoon 50 miler. It was great fun and a huge success for me. Although this was after an auspicious start in which the second time in 3 trips that my flight was cancelled. Luckily I did make it to Houston only a few hours after my original flight time.

A few highlights of my race include:

1) I finished the race in a new 50 miler PR time of 9:30!! This was 20 minutes faster than my previous 50 miler (Rocky Raccoon 50 last year)

2) My camera DNF-ed twice on the course. But luckily I carry multiple batteries (and memory sticks) just in case I go nuts taking pictures during a race. I think my camera's DNF was caused by the cold since the battery needed replacing twice.

3) I have a mystery injury on my right hand. I hit my photographing hand on something about mile 20 in the race but I don't remember what. I definitely remember some incident and being really surprised that a hand injury occurred during the race. But I cannot remember what it was, Yikes!

Even worse photography hand is the same hand and movement that is involved in taking off caps off bottles. Volunteering overnight I did alot of this. I was in pain but tried to be tough!

Because it was still swollen and painful today (3 days after the race) I went to an orthopedist. It is just bruised.

4) I should not eavesdrop! I was at an aid station refueling and two young ladies were talking about a race. They mentioned something along the lines of "only seen a mountain lion 2 or 3 times". My jaw dropped and apparently the look of horror on my face was priceless. I was ready to rip off my bib and hand it in (if only my right hand was working!).

Luckily upon making eye contact they realized I thought they were talking about Rocky Raccoon. Quickly they said there were no mountain lions on the course. Then they joked that they needed to correct that statement as they had heard there was a cougar relocation program at Huntsville State Park. They had released a few cougars to make the runners go faster. It cracked me up!

I will write more of my experience.