https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8k9ckZ-8EI - TSB: 6 - Score: 10/10 - Food: 20oz of dates, 7 bananas, 1L of water The Setup: - A fun level race, went in with no expectations, was thinking marathon to 50km distance, but after reading the course outline, getting a cautionary email about the conditions and how technical the trails were and the massive amount of rain, I made my expectations more conservative. The course is a 4.2km loop around Camp Fortune Ski Hill with roughly 250 meters of climbing per lap. The Good: - I finished - Longest Run - Most climbing in one run - My Vibram shoes had great grip and feel of the trail - The volunteer who put my watch and gloves on me after I added some layers because I was cold and my hands were not functioning well enough to do it myself. - Vibrams don’t hold water so I didn’t have any sloshing water around in my shoes - The temperature was warm enough that my feet weren’t cold - The flowy sections of the trail, so much fun to get in a rhythm and really feel like you are moving. - Wearing a cycling top for pockets, dates and iPod work well - Listening to Kutski for the last 2 Hours, great motivation - Other runners were super friendly. - Watching the 12H people fly by, amazed by what is possible, one guy ran nearly 100KM - Watching others too see how fast it is possible to run some trail sections. A skill I really want to work on. - Running through the puddles and stream and standing water and running water. It was less complicated, more direct, and faster to do this. My feet were soaked so it didn’t matter - They closed Brian’s Climb and Brian’s Descent which had deteriorated during the day and it was nice to have to run up the dirt road instead of walking through the slop the trail had become. - The Bad: - My Vibram shoes made sure I felt everything, the worst was pebbles on the long down hill run on the gravel road and sharp rocks on the edge of my foot. - I need to have multiple pairs of the same type of sock so I could’ve switched out the socks - The pebbles in the shoes that hurt to run on. I should’ve stopped by a river and cleaned them out. - The iPod after a podcast is done when you get “The Device is Not Connected to the Internet” and it doesn’t automatically start playing the next pod and your hands aren’t functioning well enough to fix it. - Should’ve taken my cell phone and taken a bunch of pictures on one lap, but never felt like it The Ugly: - Walking for a lap, just couldn’t think I could run. My hands not working after that lap because I was too cold. - Rain, rain, go away, come back another day. It rained for over 5 hours, the trails were super muddy. Absolutely soaked at the end. You know it’s been raining a lot during the day when you stop noticing it raining.