Decided to get out of my house early and go to the OBX early to catch a few sunrises on the beach before running my #70 100 miler. I received some help & advice on an affordable campground. I made time for a stop into the new Richmond LDS temple which was a much needed sanctuary of peace before my race.
I spent a cold night sleeping in my car in an out of the way rest stop on my drive. The weather seeming to take a turn for the worst, high winds were really cold and I was afraid I wouldn't get my beach time. When I arrived at Nags Head around 5am I found a hotel we've stayed at in the past and parked in the parking lot, grabbed my sleeping bag and wrapped up in it. I snuck back behind the hotel under the pool deck and found a warm place to see the sunrise Thursday. It made me feel a few moments of real happiness.
After sunrise I was recommended to visit a great little cafe where I could sit and write my race report from last race. Just relaxed on this vintage couch for a few hrs, ate a delicious bagel sandwich while writing. I'd accidentally sat on the edge of this group of nursing moms having a breastfeeding meeting, it was fun to eavesdrop on the new moms but be grateful all my kiddos are grown!
Had fun stopping into a few thrift stores & took a walk on the beach at my beach campground. I was really starting to worry about weather for the race. The skies were clear and the scenery spectacular, but wind gusts were blowing sand w.30+ mph gusts so I didn't stay out as long as I would have liked to.
I planned to camp for 5 days on the beach but only spent one night because it was cold, kindof desolate, and a huge storm was rolling in and I was afraid I'd get flooded out and be unable to get access to my car after the race. I packed up and headed up the coast to the race start at the lighthouse in Corolla. Treated to a blackened salmon black bean nacho dinner, after packet pickup and my pre-race mtg I finally caught up to Cecy who volunteered to be my crew, as we both set up camp sleeping in our cars at the race start. The race always has some great swag, in this care tech shirts, dark dark blue, with the OBX night sky and labeled constellations on the back. SUPER sweet!
It was so great talking to Cecy, she's a wise young lady with great biblical knowledge and it helped me a lot to share my current circumstances and get her advice from a solid Christian perspective. I was so excited to go on this journey with her!
Got settled in my car as heavy rains started and listened to the downpour all night. Around 2 am a cop knocked on my car window, it was fogged up and she thought maybe some teenagers were hot n heavy in there lol, I explained that I, and a few other cars were just getting some sleep before the 100 miler. She was really nice and it was pretty funny.
By race start it looked like 2-3 inches of rain had already fallen and more was predicted, with 30-50 mph wind gusts. The morning temps were comfortable but we did start out in heavy rain with roads already flooded as much as an ankle deep. I was feeling fresh despite being only a week out from Rabid Raccoon. By 2-3 miles I was soaked to the skin except for under my shell. Luckily I didn't need gloves so that made things easier. I started slower than I have in years past and the heavy rain def made it a challenge.
Cecy planned to meet me every few miles along the route but I got down a solid 10-15 in the morning before we actually met up. She spent the cold, wet blustery day bringing me food, everything you could possibly imagine that would be delicious to eat.
7-11 tacos & hot dogs & pizza were some favorites. 2 McDonalds chicken sandwiches after the first marathon were the bomb. She took such awesome care of me! Loved meeting her, she was so sweet and pretty and motivating, giving me courage to keep cranking the miles, and cheering me on with her faith as well. Shed explained to me about how I was running the weekend of the Jewish holiday Purim that celebrates Queen Esther and how she thought it was symbolic for me, "born for such a time as this." It made for some quality pondering.
The race did a good job with aid stations this year. The food was a little lean still, but there was a enough variety to have some choice. I stuck to fig newtons, coke, cookies, grapes, some different candies. The best most brilliant thing they did was rent moving pod trailers, to create sheltered aid stations along course where we could get out of the wind and the rain. I felt like I knocked out the first 50k in decent time.
Cecy met me at 45 with a huge banana nut muffin and Celsius caffeine drink I was feeling a bit low and sleepy after all the miles. I really hadn't slept much all week, just a few hours a night. Just a week out from Rabid Raccoon too, I def had some lingering fatigue issues. The rain cleared out late afternoon and I had a beautiful run high up across the bridge to the 50 mile turn around. Sadly because of the storm we didn't get to do the point to point to Hatteras Island but ran 50 out and back from Corolla to Pea Island and back.
The wind started to pick up for what was going to become a brutal night. I was so super excited and grateful that I did a solid 50 in under 12 hrs despite the heavy rains and flooding. With the rain stopping for the night, I took time meeting Cecy to eat some hot food, put on dry shoes and socks for the night, put on a couple extra layers for the 50 miles of headwinds going into the night. After grey rainy skies all day, the clearing sky was breathtaking at sunset running back across the several mile long bridge and passing the Bodie lighthouse. It was quiet and reflective and I felt a lot of joy the miles I ran along that stretch, my heart was super full and euphoric.
I was still running well as the night came on. Swift moving clouds and a bright moon made for a beautiful evening. Many of the flooded streets had drained but I still found myself sludging through heavy puddles with no way around, soaking my feet. They were wet for the duration of the night.
I stayed fairly comfortable through the early part of the night and up through 100, running through Nags Head and the cute little beach neighborhoods, however as we approached 9+ pm and the longer stretches of beach and sand dunes, the temperatures began to drop and the wind picked up. Sand that had been wet earlier, dried on the surface and began to blow in billowing gusts across the road and with heavy headwinds, into our faces and eyes. At this point I had on a thermal shirt, t-shirt, base layer coat, zero degree coat, rain/windproof outer shell, gloves, stocking cap, and hot hands on my mittens and down in my bra, and I was just barely keeping my temps above shivering. Poor Cecy looked absolutely miserable every time she stopped to crew me. Just a few moments in the wind cutting to the bone was painfully cold. I felt she saved me from some mild hypothermia with a couple of 7-11 hot chocolates and a hot pizza. My stomach was feeling great because she had been feeding me real food with a decent amount of protein all day, giving me solid fuel and probably helping me stay warm as well.
Temps were going to be dropping into the high 20s wind chill. I felt another big round of drowsiness even with the biting sand blowing in my eyes. Around 9:30pm I got a call from Kevin Silvey. He'd lived in the Outer Banks and knew I was facing rough weather so he called to check and make sure I was doing okay. This crazy awesome best of friends, he started just talking & talking and keeping my mind awake and occupied through the night. He knew of a bar that served gourmet Wagu beef hamburgers that was open till 10 right around my location on the OBX so he ordered me a hot swiss cheese burger with mushrooms over the phone and sent Cecy to pick it up for me and meet me on the road. So funny, Cecy looks so young, she was actually carded and had to show her ID to pick up this burger. My stomach was doing a bit of flip flopping, but when she met me with that, it literally melted in my mouth like butter and was such a mood lifter, I felt like I got some solid energy and I didn't have any stomach troubles the rest of the night. I was still struggling with sleepiness and the sand blowing in my eyes and whipping in my face. At times it felt like I was climbing a mountain or out alone in some kind of crazy desolate sand blizzard, trying to move forward through those heavy gusts of wind. Kevin was worried about me, having paced at Rabid Raccoon and seeing me drop on the side of a trail for a nap, so he didn't want to hang up the phone, instead stayed on the line and talked with me through the last 12 hours of the race. I didn't listen to my fav music, but it was so dark and lonely and my head wasn't in a good place with the frigid winds, so I really truly appreciated the voice in my ear and friendly human companionship. Occasionally I'd cross paths with other runners but for the most part it was a lonely long haul.
I'd had a chance to meet a couple Marines on course, talk to a few friends I'd run with in the past, and have a few conversations about veteran mental health and suicide. Even in the extreme conditions, people still wanted to talk and hear my story and share theirs.
The wind was torturous and grueling all night long. Near dawn I was nearing hypothermic shivers, luckily I'd gotten out of the sand dunes and into trees for the most part which took a little chunk out of the wind even though temps had dropped. I finally grabbed a blanket from Cecys car and had to throw that on top of everything else I was wearing to stay warm.
Kevin kept chatting with me thru the morning hours as I made my way to the finish, some 102 miles. My watch died at some point neat the finish. I was thrilled, despite having run Rabid Raccoon the week before, and the extreme weather, to have kept a similar <28 hr pace as prior years running the course.
The buckle was extremely freaking cool, had some delicious Mexican food at the finish, and tried to clean up in the sink and then sleep in the car for a few hrs before making the arduous exhausted journey back to the house in Berryville.
Out on the course I did a lot of thinking and praying and felt that the next step I needed to take was sadly, to leave my farm and move out of the house. Broke my heart, but it needed to be done, a bandaid ripped off to hopefully make things easier for everyone. After I woke up Monday, I cleaned up and did my laundry, repacked my race items for bootlegger 100 in 2 weeks, and crammed my car full of my belongings. Some close friends of mine gave me a free place to stay at least through the summer, so I carefully picked through my most important things and with only a few hrs sleep, after dinner left my home and drove another couple of hours to my new home.
Completely exhausted, world turned upside down, but feeling super grateful that I survived and finished my #70 hundred miler for military & veteran suicide awareness, and was able to honor LCpl Brodie Gillon as part of Wear Blues Piewesta challenge honoring female members of the military.
I was caught up on so many details and emotions of surviving my own life right now, I didn't take a lot of brainpower for anything but surviving this race, but I know I was looked after by 2 living angels and my team of Dexter, Taylor, Jacob, Jake and Morgan.
Trying to get my bearings in a new place, traveling to help out friends at Georgia Death Race on my way to Bootlegger 100 in Georgia, my #71, I've barely had a few minutes to put together this race report. Easter Sunday. It was lonely and sad, but I took time for a 12 mile run under the moon to pray try to remember my hope in the resurrection, knowing sorrow, sadness, trials, and pain are temporary. I feel like God has a future filled with joy for me. I don't know what it looks like yet, but, I'm running in faith. I do feel Dexter's been able to walk with me and gently guide me through this time. Extra thoughts and care for my friend Sally, carrying her brother Nate who loved being out at the OBX, also thinking of LCpl Crewson's family with the 2 yr anniversary of his death on March 28. Also one of my daughter's birthdays that I haven't seen for a few yrs. My hearts def been through the wringer this month.
Looking forward to Bootlegger 100 this weekend and Cherry Springs 110 the following weekend!
Oh My Rosie, I noticed after commenting on Cruel Jewel that I had not read this race report of yours (and, just so you know, I'm sharing selected snippets with Carol so she can appreciate how challenging each of these races is).
Wow, looking at the amount of layering you did, and how you still were clost to hypothermia, I can only imagine what those conditions must have been like -- sounds like you also needed goggles for the sand (or a face mask).
Glad you had crew for this one, and that must be a hard job when the conditions are like this. Congrats to you for the significant milestone of #70! You are amazing!