This winter, living in a camper has been pretty rough. I tried weatherproofing it but spent many cold days with several layers of clothes on, wrapped up in blankets with hot herbal tea, lighting candles and trying to stay warm. We had quite a bit of ice and snow that came and lasted for weeks at Froggy Mountain, so every day around going to the gym and work, I was hiking up my hill to get home, trying to keep my footing on the crunchy icy snow. Little did I know this would prove to be just the training I needed for the H9 Fierce Dragon 100 in the north Georgia mountains, a wild, cold, unpredictable and inhospitable place in January. I did alot of training for this race at the Curtis Bartlett Fitness center in Galax Va, hitting the stair climber with a 20lb pack.


I hoped maybe there would be less snow in Georgia but getting down into those mountains the evening before the race, I saw snow was thick and darkness came fast. I couldn't find packet pickup and felt lost & isolated and worried about spending the night in the cold. It was low 20s overnight with several inches of snow on the ground. Luckily, I got a hold of my friends Angie & Richard who were running the race, and they helped me find the race start. One of the volunteers was there late, waiting on a 200-miler runner to come into the warming station. I felt so much better after talking to her, though she reminded me I should have packed crampons because apparently the wet snow as freezing into sheets of ice. I was afraid this was going to get ugly.
I was thrilled there was an overnight heated bathroom I could use overnight and get dressed pre-race, so much easier than in the back of a car! I snuggled into my sleeping bag in the SUV under a few blankets and slept deeply. Kevin called before the race to check on me and wish me luck. I am grateful for his friendship. Those calls when I'm traveling alone mean a lot to me. It helps to connect to someone who gets me. I do well running alone, but sometimes you just need to know there's a person you can call if you get into trouble. I'm a bit of a wreck after sleeping in the car, all my gear scattered, when you gotta get dressed in a public bathroom, lol.







It was great to share a little time early on with a US Marine named Ray from a Marine Corps ultra running club. We had a nice chat. I felt strong and soon warmed up from effort and was feeling fully immersed in the beauty of the morning. After a few miles I realized the bulk of the course reminded me of navigating the snow and ice back and forth from my camper at home. My brain adjusted quickly to the difficult terrain and soon I was moving along confidently and without much trouble. It was exhilarating to be out in the mountains, isolated in the winter landscape, sun reflecting on the snow and rarely a soul in sight.


On the south slopes I would find dry ground and little snow. I moved fast on that and tried to make up time. The north slopes were frozen, slippery and more difficult to navigate. I had to run on the side of the trail, crunching into deeper snow in many places to be able to get my footing. I felt so grateful to be healthy and strong and out running this notoriously tough course! The most difficult part of the climb was summiting Coosa Bald which we would do 6x. It's a long steep climb and there was about 4+6 inches of snow to slog through on Friday.









I had 52 hrs. to run this 100-mile course, ended up getting 112 miles on my watch. One of the most meaningful moments strangely, was getting through the long, beautiful afternoon, listening to Imagine Dragons and thinking of Dexter, and having a perfectly shaped heart rock, and a heart shadow in the trees appear before me within a mile. I really felt his presence and felt confident that I would finish because he was out there with me.



It was awesome to run into Angie, she wasn't far behind me. I love her grit, she is always signing up for difficult trail races, I love seeing her on course! That was at the first turn around. We still had a few hrs. before dark but I put on all my night gear and grabbed an extra coat. In late afternoon towards evening the skies clouded up, it got colder, and I could feel the dark humidity moving in and threatening for nighttime rain. I was starting to feel the miles and was a little chilled. Kevin called and played for me some of his new song, Bigfoot, which I loved hearing! Back when I did Cruel Jewel, I swear I saw a bigfoot, so it was really fun & special to hear a sweet melody coming from our music studio at Froggy Mountain, about my late-night woodland friend. Bigfoot believes in us!


The cold gear was timely because as it got dark, there was a frigid wind blowing down from the mountain top and steady up on the ridges. I was expending a lot of energy and moving between chilled and sweating. The headlamps reflecting on the snow gave great visibility and I felt like I was moving ahead strongly. As I hit the halfway point late at night, the rain started to fall, and soon it was torrential. It made the trail a soupy cold mess. ID put bags on my feet to keep them dry and keep the warmth in, but after 50ish miles, they had slipped off and had holes, so my feet got soaking wet. It turned bitter cold; my hands and feet were soaked and icy cold. I knew my best shot to avoid hypothermia was to pick up the pace, but the rain turned the icy trail into a slip and slide, it was very difficult to move fast without falling.

There is about a mile descent into the firepit aid station. The aid stations were so cool, hot tents covered by tarps at the entrance to hold in the heat. It was sometimes hard to find an entrance in the wind and rain, but the shelter was amazing. I could feel the threat of hypothermia setting in, so I pounded down that mile in a downpour in the middle of the night, frozen toes, the ground so slippery I knew if I made a misstep, I could get a serious fall or injury. It felt like the cold and gravity were pulling me downhill hard and I couldn't slow my legs down, I even told myself out loud, slow down Rosie! Couldn't do it. Gratefully I didn't fall and made it to the safety of that aid station, where I spent a good 30 minutes completely changing clothes, putting dry bags on my feet, putting hot hands into Ziplock baggies to keep them dry and stuffing them in my shoes, eating as much hot food as possible, commiserating with another runner about getting dry. It was super intense.




One of my favorite moments of the night was getting offered a tray full of Valentine cupcakes from two of the ladies at Firepit. I wasn't in the mood for sugar, but I remarket those would probably be the only Valentines I received so I should eat up and promptly downed 6 cupcakes lol. The ladies were divorced, and we chatted a little about being single. One woman had been single for 12 years and she said she loved it. I should embrace it because I have so much freedom. I asked her if she ever felt painfully lonely, and she said no, to not worry because I was just in the "wounded gazelle" phase, and I'd get out of it. The 2 ladies warned me off going to dating apps, said the only men I'd meet there would be "Boring and bald" lol. They had very sage advice, that if I want to get into a relationship, make it with someone I meet out on a gritty course, otherwise I'll just be wasting my time with someone who will never "get me." I loved that, it kind of cheered me up and made me feel strangely empowered, and I ran confidently thru the night.

As the rain cleared out, I understood the name, "fierce dragon" ...the wind on the ridges blew so loud it sounded like a roaring dragon. It was pretty awesome and humbling to be out in the mountains on a wild night.
One thing I thought about was how alone and isolated and raw it can be out in the mountains like this. You realize that you have to love your own company, because you are going to spend countless hours alone. Nobody but you to give you pep talks or motivational speeches or tough love. You have to know how to listen to that inner voice and be comfortable with it. I also find its the place where I can feel those I love who are no longer with us. Thoughts and advice and ideas and love flow unbidden out in the dark in the mountains. That is one thing that constantly drives me back. It's a reminder to me that Dexter, my Marines, Mom and Dad, our loved ones, live on. Under the right circumstances they will make themselves felt and known. Usually too precious to talk about those times, but they are real.
Saturday was cold and wet, the sun never came out and most of the day was grey, humid, foggy, the trail turned to slush and mud. the fog was beautiful, in the early morning the whole world was blue. Amazingly my feet stayed warm and dry and weren't a concern for the rest of the race with my bread bags and hot hands in the shoes. Races of other distances were out on course and kind of gave a mental boost when they would cheer you on, though it did break you from that isolated meditation of suffering. I mostly polished off those cupcakes and I came back and forth through firepit. The race had a professional photographer there who was cook as heck, the nicest guy with a great vibe, and he'd heard about our Froggy Mountain 100 race, so that was cool. As I got more fatigued, I threw on a David Goggins playlist and let it kick my butt for a little while, I needed some hard talk about pushing through pain and difficulty. I'd put on a rain suit to try and keep in the warmth and to stay dry, there was so much moisture in the air and with sweat I would get soaked completely, all my coats, leggings etc. The rain suit was stupidly cheap and shredded along the trail, but it did keep my warm through the worst of the wet and the remnants of it helped keep my feet dry. Â I was afraid I would slip off one of the precarious edges and the suit would act like a slip and slide. I found out later my friend Angie HAD literally slipped off the steep side of the trail and fell, getting bruised and hurt, she couldn't get back onto the trail and was ultimately saved by some other runners, but it ended her race. Thats how precarious conditions were. Skeenah gap I had to strip down to my underwear and put on completely dry clothes, luckily the folks at the aid station had dried out my last coat so I had something to change into.







Saturday night, going into night 2 with no sleep, I got a nice pep talk from Kevin @ the pointless climb. My stomach started feeling off, but I managed a hamburger, hot dog and coke.

I started doing panic math in my head, it's always weird when that happens, your brain gets into a loop for hours trying to do pace calculations, and for some reason I was afraid I wouldn't make cutoffs even though I was still moving well.

As I was finishing up 100 miles, I had no idea that I was required to make one more out and back to the start/finish, over Coosa bald. Ultimately it put 112 miles on my watch. I was exhausted and wet. At firepit I set an alarm for 10 minutes and tried to sleep on a cot. I couldn't relax but at least I got some physical rest. I had some mild hallucinations. I thought bigfoot was following me through the forest for a good 15 minutes and I thought I saw Nessie, why in the middle of a forest I'd see Nessie, I have no idea, lol.

I thought about calling Kevin as I headed out for my final out n back. I was thrilled to hit an official 100 miles under 40 hours, I hit it at 1:11 am, right after I saw a 111 sign!


I still had hours to go and was depleted and exhausted and sick. My really good friend, an old boyfriend from HS who I recently got in touch with, Ben Tucker, called to check on me around 1am and we talked for a while. I got to tell him all about how I qualified for UTMB and that woke me up and got me back into the game and was feeling strong. Just a good friend btw, lol.
I felt really strong till I hit 100 miles, but then I hit the wall hard. All the food I'd eaten had happily digested, so I wasn't throwing anything but, but I kept dry heaving, and it hurt a lot. I decided to stop eating and drinking at that point except for a few little sips of water occasionally. The last climb over Coosa was brutal. Conditions had turned ice overnight, so it was hard to get good footing, and I was sleepy and nauseous and had very low energy. I stopped at several points to lay down on a log and try to close my eyes for a moment and settle my stomach. It was too cold to stay long. It was at that point laying on a log on top of Coosa when I noticed the moon had risen. I turned off my lamp and just looked at the starry night sky, the dark trees whipping in the wind with the moon rising, and realized that despite how sick I was, there was absolutely no place I would rather be at that moment. Doing something difficult and epic.

The finish line was so close, I only had to make it back to firepit, do a 1 mile loop and then head back the 7-ish miles to the finish (Over Coosa again, lol) It was great to meet other runners occasionally up there overnight, my new friend Scott who suffered that tremendous loss of his family in a house fire was out. Meeting him as I struggled up on Coosa meant a lot. Amazing the friendships that can develop in these races, it's a gift to find others who understand grief and the healing that comes on a mountain.
At the last aid station one of the aid station workers did the 1-mile loop with me. That helped a lot to have that companionship. After I left her for my final climb I tried to soak in how the night was completely silent & brought myself into the moment to appreciate the fact that I was there suffering, and what a gift it was.
The last 5 miles were torturous, and my knee was hurting a lot. With about 2 miles left, Kevin let me call him and he talked to me to the finish line. I became the only female finisher of this race; therefore, I was first place female in 45 hours and 35 minutes. I later found out that I'm the only female to have ever finished that 100 miler. That felt amazing!


I'm really proud of my finish time because the cutoffs and elevation gain are similar stats I need to be showing to finished UTMB in Chamonix, France, the Superbowl of ultrarunning that I'll be doing in August! So excited to have qualified for that and have my name picked in the lottery. It's something I've dreamed of along this journey, to go run with Dexter in the Swiss Alps.


I was so completely exhausted I literally fell asleep sitting in a chair talking to one of the RD's. Even though I ran this race w/o crew or pacer, so grateful for my friends who called and checked in with me. Sometimes all I need is just that little voice of companionship to push through the long hours. After getting my awards, the aid station folks made me a burger and some bacon, and then I crashed and slept in my car for a few hrs. I cried myself to sleep, because I was exhausted and super emotional and grateful to have finished # 85 on this killer course. H9 112 miles for Dexter, Dillon, Morgan, Taylor, Jacob, Jake, Nate & Jenn












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