I drove up to Pine Mountain (PM) the night before. Patrick and I met up with John and Kelli for a nice dinner in preparation for the race in the morning. We talked strategy and went back and forth on clothing and what to expect on weather.
We got up early and headed down to the start area. Patrick was doing the 46 miler and that started about 30 minutes before the 19 Miler. After I watched Patrick, Josh and the rest of the 46 milers run off into the dark of PM I headed to the shelter to get ready for my race. I saw Dennis all bundled up with clothes and remember thinking he is going to regret that. Oh was I wrong about that. But on the bright side I made the good decision of bringing my headlamp for the start of the race.
We are off to the race now. Starting off good, feeling excited and nervous. Us flat landers don't get much of any incline work even if PM is considered mild for most veteran trail runners. That was why Patrick and I had come up over the summer to get a long run in. We had done a double and camped over night.
The sun still hadn't come up so it was pretty dark. It felt like I was running a little hard even though I was at a slow pace. Looked at my heart rate (HR) and it was higher then I wanted but I kept it going with the pack I was in. About a mile in and boom I fell and twisted my ankle. Great. Now I have this to worry about. I thought maybe I should call it a day since I already twisted my ankle. But I decided to make it through the first climb and see how I felt. I knew that I could just cross the street and head back to the start once I get to the top if I needed. Not much further I tweaked my other ankle but decided to stick with my initial decision of getting to the top of the fist climb.
About three miles in and already beat up from the two slips and going up the first climb to hard, based on my HR not my pace. It was going to be a long day is what I was thinking. Trying to keep and up beat mindset I decided to take that and go forward. I remember thinking well it can't get much worse now. I already survived one of the biggest climbs I'll see all day and fallen.
At that point I was in the mind set of: Bring it on PM. Show me what you got. And PM sure did. Luckily, I was able to stick with Chris, owner of Wild Side, though that part of the race. We some how unspoken decided we would stick with each other through the race. It was a life saver.
After those first few miles the thought of not finishing really crossed my mind again but the misery from PM kept coming. I fell several more times but that wasn't the worst of it. The weather was. It started pouring cold rain. We got wet and more wet. We got some wind and more rain. Followed by running through streams that formed on the trail due to the rain. At that point I was thinking, man how Dennis made the right choice. O'well just got to keep on moving. Thanks to Chris I was able to keep my sanity by having someone to complain with and push through the rough parts with. At some point the first place 46 miler came zooming by us. I looked in awe as I was sticking to my plan of hiking the uphill and running the flats and downhills. Here was this guy floating by us not even breathing hard.
Chris and I chugged along through the course, cold, wet, but staying positive. We just kept going nice and steady. We approached the final aid station. I was feeling tired but didn't need a refill or any food. Chris decided to stop and I kept moving. I thought Ill be going slow enough for him to catch up. Sure enough a mile later I saw Chris behind me as I hike up on of the last uphills. I thought great, Chris is looking good and we can bring it in together. A few minutes later I no longer saw Chris behind me and passed another runner by. I looked at my watch and realized I was running my fastest miles to close out the race. With a downhill finish, monitoring my HR and hiking through out the race saved my legs for a strong finish.
I moving along and thing were going smooth. But PM had one final challenge for me. I cam up to an intersection with markings going both ways. As a started to go straight I paused, and yelled f*&^%as I realized I had a decision to make. I needed to make decision on which way to go and I am the same person that didn't know where to go on the trail earlier when straight was the only way to go. However, I had flash of when Patrick and I had ran this part of the trail and I made the wrong turn. I thought, well I wanted to go straight then and it was wrong so it would be wrong now. I knew at the minimum that the turn would take me back into FDR but maybe it would be longer. I took the turn thinking, I hope Chris knows to turn. Then I thought, Chris will know and zoomed on into the finish.
As I crossed the finish line I was told congrats on my top 5 finish. I was confused because I knew about 10 runners where a head of me. After a minute I got up and looked for Dennis, as I was sure he already finished. No sign of him. I waited a few more minutes to see Chris finish. No sign of him or the guy I passed.
I started to realize maybe several people missed that turn. After changing and seeing the next finishers, not Chris, I decided to tell the race director what I was suspicious of. He went up to tape off the area as it should have been done after the 46 milers had passed through. I am sure the volunteer was ready to get out of that wet cold and forgot or didn't know to do it.
Sure enough, a few more minutes later comes a group of guys that all missed the turn. PM threw everything it could at me but I survived and was rewarded with a top 5 finish.
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