Race Report

After weeks of preparation, the day of the Pengelly Double Dip finally arrived. It's been raining here for weeks, but the sky cleared and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I awoke with the sun, too excited to sleep anymore. I headed into town and decided to do the early start at 8 am, instead of starting at 9 am with everyone else. Because it had taken me so long to do on my practice run, I was concerned that it might take me that long again and I would be the last to finish. Plus I didn't want to wait around anymore!

A handful of other people also did the early start. One woman was just ahead of me for the first hour.The course was really beautiful - great views, green and tons of wildflowers. When it started to get steep enough to warrant walking, I finally caught up to Mary Ann, and we walked together. Turns out that she is a mom too (5 & 7 year old girls). It was great to have someone to talk to and commisserate with. It was so nice (and different for me, being typically a middle of the pack runner) to be the first ones at each aid station, and at the peaks.

It wasn't until we were on our way back down from the most relentlessly steep climb up to the radio towers that we finally started seeing other people. At first they were surprised to see us, but soon realized that we were not faster than them, we'd just started early. Still, it was really cool to be up there running in the front with the fastest guys. Mary Ann and I reached the summit first, where I called my guys (Jim and the boys had been volunteering at the race and I wanted to let them know when I'd be coming down) and Mary Ann went flying down the mountain.

Soon I started getting passed by the fastest men (7 in all passed me before I finished). The last part of the race is miles of treacherous downhill, followed by a short flat section. I got a blister on one foot and a black toenail on the other from the downhill pounding.

Then I came into the finish chute with all of these people watching (expecting the winners) and my boys came out to join me for part of my final steps. It was really an amazing feeling being one of the first to finish, even though I was an imposter of sorts.

Afterwards Mary Ann found me in the crowd and she was all scraped up. She'd taken a spill on the way down, but didn't seem fazed by it. She'd still managed to beat me to the finish!

What a great race, but I was glad it was over. Then Jim left the boys with me so that he could run the course, twice in a row, as part of his training for the "Devil's Backbone" 50-miler in July. I continued my endurance event by spending the day in town with the boys, first going to the pool, then to China Buffet, then to a kid's birthday party (I did not go in the bouncy house).

I was exhausted, and so was Jim. It took him 6 hours to run the whole thing twice (the equivalent of a marathon). I did my 1/2 in 3 hours. I woke up with aching muscles but Jim was already gone - out for another long run.