Callie Won an Ultramarathon

Things happened before Callie won the Laurel Highlands Ultra.  I woke up at 8. Dave and I went for a walk at 8:30. It was so incredibly hot. I about died. I started to really worry how my running would go in the middle of the afternoon.

Then I got my stuff together and realized I had to hurry out the door. I only had time to eat half my cinnamon roll. I got to my parents and Krinin and Aurora were there and I didn't even have time to visit. This made me sad.  I put on sunscreen then I headed to Art's to swap mowers.  He gave me lessons on how to start it. We talked a few minutes but had to hurry. We left and headed home. We got my mom and headed out to "Checkpoint 3" where I was going to start my leg of the race. I drank a lot of water in the car and ate an Energy bar. 

Callie told me to get there at 1 but I didn't think she accounted for the extra 6.5 miles so I thought I might have until after 2 before I ran.  The trail looked much more dangerous than I expected. I expected a nice almost paved trail.

My parents drove me instead of me driving myself then having to figure out how to get my car from one point to the next. But then when Callie was taking awhile and how I wanted to go to the finish, I thought my parents should just go home. They did leave at like 2 to go eat lunch and didn't stick around to see me start running.  My mom didn't even walk the little portion of the trail that you had to walk before you got to the checkpoint. You also had to cross 30 to get to the checkpoint.

There was a big ordeal with the checkpoint before this one because none of the families (aka the crew) could find the location so they couldn't get water and snacks to the runners.

There was also another ordeal at one of the aid stations in that they didn't have water there for the first 8 runners to get there.
Another problem was they updated the website in some places and not others so then the mile markers for certain things were off by 6.5 miles and for someone who has what food/drink they take with them down to a science this is not good.

The trail is in this picture somewhere.

Callie Stretching before we started running.

The one part of the website said that checkpoint 3 was at 46.4 miles but it was actually after 52.9 miles. Some areas of the site were updated some were not. The website was great and awful at the same time. 

Running through the woods with such awful terrain made my Nike+ think we ran 23% more than we actually ran.

I never ran on trails before ever so it was quite a challenge. At least we didn't have to run hardcore.

The trophies

They give everyone that finishes a trophy. I learned later that they mail them the plaque for on there that says their name and the details.  That has to be nice. We cheered for all the finishers while waiting for Callie. I talked to crew members waiting for their spouses.  I had bug spray but still ended up with about 30 mosquito bites.

Callie Finishing

One bright thing is Callie's headlight. 2 are the reflectors on her camelbak (or however you spell that. I'm not a hardcore enough runner to know about such things). The other lights were from Alex who paced her in the last leg of the race. Callie said that she would have quit at the third checkpoint if her pacers didn't drive from so far.   I'm glad she didn't quit after 50 miles. Now she has a great accomplishment under her belt.

I tried to get a 2nd picture before Callie finished but it took too long for the flash to recharge so Callie was already resting after the finish line by that point.

A minute or 2 later they presented her with her award for winning first place for the females. They also told her her entry fee is waived for next year.  I think she's retiring so she won't take them up on it.
(I showed the picture to a lot of my friends at one and one girl commented how ripped Callie is. I told Callie and she was happy saying she's worked all her life to look ripped and glad someone finally noticed.)

I made Callie's dad take our picture so there was evidence that I was there.  Too bad I didn't get a picture with Callie's other pacer. I think we were all good encouragement for Callie and somehow even though I didn't actually run in the race I feel like I was a huge part of it because of being at the aid stations and seeing all the runners.  It was a great experience.

Callie's parents were nice and drove me home that night.  We got Taco Bell on the way home.  It was late then I spent forever telling my brothers about the race. I don't think they cared. They were also watching TV. It was so late.  I started falling asleep in the rocking chair. Then I went to sleep on the couch in the basement and took my hair out of the ponytail. It was still wet from sweat and rain, but it was too late to shower.  I went to sleep after putting a towel over the pillow so I didn't ruin it.  I didn't plan to stay at my parents but good thing I had clothes to change into after the race that I could wear the next day.

I was so nervous before I ran. The longer I waited, the more I got nervous.   I loaded my GoWear fit data for the day.

6 Personal Bests!

I guess all the stress had me burning tons of calories. I can't even believe I hit 6 personal bests in 1 day. I entered the food that I ate that day and I burned 2100 more calories than I consumed. I didn't lose any weight though because I had a lot of water in me.



There are probably a lot more details I could write about but I think this post is long enough.  I could talk for probably 8 hour straight about the race and I didn't even run it. I bet I talk more about the race than Callie does.  I also keep cluttering up her wall on facebook making comments about the race and the results