2018 Cape Fear 24 Hour Endurance Run
November 3/4, 2018 at Parks and Recreation baseball fields in Lillington, NC
A lesson in running 100 miles from someone who doesn't have a clue about it
Watch time: N/A - didn't want the hassle
Chip times: 100.0142 miles in 23:56:45.3
Position: 8 of 63 (tied 5th most mileage but took longer to achieve it)
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| 100 mile finishers with the best support crew ever |
Back Story
I guess this race is the culmination of my past 3 years of running. When I realized I needed some friends after moving 750 miles away from everyone I knew, I joined a run club that was started by Mark Campbell and some others a few years before. What was once a club that ran every other Saturday at the beginning was now organizing group runs every morning and also most evenings. I went from running 3 miles 2 or 3 times a week alone to running 5+ miles almost every day, and meeting a world of new friends. Several races and several thousand miles of running later....2017 was my year of the marathon - I ran my first back in 2013 and hadn't ran a race since then. Family, wife back in school, little kids, new job, moving, etc all took priority over running. After the move I started working full time from home, and running became my outlet for stress and a way to get out of the house and see other adults. At my 3rd HSRC run, I committed to running another marathon - the Blue Ridge Marathon, no big deal (just labeled "America's Toughest Road Marathon"). I would also end up running Myrtle Beach, Rock n Roll Raleigh, the Barkley Fall Classic, and Kiawah marathons.
I decided 2018 was my year of the ultra. I had a little taste of ultras from the BFC, but that was a failure. I had signed up to run the Blue Ridge Double Marathon, and as part of my training I also added the Uwharrie 40 miler in February. I maintained decent mileage (30-40 miles/wk) through the summer while chasing a goal of running 2018 miles in 2018. Then I got to go back to Barkley Fall Classic again, and again I was under-trained and had to settle for a marathon finish. But this year I was able to share the experience with Mark and it was an awesome weekend despite not great success in the race.
All the way back in May, Mark suggested I join him for this 24 hour run he had signed up for. I was very tempted (as I always am when it comes to racing), but knew it might not be a great idea. I already had the Marine Corps Marathon on my schedule - 6 days before this race. His argument was that it's not a measured distance race, it's a short 0.59 mile loop around a park that you repeat as many times as you can/want to. If my legs are too tired I can stop any time I want to, and go home/shower/sleep/whatever. Mark was planning on pushing Brandon Rizzuti in his chair, and I remembered how much fun we had during the Team Smile and Roll border-to-border run (VA to SC - 162 miles), and how inspirational it was. It was time to add another chapter to that book. Finally in October, I caved and decided to register, but wasn't setting any kind of goals because there were so many unknowns. But in the back of my mind, I secretly wanted the 100 miles...
Weeks before race day
Well I can't keep my mouth shut about anything - our plan to keep the gender of our children a surprise to others until they were born usually lasted about 8 minutes after we found out. So as this race approached, I put a post out on Facebook about how I wanted to go for 100 miles and I wouldn't be able to do it without the support of my friends. So now everybody knew, but that also meant I would have my people to help. Our awesomely supportive friend Julie Jones was planning on being there the entire race, doing whatever she could to help us. A few others mentioned they would come out and help as well.Marine Corps Marathon was an absolute disaster. I had put another huge goal out there (sub-4 hours) and my friend Dave Karls tried pacing me - until I fell apart. Under-trained, poor planning, and poor execution. Made me question what I had been doing as a runner, and if I really had any idea about how to set realistic expectations. I did wonder though, if my training had been more appropriate for ultras (low heart rate, time on feet) than a marathon PR attempt. Either way, I backpedaled a bit on the 100 mile goal, and decided that my main goal was to set a distance PR (52.4 miles) and still be able to move by 7:00am on Sunday morning.
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| All the clothes I packed, almost none of which were used |
Race Day
After loading up all of my gear the night before, I made the short 25 minute drive from home down to nearby Lillington to meet up with Mark, Brandon and Julie. They had camped in the park Friday night and told me they hadn't slept very well - it was chilly, rainy, and apparently some people there like to intentionally make their cars loud (some muffler thing I don't know about) and drag race up and down the road right next to where they slept. I quickly set up my camp chair and unloaded the car, got my bib from the race staff, and chatted with a few other runners while we waited for this thing to start. Mark and I discussed what our plans were for the day, and it was just to keep moving. We figured we would get separated at times and we were both ok with that. It's a short course and we were bound to see each other frequently no matter what.Nerd alert! Let me geek out on some numbers for a bit. After obsessing over another Laz race - Big's Backyard Ultra - I knew that to hit 100 miles in 24 hours required a 4.1667 mph pace. That equated to just over 7 loops needed per hour (7 * 0.5918 = 4.1426). In my planning, I had settled on running one loop around 10:30/mile pace, and walking half a loop around 17:00/mile pace, and I wanted to maintain that for 6 hours. Those combined paces would give me about 8 total laps per hour, and I would use the walking breaks that coincided with passing the aid station as queues to grab something to eat and drink - and of course do that on the move - no standing around wasting time! I also did some math during the race, although Mark wasn't sure he trusted it because of past running math experiences. I was certain our average pace needed to be 14:24/mile to hit 100 miles. The math was easy - 1440 minutes in 24 hours, divided by 100 miles = 14.4 minutes/mile. 0.4 minutes is 24 seconds (0.4*60). One nice thing we had with the live tracking was that it not only showed our lap times and total distance, it showed our overall average pace.
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| Starting off way too fast |
So back to the race. Of course I ran the first 3 laps in 20 minutes. In typical fashion, I went out too fast, even at a 24 hour race. The good news was that "too fast" was still over an 11:00/mile average pace, which is still a few minutes slower than a good effort pace for me. Mark and Brandon had decided that they were just going to walk the entire first hour. It was going to be a long day and there was no need to overdo it early. Once I finished my 9th loop just after the first hour, I decided I needed to get onboard with the strategy that Julie had suggested the few days before the race - run a lap, then walk a lap. She messaged me a few days before the race and said although she has no experience with ultras, she just had this nagging sense to tell me that this should be our strategy.
Neither of us was wearing a watch, so we just settled into a comfortably easy pace (the ultra shuffle), focusing on being able to chat easily. That meant our heart rate was low and we weren't going to burn up our glucose stores. When you do that is when you end up hitting the wall, as I experienced 6 days earlier. That easy pace had us finishing the run laps around 6 mins 30 secs and the walk laps were around 9:30 (8 mins/loop). That meant 7.5 laps per hour, which was enough to keep us on pace. But we still never talked about a goal of 100 miles. That would be ridiculous. And terrifying. Instead we decided we would run/walk until we got to 10 miles. Once we hit that milestone (around 2 hrs 10 mins), we said why not run to 20. And so it continued on throughout the day that we would make small goals that would give us something to focus on for just the next few hours. It kept our minds off the fact that we still had 22 hours, 20 hours, etc, to keep running.
We maintained this for two hours, however I think a combination of walking more than I was used to, walking at a much faster pace than was comfortable, and wearing some older shoes was causing the walk laps to be a bit painful. I decided I was going to switch back to the run a lap, walk half a lap for a while. After doing that for an hour, I finally met back up with Mark, Brandon and Julie. I had added 1 lap in an hour. It seemed stupid to have done all that extra work that didn't really benefit me much. So for hour 5 and 6, it was back to the trusty 1:1. Surprisingly, our lap times were exactly in that same range as when we first started, and we were still feeling good.
We hit the marathon point somewhere around the 5:30:xx point. We had been doing a great job of staying hydrated and eating food up until this point. Generally, we would grab stuff on our walk laps at the end of every hour. A few times in the middle of hours I would get hungry or thirsty, so I would go into the all-you-can-eat buffet a.k.a. aid station, and get whatever looked good. It was now around 1:30pm, and was a beautiful clear sunny day. I made it a point to focus on hydration for the next few hours - knowing dehydration (and eventual muscle cramps) was something that was on my quit list. This is when I told Mark that I thought hitting 100k was an almost certainty, and I thought a triple marathon (78.6 miles) would be my stretch goal. That seemed like a good logical progression after the Blue Ridge Double Marathon. But if we got that far and still had time, we should probably just go for 80 miles.
We made a plan that we would stop every 6 hours for an extended break. This was just like a pit stop in a car race: in and out as quickly as possible, and get as much done as possible: stretching/rolling, changing socks/shoes and foot rub with intensive care lotion, a big snack/drink, bathroom, re-applying anti-chafe stuff everywhere, etc. We felt like we were very efficient. Mark asked me if we had taken 5 or 6 minutes, but when we finished our lap we saw it took us almost 23 minutes - so our break was about 13 (after you take away the 10 minutes of a walking lap). It amazed us how quickly time passes on a break. It was time well spent, but we hoped we could be more efficient on the 12/18 hour breaks.
After 7 hours, we crossed the 50k distance. This was a big deal for me, as I had only covered this distance 3 times previously. However, I also started having some minor problems here. Just some general foot/knee aches and pains. I decided that since I had 3 extra laps under my belt compared to Mark, that I was just going to walk for an entire hour. I still ended up logging 6 laps that hour, so I was still in great shape after my nearly 9 lap first hour. But I needed to make a slight adjustment to the plan. Mark had been ticking off the laps like a machine, but I didn't feel like I could maintain running an entire lap and then speed walking for an entire lap. So I switched to my "half n half" strategy. We would run to the half way point of the lap (the big gray pole) together, then I'd walk the rest of that loop while Mark ran. Then Mark would do his walk loop, and I would run another half loop to catch up. We would walk the remainder of the loop together. This worked well for an hour, things started going south again, and I decided to walk another entire hour (the 9th hour). Still had a long time to go. This was how I battled through the lows - just keep moving, no matter how slowly.
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| My motivation (boys were busy on the playground) |
I felt refreshed after 50 miles. Katie was ready to take the kids home, but they stuck around to see me hit 50. No matter what, I was now going to achieve my main goal of a distance PR. We hit 50 miles at 11 hrs 52 mins. Somehow, we were STILL on pace for 100. However, a lot of my research and some other runners we had asked earlier that day said that a first-time attempt at 100 should probably hit 50 miles between 10 and 11 hours to have a legit shot. You assume that things will go downhill in the second half and you will need a few more hours for your second 50.
Shortly after hitting 50, we took our second break. Did everything we did during the break at 6 hours, but apparently our minds and bodies weren't functioning quite as well. This was new territory for me - I had never done a race that went beyond 12 hours. This break/lap took us around 28 minutes - 19 minutes of no movement. For the first time, our average pace was slower than 14:24/mile, and the break was so long that our average actually dropped from 14:07/mile to 14:30/mile. This had an interesting affect on me - I was disappointed at all. It was almost a relief and I said "oh well, we aren't on pace for 100 anymore, now there is no pressure." So we conversed and we both somehow still felt good enough to continue running, and so we did. Back in my plan building, I had expected that by the second half I would only be running half a lap and then walking a full lap. But Mark was still running his full lap (aside from walking the mountain on the NE corner of the park), so I wanted to keep up with him. My half n half strategy sort of morphed into an 80%/20% run walk during Mark's run lap, so I would then have less to run during his walk lap before I caught up. We were doing the same pace as we had way back in hour 2. We had a perfect plan, we had been pacing ourselves perfectly (without watches!), and so we decided on our next goal - lets get from 50 miles to 100k (62 miles). That's a huge accomplishment in the ultra world.
At this point, we had some new friends visit us. Candice showed up with the great energy that only she has - and ran some loops with her unicorn hat on. Dave is one of the most encouraging members in our run club. He is unable to run currently but he showed up anyways and joined us on the walking laps, telling us we looked great every time he saw us. Derek also joined us for a while, which was awesome having him there after he just finished running the Tuna 200 mile run by himself. He knew just the right things to say to keep us feeling confident. When you feel like you must look terrible and things might start falling apart, having friends there constantly telling you that you look great can actually convince you that you feel great - even though it makes no sense and there is no way you should be feeling that way. Julie earned the title of best support crew person of all time all throughout the day and night. Whether it was mixing water with Carbo Pro/Malto Dextrin, preparing food or salt tabs for us, plugging in my phone to charge, whatever we needed she was on top of it. As we ran by our camp we would tell her what we needed the next time we came around on the walk lap, and she always had it ready. While we were in good shape and didn't need her help, she joined us for several laps on the course. She actually ran her most miles ever in a day - 35+ officially on her watch, but I think more like 38-40 because there were several laps she didn't record. She is the most humble person and will take no credit, but there is zero chance we could have done anything close to what we did without her help.
This is the time in the race where things get confusing. Any pains I had felt in my feet/hips/knees/muscles had gone away. I didn't have any stomach issues all day (due to keeping pace slow and easy), so I wasn't hungry or thirsty, and was still eating/drinking regularly. The temperature had dropped quite a bit - probably in the 40s. I had worn a tank top all day but now had on a long sleeve shirt and a jacket (mostly for the pockets to carry my phone, gloves, etc), with compression sleeves on my legs, but still shorts #nopants. I think this cold weather resulted in us being much more alert, and I never even once considered that I needed any sleep. I'm sure lots of Coke helped with that too. We said repeatedly how despite running this same 0.59 mile lap over 100 times, it didn't feel repetitive. The 1:1 strategy was so embedded in our brains, that we didn't even question what we had to do. We crossed the timing mats, it was time to run, almost like an on-off switch. I ran to my checkpoints then short walks while Mark pulled away a bit, then he walked and I usually caught up around our camp spot and we walked. Then repeat, over and over again. If this was any other race and we didn't have that short loop/timing mat to tell us when to run/walk, I guarantee we wouldn't have had any sort of consistency. At the time when we should have been falling apart and becoming more inconsistent, was the time that we became more consistent than ever. I was surrounded by this strangely calm euphoria, and everything felt great. We were executing this plan perfectly even though it didn't make any sense, and I was going to keep it rolling as long as I could.
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| How are you still running? I don't know but I feel great! |
At the break, we had 40 laps left to complete 100 miles, and I debated counting down each lap. It ended up being too much, so I was announcing every time we had 10 lap less. It took us 17 laps after our break before we made up that time we lost on the break. We were over 85 miles at that point and there was no chance we weren't going for 100. It just became a fact that we were going to run 100 miles, there was nothing that was going to stop us. Every time we ran past runners and race crew they told us we looked great and asked how much further we had until 100. We would say "20 laps (or 15 or 10, etc) but that's still a LONG way to go." We still expected that at any moment things could go south. We knew we had to be careful about every little detail from here on out, as we were still just one small issue away from being derailed. We told Brandon that if he needed a bathroom break or anything, he would have to sit out a lap and have Julie help him, as we didn't think we could sacrifice the few minutes it would take. We also made an agreement that if one of us had to stop for a bathroom break or anything, the other person had to keep going on the regular pace, and it was up to the guy who took to break to catch up. No sooner did we make this agreement than Mark had to jump in the bathroom. I continued on and he caught up shortly. 2 laps later and I was looking for the bathroom. Without getting into too many details, when you eat 10,000+ calories of ultra race food, and then pile on top of that 7 or 8 chocolate meal replacement shakes, the results aren't always pleasant. This felt like the most stressful 4 minutes of my life, as I stared at my phone every second, watching the time slowly tick away, 3:25am, 3:26am, 3:27, 3:28, 3:29.... I finally got out and knew I had a lot of work to do to catch up. But I was happy Mark had continued on at pace. I think it took me 5 laps of pushing quite a bit (without a lot of my regular walk breaks) before I finally caught back up. Thankfully it was right as Mark was starting a walk lap and I walked the entire lap.
Around 90 miles, we still had 2 hrs 30 mins to go. There finally weren't any more "another 10 miles" goals to make, except for the final one of 100. We called this our "sit-down" goal - once we reach it, we get to sit down for a long time. Finally with about 10 laps to go, we were almost to the point we felt we could walk the rest of the time and finish the 100. We weren't going to take that risk, as we didn't trust any math at this point. We still felt ok to run so we did. Mark did finally relent on running the entire lap and joined me on my regular walk breaks. The run loops finally deviated from the 6:20-6:30 times, not because of pain, fatigue, sleep deprivation, or necessity, but by choice because we knew our goal was in hand.
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| Crossing the line to 100 miles |
Post Race
It was a surreal feeling, accomplishing something that I had thought about as a dream goal I might chase in a few years. I never seriously thought it was possible on this day. Even now, we can't begin to fathom how there was absolutely no downfall. I downloaded all of the data I could from the timing company, and did some further analysis to look at lap pace and average lap pace. Aside from my fast start in the first hour, and the 3 long breaks at the 6/12/18 hour marks, our average pace is nearly a straight line. It fluctuated between 14:20/mile and 14:25/mile for almost the entire last twelve hours. Our splits were insanely close - our first 50 miles took 11:52:28, our second took 12:04:17. If you subtract the extended breaks we had, the moving time for the first 50 was 11:39, and for the second 50 it was 11:31 - in a sense A NEGATIVE SPLIT.
What went wrong? Honestly, only a few small things. For the first six hours, I wore some shoes that were too old and my feet let me know. I had some pains and the beginnings of a blister on the side of the ball of my right foot. During our break I quickly stuck it with the safety pin from my bib to let it drain, re-applied lotion and got a new pair of socks. I also switched to a newer pair of HOKA Clifton's which felt like stepping on pillows and that problem was quickly resolved. I had some lows during the 7th and 9th hours, but I embraced them - knowing that there will always be highs and lows in an event this long. I didn't let it affect me mentally, I just knew that I would take things easy until I felt better, and I think not having a set goal going into the race helped a lot. I knew just continuing to move forward - even walking for an hour straight - would be fine with me, whatever the final result. The only other thing was the bathroom break, and 4 minutes out of 1440 wasn't ever going to make or break my race, despite how I might have been feeling during that moment.
In the days after the race, I haven't really had any more pain than typical post-race soreness. I did have some swelling in my left ankle (no idea why), but with some compression and icing that went away after a day. My leg muscles got pretty tight two days post-race (Tuesday), so I focused on stretching and hydrating and they are feeling much better now. Because of careful preparation and monitoring/maintenance throughout the race, I had no chaffing issues and no blisters. The shoes I wore were perfect and I didn't have any toenail problems. I did get a slight sun burn from being exposed to the sun all day, but nothing too bad.
There is definitely a question of where do we go from here? There are obviously several other 100 mile races that are quite different than this race. There are also multi-day journey runs such as the Tuna 200, Tarheel Ultra and Last Annual Vol State. I may attempt runs like that at some point, but not any time soon. For now I'm just going to run a few half marathons in the next few weeks, hit my goal of 2018 miles in 2018, and then take some rest before I focus on the Barkley Fall Classic 50k goal for 2019.
What went wrong? Honestly, only a few small things. For the first six hours, I wore some shoes that were too old and my feet let me know. I had some pains and the beginnings of a blister on the side of the ball of my right foot. During our break I quickly stuck it with the safety pin from my bib to let it drain, re-applied lotion and got a new pair of socks. I also switched to a newer pair of HOKA Clifton's which felt like stepping on pillows and that problem was quickly resolved. I had some lows during the 7th and 9th hours, but I embraced them - knowing that there will always be highs and lows in an event this long. I didn't let it affect me mentally, I just knew that I would take things easy until I felt better, and I think not having a set goal going into the race helped a lot. I knew just continuing to move forward - even walking for an hour straight - would be fine with me, whatever the final result. The only other thing was the bathroom break, and 4 minutes out of 1440 wasn't ever going to make or break my race, despite how I might have been feeling during that moment.
In the days after the race, I haven't really had any more pain than typical post-race soreness. I did have some swelling in my left ankle (no idea why), but with some compression and icing that went away after a day. My leg muscles got pretty tight two days post-race (Tuesday), so I focused on stretching and hydrating and they are feeling much better now. Because of careful preparation and monitoring/maintenance throughout the race, I had no chaffing issues and no blisters. The shoes I wore were perfect and I didn't have any toenail problems. I did get a slight sun burn from being exposed to the sun all day, but nothing too bad.
There is definitely a question of where do we go from here? There are obviously several other 100 mile races that are quite different than this race. There are also multi-day journey runs such as the Tuna 200, Tarheel Ultra and Last Annual Vol State. I may attempt runs like that at some point, but not any time soon. For now I'm just going to run a few half marathons in the next few weeks, hit my goal of 2018 miles in 2018, and then take some rest before I focus on the Barkley Fall Classic 50k goal for 2019.
Lessons Learned
- Don't dwell on failures, they don't define you as a runner. I've seen my fair share of failures in the past year, with the two marathon finishes (50k DNFs) at the Barkley Fall Classic, where I missed the cutoff for the 50k by two hours both times. I also had what I considered an epic failure at Marine Corps Marathon just 6 days before this event. We all have those days in training that seem like failures, because we don't hit a distance or a speed or whatever arbitrary goal we have set for that run. Sometimes it is just not your day, and that's perfectly fine. I've learned to put my ego aside, accept that there will be bad runs/races, and I move on to the next one. That mentality helped me remain confident in what I was doing all day, and that led to one of my greatest successes as a runner.
- Do research and learn what you can from others, but ultimately find what works for you and stick to it. I read all I could, and tried some different things throughout training and this race. Some things worked, some didn't. I went into the race fully prepared for many situations, with all the different clothing and food options. However, I wasn't running into any problems with the outfit and gear I was using, so I ended up wearing the same outfit all day (aside from adding a layer when it was cold at the start and end). I found some food that I could consistently eat, so I stuck to eating that at least once every 2 hours - turkey cheese roll up and corn chips with gatorade or coke. The same can be said for our pacing. I had a few variations of the run/walk strategy which still ended up finishing two laps in the same total time as Mark. The 1:1 was working for him, but I had to find what worked for me, and we were both able to find our own way to a successful 24 hours.
- Break an ultra into smaller, more manageable pieces. I think this was one of the biggest components to our success. We had a few times when we wondered how far we could really go as the day went on and we continued to feel great. But for the most part, it was 10 miles at a time, and we weren't really even tracking that distance since we weren't wearing watches. Our race was really approached as one lap at a time, thanks to Julie's plan! This idea can also be applied to any other race, even distance races - if you are able to mentally block out the end goal. Running to the next big climb on a mountain trail, or running to the next aid station or mile marker on a road race could be smaller goals that lead to multiple successes throughout the race.
- The Cape Fear 24 Hour Endurance Run is a must do race. This was my first experience with a timed race, and a looped race. It never got boring as there were 60+ runners spread out on the short loop. We were constantly interacting with all different people, even through the night as several runners stopped running, but either walked the rest of the course and cheered us on, or stayed in their chairs or at the aid station to encourage those of us that were still going. The aid station was an all-you-can-eat buffet and held true to the phrase that "ultra running is just an eating contest." Different food I ate included pizza, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken tenders, PB&J, turkey/cheese and ham/cheese wraps, trail mix, pretzels, corn chips, cheeze its, bananas, oranges, candy bars, rice krispy treats, muffins and danishes. There were also several other things I didn't eat - quesadillas, bacon, several different soups, etc. This race offers maximum support and is the perfect opportunity to go challenge yourself to run a distance you never thought possible.
- Give back. One of the biggest thoughts in my head about "what's next" is that I need to give back. I need to be the one in the support role for somebody. Now that I have this experience I would love to be the one to help somebody else the way Julie helped me this year. Maybe next year we will get some other friends to run this race and I can do that. We have already told Julie she is running it next year and will get 50 miles, and if she does I will be there, up all night, attending to whatever she needs to reach that goal. Or at least to run just one more lap!
- Find a friend, and tackle a challenge together. This is a cornerstone of what our run club has been - we run together, but we are also just as much a social club as we are a run club. I put out the call for help to get this done, and friends and family responded. Without all the encouraging messages, I easily could have gone to a dark place mentally and quit early. Without the help from Julie in camp, we would have spent several extra minutes getting our own things around, and would have ran out of time. Without having Mark and Brandon there running with me, going through the same challenges and feelings as I was, I would have ran slower and walked slower, ran less and walked more as the night went on, and possibly would have stopped before the 24 hours was up. We accomplished what we did, because we had each other's back the entire way.
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| Woooooo! Sub-24 hour 100 mile belt buckle! |
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| Sporting our semi-colons; supporting those who battle with mental illness |
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| Mark and Brandon with their buckles! |
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| Post race junk food binge - a KrispyBo - made famous by Barkley Marathons finisher John Kelly. It's a cajun chicken filet from Bojangles with two Krispy Kreme donuts in place of the biscuit, and it was everything I dreamed it could be! P.S. Couldn't handle the BoKrispy (Krispy Kreme inside the biscuit), maybe next time. |
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| Not long after finishing my dinner, this is how you crash after running all night. |
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| A group of friends set out to do something crazy............ |
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| My Excel data mapping skills. This shows each lap pace in red, and our overall pace in blue. You notice it is almost completely flat for the second half of the race. Still can't explain how that is possible. |
