Greenland 2009

I wasn't sure my plantar faciitis and my Achilles (or above the Achilles) were ready for this, but the past has shown me that you never know unless you try.
I didn't really develop goals, but there's always some soup of hopes I pull from at any time.
Elizibeth C. and I carpooled down with plenty of extra time to stand in porta-potty lines and get warmed-up. Neither of my injuries felt like they had 31 miles of speed in them, but I was going to try.
Like I said before, though, at the first sign of dangerous deterioration, I was going to either bail or walk it out.

Since I had warmed up, I was full-speed right from the gun. I wasn't running according to heart-rate or GPS pace. I run almost exclusively from effort these days. My pace was definitely faster than usual, but it was, afterall, just a 50K. My lungs don't fill up with foam fast enough and my lungs have been better this year, so I decided to ignore my lungs and just go-for-it. At the end of my first lap, I was on-pace for a 4:40 finish, even leaving a little room for fade.
But I wasn't fading. I was speeding up. I felt GREAT! My second lap promised to be a little faster than the first, which would only seal-the-deal with more time in the bank.

From the very first, I was limping, but man, I was limping FAST! It dawned on me that I was in the loco-zone - that I probably wasn't going to stick to my plan of stopping if my injuries got too bad. I was smokin' the course and wasn't about to let up.
There was a 12mph wind blowing up from the south that made outbound tougher, but of course you get a tailwind blowing you back home. I took full advantage of my downhill abilities coming back, and my bulldozer abilities going into the wind.

About mile 13, Elizabeth passed me, but we were basically going the same speed. I stuck within conversational distance for another couple of miles.

Then a sharp pain in my left Achilles, and another, and another. In spite of not having the discipline to stop if things got bad, things got very bad instantly. So bad, it took no discipline to stop. My race was DONE! It was a bit heart-breaking. It was very painful limping back with such a pathetic cringing hop. A couple of times, I had to stop and lay down and rub my Achilles.

Elizabeth, though, hung in there. She hammered-out the 3rd lap without fading, and on the 4th, she barely faded at all, but got passed by two women. After leading the entire race, Elizabeth had to put up with two women barely passing her the last few miles. She finished just 2.5 minutes behind 1st place female and 2 minutes behind 2nd.
Caitlin from the Denver Trail Runners was 2nd, and she was moving significantly faster than 1st or 3rd, so she would have won if the race had been another mile.

I am so proud of Elizabeth! She beat my 50K PR by a minute, and she came in 12th overall.
Another cool thing: First three women came in together 10th, 11th, 12th overall.
The photos are on Elizabeth's camera, so you'll all have to wait for them.
I think Elizabeth is built for speed. She has always had it in her. It was so cool to see her race today. She damn near won. Some day she will.

First place male was done in 3:50-something, and second barely under 4 hours.