Did the Pony Express 50 miler yesterday. I hadn't slept the night before and we started at 6am and finished at 7:30pm. It was so awesome!!! Jana, our support person would drive 1-3 miles ahead of us and give us water, food, or whatever we needed and lots of positive encouragement. Leslie, my super-girl girlfriend runner buddy took off after her son Chris started encouraging her and zipped ahead of me and past the finish line! Her son is really cool and her awesome two daughters and son-in-law Paul were great support.
The weather was perfect. I think it was my funnest run yet since there was a pretty constant cool breeze and the sun shone all day making it awesome fall temperature. It wasn't too cold at the beginning/end and it wasn't too hot during the early afternoon and I've learned to moderate on the sweets, sugar, chocolate, and peanut butter so no stomach problems at all.
The real surprise and biggest thing to report though was about my "pacer" Ernie who was going to run with me. He hadn't done any training and has never run a marathon and yet he wanted to see if he could run with us for about a marathon length. I thought he would probably start to fade out about mile 13-18, but when he found he had already run 15 miles, he became more determined than ever. Then he thought he would run at least a 50K length (31 miles), and after passing that marker decided he just had to run 40 miles. He finished his 40 miles about 10 minutes after I finished. He was awesome. We have both been convelescing all day today. It has been fun waddling around the house together. Pretty amazing experience!!! Thanks Leslie and your kids for making this unforgetable event possible and memorable. | 