Well, I did it.  I finished my second strolling jim 40 miler.  The experience was very good overall but it was a bit of a stressful adventure at the same time.  First I will start with the weather.

The southern USA from Oklahoma to Tennessee was being blasted by storms and tornadoes.  The race start location was no different.  It rained several inches the day before the race and just getting to our bed and breakfast was a chore because several roads were completely flooded out.  Lighting was actually hitting the ground only feet from the bed and breakfast too.  This increased my stress level about running in the race.  It kept raining all day and all through the night.  When I got to the race start it was pouring with lethal amounts of lighting crashing down, flash flooding everywhere, and possible tornado watches.  Basically the news people were telling everyone to stay in and stay home.  They were giving emergency instruction on flooding and shelter.  Did that stop any of the 95 runners?????????????????????

No, well, maybe one or two.  The old water tower of Wartrace was packed with runners bitching about the current weather but refusing to give in to it. HAHAHA  The horn blew at 7 am and we all took off.  Everyone was happy for the most part to embark on this journey bad weather or not.  The good thing was that by mile 13 all the rain, thunder, and lighting gave way to plain old cloudy humidity.  That was not to bad since it was not deadly in anyway and the flash floods were supposed to stop until the next day by 8 am.

I kept the pace conservative for the first 20 miles.  I had the privilege of running with some very seasoned veteran ultra runners.  One 65 year old man was running his 19th strolling jim and his 209th ultra.  Another man, at the age of 61 was doing his 10th Jim and had completed the badwater in death valley as well as 4 Western States 100’s.  The stories abounded and whether they were all true or not didn’t concern me. It was wonderful entertainment for the first half.

At mile 20 I said goodbye to my friends to take hold of my personal goals for the race.  I began picking up the pace in order to cross the finish line in under 7 hours.  At mile 25 I hit a very nice second wind and averaged a 9 min pace until about mile 35.  After that it just got more mentally difficult.  By mile 38 my wife joined me and talked me into the finish.  When I hit mile 40 with supposedly only 1.2 miles to go, I was having a had time staying positive.  Due to the flooding, they had made us detour around some closed roads which to my little unknowing mind added an extra mile to the race to make it a full 42.2 miles.  When I got onto the main road going into town my wife said I was going to make my sub-7 hour finishing time.  This excited me but I was still have a hard time.  With only about a mile to go I left my lovely wife behind and did the last mile around 7:50 to meet my goal.

42.2 miles:  6:56.50

The original distance of 41.2 miles was finished in 6:47 which means I improved my time by 1 hour and four minutes from last year.  What a great race it was.

I am doing well today and my soreness is on it’s way out now.  Yesterday I was pretty bad with soreness and I had food poisoning too.  Not a good day for me.  I slept every chance I got and on the plane rides home I was asleep before the the plane took off and woke up after it landed both times.  Got home at 1:30 and woke up at 4:00 to go to work.