North Coast 24 Oct. 3-4, 2009

This race was my first attempt at an ultra. The months leading up to this I spent many many runs running with all the guys and the ladies and doing speed work with them also because I was fighting an injury or two. The injury in my left leg cleared up just one week before Akron. Then 1 week before the 24 I ran the Akron Marathon with Jeannine and the next morning I ran 20 miles with Dan on the tow path and another 2 with Jeannine and Janet for a 48.2 mile total in 2 days and felt better than ever and very confident about this upcoming 24 hour run. I know it was alot of miles just 7 days before the big day but I planned on taking most of the week off. I was going to run just 5 miles on Thursday night and Jeannine was going to run to she ran here and we did 4 miles, my only miles in 5 days but now I was as ready as I could be. I took half the day off on Friday and got in 2-3 hours of sleep in the afternoon then got maybe 5-6 Friday night but that was the reason for the afternoon nap. I way over packed as advised by my many ultra friends but the weather turned out to be perfect with basically no rain for the whole 24 just a bit of wind at times. Frank and I spent about the first 10 hours together but parted ways about dark and I spent a lot of time talking to the runners. We had a nice set up with tables, chairs, our 9x9 canopy and Kim and Abra's tent to change in. Marsha and Charles spent alot of time volunteering and also ran there 20 plus miles during the day so Abra took care me quite a bit getting me drinks and food when ever I asked. I had a sore ankle 2 hours into the run so I loosened the velcro timing chip after 2 hours and then moved it to my other leg at 4 hours but had some pain in the right foot for 22 hours which was the worst part of this whole race. Jeannine came for a visit with Cliff and Ella in the late afternoon then she came back at around 3 am which was quite an amazing thing for anyone to do at that hour. Knowing I had a friend coming to visit helped me get through the night and she told me that this was a 24 hour race and not to quit early, easy for her to say but it did help, I was determined to hit that 100 mile mark. She had guessed I would do 96 miles and I hit that just as she was leaving around 5 am. So now 100 was in the bag and now I'm thinking 26.2 x 4 is 104.8 so if I do 105 miles I'll have 4 marathons in 24 hours. I walked most of the last 4 hours and was really wanting to hit my new magic number but wasn't sure where I was so with 10 minutes to go Marsha and I run the last lap together and I sped past the mat like it mattered after all that and got in maybe an extra 3rd of a mile and was going faster than I had all day and on this sore ankle, a very dumb decision looking back but I was about as out of it as I have ever been, on the verge of tears in the last half hour for some reason, Marsha was also which didn't help. So the whistle blows and the race is over, I drop my number marker on the path and walk back to our tent city and sit down and the rest was a little blurry as I passed out and woke up to a medical team working on me. All my vitals, heart rate, pulse, etc. were good so I was cleared to go but I couldn't walk because of the ankle hurting so bad, sort of funny since I was just on it for 24 straight hours. I was in no shape to help with anything so Marsha and Charles packed us all up and we headed home which I don't remember much of either but then as Marsha was trying to help me out of the truck I was having more than 1 problem and as I stepped out, the next thing I know I am laying in the cold wet grass, I look up almost laughing and say to Marsha, "did I do it again" I had to have had her more than scared a couples times in that last 90 minutes. Marsha and Cassie got me into the house and I spent some time in the middle of the living room floor before I had enough energy to crawl into the bath tub and get a shower / sponge bath from my dear wife. Other than that last 90 minutes after the race it was a great experience and I will most likely do it again next year or maybe a 100 miler instead of this. Quite a few of us are having right leg problems and are wondering if constantly going clockwise and mostly all right hand turns may have something to do with it. It was fun though.