Monday, August 3, 2009

Burning River 2009

I haven’t found the time to type up a full report but I just wanted to jot down a couple of my favorite memories from the weekend before they escape me.

The final ½ mile with Nathan and Jenny as we raced to the finish. With a goal of finishing under 22 hours we exited the trail with just over 4 minutes to spare! We pushed hard to the finish and Jenny and Nathan leaped over the finish line right at 21:59:59! My Garmin clocked our max speed at 6:30 pace!

It must have been the lack of sleep but I actually teared up when a couple people crossed the finish line.

The first was Nick Billock’s finish. I’ve been reading Nick’s blog for a while but we had never actually met until this weekend. I know how badly he wanted to get to the finish line after last years DNF due to injury. Seeing him cross the finish line with his two little girls in hand was really awesome. Job well done Nick! Now I need to get me one of those bumper stickers :)

The second one that got me all teared up was Coutney Baker’s finish. Again, I don’t know Courtney all that well – our path’s crossed on a Mohican training run and the No Frills FA, and she was nice enough to transfer her BT50k to me when she decided not to run (much appreciated!). As Courtney was approaching the finish her boyfriend Brandon Russell, who had just completed his 100 40 minutes earlier, started to tear up. There’s something about seeing another man cry but I couldn’t hold it in either. I know how special a moment it must have been for the two of them to have both finished and I just got caught up in the moment. Congrats to both Courtney and Brandon for their finish!

Having just completed my first hundred a few weeks earlier I knew what they went threw to get to that finish and it was really special to see each and every person cross that finish line.

Congrats to everyone that competed over the weekend. Whether you crossed that finish line or not, you deserve a round of applause for your efforts!

More to come…

1 comment:

  1. Wow, 6:30 at the end of a 40 mile run is simply unheard of (in my book)! And as for tearing up... Yeah, I do that too; sleep or no sleep. :) Great job helping your friend(s)! I'm sure they were very grateful.

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