Quick synopsis of my legs of the race

Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to update during the race, but I wanted to share a bit about my experience now that I'm home. First of all, what a great experience!! My 1st 2 legs went really well, posting sub-9 min. pace miles. I didn't write them down, and it's been so long since then (with so little sleep) that I can't remember exactly, but the 1st two legs went really well for me. My 3rd leg was the steep climp up Grandfather Mountain (~850 ft). I started struggling a bit on this leg, especially near the end, but I managed to maintain at least a 10 min pace, and better for some parts of the run (thank you Kandi and David for the moral support :) ). When I tried to refuel in prep for my 4th leg, I realized something wasn't right... I was feeling really nausious and unable to eat. And after running a total of ~21 miles at that point, I should have been starving!! I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up being sick for the rest of the run... and unable to keep much of anything down. But fortunately, most of the rest of my 24 miles (over the course of 3 legs) was downhill (~2900 ft total). It was ROUGH on my quads, but gravity was doing a lot of work for me, which made up for being totally drained due to lack of fuel. I maintained about a 10 min/mile pace for the last 3 legs, which isn't nearly as good as I would have liked (since it was downhill), but all things considering, I was pleased to be able to continue running and finish my portion of the race. Despite feeling sick, I still had a great time! It was exciting every time to see a team member hand off the bracelet to the next runner, and jump in the van to move along the course to the next exchange! Grabbing some zzz's along the way was a plus when possible, but we really didn't have much time for napping. I was continually amazed at how well each one of us was able to get moving and motivated to run over and over again, when it was dark outside and we were sore and tired. I was fortunate enough to be running when the sun set on Friday night, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I think my eyes were closed when the sun came back up on Saturday morning! We posted a sub 30 hr finish time (~29 hr 45 min)... GO TORTOISES AND HARES!!!

Kristi Tortoise