First off, let me say, I really think that I headed to this race completely undertrained! Zach and I made it to Wichita Falls and the Hotter'n Hell Hundred Clubhouse yesterday afternoon about 45 minutes before packet pickup started. It gave us a chance to look around the area and check out the race start/finish. It was a beautiful park with a small river flowing through it. Very nice. I got my packet with no problem and we headed to Stanton's house after he got his packet. I met Stanton last year at Cross Timbers as you may remember and he stayed with us during the Buffalo Springs 70.3. It was great to get to meet his wife, Amy, and his two beautiful little girls. Amy made a Spaghetti with Zucchini carb load that was really delicious! Complete with garlic bread and a good beer! Good night!
The next morning, Zach and I were up by 0600 and noticed that..........IT WAS RAINING! Dammit!!
We headed to the race with Stanton driving (they have really weird traffic lights/stops in Wichita Falls).
So just a little after 0800, we took off! And even though it stopped raining prior to race start, the trails were incredibly muddy! Not the "deep, gloppy, soul-sucking type mud," but the "slippery as Hell, make ya look like Wile E. Coyote trying to take off running when the road is covered with ball bearings type mud!" And on the inclines you had to make very sure that you had enough momentum to make it up...........or you were going back down! FUN STUFF!! The course itself was absolutely phenomenal! Everything you look for in a trail run! Beautiful scenery, lots of wooded areas, inclines, declines, stream crossings, switchbacks, and jumping fallen logs. Just awesome! At one really steep short downhill to a stream crossing, and then up a steep uphill, there were two guys directing "traffic." I stopped to assess the situation and figure out how best to traverse it and they hollered, "Just bomb through it! It's just shit water!!" Oh.........good! Thanks guys! HAHA
The course was one loop for us half marathoners, and two loops for the full. I was really happy that I didn't go ahead and register for the full, because after I finished slipping and slogging my way around the course and crossed the finish line......I was done! I felt pretty decent afterwards too which really gave me back my thunder. I finished in 2:15, exactly the time that I told Zach to expect me in. They had a water hose at the finish for us to spray off our legs and shoes which was nice too. I got that done, and Zach and I hit the road back to Lubbock. Stanton called me a little later and said that he'd finished the full in 5 hours, a very good time considering those conditions. I'm just really glad the temps were great and that it had stopped raining. I would very much like to run this course again in better trail conditions but this was, overall, a very fun and very well run race and I will definitely do it again!