Wow. That was a tough race!
We really lucked out with the weather. It rained for several days in a row leading up to the race, including heavy rain overnight! I kept waking up and hearing the rain continue to pound, pound, pound. When we finally got up at 5:45am on race morning, it was very foggy and seemed like the rain may start up again - the forecast was in agreement! Ack! However... It did NOT rain. It actually started clearing up just in time for the packet-pickup and the beginning of the race and was sunny and warm by the end. It was so nice at the end of the race that we lounged by the lake (many people even took their ice baths in the frigid April lake water) and drank some cold ones courtesy of Beer Runner.
As for the race itself... tough, tough, tough!! I'm pretty sure I went out too fast though I didn't suffer as much near the end of the race as I thought I would. I even managed to put in a nice kick at the end to beat out one more woman to put myself in 4th place overall instead of 5th. (Ha! Ha! Haha!) The hills really took a lot out of me, especially the last one that I've heard some call "cardiac hill". That hill put me in my place.
What was amazing is that, despite the torrents of rain, the trail was not very muddy! Most of it was at an elevation that allowed it to drain well. I wish I had known this before the run as I would not have worn my waterproof trail runners. I ended up getting some small blisters on my feet which I am sure are from sweaty feet in Gore-Tex lined shoes. If I do this trail again, I'll know better.
And the results are... 4th woman overall, 3rd in age group (tough group!) and 63rd when you count all those men 
-- not sure how many total runners there were yet - last year there were over 850 and I'm guessing this year is about the same. My time was 1:51:38.
I really had no idea what time to shoot for since this was my first trail race of this length. I suppose considering my placement that this is a rather respectable time! I'm happy with it!!
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