Best of luck with the tinkering! Very cool that you and Otter will have each other along for the ride.

As for the altitude change, I can only tell you what it was at 26.6 when my watch died, which oddly enough was the exact same altitude as the start: 1700 gain, 1700 loss, 3400 change. I’d add an additional 300 of loss and gain for those last 5 miles to leave it at a nice, even 4,000.

I can relate to running each race like it’s your last… though on the wrong trail, that mindset can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you get reckless. But that’s the double-edged sword of trail running, since the constant vigilance it demands of its disciples is a big part of its allure. Glad the only wounds you took home were trail-induced stigmata on the palms of your hands.

Any idea as to the elevation change for the course?

The upcoming summer heat will pose a serious training challenge, no doubt about it… but I guess that which does not kill you, only makes you appreciate San Francisco in July that much more.

And kudos to Steve! His kind of unconditional support is hard to come by and even harder to give up… and it makes the actual race much more rewarding. I trust you won’t let him out of your sight anytime soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading! It was definitely a new experience, one that I know you’ll experience in the near future if your passion for hitting the outdoors is any indication, constant downpour and all.

Thanks for showing me some good trails around here and for the continued support. Best of luck this summer!

Thanks for reading

I don’t say this as often as I should, Danny boy, but I’m really proud of you. You picked out a tough race in a bold new discipline, you put in the time to train for it, and while you make the last 1/3 of the race sound like a veritable death march, I’m not going to let you lose sight of the fact that YOU ABSOLUTELY KILLED IT. In your FIRST-EVER ultramarathon, you finished in the Top 25% of all finishers, and this wasn’t no Lakefront 50k.

It was an honor and a privilege running this sum’bitch with you — remember, I wouldn’t have thought to sign up for this if you hadn’t suggested it in the first place. When I passed Steve at the Start/Finish area as I was passing through Mile 22, I was grinning ear-to-ear when he told me that you had somehow stretched your lead over me to damn near an hour — my slower pace meant that I was going to enjoy myself no matter what, but I was stoked that you were having such a good race (well, up to that point).

When we signed up for this race back in December, we knew going in that it was all part of a longer-arcing journey toward the 50-miler in August, rather than a destination in and of itself. And yet, Ice Age ended up being a huge milestone for both of us, anyway. I trust that you’ll figure out your nutrition issues in plenty of time to come back bigger and better for the NCR 50, and I have a feeling that you’ll be finding your times improving on the flatlands as a result of all this trail training, too.