Our main concern heading into this event was the weather. The Sacramento / Auburn area had gotten 20 consecutive days of rain. We knew for sure we'd be running in the mud; our hope was there wouldn't also be a cold windy rain on race day.

We had a treat for the Friday evening pre-race dinner - Dean Karnazes ("Ultra Marathon Man") was the guest speaker. He is an appealing, low key speaker, now busy on a whirlwind tour promoting his book.

Saturday morning, race day, was still looking like a coin-toss on the rain / no rain question. We took our best shot at starting apparel, and headed out for a 6:00 a.m. start - a large field, about 500 runners!

The early miles of this race are run on an asphalt bike path, or on the gravel shoulder that runs along (most of) the path. I started the race in road shoes, but also tried to run as much of this distance as I could on the gravel, thinking my legs would thank me in the later miles.

First water stop at 5.9 miles in 59:00?? Now if that doesn't sound fast to you, it's blazing fast for me. Too fast. By the 19 mile mark, with some early trails and mud added, I had averaged out to 12:00 mpm; a little on the fast side for me but at the "fast" end of my race plan and my pace card.

Starting at mile 27.4, pacers are allowed, and it's the first drop bag station. I planned to change from road shoes to my trusty Hardrocks for the remaining miles on mostly muddy singletrack. The intervening 8 miles had slowed me down further though, and as I calculated pace numbers in my head I changed strategy. The first cutoff time of 7:10 hours at the 31 mile aid station was no longer looking totally safe, as it had earlier. So I skipped the shoe and sock and other clothing change I had planned, and headed right out with my pacer, to give us a few extra minutes of cushion for the cutoff.

We needed it - we made the 7:10 cutoff by 5 minutes!! Had I stopped for the lengthy aid station break I had originally planned I'm sure we would have missed the cutoff.

Continuing to slog along in mud about as bad as I've ever run in, we made the 40.7 mile cutoff with 2-3 minutes to spare. Yikes, this is getting uncomfortably close!! And now I'm beginning to slip into an evil temper. The next cutoff is at 47.6 miles, a whopping 6.9 miles to go while flirting dangerously with the cutoff times. Heck, if I'm going to be DQ'd do I have to slog through another 6.9 miles of this? (Oh, and whose sense of humor is it to have an aid station with a time cutoff only 2.4 miles from the finish?) The final touch of my bad mood came when I ran the pace numbers in my head and realized that if I made the 47.6 cutoff, but barely, I would NOT make the 13:00 race finish cutoff! The last 3-4 miles of the race are uphill, so I needed a cushion at the 47.6 mark to have any shot at finishing within13:00. A "cushion", and I've been skating with cutoffs at each aid station!!

Onwards. Relentless forward motion. What are the options, I'm not going to drop just because I think it's unlikely I can finish within the cutoff, I need to play it out.

Update on the weather theme. It rained for only about an hour, and then lightly. The weather was cool to warm, mostly overcast, truly a near perfect day for a run. And many of the sites and vistas were really beautiful, especially for the stretch when we skirted Folsom Lake.

Onwards. Best possible time for the trail conditions. Trudge forward. Then, a pleasant surprise - there's the 47.6 aid station, popping up sooner than we expected! Yes, a glimmer of hope! A 12 minute cushion over the cutoff, not a king's ransom but hey, I'll take it. My pace numbers now tell me finishing within the final 13:00 cutoff is possible, but not assured.

The final 2.4 miles have been billed to me as a tough uphill, so mentally I'm thinking 20 minutes a mile. Actually, though an uphill, these miles are on a rough road, with good footing and free (finally) of the mud. They are also not as steep as I had feared, so a good brisk uphill stride worked really well; more like 16 mpm is possible. Now I'm smiling for the first time in a few hours, knowing that I'll finish, and get the all-coveted AR0 finishers jacket.

There's the finish, finally. 12:44 I'll take it! I was hoping to go sub-12:00 to log this race as the first of 3 x sub-12:00 50M's to re-qualify for the Western States lottery, but not today.

It was my pacer's birthday, so I had packed a birthday card and four tiny bottles of champagne in my finish line drop bag as a surprise, thinking we'd have a mini-celebration. I gave her the card and the champagne, but no way my body was interested in alcohol quite yet. Funny, that always seems like a better idea at the start of a race than at the finish.

The next today we gathered a handful of runners and some family members for a celebration lunch and race story-telling. The event was beautifully organized, the course was lovely, and we got lucky with the weather. All in all, a good time was had by all.