I went into Captain Karl's wanting it to be a very tough "trial race" that would allow me to dial in my nutrition needs and boost my endurance level for my focus race coming up on August 4th. It turned out to be a great learning experience, especially regarding summer nutrition. I arrived to the race starting point pretty late, around 6:30 pm, after getting a ticket for an expired registration in Bertram (evidently I "accelerated" a little too fast from a stop and the local police stopped me and "checked me out"). I guess its a good way for Brenham to make money. I finally got to the race start point, found some familiar faces, Robert and Diana Heynen, and setup shop with all of my gear. A few minutes later I was at the starting line and we were off. The theme of the day, as most people have already mentioned, was water. It was everywhere and if you know me, you know I love water. Most of the people I passed on the first loop I passed going through the water while they were trying to go around. The beginning of the first loop was fun and not too crowded, once I passed the people "scared" of water (lol). I caught up with and stayed behind the lead packfor a while but thought better of it when they started running up some of the hills. I relaxed a little and let some people pass. Due to course changes, there was a lot more opposing traffic than I had planned for. About 20 minutes into the race I got my first real batch of people coming the opposite direction as I was heading back towards the start point before heading out on the second "pinched loop". That was not fun and I tweaked my ankle a little running off trail trying to avoid them. After I got to the turn I got to relax since no one else was coming towards me. I settled into a 12 min / mile pace that was fairly comfortable. Overall I felt good, except for the humidity. The temperature was good, but the water in the air was oppressive and I was overheating. The next thing that came up, to me this is the most important thing this race taught me, was nutrition. At 30 minutes I had my first real bite of the sandwich that was supposed to last me for the next two hours. It turns out that what worked extremely well in the winter (turkey sandwiches and cheezits) are not that appealing to me when its hot. Everytime I took a bite (every 15 minutes) I got a mouthful of warm mayonaise, crushed bread, and turkey. My stomach complained but I figured I would keep trying since this was the combination that served me so well at Rocky Raccoon this year. As I said earlier, this was the race to decide what nutrition to use in my focus race and I wanted to give the sandwiches a chance to work. Towards the end of the first lap I actually stopped and backtracked because I didn't see anyone in front or in behind me anymore. Very few things are as frustrating to me as getting lost, so I was happy when I saw someone coming behind me. I made it back to the start around 57 minutes (a lot faster than I should have, but I figured I wanted this to be a hard night so it was probably ok to re-live this common mistake for me) and turned around pretty quickly. About a quarther into lap 2 I met up with Larry King and we chatted and joked as we ran along the course. He was looking relaxed and told me he was just taking it easy, playing tortoise to a bunch of rabbits that kept yo-yoing back and forth. In retrospect I think most of his rabbits were 6 hour folks. I kept telling him I was going to drop back, but everytime I did, I would catch back up in a few minutes. We finished lap 2 together right around the two hour point. I told him to go ahead and I stayed back a few minutes to break contact. It was only mile 10 and I was starting to feel very fatigued, which wasn't too much of a surprise since I had intentionally came into the race extremely un-rested. I had made sure of this by doing a very hard stairclimber and leg weight lifting workout the night before. The next few laps were pretty similar, it took me a little while to get used to the footing at night and how the light was playing off the dark wet rocks. I was looking forward to the humidity going down at night, but an hour or so after it dropped it seemed to get even worse than before. All evening I kept flirting with overheating and nutrition was becoming an issue. At the end of lap five I sat down at the start point and put the sandwiches away. I just couldn't stomach them at all and I had not been eating as much as I should have been. I tried to down the Cheezits, but could never get enough calories during the next lap to get my energy back. A`t the beginning of loop 7 I ate a whole Probar (my alternate to sandwiches) and started out. I also supplemented with a espresso hammer gel, but couldn't get my energy level back up for that loop. I finally made it in and sat down, readying myself to go back out for loop 8. The first half of loop 8 was miserable, the lack of nutrition earlier really caught up with me and I was having a hard time just putting one foot in front of another to keep walking. I kept munching on the next Probar waiting for the energy to hit. About half way through lap 8 Diana caught back up with me and "un-lapped" herself. I wanted to catch up, but didn't have the energy left to do anything about it. I just kept walking as I saw her green flashlight disappear into the darkness. The combination of the Probar in my stomach, the espresso hammer gel, the Probar I was munching on, and impending daylight finally rallied me and I started running again. As the minutes passed I felt better and I caught up to and re-passed Diana a few miles from the finish. I also caught up with a woman who had passed me early in the race (The first female finisher I think) with about a 1/2 mile to go and cruised on into the finish. I kept increasing my pace, wanting to make sure that Larry would not lap me a second time before the end of the race. I got in right around 6:20. Even though there was a good bit of time remaining to go out for another loop, I was done. I had learned the lessons I needed. I pulled up my chair and started waiting for those still coming in. Captain Karl's was wonderful. It allowed me to make the decision on my nutrition source (Probars and espresso hammer gels) and it gave me a great opportunity to play in the mud. Thanks to everyone who put it on, and I look forward to coming back next year.