What a day!

When relaying this story to my parents this afternoon I asked, do I even blog about this?!?! “Give the short version” was their advice as we laughed together. Thanks Ma & Pa, I’ll try to keep it short.

So this morning I woke in the all too comfy bed at Dale & Marybeth Garland’s house (same bed that greeted me at the end of the CT). I thought about how nice it would be to sleep in; turns out I should have. Dressed and ready to go and Ms. Alice (my car) wouldn’t start, and an alarm is going off. I didn’t know Ms. Alice had an alarm! After Dale’s help trying numerous things he offered me his car and I headed down to the race. With minutes to spare I walk over to the start line and run into some Chuckanut finishers and as the gun goes off I hear the familiar chirping of timing chips. DOH! I realize mine is back in Ms. Alice. Thankfully Matt Kelly (the RD) was able to get me checked in with the timing crew. By this point I am the absolute last person to start and not a quarter mile into the race is a bridge where pretty much the entire field of runners is at a stand still. At this point I am just laughing to myself. Another girl starts passing on the left so I sneak in behind her and we splash through the puddles that everyone else is trying to avoid.

Finally in a groove, iPod motivating me along and at about 15 miles I’m told I’m second female. I say this because about an hour later I cross the finish line in first; do the math – an hour for 15 miles and I never passed another female. Turns out by not looking over the map this morning in all the craziness I missed the important point that 50k runners are to do the front loop twice. I was not the only one to make this mistake so number 1577 and I went to the timing booth to disqualify ourselves from the race. What a bummer! My first DNF ever! I take total responsibility. The Telegraph 50k is a great race, super fun, beautiful and well-marked course. I must admit I’m a little bummed about the whole thing, but as I write this I’m laughing. We’ve got to be able to laugh at ourselves, right?

As for Ms. Alice, Dale once again came to the rescue and connected me with Jim at AutoWorks. Jim talked me through the manual process for turning off the alarm. Dale and I were able to get Ms. Alice jumped and down to Jim and he talked me through a few more car details, all for a 6 pack of Budweiser!

THE house
Originally uploaded by kmoehl2000.

I’m now back in Silverton, icing a tender knee and forearm (I fell into a tree) and am happy to be able to reflect on this positively. Oh and one other thing I must mention – it is a FULL MOON! (I’m just a bit superstitious)