Cactus Rose 50 Mile Race

On October 27th I got a chance to do something I had never done before - run an ultra-marathon with my brother.  It was a blast.  This isn't really going to be a proper race report but my wife took a bunch of pictures so I wanted to at least post some of them.  Jason writes better race reports than me anyway, so I'll give you the reader's digest version of our experience running the Cactus Rose 50 mile race.

The race was put on by a Texas running group called "Tejas Trails" and it was located in the heart of Texas Hill Country.  I don't think the pictures show any of the hills or rocky terrain but it was a beast of a race in both of those regards.
The race started at 5:00am and it was kind of in the middle of nowhere.  We stayed at a hotel that was almost an hour away.  Mom and Dad (who flew in from Idaho to visit and support us in our crazy endeavor) were kind enough to drive us down to the start/finish line in the morning.  A huge thank you to them for doing that and letting our wives and kids sleep in.
Jason and I muscled through the first 30 miles or so on our own before being surprised by our world-class crew.  We really weren't sure when or where they would be meeting us so we were pleasantly surprised to see them at one of the less-frequented aid stations. 

 

They basically saved us by showing up when they did.  We were low on fuel and Jason's knee was giving him grief.  Things were starting to get rough and it would have been brutal to go on without aid at this point.   In the previous ultra-races I've done I have never had family support mid-race so it was extra special to see my wife and kids and parents along with Jason's family there to give us food, love and a kick in the pants to keep going.

One of the best aid station volunteers ever!

 

I didn't dare sit down here because I knew it would take a lot of work to get up again.  If you've ever run this far you know how painful it is to get your legs running again after a long rest.  It takes a good 20-30 steps of hobbling before you can actually call it running.  We probably looked pretty funny as we started down the trail again.

The kids seemed tostay entertained alright most of the time.  Of course, Jenny and Mindi might tell you otherwise.

 This next pic is at the Equestrian aid station.  It was kind of the main hub when it came to stops so we had most of our things there. Our crew was very good at getting us to eat and drink when we came through, even when we didn't really feel like it.

Off we go again, hobbling away from Equestrian.

 

Our crew was the best.  They were so supportive and helpful.  They came to meet us at one of the outlying aid stations again in these pictures here.  I'm sure it wasn't easy for them, especially carting the kids around but it made a world of difference for us. 

You might think that carrying a 3 year old for 50 yards in the middle of a 50 mile race would not be appealing but it really gave me a huge boost to have Grace meet me on the trail coming in to this aid station.  She was the best little pacer ever. 

This next pic is out of place.  It is from an earlier aid station but I wanted to show again how awesome our crew was.  You can see one of the signs that Jenny made for us and all our support signed.  I wish I had a better picture of it.  She set it out on the table for a while too so all the runners could be encouraged by it.  Very cool. 

Here's the finish.  We were going along the trail when we saw the sign pointing us to the start/finish area.  That meant we were relatively close.  Just how close, I wasn't sure but Jason took off like the ground was on fire so I did my best to keep up.  I still have no idea how he was able to run that fast after running so far.  To be honest, I didn't think I could keep it up all the way to the finish, but somehow I did.  Thanks to Jason for pulling me along.  I definitely would not have finished like that had I been on my own. 

When we go within sight of the actual finish line we tossed our hand-held water bottles off to the side.  The kids thought that was pretty cool.

On the official results we finished with the exact same time: 12:48:03 but Jason did beat me by a nose.  He deserved it after his sprint at the end.  That finishing time was good enough to place 54th and 55th out of 128 total 50 mile finishers.  Not bad in my book.  I told him during our last couple miles that I wanted to beat my Mohican time from last year of 12:54 and he made sure I did. 

Here we are with our amazing crew/family.  I'll say it a million times, we could not have done it without them.  Its a nice saying and all but I mean that in the most literal sense.  Thank you, thank you to our extraordinary support team.