My First Ultra: High Lea 6 Hour
The High Lea course is a ~3 mile loop through an old Girl Scout camp. I managed 10 loops for 30 miles.
I was deep into the pain cave at the end of Lap 9, and started to ask the RD about dropping mid-loop. She looked at the clock and told me I had 45 minutes, plenty of time for one more. I kinda hemmed and hawed about if I could make it in time for it to count, when one of the aid station workers said:
“Then run it for someone who can’t”
When I run races, I run with a little pink stuffed unicorn clipped to my belt. That’s Booper, named for my niece who was nicknamed “Toodleboop”. She never had the chance to run, so he gets to run with me in her honor. That aid station worker’s words settled things.
I looked to the sky. “Ok kid, gonna need your help with this one. Let’s fly!”
I managed to finish the loop with just under ten minutes to spare. I briefly considered continuing on for another mile and turning around to hit 50k on my watch, but decided against it. It would have been a mile downhill, then a mile uphill. I was entirely satisfied that I had “left it all out on the field“.