The Little Chemist That Could: The Country Mile

So.... I ran 100 miles this weekend. 😳

The event: the Country Mile 48-Hour Ultra

Location: Beechwood Farms in Slater-Marietta, SC

Format: 4.167-mile loop around a strawberry farm, complete the loop as many times as possible in 48 hours (noon Friday to noon Sunday)

I signed up for this race as soon as it opened up after I participated in a few beer laps at the race with D and Ivy last year. It seemed like such a fun party atmosphere that I figured it would be cool to try for a new distance record.

Over the fall & winter chatting with various running friends, I decided it was going to be time to attempt my first 100-miler and try to earn my first buckle (yes, belt buckles are what you get for doing 100 miles).

I took the Friday off from work and met up with a group of Spartanburg folks who were doing the race. We enjoyed a breakfast in the parking lot of a gas station near the race site and once everyone collected together, we caravanned over to ensure our camp got to set up all in a row.

Not loitering

Group HQ for the weekend

Our spot ended up being perfect - halfway through the loop (~2 of 4 miles), or about 100 yards off the beginning of the loop about 1/3 mile in, and right next to port-a-potties.

Pink star marks the spot

Everybody got tents set up and had some last minute snacks, then we headed to the start area to begin the adventure.

Sparkle crew

The first lap was nice and steady, but it was already starting to get warm. This was the first weekend of temperatures in the 80s and nobody was ready for it.

Only on lap 1, 23+ to go

I wish I could remember which laps happened at what point. I know I continued until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon then decided to take a break for a while when the hottest part of the day rolled around. Did another lap or so before some more Spartanburg friends arrived (they had to work that day so arrived around dinner time) and brought pizza! Food and maybe a beer lap, then we established a group of about half dozen of us that continued through the dark hours of the night. I wanted to hit the halfway point (50 miles) before I took a break to sleep, but unfortunately that meant I didn't stop until about 5am.

First half of laps

Crawled into my hatchback where I had my sleeping bag spread out and shut my eyes for a couple of hours. I would have liked to enjoy the early dawn hours to run when it's the coolest, but I needed more than just a short nap so I got back up around 7 to continue on. Got some breakfast at the start/finish area and did laps until about 1pm then took a long break of several hours to avoid the heat/sun. I was sunburned on my legs from Friday afternoon and felt like I had to avoid all of the harshest sun hours.

Once the evening rolled around I got back out and did another session of long night hour laps in the dark. These got pretty miserable and my feet ached so badly. I also got a horrible blister on my left foot and had to stop for the night with 2.5 laps left to go. We did make a plan that, as a group, we would meet up at our camp for the final half lap in the morning. The target was to meet at about 9am, so I got up around 6 with the goal to do 2 laps before 9. Ended up having some food in the middle of those 2 laps and was delayed a bit, but made it to camp about 9:30 and then had plenty of time (about 90 minutes) to start the finish party.

Once we finally had everyone gathered, we started the final half party lap with beers in hand and music playing. Basically danced our way to the finish line for the last 2 miles, picked up friends from other camps as we went along, and by the finish were hooting and hollering our victory!! This was probably THE most fun of the entire weekend and made allll the pain worthwhile.

We crossed the line, celebrated with Fireball, and sat down for another meal.