WWSoMD?!

About an hour into the race, I had a thought: what would Suzanne or Melanie do?  (Hence this blog post's title: WWSoMD?)  I also had the answer: they'd both have a good time!  I was determined to channel both of them, to stay in a "positive place" the entire time, and enjoy every minute!  Mission accomplished!

This was, perhaps, the first race that I have ever gone into without some pretty lofty goals and expectations of performance.  My only goal, if I had to list one, would be to keep moving for as close to the full 6 hours as possible.  Again, mission accomplished!

I gave myself the freedom and leeway to walk whenever I needed or wanted to.  Unlike my SoMo marathon where I had an expectation of not walking at all, I knew I'd be walking...it was just a matter of when that would start!  There were some pretty intense inclines; one in particular was a doozy!  The "deal" I made with myself was that if I could keep running for 20 miles, I'd then let myself walk the toughest of the hills.  There were plenty of ultra runners who were walking that incline & the others way before I decided it was time for me to do that.  It's a strategy to conserve energy.  Knowing that I was going to walk and being ok with it was really an important philosophy to have from the moment the race started.