On Thursday, May 21, 2020, I hit the ground running at the south end of Wildwood trail at 6:25am, in Forest Park. Forest Park sits in Portland, OR and the Wildwood Trail runs from one end of the park to the other and is a little over 30 miles of rolling single track trail long. On this day, I was running from the south end, to the north end and then back to the south end to complete my longest run ever. My partner in crime, Kristina, ran the first 3 miles with me to help me set a “go all day” pace. Around mile 7, I stepped on a wet, slippery bridge and me foot went out from under me and I landed on my knee, HARD. I got up and didn’t think I could run… I walked for a bit as blood started streaming down my legs. My friend Becky was a couple miles a head waiting to cheer me on at 53rd street and I just kept thinking about seeing her to get me through the next miles. I thought I’d hop in the car with her and call it a day, but by the time I saw her, I was determined to keep going, knowing Kristina was heading to fire lane 3 (~ mile 13.75) to cheer me on. The knee pain drifted away as I ran and became one with the trial. It was supposed to rain all day, but I had nothing but blue skies and I took great delight in thinking the weather gods were supporting. As I ran past mile 15, all I could think was, I’m only about a quarter of the way! What was I thinking?! But all along the way, Becky and Kristina found spots to cheer me on which continuously gave me a burst of energy. Before I knew it, I was passing mile 30 and shortly after, I started hearing Becky and Kristina cheering me on. I was 4:52:39 into my run (2nd fastest female E2E time according to Strava) and I felt stoked to have come in under 5 hours. As soon as I hit the halfway sign, Kristina handed me fresh water bottles and I was on my way again. I started hitting the wall around mile 45, my legs started slowing and I started power hiking the uphills. I started to get real angry right as I heard some more cheering. I looked up and saw Kristina running towards me. She gave me some more water and ran a mile or so with me, giving me a pep talk the entire time. By the time we said our good byes at 2:08pm (mile 47.25), I was full of energy again. Then my watch started beeping, telling me the battery was about to die. I started picking up pace… maybe I could finish before it dies? A few miles later, I heard Becky cheering for me and I hollered, “my watch is going to die!” She told me to turn on my phone for back up, so I did with ~9 miles left to go. With about 4 miles to go, I was struggling up a the monster hill up to Pittock mansion and my watch died, just over 9hrs into my run. As I approached the top with very dead legs, there was Becky, ready to finish the final few miles with me. At 4:33pm, I high fived the Wildwood sign, I was finally done running after 10hrs and 8min.
I have two Strava Files because my watch died and I started tracking using my phone...there is overlap between the two files, but you can see that I started running at 6:25 and finished at 4:33.