Lake Martin 50 Miler

Right after we got back from Gatlinburg, Neal geared up for his 50 Miler that he trained really hard for...up until Lucy came.  Which means he was dealing with lack of sleep and not nearly enough training runs for a solid month before the race.  Unfortunately it rained cats and dogs the night before the race, so it was a soggy swampy run anyway.  In his words, "the hardest race he has ever run".  Mostly due to the fact that each step he took, his feet sunk 6 inches.  I can't even imagine running through that for a mile.  This was Sam's first Ultra (Sam is my super-cool brother in law, married to my baby sister Kathryn).  In the end, Sam and Neal both did fabulous!  Neal came in 9th over all and Sam took 16th overall.  They both took a little longer to finish then expected, but obviously so did everyone else!  It was so fun to have Kathryn here to motivate me to drag my 5 children out to see the boys in the middle of their race, and give them some positive energy!  I know it can be pretty amazing to see a familiar face, because Neal has done the same for me in some of my races!  Congratulations Neal and Sam!

My kids enjoyed playing in the creek while we were waiting!