TTR Reddington 50k (well, 27 miles as it turned out)

After spending most of the Thanksgiving weekend moving into my new place to live, I woke up pretty exhausted for this run (I moved after living somewhere for ELEVEN years. I had accumulated quite a bit of stuff to say the least.)
Since most of my stuff was still in boxes, I had a hard time finding everything I needed for the trail and I barely made it to the Prison Camp trailhead in time to take off with the TTR group. Moments before our fairly large group took off, it started to rain/snow/sleet/hail, but off we went anyway!

It only lasted about 20-30 minutes, I think.
Ross took some videos of us at Molino Basin (about 30 minutes into the run?), which were like interviews (so, tell me, why are you here?) Anyway, check the interview of me out here for a laugh. I was a little crabby to say the least.
Wet and tired:

The skies cleared up and we were treated to a light dusting of snow and hail over the mountains with the sunrise. Beautiful.

It is an out and back run, and pretty shortly into it, I realized I would be cutting it short. It is a pretty good push up and over a saddle and I knew it would be uphill on the way back, too.

Me, dry, but tired:

The 'aid station' set up by a TTR volunteer was at the 13.5 mile mark; runners could do an additional 2 miles out and back for a total of 31 miles. I turned around at the aid station and ran back for a total of 27 miles. I was good with that.

Happy to be at the aid station...

Ross calls me 'stylish'. :)

On the way back, I ran into another storm and got pelted with hail. It passed pretty quickly, but the sky was fairly ominous looking for a while.

Running behind Dallas after the hailstorm...

We were gifted with a beautiful rainbow, though!

It was a sunny day at the end!

I finished the 27 miles in 6 hours and 39 minutes. Took forever, but I finally got it done.

Although my Garmin has some fantastic elevation gain to it, I show a cumulative elevation gain of 6,929 feet.

This run was on Soldier's trail, Bellota trail and Reddington Road. (much of it on the Arizona trail).

This was a good trail run, but mostly I just love hanging out with the people. I got to run a bit with Troy, David, Wayne (I followed him the longest, about 6 miles) and Dallas. Hanging out and chatting with Ross (our fearless leader), Jane, Patricia, Joel, Joe, Gene and others was just awesome. I feel at home among this lunatic fringe.