In all the days and weeks leading up to that Saturday, there were no signs posted on any of the trails saying it would  be part of any upcoming race. When I started running and ran past those people at a table full of water cups, I figured something was out of the ordinary. And yes, at one point I did get “caught up” with the race, but fortunately these trails split off in places and I quickly veered off onto the trails they weren’t using.

Now in my life, I’ve run quite a few 5 K’s, so when I did see that “50 K” sign on the water cup table, I thought it was actually saying 5.0K, but when I found out it was actually over 30 miles, even in my healthiest and best running shape days of my youth, I couldn’t come close to running a 30 mile run.