some recapping...

last weekend? was awesome. seriously. just amazingly awesome. here's how it went...

FRIDAY

I had to run into work quickly for a meeting, which of course ran late, so I was 20 minutes late getting back to my apartment to meet up with Elizabeth. We quickly loaded up the car and we were off! the drive was going great until we hit a traffic jam right next to East Lansing. coincidental? I think not. God hates Michigan State, I'm pretty sure of it. Once we got through that we sailed all the way up to Cadillac, and then it was time to turn onto the little highway that led to Manistee. I am stupid and forgot to pay attention to my odometer, so we kept slowing down EVERY time we passed a road. We were laughing about how the huge ass hills that the highway went over were probably part of the race course. We finally found our correct road to turn onto and then headed down toward the Big M parking area. We thought it would be pretty well marked, because there were signs from the little two lane highway, but when we got there there was just a piece of cardboard with "Big M" spray painted on it. hahahaha! for some reason we thought this was hilarious. We pulled into the parking lot, which was really just a grass field, and upon parking were greeted by a man's bare ass. SWEET! Elizabeth noticed him first and let out a yelp, which of course made me look in that direction and scream. awww... poor guy. his ass wasn't THAT bad. we were just... surprised, is all.

Since I had come from work, I was dressed kind of casual cute, which evidently wasn't normal for ultrarunners because I got some REALLY strange looks when we went to go pick up our packets. packet pickup was basically a picnic table in the middle of the wilderness, where two guys jumped up upon our approaching and handed us numbers. we originally thought our shirts were finisher t-shirts so we joked with each other about how the "plan" was to finish so that we could get our shirts. but alas, we got some awesome new balance technical long sleeve t's at packet pickup, along with a water bottle and then headed on our way to the cabin. we agreed that the "plan" would still be to finish.

mouse: ok. so here's the plan. let's finish.
elizabeth: ok. sounds good.

hahahahahahaha!

an hour later (after passing a HUGE casino in the middle of nowhere) we had reached the grocery store by the cabin and grabbed some pasta and stuff for the morning. filled up with gas for the morning and then hit the cabin to unload, eat, and hit the hay, but not before calling Rae and Brent to see if they would be around the next day for us to give them a "pip update" (get it? chip update?). we were obviously WAY too excited about the idea of having drop bags that we could access halfway through the course. here's a picture of me before devouring dinner...


SATURDAY MORNING

oh, happy 5:30 wakeup. ugh. I grumpily mumbled to Elizabeth that it's about that time every race day that I wonder why, again, it was that I agree to do this running thing. We chowed on some breakfast and then headed out. We were on our way to our first trail marathon! woo hoo!