by Frank Cardia

Created on: May 16, 2008   Last Updated: July 21, 2008

That's right..100 miles and no, not on a bike ! Orange Park, Fl. 3/1/08

My plane landed in JacksonvilleAirport around 5pm on Friday February 29th. I got my rental car and made my way towards

Orange

Park where the race and my hotel were. Made a quick run to Publix to pick up some last minute food for the race and then grabbed some pasta for dinner. To the room and off to bed. Tomorrow is a long day !

I couldn't really sleep that well so I was up at 3:30 am pacing back in forth in my room. I began making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the race ( about 7 of them ). Got all my little snack goodies in my camelback backpack , filled it with Gatorade and off to the race site.

Registration took 5 minutes and before you know it we were all lined up at 6am ready to rock and roll.. Now there were 3 different races that day- there was a 50 miler a 100k ( 62.5 miles )which is what I originally went down there to do.. and then there was the 100 miler.. So here we are, its pitch black and your staring down this tree covered path. Most of the runners had either flash lights in their hands or they had on this flash light head gear that almost looked like they were coal miners.. I had no light I was basically depending on the light from all the other runners AND WERE OFF !

At about mile 2 or so I met up with this guy Joe form Chicago( he and his wife were doing the 50 mile run ) and we were running at the exact same pace so we started talking and hit it off pretty well. Next thing you know we're at mile 10 and we are still talking So we decided to make sure to push each other and run the first 50 together. Which was a huge benefit for mebecause running 50 miles all by yourself can be so so boring and that's when you start asking your self questions like " why am I doing this "?

Now somewhere around mile 40 or so, Joe and I kept joking around saying that I might as well just do the 100 today whats the sense of me doing only 62.5 ? Just do the other 38 miles and bang out the 100 today ! And as I said my plan was only to do the 100k , but then I started really thinking about it and I really did feel good at mile 40 so I decided when I got in at mile 50, I would make my decision for 62.5 or 100 miles.

We crossed the 50 mile mark around 11hrs and 10 minutes and Joe had completed his first 50 mile run.. and what a great time too. So I kinda took inventory of how I felt and realized today was my day I GOTTA DO THE 100. So I grabbed Chris, the race director, and told him who I am

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