Outrun 24 Hour race

I'm going to keep this short as its been about a month since we did this race and as usual I've a been a little lax in keeping my blog up to date.
AS it turned out we went down to Dave & Sandra Morl's place to spend the night prior to the race on Friday night where they also hosted a pre race pasta dinner for whoever wanted to come out and enjoy. There were about a dozen or more there and we got to meet a few people we hadn't met before including Jeff and Will from Tennessee.
After a hot tub and a couple of bottles of water we hit the sack to "sleep". Unfortunately too much water had me up most of the night going to the bathroom.
The race started at a nice 9am, so it wasn't a ridiculously early time to get up to get ready for the race.
We had set up a couple of tents and a table the night before near the start finish area and so all we had to do was show up. Dave and Ben were using part of the table and us the other side and then we had two tents.
THe race started and off we went. The course is a 1 mile loop on trails looping around a fire pit at the end of the loop, it was not a flat loop, the first half was gradual climb to the "hill" then some rollers before down hill to the finish.
I ran with Dave for the most part. Dave hadn't run a hundred miles before and that was more or less his goal. Not bad for someone who was on crutches a few months ago from an operation on his achilles and foot. Joan was looking to double her longest mileage ever by getting in 100k, but was very hesitant about whether or not it would happen.
Dave and I would run together mostly, but every now and again we would be split up only to get back together later. It was a very nice day and actually got warm later in the afternoon.
We got to the 50 mile mark at about 10 and a half hours, we had done some walking loops and this helped with some recovery and it was after this that Dave started talking about stopping at 62 miles (100k). Joan was plugging away well still and had teamed up with BEn to push each other. I was starting to have trouble with my right knee again, but only during the walking stages. Running felt good, but I was stopping to walk with Dave, I should have just continued on with my own run. On the 62nd lap my knee started to give out while running, this to me was a sign. as the lap went on it was getting worse and I decided that was all I needed to do, 100k was a good run for the day so leave well enough alone to run the more important races coming up. Dave decided to go on until at least Joan and BEn finished. I had done the 100k in 13 hours and 19 minutes. not bad at all. I decided to get some sleep as we had to drive home in the morning. I didn't get any sleep for the hour or so I tried to lay down, but when I got up Dave was still going, actually he was flying and was approaching 80 miles. Meanwhile Joan and Ben were approaching 50 miles!
I got the video camera out and started taping bits and supporting them. It wasn't long before Joan and BEn completed there 100k. I was so proud of Joan (and Ben) for pulling it out. A great job for Joan especially to help her confidence after struggling with injures over the past two years.
Dave meanwhile was turning into a running fiend, racing through the miles. He completed the 100 miles in 21 hours and 32 minutes. An amazing feet anf thats where he called it quits.
the eventual winner was Will Jorgenson who we met the night before. He racked up 117 miles, a new course record.

Two weeks from the writing of this blog entry I should be done Kettle Moraine 100 the first step towards the Midwest Grand Slam. Training has been going well and one thing that O24 taught me was that putting in huge mileage is not necessary, as in O24 I felt great later in the run. Now it is time for two weeks of taper.