Megan's Race Report

(I asked Megan if she wanted to write a race report and she happily agreed. What follows is entirely her own writing - I just helped her spell quesadilla and magazine. She hasn't read my report either, so this is completely unbiased. Note the attention to what she ate; I told you she was inspired by all the junk food! She even did the signature at the end unprompted.)

On the 16^th of March I ran Pacific Rim 24 hour race in Washington with my Mom. I took breaks in the car with the iPad when it rained, hailed and snowed. It was a 1 mile loop. About 3 laps in, it started to rain so we went and took a break in the car. We have a game called Ticket To Ride on our iPad me and mom both like it but she beats me all the time. It started at 9:00 on Saturday and it ended at 9:00 on Sunday. Since it is only a 1 mile loop there is no aid stations along the way. But there is a food station at the end of each lap you do. The first time I did a lap there was Gatorade, cookies and water. At lunchtime there was PB & J, still cookies, jellybeans, quesadillas  (that were very good), Gatorade and water. By that time I was at about 6 laps! Then it started a very heavy rain, it even started to hail on us. By then we were in the car happily playing the iPad while the runners who were running all 24 hours were unhappily running in the hail! My Mom has a running friend named Ken and he was at about 36 laps! He was planning to go for all 24 hours! There were a couple people who were planning to go all 24 hours but because of the weather, those people didn’t want to anymore. For dinner there was pizza and everything else they had for lunch. They only had 2 pieces of cheese pizza that I knew of and I ate both of them! For breakfast and lunch they had chocolate chip cookies but for dinner they had M&M cookies. I liked the chocolate chip ones better but I usually like M&M cookies better. By then I was probably at 16 or 17 laps! Ken was probably at 80 or 81! Now it was probably 8:00 or 8:30 and I probably had 19 or 20 laps! So I ran/walked 3 or 4 more laps. At 9:30 I had 23 laps. We went to our minivan and played 2 games of Ticket To Ride with Mom. Surprisingly I beat her both times! It was probably 9:45 or 10:00. We went to bed while it was pouring rain! My Mom felt so bad for the people running out there. I slept like a rock! If Mom hadn’t have woken me up, I would have slept until the race was over. I recall I had 23 laps. I walked for 4 more laps and then stopped. I was an ultra- marathoner just like my mother. At the end of the last lap I made her cry because I was an ultra-marathoner! I got a hoodie sweatshirt for being an ultra-marathoner! I also got my name in the ultra-runner magazine!!! It was a great experience for me.

                                                               -Megan Smith, age 8