I was looking forward to this race for many reasons, in '06 I only made it half way, in '07, I took a 6 mile detour. So this time I was ready to hit it hard. This is one of my favorite races, but now it conflicts with my new favorite race, the Cascade Crest 100. So I guess I'll be alternating races each year. After missing out on the hardware at White River 50 because I wasn't a member of USATF, I joined for this race since it was the 100K championship and I had a chance for the podium in my age group. Kris and I drove down together and stayed in a little cabin just down the road from the start. We both skiped the early start this time, we felt we should be able to finish under the 16 hours and win a hat doing the regular start. I have to admit it was alot better starting at 5:30am rather than 3:30. At the start, there is a mile hike up a ski run to get warmed up before running on single track started. I was feeling realy good and stuck behind Wendy as she passed through little groups of runners. After a while, I let her go, she's alot faster than me and I settled into a comfortable pace to the first aid station where I took a potty break and took off for Mt Fuji. It was great on the out-n-back to see the leaders and on the way down, I saw Kris not too far behind me. I felt great from Fuji to Mt Ray then halfway to the Twins, things started to unravel. My stomach started to go and I started to slow down. By the time I got to the Twins aid station, I wasn't feeling very good and couldn't figure out why. Unfortunatly, Kris showed up at the aid station feeling the same way, so we limped out of there together and headed to Charlton Lk, the halfway point at a slow pace. I had a brief moment of thought at Charlton lake about dropping, but we were way ahead of our split time and Kris and I decided to take off hoping we would feel better later. I figured out I was dehydrated and at road 4290 aid station took some time to drink alot. From there, I felt better and better and left Kris to go off on my own. I had a good run back to the Twins and figured I was still an hour ahead of my projected split. I took it easy on the climb to Maiden Peak and also on the steep downhill because last time I got shin splints and had to limp into the finish. This time I felt great and ran well on the last leg, passing a few runners until Ben Blessing went flying past me with two miles to go, hoot'n and hoolering. He also passed me near the end of Cascade Crest so it was actually fun to see him go by. I finished at 14:35, a great time for me and ended up getting a USATF medal for 2nd in my age group!