happy birthday magi!

Happy Birthday Magi!

Magi is my favorite niece - she recently won the women's division of a 50 mile run in the mountains of Arizona and sent this note:

This is a blog excerpt/race report from one of the runners who did the 50 miler, it's neat to be noticed!

 

 

After 8 miles I was running by myself with several minutes between me and the runners both immediately ahead and behind me. By mile 12 when the trail headed into more technical running in low scrub pine and the elevation started to climb I started picking off runners that had been way ahead of me from the start. Between miles 12 and 20 I passed 11 runners and caught another runner that ran near me for a few miles before pulling ahead for good again. I don’t say this because I was running great, I was just running steady and those runners all came back to me because they started out too fast and were paying for it dearly with 30 very hard miles still to run. Near mile 23 a young woman caught me on the forest road as we climbed to the base of Mingus Mountain. After leapfrogging back and forth we settled in to run together for a couple miles and visit. I had felt bad for this woman earlier in the day because as I was trying to slow my pace early and not start too fast she was settled in way behind me. I thought at the time “if you’re not ahead of me at this point, when everyone else is going out so fast you’re in big trouble later”. You probably already guessed where this sub story is going, she ended up running away from me around mile 25-26 and Magi Redlich ended up finishing as the 1st woman and 4th runner overall in her first ultra marathon and trail run. I felt good when I was running with Magi but she looked really strong and like she was just starting to get warmed up when she pulled away from me. I love these little stories within the story that occur while out on the trail for so many hours.