~31.8 mi @ ~15.2 min/mi

"It's a Gatorade slushie!" Temperatures at this year's VHTRC "Red Eye 50k" begin near 10 F and creep up to the low 20's. Bottles freeze. Icicles decorate beards. Thank goodness for triple-layer shorts, shirts, and gloves! There's a light dusting of snow and only a few icy patches on the trails. Trees creak and groan as they rub shoulders in the wind.

"Your orange shirt is pulling me along!" Amazing Gretchen Bolton leads the way at mile 10. Earlier Bob Gaylord and his posse set the pace. We pause for photos at a scenic waterfall.

"Mark? I'm Mark!" The fellow who catches up and chats with me at mile 26 is Mark Prescott, friendly fast runner wearing a Bull Run Run shirt. He has 5 BRR finishes some years ago, and is coming back now from injury. Best of luck, Sir!

Bottom line: squeak under the critical 1:30PM cutoff at mile 22 by 6 minutes, and finish DFL (aka Dead Last) by 2 minutes - yay! Results show lap completion times of 2:50 and 5:19, with total of 7:57.

Historical record:
  7:54 - 2008-01-01 - Red Eye 50k
  7:44 - 2015-01-01 - VHTRC Red Eye 50k
  7:43 - 2016-01-01 - VHTRC RedEye 50k
  7:34 - 2017-01-01 - VHTRC Red Eye 50k
  7:57 - 2018-01-01 - VHTRC Red Eye 50k</td></tr></table>

(trackfile) - ^z - 2018-01-29