8 works for me.

The gun goes off at 6am tomorrow and if all goes well I’ll be back here in Silverton sometime on Saturday, the earlier the better. You can follow the race through the Hardrock Live link on the homepage here.

I’m trying to stay optimistic about it but the weather looks pretty bad. I overheard a few people at the pre-race meeting mention heavy rain and even snow for tomorrow afternoon– maybe I should be excited that it won’t be hot out? Hopefully it won’t be more than the standard summer afternoon storm, because if it goes on longer, I won’t be the only one unhappy. Christy is pacing me more than 25 miles, from Ouray to Sherman, including the leg over the 14er, Handies Peak. My estimations have us arriving atop its summit a bit after midnight and it would be nice if it wasn’t raining then. But it would never rain on Handies in the middle of the night– it would snow. And rain could make Neal’s already long 28 mile leg from Sherman to the finish take even longer. If the stormy forecast is right he better bring two raincoats.

Whatever the weather does, I’m super excited and am looking forward to it. Now it’s time to get some rest.

Here’s the chart. This year the course runs clockwise.