Day 3,421—Remembering Shawnee Hill Part III—

 Lap 3: 67–75 miles (midnight-2 am) 

Jay started feeling good, and we were both cruising through the first section. It was dark, but we were on the final lap! We started telling sections of the trail goodbye as we passed them. We got to Trigg Tower and went the right way afterward, so happy to not make that mistake again. But then it started really raining. It was already raining some, but it was small showers.

          There was a section I couldn’t see, and my watch was hard to see in the rain and the dark, so I stopped to look around and saw two flags at the top of the hill. I went up there and couldn’t remember which way to go, so went the way that made sense.

          Jay wasn’t sure, but I saw that I ran into someone, and we talked a little, but it was hard to hear what he said in the rain. I thought he confirmed we needed to turn around, so we did, and then it felt like for sure we were going the wrong way.

          I kept hoping to see the end of the double flag sections, but it never came. I saved my current activity on my watch and reset it, so I could go back to the course and get better directions, but my watch just died after that. It first said I would have 2 hours of battery life, but it just died! So frustrating!

          I kept thinking we should turn back around, but Jay seemed to want to get back to the aid station to refuel and maybe find a bigger group, so that’s what we did. It was raining so hard at this point that we couldn’t hear each other talk and were really struggling to see.