attempt #3. started at 5:30am. beautiful weather from 50deg to 70deg. light wind from the north. started out feeling good and keeping the effort very easy around 8:30 pace or so. HR initially was pretty good but got higher than I wanted fairly quickly which was frustrating...by 10mi I was in mid 130s and by 25mi was 140. a month ago, it didn't get up to 140 and I maintained pace better. Pace was around 9min by 40mi, then 10min by 60mi. I kept the effort nice and low though so just kept going. really beautiful day made this very enjoyable. first significant low came around 45mi. had a 5mi stretch that I just felt rough, no energy, no motivation, heavy legs. Was meeting my parents every 6mi at this point, so I'd have 5mi steady, then stop and eat/drink then walk a minute, start running and have to loosen up and then 5 more steady miles. Feet were very swollen which was a little strange. Loosened my shoes completely and they still felt tight. Got three blisters on my toes I'm assuming because they were so swollen. Hands weren't really swollen though. Rebounded well after 50mi and was running in the 9min range and HR was low. Hit another low around 65mi and again just struggled. Heavy legs, no motivation, no energy. Mostly 11min miles in there. Again rebounded and was able to get back to around 10min pace with motivation and feeling good. At 85mi, pace was closer to 12min pace and couldn't lift my legs very well. Another low came and didn't really go away. I tried using poles which didn't help. The low did improve but didn't go away. I was still capable of going on. It got dark and I saw I was about to get back on the highway (off of the very nice deserted country road I had been on) with traffic at night and being that tired. I was a little scared to do that by myself. I felt bad for my parents staying up all night. I didn't have the motivation to keep going 50 more miles that was probably going to take 12more hours overnight. I have avoided this log because I don't really know what to say. I don't regret stopping at all but I still wish I would've finished. That doesn't really make sense but it's how I feel. I really enjoyed the day despite the lows and am happy with the run but disappointed in not finishing the entire thing. I feel guilty for taking time away from my family and life and making my parents crew me three separate times to ultimately still not be successful. My quads aren't sore afterwards so that training worked well. Really just my hip flexors/abductors and left achilles are sore but not crazy sore, fairly average. Not sure why so many lows, swelling, and HR higher. Maybe something to do with running the 50mi a month before but who knows. I'm also not hungry after this run which is very strange for me. Normally after any ultra, I'm starving and can't stop eating for days or even weeks after the run. This time I'm maybe a little less hungry than I am in my normal day to day life. I'm making myself eat plenty, but it is strange. Not sure if it was because I was eating so well during the run or what. So overall disappointed but still happy went for it. If I could've had my quads ready like they were this time for the effort a month ago, I think I would've had a good chance at finishing. Not sure whether trying again is in my future at this point. I think having two crews - one for the day and one for the night - and having pacers for the last 50mi would make the probability of success go up dramatically. I honestly think if I would've had a pacer at night this time, I would've kept going. But having more crew and adding pacers adds a lot of burden to others which I also really don't like.