Yankee Springs Race Recap

Yesterday I ran the 50k at Yankee Springs Winter Challenge. It was in the low 20's at the race start and 1"-2" of pack snow(some ice) on the trail. The course was a double 25k loop with steadily rolling hills but no  big climbs. I went out at an reserved pace with Jonathan(met at race) we held at a 7:17 pace for the first 8 miles then I picked up the pace. I felt good and steadily gained a lead. At the 14 mile mark my GPS beeped and I glanced at my split. After another half mile I noticed I didn't see any foot prints from the 10k runners, which worried me. I decided to run just a bit further before turning around. Once I hit 15 miles I reached a road and knew I was lost, I quickly back tracked. I was averaging a 7:10 pace at this point and lost for 2 miles. I just tried to hold my pace and move back up in placing. I found out I was in 5th place and quickly passed into 4th. I was told at an aid station that first was 6-7 minutes up and 2nd was about 3 minutes. I was  20 miles in at this point and kept pushing. I passed into 3rd place around 22 miles. At about the 24 mile mark(for me) was the next aid station, I was still about 3 minutes back from 2nd. I hit my Marathon mark at 3:11 and shut down the effort. I knew there wasn't enough time to catch 2nd and I had 3rd in the bag. I ended up 9 minutes behind first place. If I hadn't gotten lost the win was mine, live and learn. My legs feel fine today and tomorrow I start training for the USATF 50 mile National Championship in Texas March 2nd.  I have a great base going and I'm going to train harder than ever for this race. Nick the Montrail rep was cool enough to give me a pair of Bajada's for this race. They felt great and they are a company I'm very interested in apply for a sponsorship through. Keep training and racing hard and I'll be a sponsored runner by the end of 2013.