Antelope Canyon 50K: my first ultra

One of the best race courses I have run to date. But the course was not well marked. I traded off being in 3rd and fourth for a long time until I got lost. Picture the scene I am a 13 year old kid with a huge desert landscape around me and a huge drop to the colorado river. And I couldn't find the next marker so you can imagine I was freaking out a little bit. I ran around for about 40 minutes looking for the next flag I covered quite a bit of ground while doing it. Than I saw a human running towards me from the other direction. I thought I was imagining the person because to me it felt like I had been out there for days. finally a lot of racers showed up and we started finding markers. After what felt like forever we got to the aid station. Me and two other people who I didn't catch their names a but were very nice headed out of the aid station to run the slot canyons. Running in slot canyons is one of the funnest things a person can do but once again I got lost. They had marked the course behind us. we added on a lot of miles from that and 2 at the start and I had added a lot on the rim. I than got back to the aidstation on the home stretch me and the other two people I was running with decided to run the last bit together no matter what. Finally after 8:30 hours and 45 miles instead of 31 and about 40 minutes running around the exact same spot we finished. I really liked the race because even though it wasn't well marked everybody knows MORE MILES=MORE FUN. I finished ninth but none of the pack that had been leading the entire race by a lot got a high place. Beautiful area and 14 extra miles made this very very very fun.