Looks like url short enough where you don't need the [ url ] tags, but the end tag should be [/ url] to close it...
Will give it a read.

Well written. (Read Hemingway much?) I want to race it now.

wow, weather's a bitch!
good for you to get to the starting line!
you'll get that race next time!

Cayman, rough day but keep your chin up.

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.
-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

19 of 65!
I'm the first person to say we should rise to a challenge and not pull the challenge down to our level...but that few finishers shows more problems than just weather.
Since he's the poster boy for all this, I wonder how Dean K would have done.

That looks and sounds like a killer race, even without the weather! I think it sounds more like an adventure race than a "run." Good on ya for attempting it! The week prior @ the Umstead 50 & 100 milers, our weather report called for thunderstorms, tornados and torrential rain from Friday evening til Sunday morning. Niiicee. The race gods were with us though, and gave only a few spurts of rain here and there. I feared what you described...being wet and cold....but we didn't have the rocky, single track climbs you described.

The man I ran with at Umstead told me that he learned more from his DNF's than from his successful finishes. Think about that Cayman and don't wait too long to get out there again...You can do this!!!

When in the year is the JFK 50? I take it Beads and Anton are in for 2008... Andrea/Star as well?

Always the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year on the 22nd of November. Registration opens July 1st. You must down load and mail in the form. www.jfk50mile.org This is the nations oldest and largest Ultra. If you are serious...jump on it July first. Cut off is around 1,000.
We are 35-40 minutes from the race start. We have floor space and couches, but beads and his sweetie have first dibs on the guest room.

If you mean elevation profile...not that I know of, unless it's been done at www.mapmyrun.com I'll look around and see what I can find.
The first 5 miles are generally uphill. The next 10 are rolling on the AT. Single track trail. Rocky. Lots of leaves covering rocks.
The next 26 and change are flat, dirt road. Maybe 100 feet of gain in 26 miles. The last 8 are rolling on hard top country roads. Some hills, but if you aren't walking up them by then...you're probably going to win. The course is pretty...not Cali pretty, but East coast decidious forest in the fall, historic, pretty.
To run the JFK is to become part of a tradition that goes back 46 years to John Kennedy's call for physical fitness. The folks who are long remembered here are not the winners, but the runners who are running their 32nd or 35th race.

The JFK is an "easy" 50 miler. It's often the first 50 for many UR's. Great aid stations and no crawling! We have a local 50k that's MUCH harder.
Some steep sections in the first 5 miles, but most folks walk to save gas for later... and are glad they did.