It kills me to present this. It really does. We have another cartoon-style race report from Carolyn Mankiewicz-Shreck, this one being from the Eastern States 100. It kills me because of a conversation we had leading up to it:

Carolyn: “I actually rarely do cartoon race reports. An event has got to be full of laughable disaster to become a cartoon. Since I have been drawing them, friends who are RDs will tell me at the start line that they can’t wait to see my cartoon of their race… And I’m like “No, no, you really *don’t* want that!” I have my first 100 of the year in a few weeks, let’s hope it is not cartoon worthy, for mine and all the other racers sake!”

Me: “Well I hope you don’t have to draw up a cartoon for that upcoming 100. As much as I enjoy them, I’d rather see a good race from you!”

But we’re here, so let’s appreciate her finely crafted race report for the beauty that it is. Here’s what she posted on Facebook along with the picture:

Well, it took me a few days to process the suck&sadness of being a 3xLoser to this course, but now that my skin is regrowing I can laugh at the absolute craziness of the day. Like Geoffrey keeps saying, I’m actually very lucky to be alive considering everything. Many thanks to Kevin , John, and M Buggy for your help and motivation! MegaHuge congrats to Christopher and Dane for soldiering on to a finish. See you all back there in 2017?

Had to hear a little more about the experience so I reached out to Carolyn for some additional info and she responded with:

“Mother Nature throws a hissy fit *every* time I run an ultra… I know this! So why should Eastern States have been any different?!? As though 100 miles of off-camber loose-shale trails wasn’t going to be hard enough, Mother Nature had to crank up the heat~humidity index to 109* in the woods and drop a tornado with lightning and hail that toppled 50ft trees.

“It took me a few postrace days to process the suck & sadness of being a 3x Loser to this course, but now that my skin is regrowing I can laugh at the absolute craziness of the day. Like My husband keeps saying, I’m actually very lucky to be alive considering everything. I don’t write race reports, I draw cartoons…and of course races that almost kill people are always funniest. I’ll be back for Eastern States 100 in 2017 ?”

Looking forward to a lack of cartoons from Carolyn in the future!