Sometimes the slowest times are the ones you are most proud of. I went into this race under-trained, partially due to life, and partially due to my own lack of motivation. I knew there was going to be potential of a long, hard day, but I had no idea what was in store. The race only had a 52% finish rate this year, and that didn't include the 20+ people who didn't even bother showing up. It was hot and humid. My stomach turned over and fought me for hours. There were periods of fog, where my headlamp was essentially blinding me, making it impossible to run. I went through the lowest of the lows, and I dug deeper than I ever have before. As I was struggling around mile 40, I caught up to a woman who was feeling as crappy as I was. We ended up chatting and then ran the rest of the race together, each sticking with the other as we hit lows. I did have one pacer (who I din't know prior to the race) who jumped in with us from mile 64-84, and his motivation and energy was priceless.
This was, by far, my slowest 100 miler, and over 4.5 hours slower than the first time I ran the AT100, but I fought through and got the finish. As the RD said before the race, "Finishing is winning."