I got to 50K on the 17th, and there were two great write-ins that weekend, so I knocked stuff out there. And then I had that Monday off before Thanksgiving and I had an awesome day writing a scene that was both intense and touching. And then I didn't write for a week. My novel was stuck at 57K, nowhere near the end for ages.
I always finish the novel during NaNo, except for one year when I missed it by an hour (but only because I tried to write an epilogue I ended up scratching anyway). Last year when I lost, I still finished 2 books (I was writing chapter books). Of course, usually I'm looking at 50-65K at the end and this went to almost 75K, but I stress that last week about getting to "The End" as much as anyone would stress about getting to 50K.
On Wednesday, I was worried because I hadn't even gotten to the climax yet. I got there during Thursday's write-in, and finished up yesterday. I tend to know how my climaxes will go, and then suddenly in one scene there was an unexpected death (sort of. I mean the character was already a ghost), and it had me crying in the middle of the cafe. The rest I wrote yesterday is ho-hum writing, maybe because I knew more or less how it would go down, but I am obsessed with that one scene, so I'm glad I struggled to get it all done, because the best surprises sometimes come when you're racing towards a finish line