Philly Marathon: Go Team Go!

I never thought a marathon was a team event. Until I ran one with Abby.

Leading up to the Philadelphia Marathon I had no goals. I knew I had the endurance to finish, thanks to a year of trail runs and adventure races. I knew, though, that I didn't have the speed to come close to a PR, let alone the new and improved BQ times.

Leaving me with what to shoot for? I was as aimless as humanly possible when it came to a goal. Prior to Philly, I'd run five other marathons -- Philadelphia in 2001, Steamtown in 2002 (at the time I had the goal of running a marathon a year, I failed), Columbus in 2009, Boston and New York in 2010. Goals were clear-cut to me (finish, finish faster than at Philly, qualify for Boston, have a shit-ton of fun at Boston, beat my Boston time at New York, respectively).

Abby was in it to enjoy it, and that didn't sound like too bad of a plan. We decided to cross the start line together and I had 3:45:00 in my head as a number to shoot for just to keep me moving forward -- a bit better than my average marathon time so I couldn't just mosey along but obtainable without feeling like hell, hopefully.

I didn't even hit snooze on race morning. I was up by 5, on my second cup of coffee by 5:15, decided against a third, stuffed an Eggo with peanut butter into my face, properly lubed, dressed, deoderized and was actually ready to go when Abby and her crew rolled by to pick me up at 5:40.

By 6:20 we were at the race site and were in the longest portapotty line in the history of the universe. Actually, the line itself wasn't too long -- the people in front of us were apparently giving birth and/or performing minor surgeries in there and were taking forever and ever. Finally I gave up, got out of line and peed between a rock and a tree while pretending no one could see me -- the start was getting close.

Abby and I parted ways with her people and headed to the start together. The plan? Run together until we didn't. Have a good time. And, for me, don't do anything stupid in the first half -- all my other marathons came with positive second-half splits of 7 to 15 minutes. Terrible. F.

We crossed the start about 7 minutes after the gun and dodged our way over, under, around and through other runners and walkers for the first mile -- hit the marker at right around 9 minutes. A little slower than I would have liked but, eh. The weather was great, the company was great, I was happy, the road was flat.

Just before mile 2 I had a cheerleader -- an old coworker from an old job out bright and early to push along the runners. I was amused and surprised to see her, so yay.

And then, another familiar face -- Abby's husband Brent. "Look, there he is," Abby basically whispered to me. Among the footfalls of a zillion runners on a packed course, he, oddly, did not hear her whisper.  "BREEENNNNT!," I yelled and then pointed at him and jumped up and down a bit. It worked -- he saw us.

Friends of friends who managed to recognize me and a drumline (my favorite thing during races) made the next few miles tick by. Abby and I chatted about nothing in particular as we weaved around more runners and held a comfortable 8:35 pace.

As we hit mile five, a thought popped into my brain. Should I share it? "Dare I say it?," I said to Abby. "I think I am actually having fun."

"I wasn't going to say it out loud," she said, "but I am, too."

As we approached mile 5, there was Brent again. This time he saw us and started snapping away with his camera.

I sort of love this picture -- we both look thrilled

to be running!

The crowd (that had already been pretty solid) grew thicker and louder. I knew that about mile 6, where I set up shop last year for my first cheering spot, would be the first likely mile where Bill would be on his bike. And sure enough, there he was.

"Bill! Bill! Bill! BILL! BILLLL!," I screamed (apparently I get very excited when I see people I know while running marathons). He saw us and waved. He knows better than to ignore my big mouth but we were so damn fast he wasn't able to get any pictures.

Motivated by the unexpectedly loud and large crowds, the next several miles flew by. We chatted about whatever -- mostly adventure racing, I think, and before we knew it we were smelling the Philadelphia Zoo. Barf. I don't do stink while running and the smell of caged elephants and monkeys and lions and tigers and bears and lemurs and aardvarks and whatever made me a bit gaggy but I kept that to myself. Plus, I had more important things to think about -- the only significant hill of the course was right in front of us.

Abby and I didn't increase our effort as we steadily climbed the hill. Some runners around us started to struggle but we'd run this part of the course twice on two of our longer runs. We knew it wasn't that long, or that steep and that we'd be met at the top by about a mile of flat followed by a short, steep downhill so we kept things in control.

"Man, I can't believe we've already run what, like 8 miles?," I commented. I hadn't been paying close attention to mile markers and would check in only occasionally with Abby and her Garmin about our pace. "Try 10 miles," she said.

Yep, the miles were flying by. We were running solidly and comfortably and were right on pace for a 3:45 finish.

As the course dropped us along the Schuylkill River, Bill found us again. This time he was ready with the camera.

We also saw something crazy -- people dressed like bacon, grilled cheese and pizza dancing around. Silly! Soon signs were directing people running the full in one direction, the half in the other. I couldn't believe we were almost at the 13.1-mark. As we peeled in one direction and the half runners peeled into the other, we hit the middle at about 1:52 and some change.

At the mile 14 water stop I was bolstered by two friends handing out cups. Damn, they were loud. Just past them a dude dressed like Batman was playing the theme song to Rocky on a trombone. Abby was absolutely thrilled by this. I, however, have never seen Rocky despite living in Philly for more than 15 years so I didn't know what was happening.

As we chugged along on the out-and-back I realized Abby was in for a huge PR unless something unhappy happened. I tried to be extra-careful to knock her down, trip or kick her or punch her -- didn't want to ruin her day.

Outward bound. Can you spot us?

Next up was a detour from the main out-and-back -- about a mile across a bridge, down a hill, around a cone, back up the hill and back over the bridge. I'd been mentally dreading this part all morning -- not sure why, but I was. Just as we were about to reach the bridge a friend of Abby's let us know that Brent was waiting for us at the turnaround cone. Yay! Something to look forward to. I zoomed down the hill and was eager to see another familiar face.

I don't remember feeling as dead serious as

I look in the top picture. 

As we spun around the cone I was elated. "I was dreading that part! And now it's over!," I must have repeated enough times to make Abby want to sprint far, far away from me. Mostly I was just happy that both brain and body were still into the race.

We both started to get a bit bored about a mile or so later. "Talk to me about something," Abby requested. Do you know how hard it is to think of things to talk about when someone asks you to say words? Uhhhhh...

All I could think about was racing. I peppered Abby with questions about the race she was most scared of at the start line, her favorite race, her first race, her last race, her thoughts on race relations, race race race.

As we slogged into Manayunk the crowds grew louder and drunker. And we started to pass a lot of runners. People were starting to struggle. I felt a bit bad too, but, surprisingly, only a bit -- Abby started to pick up the pace and I was happy to tuck behind her. Then we passed a group of people handing out little cups o' beer and I dry-heaved. I like beer as much as (ok, probably more than) the next person, but not at mile 21.5 of a marathon.

"Oh, God, there's beer, I am going to puke," I said, as I darted as far away from the beer as I could. Fortunately, I didn't actually barf.

The course dumped us back alongside the river and I realized we only had four miles to go. Four miles? That's a prologue in an adventure race, a distance I can manage on a treadmill, 32 minutes and some change until the finish, depending on how well I was able to keep it together.

Let's go! I was feeling better than I ever had at mile 22 of a marathon. Usually at mile 22 I am wanting to cry and contemplating burning all running shoes/shorts/shirts/tights/hats/gloves/gus/water bottles/etc. and never running again.

This time ,though, was different.

I started to run a bit harder, not so much that it hurt yet but enough that I knew that it would before I crossed the finish line. Gradually, Abby and I began to pull apart. I peeked over my shoulder a few times -- she was still right back there but I decided I wanted to be done and I knew she would finish with a nastyhuge PR with or without me so I dropped my pace into the high 7s/low 8s, hoping to hold that for the duration.

Bill found me again. I wasn't smiling quite as big as I had been -- slowly but surely I was starting to hurt but I really thought I could hang on. I was actually passing people and the fact that I didn't seem to be hurting as much as many of the runners around me gave me a bit of motivation -- I apparently wasn't going to shit the bed with only three miles to go.

I passed my buddies at the water stop again -- they seemed to be having the most fun of all. Bill rode on the path just off the course and snapped a few more pictures.

 So many spectators!

I have no idea who I am smiling at in this picture.

I wasn't sure what to do -- most of the people around me were grumpy and many were walking. A few were crying and a few were saying "fuck" a lot. I needed someone ungrumpy and unhurting to motivate me. I scanned the runners around me and settled in on Purple Shirt. She looked like she'd been at mile 24 of a marathoon before, and looked like she wanted to finish strong. I made myself promise to myself that I wouldn't let her get more than 15 feet in front of me.

And then she picked up the pace a bit. Purple Shirt, were you trying to kill me? I hung on, barely, and managed to convince myself that I could hang on for the 18 or so minutes of running still ahead of me.

Thank you Purple Shirt, whomever you are.

I am not going to lie -- mile 24.5 to about mile 25.5 sucked. My lungs were unhappy, my legs were tired and my brain was starting to go. But then the crowd got huger and louder and I started smiling like a bobo. Suddenly I was so happy again. I didn't notice the last little incline as I rounded a bend to find the finish line staring me in the face. I ran as hard as I could for the last 100 meters or so, and that was that.

Chip time: 3:43:46. Fine by me. I worked my way to the gear check truck, threw on some warms (although the day was actually sunny and quite warm for Philly in mid-November) and met up with Bill, Abby, Brent and Abby's family before slogging about a mile to brunch/beer/breakfast/coffee.

Abby had a 9-minute PR. Nine minutes. NINE MINUTES. I would sell my soul for a PR like that. And she seemed to have fun while doing it, too. My big achievement for the day was a negative split -- only by a few seconds, but I fianlly didn't crash and burn in the second half of a marathon.

A nice little Sunday.

THE END

Storm the Eastern Shore, Part II

It was 7-ish or 7:30-ish or something when we headed out on our mountain bikes for a quick 25-mile ride, all on roads. The race director made it clear that the bike sections could be ridden on road bikes but we were mandated to use mountain bikes. Our tires were changed out from quite knobbies to just a little bit knobbies so we could zoom along as much as possible.

We put ourselves into a pace line and felt like we were flying after the slow hours in the boat. In just over 1.5 hours we covered more ground than in the first 10 hours of the race. That's a bit crazy.

One checkpoint was a bit hard to find -- we had to write down what year the giant  court house that clearly was RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FACE moved to its current location. No indication anywhere -- we rode in circles around the building, smooshed our faces up against the front door to see if the date we were looking for was inside, looked for cornerstones ... nothing. Finally we found it on a tiny plaque on the side of the road (it was moved in 1677, in case you were wondering), 10 minutes wasted.

We continued on... and zoomed right past the turnoff to the transition to orienteering. So did just about every other team. Bike lights ahead, bike lights behind as we all rode back and forth looking for the proper turnoff. A friendly solo racer who ended up coming in second overall took the time to stop and show us that the road we needed wasn't actually on our map and pointed us in the right direction. Fortunately, we weren't too far out of the way and pulled into a muddy little patch of grass in the middle of nowhere that would serve as our transition to a 14-point orienteering course.

We had to get 8 points in order not to be short-coursed so that's what we did. In hindsight we could have gotten at least three or four more but, as the course maps were handed out section by section, we didn't know what was ahead of us  and decided to go just for the 8 points.

After throwing on our trail runners we were off. B.J. took the navigational lead and we soon found ourselves scraping through chest-high thorn bushes in the dark. Thorn bushes that hid sharp rocks and giant damn turkeys. Do you want to know how trippy it is to find yourself face to face with a wild turkey at 2 a.m. after 17 hours of racing?

Here's how trippy: Very. Very damn trippy.

Fortunately, we stumbled upon the first two or three points easily and thought we were well on our way to snagging our 8 points.

Then, a swamp tried to eat me. I am not making this up.

We were searching for a point along an reentrant. In case you are new to these parts, reentrants are not my friends. As we slogged along through swamp that reeked, the muck sucked at our ankles and threatened to take off our shoes. The point was visible just over and up the side of the swamp, though, so we continued on our route and punched the point. Hooray!

But all was not well. We headed a bit east through the swamp. And then I started sinking. Sinking fast. The boys were a few yards ahead as the Swamp Thing tried to pull me under. Within a few seconds I was in the putrid, rotting, thick mess up to my hips.

I was stuck. Impossibly stuck. And sinking.

What to do? I know! Freak the F out!

I started screaming and shrieking and flailing around. Oddly, this behavior did not get me unstuck. But it did get Bill and B.J. to turn around and come stare at me.

"Get me out! Get me ouuuut! GET ME OOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTT!," I demanded while waving my hands in the air like I just didn't care. Too bad Bill didn't have the camera out for this.

So they did. First they tried to have me lean over and yank my arms. I got more stuck. Then they had me try to lay on my side and unstick myself. Not happening. Finally, they managed to stand far enough away that they didn't sink and they each grabbed me under an arm and yanked straight up.

Free at last! My shoes managed to stay on too so I guess I can't complain too much. We got a few more points (including one that was within the ruins of a house that made me feel like we were living The Blair Witch Project ... sort of awesome and sort of scary) and soon were up to six. We headed back to transition to take a bearing -- the points looked easy on the map and both seemed to be a straight shot on the far side of a soybean field.

But, no. More swamp, more stickers, more rocks and more swamp. We moseyed along with a few other teams and were starting to get a bit concerned that we were lost when we found one point and then, after more time being stabbed by thorn bushes, the other, neatly tucked within a sticker bush, hidden behind a tree. Ouch.

We headed back to transition, put on clean socks and  were off on our bikes again. I didn't wear a watch for this race, hoping to avoid the phenomenon of feeling awake, then looking at my watch, seeing that it is 3:30 in the morning and then suddenly feeling achingly tired, so I am not sure what time it was -- sometime between sunset and sunrise.

Ahead of us was about 25 miles on the bike to the next orienteering section. We found ourselves in some sort of apple orchard/sheep farm/swamp where race volunteers handed us a hand-sketched map with 8 points on it, with no clear markings delineating where we were in the map. Four points were mandatory, four were optional.

I sat in the grass while Bill and B.J. tried to figure out exactly where we were located on the map. This took a bit, so I stuffed my face with more chicken nuggets and a cheeseburger and waited for the fun to begin again ...

Storm The Eastern Shore, Part I

After a crazy rainy ride down to Cape Charles, Virgina (just past the north side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel) one thing was clear to me: I wasn't nervous for this race at all. No butterflies, no anxiety (other than the fact I realized I left my DEET at home and that I couldn't find my bike computer anywhere) and I had a steady diet of chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, Diet Mountain Dew and Ellio's (thanks for the race fuel inspiration, Abby and Val) to look forward to.

We met up with B.J., ate pizza, threw our junk into our packs and gear box and I actually got about 7 hours of sleep before our alarms started ringing at 5:30 a.m.

Maps weren't handed out until 6 a.m. Points were already plotted, although we** were all a bit curious about navigating via satellite maps in addition to the usual topo maps.


This race was BYO boat. Most of the other teams had these pencil-thin sea kayaks that looked like they weighed as much as a yard of gossamer. Our  rental "kayaks" rolled up an hour or so late, towed by a guy who I am pretty sure was The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Hello. I will tow crappy ocean kayaks to you. Then I will bowl and drink
a white Russian or seven.

The gouged clunkers The Dude brought to us would have to do -- or we could swim the 30 miles of paddling that were ahead of us.

At just after 9 a.m. we were off for a short 4-mile foot section before the paddle put-in. I was in a good mood. I sprinted. The boys hung back, chatting about whatever it is that boys chat about at the beginning of a 30-hour race. I ran back to my teammates, grabbed the passport from Bill and ran ahead to punch the first point.

LET'S GO! The terrain was flat, the nav was obvious even to me and it wasn't pouring down rain like it was supposed to. I was happy.

We jogged into transition to the kayak put-in and tried to carry our boats the half-mile or so to the water. Um, no. Too heavy, so we took the time to set up our two pairs of portage wheels -- one for the tandem that Bill and I were using and one for B.J.'s single. We were off and managed to save ourselves some time and effort.

And then we hit the water.

"How long do you think this part is?" I questioned.

"In miles or in hours?" Bill asked.

"Uh, both."

"Oh, about 25 or 30 miles. Will probably take us at least 10 hours," Bill responded.

Well, shit. I decided that I'd hate the paddle, be terrible at it and that we'd miss the 4 p.m. course cutoff for one of the kayak checkpoints.

Except sea kayaks move a bit faster than the damn duckies we'd been relegated to for most of our other races this year. And we were in open water with silly birds, fun plants and other cool things to navigate through.

Happy boys. And a milk jug bailer I made the morning of the race. A shoutout to my parents who bought Bill a waterproof camera for his birthday. Alas, this was the only occasion we had time to actually take it out during the race. The rest of the time we were using our arms to push aside thorn bushes, ride, paddle, stuff food into our face, swat at mosquitos ...

I was loving it. I announced to Bill, B.J. and whatever other poor teams were within earshot of my glee that I was having a great time. I did this approximately every 30 seconds for the first three hours.

And then we hit a portion of nasty, shallow water suffering from low tide. And lots and lots of stink. It smelled like the inside of 1,000 shoes after a marathon, plus 56 blocks of Velveeta, plus rotting veggies and also a bit of barf. Fortunately, I got to appreciate this to the fullest extent possible. The water soon became too shallow to paddle. As Bill had a spray skirt and was staring at the maps I got to get out and pull us along. Spectacular.

Nothing says "I love you" like dragging your husband through the mire at hour three of an adventure race. The nasty muck seeped into my trail shoes and squished between my toes. I gagged a few times and threw up in my mouth once. But I was amused.

I wish that this video was scratch and sniff so you could get the full effect of the stench.

Soon, I felt like we were playing Legend of Zelda, circa 1989. Bill switched from the topo to the satellite map and we wove our way through a labyrinth of grass, reeds and gigantic birds who looked bewildered to see us.

I had no idea where we were as we plugged along for miles. Fortunately, Bill knew what he was doing and suddenly the maze spit us out right where we belonged -- checkpoint 6. The lead teams were already on their way out but we were certainly in the thick of things (at that point, anyway) and decided to go for CP 7 -- a bonus point that seemed to be a straightforward run about a mile and a half south on the beach into a grove of trees.

Off we went, running hard. A few minutes in Bill realized he left the map in the boat. Grr.  But he was convinced that the CP flag would be easy to spot so we continued on.

This part of the course was awesome. As we jogged along the isolated coast, silent aside from the shuffle of our feet and the lulling sound of waves lapping at the shore, I realized I was having way too much fun.

Yelling "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" did not seem appropriate, however, so I focused my joy into running harder. I ran a minute ahead of the boys, easily found the point, we spun it and we were on our way back to the boats for a mile portage. Eazy peasy, with our two sets of wheels and all.

Except.

One set of wheels was on loan from the race directer/owner/whatever else he does for GOALS. The second set was on loan from some friends of B.J.'s who were racing as a team of two. Unfortunately for us, that team decided to sit on and break the set of wheels that they were using. We found them standing next to our boats when we returned from CP 7, eager to have their wheels back.

Well, thanks. They snagged the wheels from us and zoomed on their way to CP 8 as we stood there and looked at each other, trying to figure out how to portage our massive boats, gear, paddles, food and various other sundries that we were instructed to carry to CP 8.

First we tried stacking the boats onto the one set of wheels. No go. The balance was off a lot and the boats kept tipping over. Then the boys tried to carry the single kayak. Too heavy. Finally, we borrowed some webbing from another team, B.J. rigged up a sling and he dragged his boat through ankle-deep water while Bill and I pulled the tandem through the sand. Fortunately CP 8 was easy to find and we spun it back to where we picked up our boats to start the portage.

I am cool with portaging when it serves a purpose, but checkpoint 8 seemed to be added just to give us a chance to lug all of our junk up the beach for a bit. Boring, especially considering that the course was otherwise creative.

We soon realized that we were racing against the clock. In order to get credit for our bonus CP 7 to count we had to check in at the next kayak point by 4 p.m. It was 2:45 and we estimated it would take us more than an hour to get to the next point.

The race was on. We peed in the sand (I was modest and hid behind an oyster shell), threw ourselves and our stuff into the boat and paddled hard.

I, usually the pessimist, was feeling optimistic.

"I bet that the tide is in and that crap we had to walk through on the way here is now under water," I said.

The boys hoped I was right. And for once I was sure that I was.

Sure enough, the tide and the current was on our side and we moved along quickly, passing several teams as we went.

I wanted food. I wanted a break. But I wanted credit for CP 7 more.

We saw what we thought was the point a mile or so in the distance. It quickly came closer and we saw the race volunteers snapping pictures and cheering us along -- we made it with 45 minutes to spare.

We paused for a snack and a drink. I thought we only had a mile or two left. At this point we'd been in the boat for almost 7 hours. Time to do something else.

Bill broke the news to me gently -- he told me we still had more than 9 miles of open water to go, with some challenging navigation choices along the way.

We made one mistake along the way that cost us about 20 minutes, but then Bill decided we should take a gamble that we'd be able to paddle a section of land usually above water except during high tide. He thought the tide would still be high enough and, if it was, about 2 miles of paddling would be cut off our trip.

He was dead on and pointed out a house in the distance that marked the end of what was about 9 hours in the boat out of the first 10 hours of racing. We paddled hard to the takeout and learned we were toward the back of the pack. We were, however, also one of the few teams who opted to go to CP 7, so we weren't too surly about our position.

We got some UTM coordinates that B.J. and Bill plotted while I refilled water bottles, put on dry clothes and ate pizza and chicken nuggets (complete with sweet and sour sauce) before we set out on our bikes for the next leg of the race.

**When I say "we" I really mean B.J. and Bill. I don't navigate. I am not too proud to admit it.

Come back for Part II, coming sooner or later to a Brick Wall near you.

The Equinox Travirse: How I Convinced Myself To Finish

So yeah, we were in a ski lodge without air conditioning (go figure), I was grumpy and I wanted to quit.

I flopped on the ground, plopped my feet onto a chair and promptly fell asleep for about 30 minutes. I woke up and was laying in a puddle of my own sweat. The floor was covered in this itchy, furry, Brillo carpet and I was disgusted with myself, with my attitude and with the race.

"Can we quit yet?," I asked Bill

He stared at me. "Whatever you think," he said. "Only you know how bad you feel and whether you can go."

He clearly conspired with my mother who used to say the exact same thing when I tried to convince her I needed to stay home because I was sick. I always ended up going to school.

I wanted someone to give me permission to quit. No one did. This made me mad. I continued to lay in my own puddle of sweat.

Another team of two came in.

"What's wrong with her?" the woman on the team asked Bill.

"She's hot," Bill said.

I felt like a terrible wimp.

The woman walked over to me, yanked my headband off my head, unzipped my bike jersey and told me to take off my sun-blocking arm warmer thingies. Bill's interest was piqued.

"Drink something, eat something, go back to sleep for an hour and then get up and go. You are not quitting," she said.

I ate, drank, and went back to sleep for another half hour, awakened by a team of four who was a bit pissed off because they were in second place instead of first, or something like that. Overachievers.

They were talking about food and I realized they were near my stash, discussing my Elios pizza and Combos.

"Do you think this was just left here? Can we eat it? Whose Mountain Dew is this?"

THEY WERE GOING TO EAT MY FOOD.

I shot up and plopped myself at the table with them.

"It's all mine!" I said, scarfing down the food and chugging the Mountain Dew.

They asked me where I came from. I told them I'd been sleeping on the floor. We started talking about all the things we wanted to eat. One guy and I became fixated on McDonald's chicken nuggets. It became all I could think about. The last time I'd eaten meat from a McDonald's was probably 1990. The last time I'd eaten meat, aside from a few beef jerky strips during the Rev3, was after the NYC Marathon when I'd consumed the most awesome cheeseburger of all time.

"So how's your race going?" the woman on the team asked me.

"Oh, we're dropping out. We're waiting for a ride back," I told her.

"So you've been racing for 27 hours and you are dropping? Really?," she asked. "The worst is over."

"Uh, yeah, we're done," my mouth said while my brain screamed "WHY WON'T ANYONE LET ME DROP OUT OF THIS RACE?"

I started to get pissed at my apathy. Then I started to hate it. A lot. I got angry. I wanted to punch the apathy in it's stupid ugly apathetic face.

"Get me out of this lodge," I said to Bill. "Let's go. Let's get the checkpoints that are on route, skip 19 and at least ride to the finish."

Bill and Kevin refilled our water, we dumped into the trash everything that wasn't mandatory and/or that we knew we wouldn't need and hopped on our bikes.

I felt great. My legs felt fresh as we climbed up the steep roads out of the ski resort-- like I hadn't just spent more than a day racing. More importantly I felt mentally strong and I knew we'd ride across the finish line, unofficial or not.

We (and by we, I mean Bill) easily found CPs 16 (down a steep drop in a creek bed along a trail impossible for any of us to ride), 17 and 18. The daylight began to fade as we entered our second night of racing. We had about 15 miles to ride before unofficially rolling across the finish and 11 hours to do it in.

Kevin rode up ahead and Bill and I hung behind.

"How are you feeling?," I asked.
"Fine," he said. "You?"
"Better than I have since about 10 minutes after the start. I think we should get 19."
Bill agreed.

One more point might not sound like much but it was up and over a mountain and based on our maps it looked like it was a small campsite tucked among a cluster of trails and trees -- not so easy to find in the dark.

We told Kevin we were going to go for 19. He said he wasn't going to join us and would just ride to the finish. After spending a day of racing together we were losing our third man.

We chugged back through Confluence and arrived at the point where we had to choose how we'd get to 19 -- up a paved road with lots of switchbacks that would get us to the top but with no clear route to the CP, up the fire road we rode down earlier in the day that was long, completely washed out and, while mostly rideable by day would be difficult by night and would still leave us with a bit of unclear navigation once we got to the top.

The best option seemed to be riding 9 miles down the gravel, flat trail we'd run up after the paddle the day before and then turning off to go up and over Sugarloaf, just as we'd started out about 38 hours before.

Off we went, Kevin leading our little bobo paceline

Thirty minutes later we parted ways with Kevin and Bill and I continued on alone together. Sugarloaf seemed much steeper, much longer and much more rocky than it did the previous day. We rode a bit, pushed a lot and slowly made our way up.

After what seemed like hours but was only 40 minutes we came across a solo racer on his way back. He assured us that we were going in the right direction and that our course selection was dead on.

"You will know you are there when you see the glowsticks. Just follow the glowsticks," he said. He seemed like an apparition but we both decided he was real. Up we went, and went. Finally we found ourselves on a gravel road that quickly dropped down the other side of the mountain. About three miles later we saw something -- A GLOWSTICK!

We plugged along, wove along some maze-like trails that would have been tough to navigate without the glowsticks and were soon dumped into a small, beautiful campsite in the middle of nowhere. It was awesome. New goal in life: Camp there one day.

We punched the point and were back on our way. We rode up the trails and road and all of a sudden I found myself napping on the side of the road.

"Just 10 minutes," I asked.
Bill set his alarm and we both fell asleep for 10 beautiful minutes before continuing on our way.

It was a beautiful, warm night. We were alone. It was quiet except for the sound of the river too far away. The gravel road dumped us back onto sugarloaf and I endoed thanks to the first rock I saw.

"I am walking."

"Ok, just keep moving forward and we will be fine," Bill said as he bounced down the trail.

He got too far ahead and I was by myself in the dark. Yuck. I coudn't hear him or see him. I yelled.
"Chieeefff," (That's what we call each other. Don't mock. It's better than Cupcake or Baby.) "Whhheeere aareeee youuuuu?"

Man oh man you're my best friend, I'll scream it to the nothingness, there ain't nothing that I need. Hot and heavy, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake ... AND CHICKEN NUGGETS. Oh, God, I would have sold my soul right then for one single chicken nugget. I became fixated. All I could think about were those little bundles of compressed, processed, bleached, breaded and fried beaks, tendons and toenails.

I saw Bill up ahead. He was talking to another team. Except I caught up to him and the team wasn't there. "Where did that team go?" "What team?" We continued on, he'd get ahead and I'd hear and see him talking to another team. Except I'd catch up and no team. This happened about three more times until I finally realized my brain was starting to melt and there were, in fact, no other teams. Bill's brain was melting too -- his bike light had burnt out so he had an insanely bright flashlight in his hand instead and I'd catch him shining it into the bushes and trees, staring at all the magical creatures that his mind had created for him.

Adventure racing. Like doing drugs, only legal. But more expensive and with more laundry to do at the finish.

I began to think that Satan herself was at the bottom of Sugarloaf, turning the trail into a treadmill from hell, adding two feet to the trail for every one foot we completed. It felt like we were going on forever. My feet, swollen and wedged into my bike shoes pinched and ached. My pack made my back start to kill. I realized the soles had holes in them. But the rest of me didn't feel too horrible. I felt like I could sleep for a year but my body felt perfectly adequate. No mental freakouts and we would get to the finish.

We plodded along, sometimes riding, mostly on foot. The river got louder telling us we were getting closer to the finish. Finally, finally, we were dumped onto the road and had less than a mile to the finish. We rode hard, although I am not sure why.

And there it was. The finish -- a giant man sleeping on a picnic table under a small banner that said American Adventure Sports. We punched the finish line CP, placed our race passport on the dude's stomach, I threw my bike shoes into the trash and we took dark and cold showers and then slept in the car for three hours.

We woke up and headed back to Bill's for another hour or two of sleeping. Then, time to eat!

McDonald's. Not to proud to admit it. I had a 10-piece chicken nugget extra value meal and a cheeseburger. Then we went to a bar. Three beers made me drunkish. And a pizza. And then KFC for more chicken, a salad, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. Disgusting, but beautiful.

I woke up on Monday and felt fine physically. Mentally I was thrilled that we finished but also unsatisfied because we both knew we could have done better. We were physically prepared to race and our bodies held up fine but my bad attitude and our navigation mistakes could have, should have, been avoided.

So  I need to do another one. 48-hour races are had to come by though so for now I am narrowing in on a 30-hour September race a bit north of Virginia Beach. Anyone in?

The Equinox Traverse: I Sort of Hated It But Am Glad I Did It, Part I

We (or at least I did, I don't want to speak for Bill) had low expectations for the Equinox Traverse from basically every angle. We expected there to be not a ton of creativity in the course, lots of hills, a low-flowing river and lots of trips up and back down the same mountain with the occasional detour due to crappy maps, a lack of familiarity with much of the area and no navigation experience with races that long.  We hoped to finish but expected to struggle -- this would be the longest race I'd ever attempted and, if we managed to snag an official finish, Bill's first successful completion of a two-day race.

Our expectations all came to be -- the layout was basically an 8-hour adventure race followed by miles and miles of biking to optional trek rogaines, the paddle was brutally slow (but an upgrade from April's paddle at the Yough Extreme), we went up and down the same mountain trail three times and we certainly got lost quite a bit.

I am getting ahead of myself though.

Where to start?

How about here:

 

Our beloved yurt was already booked up so we moved on to a "walled tent." It had beds, no bugs and a light so all was good. Val, of Rev3 fame, and her teammate were our neighbors in walled tentville. After an uneventful check-in and map pickup it was back to home sweet walled tent to pack our packs and stare at the maps for a bit.

Here's a shocker: I hate mapwork. Hate. Almost as much as I hate snakes. I helped some but mostly packed my pack as Bill's head began to hurt and his eyes began to bleed as he stared at the two giant maps (they were both larger than beachtowels) set to the smallest of scales (1:35,000, neither one of us could remember a race with a scale that small).

We tossed and turned a bit but did get a few hours of sleep before heading to the 10 a.m. start. Where we learned that the list of gear we had to carry for the entire race changed a bit and we hustled to repack our packs before the time-trial start. This made me a bit surly -- the communication from the race company had been sorta piss-poor leading up to the race and to change things at literally 9:53, seven minutes before we got moving, wasn't the coolest thing of all time.

But adventure racing does require a bit of flexibility (that I am not naturally inclined toward) so I tried to let it go and soon Bill and I were on our bikes. And then on our bikes, off our bikes, on and off, off and on as we rode, yanked and carried them up a trail called Sugarloaf toward CP 1. The point was easy to find -- even I understood how to get there and we had a screaming downhill to CP 2/TA 1/paddle put-in. We found ourselves way toward the back of the pack but we felt fine and there was still plenty of race to go -- 44 hours worth, in fact.

There at TA 1 sat a pile of damn duckies. Seriously, American Adventure Sports, have you heard this sweet ride called a canoe? Invented centuries ago, they are, in fact, still in use today and readily available in Pennsylvania.

The volunteers seemed to note my grumpiness and were nice to me as we threw down our bike stuff and transitioned to the water. We were only briefly detoured when I cracked my head on a street sign, setting off a bang that echoed loud enough for a lady in the process of draining sewage out of her camper to come check on me.

Anyway, we dragged our red POS boat into the river. Or, a trickle. The water was barely moving with exposed rocks everywhere. Seriously, I piss bigger streams. We moved slowly, got stuck on lots of rocks and passed no one except for smart, lazy people on float trips drinking lots of beer.

I will speak for us both: We hated the paddle.

"Hey, I think we live in this rubber boat now," Bill lamented after an hour went by and we seemed to be going nowhere. "This boat is now 46 Haines Street. We will get a cat and call it home."

I tend to get songs stuck in my head for hours on end during longer races. The thought of living in our red duckie, together forever outside, got this piece of awesomeness stuck in my head for most of the next two days:

Home is wherever I'm with you. Including in the middle of a pisstrickle river stuck in a giant floatie.

We passed a guide who told us we still had more than four miles to go.

"She's lying," I said. "I know she is."

Turns out she was lying (or maybe she was just wrong) because a few minutes later we found ourselves at the takeout. So awesome. I hopped out of the "boat" into the ankle-deep water and dragged Bill and the floatie to the bank of the river. We'd both clearly had enough -- Bill lifted the thing under his arm and we were off to TA 2.

A ton of teams were there, including Val and her teammate Russel. They'd mentioned something about a trail to the next TA/CP -- thanks to them we realized we missed a route instruction forbidding the most obvious route choice back which would have likely led to a penalty or a DQ or something (the race rules were never entirely clear) had we been caught.

Here's a picture of a someone on another team to give you an idea of what we got to do next -- an optional 130-foot rappel off a bridge. While it took us all of 10 minutes to complete this entire part, from the time we left transition to the time we returned, I thought it was a great addition to the race. Gravity rules!

I acknowledged to Bill that I was actually starting to have fun despite myself. We headed back to the car to change out of our sopping wet clothes (what water there was in the river managed to drench us) for a 15-mile trek back to our bikes.

Want to know how I managed to basically light my boobs on fire while in transition? Come back for part two. That is all. 

A Preliminary Equinox Traverse Race Report

We finished. Barely.

It wasn't too fun.

We made a lot of mistakes.

But we made some good decisions along the way too.

I also ate a lot of McDonalds afterward. A 10-piece "chicken" nugget extra-value meal and a cheeseburger. I am not too proud to admit it.

Now it's on to (more) beer drinking and sleeping. And lots and lots of laundry. I fear we've stunk up the entire state of Pennsylvania with our nasty race outfits.

Registered.

Do you ever do something against your better judgement?

I don't. At least not often. I am a planner. I don't take a lot of risks. I like to know what I am in for.

A few months ago Bill and I began discussing the idea of doing a 48-hour adventure race.

"Well, we've been doing a lot of training and riding and running anyway. It would be a shame to let all of that go to waste," was our logic.

"It's far. What do we do when it is 4 a.m. on day two, we are lost in the woods, we haven't slept in two days and we want to kill each other?," were some of our main reasons not to.

Add the fact that we have to carry basically every bit of adventure racing gear that we own, the race is unsupported, it seems like we will have to start out with all of our food and water for the entire race and carry it the whole time (unless we feel like quaffing some creek water) and the longest race I've ever done was 24 hours.

After talking each other into it and out of it a dozen times, after much whining on my part and after Bill picked the race director's brain a bit, I guess we decided to commit -- today I got a text from Bill that simply said this: Registered.

Instantly, I did this:

I sort of want to cry a little bit just thinking about it. Regardless, The Haines Street Hustlers will be at the start line of the Equinox Traverse. Not sure that we will get to the finish line, but there it is.

Also, the race is next week. Ten days away. Worst idea ever? Probably.

The 1/2 Sauer, 1/2 Kraut 13.1: A Timeline

Sunday, June 26. Bright and early.

5:22 a.m. -- Alarm goes off. Hit snooze. Roll over and briefly think that there's something I have to get up for. Fall back to sleep.

5:29 -- Alarm goes off again. Remember that I have a race, and that I have to get three other people out of the house by 6. Freak out a bit, pull on my running clothes and hop downstairs to K-Cup the first of three pre-race cups of coffee.

5:33 -- Stare at fridge in a sleepy stare while coffee brews.

5:33:30 -- Hear Kate shuffling around upstairs. This is a small miracle because if there's anyone who hates mornings more than I do, it's Kate.

5:34 -- Make Kate a cup of coffee. See?

5:35-- Bill comes downstairs dressed and ready to go. Yay! Steve (Kate's husband) slept in his clothes so things were looking good for a 6 a.m. departure.

5:36 -- Bill decides he smells and takes a shower. Steve goes back to sleep.

5:38 -- Steve is awake! Bill is clean! Kate and I are fed! I have my second cup of coffee!

5:44 -- We all stand around and stare at each other. I have another cup of coffee.

6:07 -- We realize that we've been standing around staring at each other for a while so we decide to leave.

6:37: We get to the race site. We park 8 feet from the start line. With almost an hour to go before the scheduled gun time we stand around and take pictures.

This was Steve's first time seeing Kate run. Clearly, they are both
quite excited for their big day.

We met in preschool and look exactly the same as we did in 1980, I swear.

6:42 -- Realize the boys aren't as excited as we are about the race. See above for proof. At least Bill is faking a smile. Steve just looks like he wants to stab someone.

6:43-7:47 -- Do nothing other than realize that the race will be starting late. Finally the gun goes off (or someone just yells "go" and we all start running) about 17 minutes behind schedule.

7:53:40 -- Try to keep up with the girl in front of me. Hit the first mile marker at 6:40, a pace that I would be content to hold on a track. Knowing that I will crash, burn and then blaze bright enough to be seen from outer space if I try to stay with her I slow down quite a bit. She zooms away. But I am feeling nice.

7:53:31-- 8:28 -- I run. The course goes up and down a bit. I hate the ups more than I should.

8:29 -- The course zigs and zags through a small parking lot and field about 7 trillion times. I realize that there's a woman right behind me that is sort of flying and I know that she will pass me soon. Along one of the zigs I hear Kate cheering me on. I am starting to feel a bit gross so I shout a supportive "Grerrmpfhfaaaakk" in reply. I think about what a good friend I am. I am awesome.

8:35 -- The course had been along a paved bike path but now meanders onto actual trials. I love trails and I pick up the pace a bit. I pass a few dudes.

8:45 -- I am dumped back onto the paved path and am passed by the woman behind me within 800 meters. I don't care as much as I probably should. Mostly because I am happily surprised with my pace. I'd been aiming for about a 1:40 and realize I should be able to come in a bit under that if I don't shit the bed.

9:08 -- I hit the 11-mile aid station. "Only two miles left!" they tell me. I realize I am getting bitchy. "It's really two-point-one," I correct. "And that seems really far right now."

9:20 -- I haven't seen another runner in a while and the course is starting to feel long. Or I am just starting to feel tired. I contemplate slowing to a jog, then slowing to a walk. I peek over my shoulder every few strides. I see no ladies, no dudes. Am I off course? I don't want to be passed at the line just because I get lazy. I try to pick up the pace.

9:23 -- I see a friendly looking dude with a medal around his neck, sipping on a bottle of water with his feet in the creek, cheering me on. "Shit, dude, am I almost there?," I ask. "You are, I swear," the dude says and slaps me five. I decide to believe him. Because it is either that or I just flop in the creek and call it a year.

9:24 -- The finish. Tadaa. I stagger a tiny bit and then, instead of removing my chip, remove my entire shoe and hand it to the volunteer collecting chips. I snag a banana and some water and then realize I have one less shoe than I should. I find my smelly shoe which is nice.

Bill missed me crossing the finish line but got me
taking off my shoe.

9:31 -- Kate finishes in just under 1:45. (1:44:44 I think). I am impressed. Here's why -- Kate has several PhDs, got a 2400 on her SATs back in the day where the highest possible score was a 1600 and was published before she was old enough to drink. The only B (actually, she just emailed me to remind me it was actually a B+) she ever got in her life was in fourth grade gym. She thought her academic career was over. But she really sucked at kickball, a lot. Kate apparently got winded in high school marching band and also runs with an inhaler. The first time she ever ran more than a mile at a time was about a year ago and then she busts out a 1:45 in her second half marathon. Silly overachiever.

9:45 -- Results are posted. I am 33rd overall, 3rd for the ladies and 1st in my age group. Kate is 7th for the ladies and second in our age group. Hoorah. But before you go around thinking I am fast please be aware that this was a small local race. And that the Philly Olympic-distance tri was at the same time so that's where all the fasties were.

11:10 -- We go to the weird German club (what's with Philly-area races and their affiliation with German clubs) for free beers and/or bratwurst (racers got either two free beers, two free bratwurst or one of each, how fun).

11:22 -- Best race awards of all time. I got another one of these at the last race I did put on by the same company. So now I have two Bavarian thermometers/barometers.  How fantastic.

This guy rocked out hard on his accordion(s). Just like
every other race out there.

THE END

Me v. Red Shirt, Part II

Where was I? Somewhere in the woods around mile 10, I guess.

I ran and ran, and smiled and smiled. Suddenly, a crowd! The aid station at mile 12.4 was just ahead and it was packed. I heard someone yelling my name from far away. Genny! I told her I'd probably wear a grey shirt and orange shorts and she managed to spot me from about 100 yards away. I was impressed.

Maybe I should have used more energy to run and less to smile.

She had Gatorade! And, even more importantly, she had Skittles. Lots and lots of Skittles. I stuffed several dozen of them into my cheeks. So amazingly delicious! The rainbow of fruit flavors never tasted so good. Maybe Skittles will sponsor me.


I was like this hamster, only slightly taller and with less fur. And with Skittles instead of Cheerios.

And then, just ahead, stuffing his face almost as quickly as I was, was Red Shirt! I grabbed some peanut M&Ms and sprinted (ok, shuffled) off, figuring I'd put him behind me for good. He continued to scarf down snacks as I ran past.

The route took us to a slow, wide, gravel climb. We'd merged with the 50 milers by this point so I actually had people to attempt to pass and to run away from. After a steep descent we squeezed onto the narrowest of trails with a rock wall on one side and a drop into water on the other. This part was an out-and-back so we all channeled our inner mountain goats as we tiptoed through carefully in attempt to keep our own footing without smooshing runners on their way back off the trail. Most people were kind and there was more "excuse me please, thank you, you go ahead, have fun, top of the morning to you, don't fall, good job, hooray for you" than pushing and shoving. Nice!

A few meters later I found myself at the 15.1-mile aid station. I couldn't believe I was half-way done, right where the Mom and Dad were supposed to be. Uh oh. I checked my watch and realized that I was about 50 minutes ahead of schedule. I told them I'd be there at about the 3 1/2 hour mark and I was only about 2 hours and 40 minutes in. Hmm. Do I wait? What if I never see them again? What if they get here and think the course has eaten me alive and start to worry?

Then Red Shirt pulled into the aid station right next to me, gulped down some water and sprinted back the way we came. I hesitated for a moment and then took off after him.

This part of the course was my favorite. We worked our way almost all of the way back to the aid station where Genny was before veering off up a long, technical climb. The race directors apparently imported every rock in the East Coast to this part of the course. It was more of a scramble than a run and I chose my footing carefully as the route rose well above the river.

The view at the top probably was spectacular but I didn't get a chance to look around. People were everywhere. The entire population of the D.C. metro area apparently decided to spend the gorgeous Saturday morning at the top of this trail and I used up a bit of patience waiting for hikers, their cigarettes and their miniature pot-bellied pigs (ok, I only saw one pot-bellied pig, but isn't that one too many?) to move to the side to let runners through.

I worked my way up and over the climb and found myself back at the 12.4 mile mark that had magically morphed into the 19-mile mark. There was Genny! Holding more Skittles! Really, she's sort of the best. She told me that my parents had just left that spot, confused as to where I was and where they were supposed to find me. I chowed down on more glorious Skittles and some Pringles while she called my parents who were, fortunately, still in the parking lot. They hopped out of their car and ran over to the trail.

"You just ran 19 miles!" my Dad said.
"You sort of smell," said my Mom. "But you look happy! And you aren't bleeding like a lot of the other people going by, so you have that going for you. And you are going faster than you thought you would!"

I waved and told them I'd see them at the finish. It was right around the corner after all, wasn't it? Only 12 miles to go. Easy.

Except not so much. I realized that I essentially had a half-marathon to go and that suddenly seemed very, very far. And Red Shirt was so far ahead. And sweat was stinging my eyes. And the next aid station was 7 miles away. And I no longer had the fun part of Dog Days Are Over stuck in my head. Instead, on repeat, I had the part where she slowly wails like this: IIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiyeyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee nnnnayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ooweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yoweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Terrible.

And I still had 11 miles to go. My hands started tingling. I looked at my fingers, swollen, red, shiny and disgusting. I flapped them around a bit like that was going to get the fluid out. I realized I looked ridiculous and started to giggle.

"My fingers look like Snausages," I thought, and started to laugh. Hard. So hard that tears came out. I couldn't see where I was going. "Oh my God, what if my fingers actually turn into Snausages?" I was clearly a bit dehydrated, my electrolytes were a bit off -- marathon brain was starting to kick in.

Somewhere in a part of my brain that should have remained covered in cobwebs there was this:


Snausages replaced Florence and The Machines in my head. Dear God. What's wrong with me? Snausages? I've never even had a dog.

I continued on and started to feel a bit better, fortunately. That was the only time I felt low during the entire race. About five people passed me, including two women. Marathoners started to pass me on their way out on the course. Fifty-milers started to pass me as they drove toward the finish, holding a pace that I'd be happy to keep on an on-road 13.1. But I felt fine and decided to pay attention to myself instead of the people passing me. And slowly I began to reel in people ahead of me. Not a ton of people but I passed more than passed me over the last 10k.

I walked a few steep climbs, ran the descents and the flats. I stared at my feet, glancing up only occasionally. And then, A SNAKE! A DAMN SNAKE. Not a big one -- maybe two feet long, skinny and green. "I don't want to ever see any more snakes ever again!," I yelled out loud to no one. Apparently snakes don't read my blog and therefore don't know that I hate them.

The trail zigged and zagged and I finally found myself at the aid station at mile 25.5. I ate and drank as much as I could as quickly as I could and was on my way, passing a few people in the process. I was mostly staring at my feet, making sure that I didn't trip over anything or, more importantly, step on a snake.

I'd glance up every so often to make sure I wasn't about to slam into a tree -- something red off in the distance. Red Shirt! There he was, about 100 yards ahead. And he was going nowhere. In fact, he was barfing into a bush while hopping around grabbing his calf with a cramp.

Hmm. What to do? Ok, I really gave it no thought whatsoever. "Man, that sucks!," I said. "The aid station is only about a quarter-mile behind, you should probably go back."

The place for me in hell gets more and more special every day. I ran on, glancing over my shoulder a few times to make sure Red Shirt wasn't sneaking up again. I could see him off in the distance but he never caught up.

Wahoo! Me: 1, Red Shirt: 0.

Skipped the last aid station with 2.5 miles left to go. For a second that seemed like an obscene amount of distance to cover. I slowed to a walk for a few steps and then realized I would rather run.

I checked my watch. Five hours 15 minutes with a bit more than two miles to go. I couldn't believe it. I'd been nervous about not meeting my goal of 7: 12. And I'd loved every step. I never hit the wall. I started to, but, thanks to Snausages, I manged to bust through it. I thought about how, in road marathons, miles 22 until 26 have always been basically unfun. 50ks, where have you been all my life?

My feet hit the flat paved trail leading to the finish line. A volunteer told me I had less than 400 meters to go. Really? I picked up the pace, smiling. A lot. I broke through a small cluster of trees and the crowd was yelling. My parents and Genny should really be Laker Girls or something -- they are pros at cheering.


Genny took a picture of my Mom taking my picture. Except
Mom managed to miss me, somehow, and took a picture
of the grass instead.





Notice Genny is actually near me and my Mom
is several feet away. Apparently I stunk. 

What's more awesome, my hairdo or my crooked race number?



I was going to crop out a lot of the grass and zoom
in on myself but then I realized my eyes are closed
and that my hat is weirdly balanced on the top of my head.

I ran across the line and looked around, grinning like a dork. 5:35:53, good enough for 12th female out of 105 and 63rd out of 332 overall. Fine by me.

I tend to exaggerate, a lot. But, sincerely, I think this might have been my favorite race ever. Possibly better than Boston, better than New York, as rewarding as 24-hour adventure races. The fact that it was well-organized and that the course was gorgeous didn't hurt either. Good race shirt, arm warmers ... the stuff given out cost as much as the entry fee. Well-stocked aid stations, a course so well-marked that even I didn't get lost. A very good introduction to the 50k distance, to say the least.

THE END

 

Quite Possibly My Favorite Racing Thing of All Time, Part I

I might sell my bikes, give away my adventure racing gear and throw out my road shoes -- I am thinking I might spend the rest of my racing life running 50k after 50k.

The North Face Endurance Challenge Washington D.C. 50k (fortunately the whole name wasn't on the race shirt ... would have taken up the whole thing) was sort of fantastic. I want to do it again immediately.

I've never been less stressed before a race, ever. I had to work a full day on Friday. And the day was sort of crazy. As I was running around the job attempting to help eliminate some of the crazy I kept thinking the following thought: "This time tomorrow I will be running 31 miles. All at once. Hopefully. And instead of getting ready I am dealing with (insert a crazy situation of your choice here)."

Finally it was time to go.

The ride to Northern Virginia took forever and ever. Traffic in that area is so amazingly terrible. If there was ever a World Championship of Tailgating I am absolutely certain that some bobo from NoVa would win. Anyway, I finally pulled into the hotel just as my Mom and Dad did. I think they were more nervous than I was. My lack of nervousness almost made me anxious. I packed up a small bag, mapped out where my parents would meet me along the course (at the 15.1 mile mark) and I slept like a lump.

We made our way to the 7 a.m. start about an hour early. There were six races over the course of the weekend (50 miles, 50k, marathon, marathon relay, 13.1, 10k and 5k) and the 50-miler wackadoos had started two hours earlier.

The morning was beautiful -- a bit on the cool side and the misty Potomac River made a sweet backdrop to the 332 runners preparing for the day ahead. Basically my own personal playlist of running favorites was being pumped through a sound system. What a great morning!

Then I made the mistake of looking around. The crowd was amazingly fit. Lots of muscles and little fat -- I felt lumpy and slow and I hadn't even made it to the start line yet. Great! Nerves started to kick in. What if I am last? What if I don't finish? What if I hate it? What am I doing? Do I have to pee again?

We were called to the start line right on time. And then it was time for Dean Karnazes to officially kick off the race. So not necessary. Just let us run. I am sort of not a fan -- a few years ago I only made it through the first few pages of his book before I began to gag a bit. But, the dude can absolutely run far quickly.


Feeling pensive, lumpy and slow.



The Machine and I listening to Dean Karnazes yammer.
Do you know he just finished running from L.A. to New York?
 I do because he mentioned it about 8 billion times.
 At least the guy seems to like his job.


I lined up toward the back of the pack figuring that if I DNFed it would be on my own terms, not because I was trampled out of the gate. We were suddenly off -- no start gun, no ready set go -- the crowd just started moving forward. Or maybe I was just too far in the back to hear what was happening. I waved at my Mom and Dad and the field trickled across the start line.

Play Where's Waldo with this picture. But instead of finding Waldo find Laurie.

The first mile or so was around a flat field and then onto a wide gravel trail. I was keeping a comfortable pace and slowly worked my way past a bunch of runners. The course turned left and after another mile or so the single track started. And so did some shoving and pushing. Grr. It wasn't terrible and I tried to stay out of the way but a few people were bloodied by falls before we were 30 minutes in.

Eventually the crowd began to thin out and I found myself in the company of only one other person. We talked a bit (it was her first 50k too) until she took off like she'd been shot out of a cocaine-fueled rocket. She ended up coming in 5th, I think. What an overachiever.

I was all alone in the woods and I was loving it. I slowly worked my way up the first climb -- it was short, but it was steep and lead to a screaming downhill. I let it run and hoped I wasn't beating up my legs too badly too early on. At the bottom I actually passed a few people and started to feel not entirely incompetent. I stuffed handfuls of chips and M&Ms into my face at the second aid station (I'd skipped the first) and continued on my way.

The time ticked by and I felt like I wasn't working amazingly hard but I didn't want to push it, either. I didn't want to STB in the first 10 miles and have a miserable time for the remaining 21. Gus, Shot Blocks and Stinger Waffles, Peanut M&Ms and water fueled my way. It got a bit hilly but, fortunately, reminded me of the terrain in Wissahickon Park. The hills were similar to those I'd trained on but with fewer rocks and roots most of the time. Hooray!

On my way down one hill footsteps came up behind me, fast. "Passing on your right!," the runner behind me yelled. We were on 2-foot-wide singletrack with a sort of serious drop off to the left. I didn't feel like falling off a cliff so I didn't move, I just picked up the pace. Plus who the hell passes on the right? Apparently the a-hole in a red shirt flicking sweat all over the place right behind me does.

The hill leveled off and I pulled over to let him pass. Red Shirt got in front of me and basically slowed to a walk. Sir, please know that I wanted to beat you with sticks at that point. We were dumped to on a flat fire road and I took off, hoping to never see him again, ever. Except I didn't push hard enough and he did the exact same thing on the next downhill. Instead of telling him he was being a weiner I decided to be passive-aggressive and vowed to myself that I would absolutely finish before him. Except just as I had that thought he decided to sprint away and I soon lost sight of him.

Well, shit. And then, actual shit. Horse poop everywhere. It was unavoidable and I was mostly amused and partially disgusted. That's when I got a song stuck in my head, a song that would stay there for the rest of the race. Thankfully, I liked the song -- Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine. Most of the time what was stuck was the part that goes like this: "The horses are coming, so you better run."

Ok, Flo, I will. I picked up the pace a bit. A shoutout to the horse poop for triggering my race inspiration. I actually started to feel sort of great. I had no idea what mile I was at -- six, eight, ten? I had no idea what my pace was either. I just knew I wasn't even close to being done. Fine by me because, Red Shirt aside, I was loving my day so far.

The giant mug of red wine I decided to have with my dinner of Cheerios and mac & cheese (they weren't in the same bowl) and two days of waking up before 6 a.m. are knocking me out. Plus this post is already too long. Plus I have to go try and get my race shoes to stink less before the entire house smells like mud and feet and funk. So you will just have to come back for the exciting conclusion.