A Warm, Sunny Day in January

After a harrowing ride the day before, resulting in a split top tube and a split... lip... I was not as fired up about my Sunday run as I wanted to be. A little after the fact, I figured out that I had hit six months sober without even realizing it, and since I had a big weekend on the calendar, I half thought about maybe doing it up big. Saturday was the 200K, and Sunday was a trail run where I was signed up for the 21K, but I had the option of upgrading to the 50. And as long as I was thinking about doing a 200K and a 50K, why not just do a long swim on Friday and round it out with greater than the distance of an ironman in all three sports all in one weekend. I did the swim (4400 yards) and the bike, but I'll spoil the surprise right now; I didn't do the full run.

The run was right in my own back yard, so I woke up late and took my time eating a big breakfast. Then I drove down to the Safeway (which has a Starbucks in it (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog) to pick up some last-minute essentials: coconut water, anti-chafe lube, and my coffee. I was cutting it a bit close on time, but I was only a few blocks from the start, right? What I hadn't thought about, however, was parking... and how I would have to park like everyone else. I suppose I could have parked at my house and walked down, but it was too late for that now and I didn't want to spill my coffee power walking down the hill. I found the registration table (as far from the start as you could get), and asked the guy what it would take to change distances. "I'm signed up for the 21K, but I'm still not sure which one I should do..." I told him.

"Aw, go for the 50K," he told me.

"Alright, let's do it!" I said. Then I thought better of it. "You know, I'm still not sure... what do I have to do to switch?"

"I have no idea, actually," he told me, even though he was working the table marked 'distance changes.' "Why don't you just run the 21K, and when you're done, you can decide if you want to keep going. If you do the 50, just tell them when you finish." Perfect!

I got my number on, the lube between my legs, and jogged to the start just in time to hear the starting siren and keep jogging. The trail went down to singletrack about 100 yards in and started climbing even before that. Because I was in the back, I (and everyone else) got stuck going the same pace as the slowest guy in the race. We hiked up the hill for about a mile, dashing around one person at a time whenever there was enough space on the trail. I knew that Sponsor was here, and I was hoping to catch up with her in order to have someone to keep me company and share the pretty views with. I was proud of how pretty Pacifica was, after all, and I never got a chance to share it with anybody.



Even at this slow pace, my legs were bursting with lactic acid, and I knew that I was fucked for the day. Right away I dropped the idea of doing the 50K, and just decided to enjoy the day and get through it however possible. It was the clearest sunny day I'd ever seen on these trails, and even though it was early in the morning, I was sweating in just a pair of spanky shorts and a tank top.

Up ahead, I had made my way up through the group to see that there was one guy who had let a giant gap open up in the trail in front of him. I was annoyed. Why didn't he get the fuck out of the way? Didn't he realize that there were people stuck behind him breathing down his neck? I got ruder and made my way up to him and finally around him. He looked like Gary Sinise on chemo. With Lieutenant Dan behind me, I now had to actually run up the hill. Ow, this hurt.


I came up on another barrel-chested guy who was running shirtless with compression socks and gaters on his legs. This guy's accessory distribution was all wrong. He didn't have so much as a visor or a watch anywhere above the waste, but he was wearing everything that he could cram on below the waist. He had the opposite distribution of body mass, with a giant, boxy torso and spindly chicken legs. It reminded me of something that one of the trainers at work had told me, "You can tell the gay guys who are sick (HIV+) because the steroids that they put them on to fight muscle wasting makes their abs stick out." He didn't look like a Castro muscle queen, but something about this guy's build gave me the heebie jeebies. Actually, I just kind of had the heebie jeebies. My mind was in that place: when you're running all out in the gym and then suddenly someone makes a loud sound with some weights and it explodes in your head so loud you think you're going to fall over.



Finally the singletrack trail opened up onto a wider (steeper) fire road. I was walk/running around people and they were walk/running around me. I came around a guy who had the gaunt body and moribund stride of an ultrarunner that didn't know when to take a rest day. It took me forever to get around him, and he was deep mouth breathing on my shoulder for what felt like an eternity. His mouth was agape and his big cheeks and sunken teeth reminded me of the pictures you see of mummies or mummified hikers that they find in the desert on CSI. I couldn't wait to get around him.

I finally shook off the Cadaver, and a guy came down the hill in the other direction, finished with the "out" portion of the out-and-back and now onto the "back." This was a particularly steep part of the trail, making it hard for even the elite guys (which he must have been to be so far forward in the pack) to look coordinated as they scrambled down the 15-20% grade, but this guy looked even wilder than that. He was wearing a shirt that said "run happy," but something about his gait made him lurch like a toddler just learning to walk. Was I seeing things? A runner behind me encouraged him, "run happy, my brotha'," and Run Happy Guy's response came in and out of my hearing like a wave. "MMMmmmmhuMMMmhuhhhmmmmmMmM." At the time I thought that I was really falling to bits and the fatigue was starting to affect my senses, but it turned out that Run Happy Guy really did have some sort of neurological disorder, and he was still out there running happy and way, way faster than most people. Well how could I possibly feel sorry for myself now?



I got all the way to the top of the mountain without running into Sponsor, and figured that she hadn't come to the race after all, so I turned around and decided I'd take the rest of the course at whatever pace occurred to me. A few minutes down the hill I finally spotted her. "I was in the bathroom line at the beginning!" she yelled to me. "I got a late start."

"Well I'm running at a snail's pace, so you'll probably catch me in a few," I said. I relaxed my pace as much as I could, and even stopped to pee behind a bush, but she never did catch me. Now that I was going back downhill, life was good. I was glad I had legs again (rather than them just being a source of pain and misery), and I bombed down the trail with my arms outstretched like an airplane. Actually, it felt really good to stretch out like that, my chest and triceps were deeply sore I'm guessing from riding on a busted bike for 3 hours.

Unfortunately, the hill ended and it was time to climb up the second hill. This is the shortest hill on the course, made up of grades that I usually find run-able. Not today. I continued my walk-run which looked a bit like "run 5 steps, walk 3" until I reached the top. This downhill wasn't quite so full of life. I could feel the bruised area in my shorts complaining from all the movement going on, and I was also badly chafed between my thighs where the shorts didn't cover. I knew that I was wiped because I could feel my core muscles working on the descent.

By the time I hit the only flat-ish section of the course--a half-mile slight uphill jog on a gravel path to the last hill--even running on this road was tough. It was like I was stuck between miles 16 and 20 of a marathon for 21 kilometers. I wasn't seeing any more ghosts, and I was still passing people on the uphills, but I was falling apart quickly.

The final hill is an endless series of almost 30 switchbacks that climbs about 1000 feet over 1.5 miles. Even though I've run this trail several times, I still never know when I'm getting close to the top. There's tall brush to either side of the trail, and the trail makes its way up the spine of a ridge in such a way that it always looks like the mountain must end after this next bend. Above me, below me, behind me, and in front of me I could hear runners talking about how hilly this course was. Yep, and I run it all the time, suckas! I thought. When you finally reach the top, there's an anticlimactic sweeping turn and down you go.

Normally this is a fun and non-technical downhill that you can take at the speed of gravity, but my legs had had it. I plodded down the hill as fast as my wooden legs could take me. I was uncomfortable deep inside, almost like cramping or when you take a deep breath at the wrong moment and you get a sharp, stabbing cramp in your side. It reminded me of the scene in Running on the Sun when they say that one of the Badwater runners' internal organs have started to chafe from rubbing against each other. I wasn't marathon tired where you feel like you've been beat up from the ground up, I was tired on a far deeper level from the bones out. Maybe I would be back to the endurance level I used to be at someday, but I wasn't there yet.

Finally I hobbled down out of the trail and to the finish line. It was my slowest half marathon ever: about 2:30, with 3764' climbed over that distance. I figured Sponsor was right behind me, so I grabbed fistfuls of corn chips and sugar cookie pieces and settled in to wait. And wait. And wait. What I didn't know was that she was signed up for the 30K, and wouldn't finish for another hour and a half (I finally gave up and left after an hour and 15 minutes).

While I was waiting, I got to watch other people finish. The female winner of the 30K race came flying through the finish line a few minutes after me sporting a t-shirt from a 100-mile race. She was short and muscular, built like a shit brick house just like me with slightly less fat. She had a forward-thrusting energy down to her facial features, even when she was standing still. A couple of heavyset women walked through the finish line wearing cotton t-shirts, Target sneakers, and fashionable sunglasses chanting "slow and steady wins the (9K) race!" Then there was a young couple that I'd seen out on the trail who could have been American Eagle models. She was wearing lime green compression socks, and he was wearing no shirt and a Camelbak which they'd both stopped to take turns sucking on the trail. When they came around the bend to the finish line, they both burst into grins and started sprinting to the finish, elbowing each other and giggling. They were having so much fun, it made me want to be them. For a moment I was a little sad that my girlfriend's knees are too fucked up to ride and her feet are too fucked up to hike these days, but that's a story for another time.

While I was sitting, one of the guys that I'd recognized as one of the front runners struck up a conversation with me. He was one of those hairless skinny straight white guys over 40 that looks like he's made of wax, but he sure was fast. "I saw you out on the course," I said. "I like your Hawaiian shorts!"

"Yeah, I try not to take myself too seriously..." he told me.

After we'd shot the shit for awhile and I was feeling more comfortable, I got up the nerve to ask him something that I'd always wondered. "So when guys like you run a course like this, do you run the whole thing? Like even the steep parts?" I asked.

"Yep, it's not a fast run, but it's a run."

Woooooow. There were quarter-mile sections of this courses that were over 15%. He looked at me, "You look like you could be built for something like this. You've got those short legs, so you can get a fast turnover." Yeah... well... no. "How do you like those compression socks?" he asked. I'd had to roll the compression socks down a couple of inches because they covered my short little legs up past the knees.

"I don't know, to tell the truth," I told him. "I'm wearing them today more to hold me together than out of faith that they actually work."

"Well do your calves knot up really bad after a long run? Do they prevent that?" he asked.

"What? Um, no, I guess I don't get that. I mean I get tired and stuff. Tight. But knots? No."

I went home and took an ice bath, then I took a hot epsom salt bath. With the chafe between my legs and my split... lip... it took a good several minutes to be able to submerge myself in the water and I yelped and whimpered like a hurt animal, but finally I was successful in submerging myself. That night I got a massage from our massage therapist at work. I asked her why my experience with foam rollers and massages hadn't been as painful as other people had described. But when she hit my IT band and I screamed, I felt what all those people were talking about. "I think it's because you never sit still. Your muscles never get a chance to knot up like other people's," she told me. Yeah, well I was a hurt unit. I crawled into bed after my massage and spent every free second I could find the next day asleep.

I think I deserve a recovery week.

A Race Report, FINALLY!

That's right! Claire is finally, at long, long last back in action. I was going to stage my comeback last Sunday, but the thought of running 9 miles in the cold was feeling a little bit daunting for my inertia level, and when it started pouring floodbuckets as I was driving to the race, I decided that my time would be better spent in a Starbucks somewhere. (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog!) Instead, I ran a rather pathetic two-mile trail run near the house that afternoon and finished absolutely disgusted with myself. I was tight, tired, and out of breath. It seemed to take so much effort just to start moving that to keep moving was too much to ask. I had no idea what my next big event would be, but I decided that I was going to race myself back into shape, starting this week. That's right! I was very motivated to start moving... sometime soon, but not right now.

So comeback 2.0 was planned for the Brazen Racing Nitro Turkey Trot in Pinole, CA. A client would also be doing this race, so there was no chickening out or I'd never save face. As we made the drive over, I was thinking about how this time last year I was on a plane on my way to Mexico, and the two years before I had PRed at the 5 mile distance. Right now all I could hope for was sub-10's.

I knew I would be running a 10K trail run, but other than that, I had no idea what to expect. What was the course like? How many people? What time did it start? I wasn't really sure about any of these things. Scout (formerly Bobberanne, but that nickname is too close to her real name so I feel obliged to change it) and I rolled into the Point Pinole Regional State Park up near the northern tip of the San Francisco Bay a comfortable 45 minutes before the race was supposed to start. But by the time I'd filled out the race day registration, picked up my chip (that's right, CHIP! For a 10K Turkey Trot!), picked up my t-shirt, and used The Smelliest Outhouse I've ever used in my life (no exaggeration), it was already 15 minutes past the projected start time. Luckily, there were so many late arrivals, that the race didn't start until about half an hour after it was supposed to. I wasn't worried. I had a feeling that there would be suffering involved in this, so I wasn't in any particular hurry.

At the Salem Wild Turkey Trot, I had never seen anyone run dressed up. Dressing up is for Halloween runs and charity activists at spectator marathons. Half the people at this race were dressed up as pilgrims, turkeys, or Indians. One woman was wearing a pilgrim's bonnet, one of those frilly bib-like things that the Puritans used to wear, and a full black ass-tight running outfit. She looked like a giant baby missing her diaper. I tried not to judge the idiots who had dressed up as pilgrims or poultry, but I felt free to judge the people dressed up as Indians because they were clearly loser racist bigots who deserved to sprain their ankles and they had better all be behind me, even though I wasn't expecting anyone to be behind me today. Also, since I was signing up the day of the race, I would have to wait for my finisher's medal to be sent in the mail. Really? A finisher's medal for a 5K/10K?

Can I take a moment to go off about finisher's medals? Call me a snob, but I don't believe that any event that the winners complete in under an hour deserves a finisher's medal. We're coddling our children and we're coddling our adults. Half the girls that participate in our girls' running program are overweight. I traded my t-shirt with an 8-year-old because hers was too small and mine was too big. I wear a youth large. She barely fit into an adult small. These girls could probably run a whole mile without stopping, but they know that they'll get the same credit if they walk, and they know that if the workout has a time goal, that there's no more reward for running than walking. Because it's non-competitive. Okay, I see it. Kids can get really upset when they "lose," but you know what? Losing is a part of life. And now we're coddling out adults, increasing the "acceptable" body fat percentages and trying to sugar-coat the fact that the Surgeon General had to increase the daily activity recommendations (60 minutes most days of the week) because we're increasingly sedentary and inactive in our everyday lives. Now a 5K is treated like some huge achievement. In some countries (even some people in cities like San Francisco) you can't get through your day without walking 3.1 miles. And here we are awarding finisher's medals to people finishing a 5K in over an hour?! It's like saying, "Congratulations! You managed to wipe your own ass AND tie your own shoes!"

No, you know what, I take that back. The people who finish a 5K in over an hour DO deserve a finisher's medal, because they are either so old, so young, so fat, or so out of shape that finishing a 5K really is a huge achievement (see the Biggest Loser lady who inspired me to run a marathon). But for the people who are otherwise healthy individuals, whether they run slow or fast, how good their Thanksgiving brunch will taste after the race should be reward enough. Someday I'm going to run an obesity awareness 5K where everybody has to run with a BMI over 30. If you are of a normal weight, then you have to wear a weighted vest that puts you over 30 (so I, as a 5'2" female weighing 125 lb would have to wear an additional 29-lb vest). Anyone whose BMI is over 30 would get a .1 mile advantage for every point that their BMI is above 30. Then I'll give people finisher's medals for a 5K. And the finisher's medals will be galvanized doughnuts. Hmph. Okay, I feel better now.

I was beginning to see where my $45 race fee was going. I wrote "NO MEDAL NECESSARY" on the address line of my registration form and went to pick up my chip.

"What do you mean, your chip?" Scout asked.

"They make you wear this computer chip around your ankle," I explained, pulling the OTT triathlon-style neoprene band out of the envelope. How much extra had I paid for chip timing? In a race where people were running with turkey waddles hanging from their visors and feathers on their heads, did we really need computerized timing? What ever happened to the days of tying it into your shoelaces or tearing the tab off the bottom of your number? I could feel that I was turning into a grouchy old man.

"What? So if you get lost in the woods they can identify you? Like a pet?" Scout asked.

"No! So they know when you started and finished!" It was funny to see her taking it all in. Scout wasn't familiar with the whole running culture. From the looks of it, neither were most of the turkeys (and pilgrims and Indians) here.

Finally we lined up and the race announcer went through an interminable explanation of how not to run off-course. When I saw how non-technical this course was, the explanation seemed even more preposterous. Most preposterous of all, though, was that the announcer was talking to a sea of ears plugged up with earbuds. Packed cheek-to-jowl with a bunch of white people in face paint, I couldn't wait to get started. I thought I would have to sit through a bunch of faux Indians pulling off their headdresses to sing the National Anthem (at which point I would have thrown up), but luckily there was no Star Spangled Banner in this crowd.

The fog horn went off, and we all started running. The first several steps were on some soft grass, and mere seconds into my comeback I felt a burning sensation spreading through my ankle. It didn't last long, though, and in no time I was darting through the sea of walkers and 13-minute-mile runners (with headphones, of course) who hadn't headed the recommendation to stay back if you were slow. I vowed to think of a way to punish these people someday.

My strategy for this race was just to sit back and listen to my body. I knew that I could finish 6 miles, even in my sad state of being, so this would be a question of just not fucking it up by doing anything stupid. Just run, I thought. I felt like a cyclist trying to run. My back and hamstrings were tight, and I felt heavy, not light and bouncy, like I was trying to muscle my way down the path. I felt like I was stuck in the first 5 minutes of a transition run for six miles. My muscles burned and my hips wouldn't move right.

Me hiding behind probably the only other 2 people in the race NOT wearing headphones.

As I thump-thump-thumped down the trail, I was passing more people than were passing me, ESPECIALLY on the "hills." I couldn't believe it. This was no hard-core technical single-track, it was more like "path running" than trail running and you could run at road race pace (not like I have one of those these days). And yet I was still passing people, even in the second half when things had usually sifted out and my too-fast pace usually catches up with me. Weird, huh? I wasn't running a blistering pace, but this pace felt tough. I tried not to look at my watch in fear that a "tough" pace would be 10-minute miles.

I was enjoying my elephant run; plop, plop, plopping down the trail, even kind of enjoying the burning in my lungs and crankiness in my hips and back that told me I was sorely out of shape. I was enjoying being in the woods, out of the city, and stomping over the eucalyptus bark on the trail. But I might as well have been out there by myself. I didn't breathe a word to another soul for the whole race. At first I thought that this was some serious turkey trotting, that people were too busy racing to offer encouragement or holiday wishes to other runners. Then I noticed the headphones. This sure was different from New England running... I wondered if I would ever meet any straight men over 40 in California if they were all wearing headphones. Who would I ever talk to?

Despite feeling like poop, it looks like my form was actually better than in any race photo I've ever seen. Forward lean, no forward footstrike, high knees... But the strangest part indeed is that strange expression I have around my mouth.

Over the last 2 miles I was closing in on a girl. Once we hit the six-mile mark, I decided that I would try to kick it in. She heard me coming and kicked back. Then my stomach kicked back. That's when I remembered my race strategy to not throw up, and let her go. As I crossed the finish line, a guy kicking behind me didn't quite pass me. The camera caught me just as I looked at him with a great feeling of well at least I beat you!

I left the finishing corral, grabbed a glass of water, and walked back to where I'd seen Scout around the 6-mile mark. As I walked, I saw a girl pull over just yards short of the finish line, duck under the line of flags, and puke her guts out. I'd done that before. I remembered the feeling. It's called a hangover. Despite being as out of shape as I was, I was glad that I wasn't that girl.

Much to my surprise, I'd finished in 52:39 for what Garmin called 6.32 miles. (Splits: 8:25, 8:18, 8:46, 7:59, 8:12, 8:27, 7:47). It wasn't the fastest race I'd ever run, but it was far from the nearly 60 minutes I'd been expecting to take. That put me somewhere in the middle of the pack in 70th out of 263 (top 27% of turkeys, giblets, and racing racists), and 9th out of 24 in my age group (38%).

Sure, sure, it wasn't a great result. I've fallen pretty far (back about 2 years to be exact), but at least while I was plodding along I was enjoying being back out there. Who cared that I was running like a bulldog rather than a greyhound? I had a whole, entire day off, I had food in the fridge, and money to sign up for a $45 race. I guess I had something to be thankful for...

I've got more plans and schemes coming up, but I'll save those for another post. Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Legend of the Gadfly

If you're looking for a post to leave a curtosy comment, please scroll down to my previous post. It's all pictures, and won't take up much of your time. For those of you who can't get enough of my suffering, read on my friends!

Alternate title for this post: Loon: as in, "You'd have to be a..."

Right when I got out of my car I saw Gadfly Thom chatting it up with some other running characters in the parking lot. I walked right up to him and said, "Peer pressure's a bitch, Thom!"
"Are you ready?" he asked.
Flat out, no hesitation. "No."
"Aw, you'll be fine."
"Thom, I did a half ironman yesterday." The way it came out it was like even I was surprised by it. Like, "My goodness, it's 6:00! How the time flies!" Saying it out loud did really bring home what a stupid idea this was.
"Oh, well then I guess you're not ready," Thom said, and laughed. "Well I'm glad I'll be ahead of you, because you're sure going to be mad at me!"

People have asked me why I call Thom "Gadfly Thom". It is because he emails me about once a week trying to convince me to do races that appeal to my I can't do that! Sign me up! nature, and routinely wind up kicking my ass. For evidence, read the race reports for Stu's 30K, Martha's Vineyard 20 miler, and the Cranmore Hill Climb, among others: all Thom's doing. So what the hell is a gadfly? Excuse the lesson in Greek Mythology. In traditional Greek style, I'll tell you the story in the form of a play:
Zeus: Man, that Io is one hot piece of ass.
Hera: What'choo looking at that slut for?! You are a pig! I hate that Io bitch.
Zeus: (to himself) I'll turn Io into a cow, so that way my old lady won't get all up in her grill and I can continue to hit that shit. Because I'm Greek, and I'm a god, and I'm a baller, so therefore bestiality is cool.
Hera: Where's that Io bitch that be all macking on my man?! There she is! In the cow.
Io: La de da de da... I'm a cow. Oh my god! What's that fly. God that's annoying. OW! Did it just sting me?! I'll walk over here to get away from it.
Hera: Haha! My horsefly plan is working!
Io: Ow... I'll walk over here... Ow! I'll walk over here... Ow!... (and on and on, until Io finds herself in China, in Africa, in wherever. For the rest of her bovine life Io wanders all around the world, forced to never stop moving because of this annoying fly.)

River next to the starting area

So that's what a gadfly is. It's something that's always buzzing around, and that makes you keep moving to try to get away from it, making you wander into stuff you never would have done on purpose. Do you get why I call him Gadfly Thom now? Thom isn't annoying (although his writing skills could use some work), but the rest of it fits. Like I said, peer pressure's a bitch.

The starting area

So here I am standing outside a ski lodge in northern New Hampshire in July, the day after a half ironman, about to run 5 miles up a mountain. What the hell was I thinking? While last week we started in a thunderstorm, it was already almost 80º today and sunny at 8:30 in the morning. It was going to be a hot one. Normally I don't warm up for running races because I'm too lazy, but since the starting line was about a quarter mile away and downhill, I figured I might as well run down there at least. Oh. My. God! It was like running on two peg legs. I was running at an 11:00 mile pace, down hill and still felt like I was going to die. This was going to be messy. I took solace in the idea that we were just running UP this mountain and not back down. If it was anything like last week, 90% of the uphills would be un-runable anyway. I knew I could walk. Run? Forget it. But I could walk.

Thom and I chatted about people who had died at races as the runners sauntered in to the starting area. When someone started yelling something off near the front I started pushing my way to the back of the pack. There was about a mile of flat running at the beginning, and I did not need to be crushed by a stampede, thank you very much!

For someone who would have rather shot herself in the face than run uphill another inch yesterday, the uphill didn't feel so bad. We ran uphill out of the start, through the flat parking lot, and then up a grade that I was able to run (or most of it anyway). Then we came around a bend and started running DOWN! Well this was stupid! I did not want to give up a single foot of elevation that I had gained by running back downhill. I had signed up for this race to run UP, and up I would run (or walk, or crawl), but not down! Mile 1: 67' ascent, 49' descent.

Cross-cutting the mountain somewhere in the second mile

The second and third miles were equally disappointing in their ease. I would run up the trail until I was hyperventilating and my legs were burning, then I'd walk for a little while, then repeat. I wanted the steep uphills to come along already so I could relax and just walk to my heart's content without feeling bad. Then every once in awhile we would come around a bend and walk the flat way across the mountain, zig-zagging up the trails. Why wouldn't they just let me walk, dammit! I passed a few people on my run breaks, and talked to a guy who was here on vacation from Colorado. New Hampshire is pretty and everything, but who would think to come here if it weren't nearby?! I wasn't in a hurry, so I started taking pictures any time I found a nice view, or whenever I thought I would be able to get an impressive picture of the inclines. Just as I feared, most of the hills wound up looking flat on camera. As we got farther up the mountain the trails got increasingly steep, but none of the ass-blasting, hamstring-tearing ascents from last week. Mile 2: 394' ascent, 94' descent.
The sun was really strong, and there were several unshaded portions of the course. I was soaked through with sweat right from the beginning, and as I ran I could feel the sweat dripping off my elbows. I was able to run less and less of the course, and even when I ran I wasn't moving very quickly. And that's when the horseflies showed up. The damned things were the size of hummingbirds! There was one that I think started following me around mile 1.5, buzzing in my ear, smacking on my face, and trying to land in my hair. I must have looked like I had turrets swatting with my hand, flicking my ponytail around, and twitching my shoulder towards whatever ear they were buzzing in, swearing like a sailor and grunting at this damned gadfly. At one point I put my hand on my head and my finger landed squarely on a fly. It was almost the size of my whole fingertip, I thought I could feel its fly fuzz. Another time I felt a sting on my shoulder and put my hand there only to land on another fly. The slower I went, the more they seemed to hover around me. I started running more and more just to try to get rid of them. This, I thought, THIS is what Io felt like. No wonder that stupid cow just kept walking, I would run up ANYTHING to get away from these goddamned gadflies! Mile 3: 446' ascent, 44' descent.

I hoped this picture would show the steepness, but it's so hard to tell in a photo. If you have a really good imagination, maybe you could see that the camera is being held straight, so the slope is climbing up. Oh, never mind, just take my word for it!
Cross-cutting the mountain again... or maybe we ran up that. I'm not sure. Excuse my finger getting in the shot.

The third mile got steeper finally, and I could feel like I was really working when I was walking. The loose sand and rocks on the ground sometimes were so slippery that I would step up, only to have my foot slide back down to where I'd started. It was like being on an elliptical machine.

There had been this irritating old woman... (not old, let's just call her a "Masters Runner") just ahead of me for miles with a ponytail bobbing smack on top of her head like a blow hole, and a running stride that rather than moving her legs was more about elbows at 90º angles away from her body swinging out to nail anyone who got close to her. She insisted on "running" the whole thing. "Running" in the loosest sense of the word, because she was moving no faster than me, just swinging her elbows out higher as the terrain got steeper. Finally, in this mile, the trail go so steep that her arms could move her uphill no faster, and I finally got to WALK around her (wide, of course, to avoid getting a bony elbow to the nose).

One of the downhills. Again, please use your imagination and the trees along the trail to start to imagine the steepness. Or just take my word for it.

I remember hearing a woman behind me say, "We've still got about 2 miles left!" right before I came over a ridge... and there was the top of the Gondola! What the hell?! All the spectators and families were there along with the race officials. Was this the finish?! That was disappointing. But no, they were waving us through to the back side of the mountain. I took a cup of Heed, and gulped it down. When the taste registered, I spit what was left in my mouth right back out. GROSS! Does Heed make a flavor called "Cake Batter"?! It was absolutely disgusting. After some nasty Heed experiences the day before, the Cake Batter, or Vanilla Pudding, or Vomit after Ice Cream or whatever it was, turned me off Heed for good. Mile 4: 735' ascent; 50' descent.

Note the ascent far to the right that stays around 40+% grade for half a mile, or the long, slow 20-25% nearly constantly from miles 2-4... And the downhills weren't a cakewalk either, half miles or more at a constant 20-25% grade at times.

After throwing out my Heed cup the volunteers flung me off a short and neck-breaking descent. Right next to me two runners were coming in to the finish line in the other direction. They were neck-in-neck scrambling up this hill, elbows flying, and noses just inches from the ground in front of them. It was incredible to see them running up this mess, busting a gut at a 20-minute mile. If they leaned any farther forward I swear they would have been climbing on all fours and/or get dirt up their noses.

I followed the trail down, down, down, and then turned a corner and ran down some more. It was nice to be moving fast enough that the gadflies didn't bother me, but I did not like the way this downhill was going. Every foot that I ran down, I was going to have to climb again!

Note the guy in the white (in front of the guy in the blue) with his hands on his knees catching his breath.

Then I turned a corner and... Nuh-uh! You have GOT to be kidding me! There was the longest, steepest monster I have ever stared down, or, in this case: up. It looked pretty bad, but I knew it was even worse than all that when I saw some people crab walking (side-stepping) up the trail, and others stopped, bent over with their heads down and their hands on their knees trying to catch their breath. I started walking up it, and it was so steep that my calves (which admittedly are not that flexible) were not able to stretch enough to have my toe and heel on the ground at the same time. It was THAT steep. For AWHILE, roughly half a mile! I would love to see what the elites look like on this hill. Lore has it that last year only ONE man was able to run it without walking.

I never stopped moving, but when my Garmin stopped because it thought that I was standing still (I was going at about 45 min/mi) and wouldn't recognize this as "movement" I turned the autopause feature off. So while I was moving so slowly that my GPS didn't even register me as moving, I was still passing people. I passed people who were trudging up the hill at an impossibly slow pace, taking a micropause to collect themselves between steps. I passed people who were crab walking sideways up the hill, switching sides every couple of steps. And I passed people that just quit walking altogether and stared down the hill with a dazed expression on their sweaty faces until they caught their breath. I certainly did not stop moving, because the gadflies were back. I could not outrun them, but I could at least keep twitching and moving so they wouldn't land on me. I think I heard in summer camp one year that a fly throws up seven times every time it lands. That's why they're always rubbing their front legs together. I know it's probably not true, but I didn't want to take my chances. These flies looked like they could hold a lot of vomit.

The view from halfway up. Note the women to the far right crab walking. Please tell me you don't need to use your imagination to see how steep this one is!

Towards the top the trail started making S-curves, which did remarkably little to cut the steepness of the trail. Finally, FINALLY I got to the top and started running... down?! We had actually climbed past the summit, to the OTHER summit. Whatever that means. I ran down the hill, got to the bottom of the last steep scramble to the finish line, and started walking. I could deal with another 30 seconds on my race time if it meant not going into cardiac arrest in the last yard of this race. All the spectators and other runners were standing along the trail cheering me on and telling me to run. "GOD you people are impatient!" I yelled as I kept walking up the trail. Maybe I could have run, MAYBE, but it would have looked ugly anyway. As I crested the hill and ran the last couple of yards to the finish line the race officials beckoned me across in 1:25:38 for 5.15 miles. "Way to finish strong!" said the race official as he tore the tab off my number. Don't you condescend to me! I thought. I knew that walking the last 100 yards of a race was pretty low on the "strong" scale, but whatever. I knew that I was a badass, and that's all that mattered. Last section: 770' ascent, 484' descent (the race web site has the race listed as a 10K. It wasn't, so the mile/elevation breakdown isn't quite right).

At the top I saw one of Thom's millions of buddies. This one was a gregarious redneck-looking type with a handlebar mustache and no shirt. In the parking lot this morning he'd smelled like cigarettes. He asked me if I'd had a good time. "That was just silly!" I said. "I hate running."
"This is what I live for: mountain running. If I didn't trail run, then I wouldn't have a reason to get up in the morning. I'd probably die." This was the second time today he'd said he would kill himself if it weren't for some kind of running. "You know, that's why I think that religion was so much more popular back before running got big." The conversation was more tongue-in-cheek than all that, but we were joking about something deeper that we both understood. (When I ran into him again at the lodge I said, "What? You haven't killed yourself yet?!" That tells you A) how factitious the conversation was, and B) that you can never trust me to say the right thing.)
"You know, I feel like I could have gone my whole life without ever climbing this mountain and been okay," I said. "I just get my rocks off in other ways." I think how he feels running up a mountain is probably how I feel climbing up (and then back down) a mountain on my bike. "Still, I'm glad I did it."
At the same time as our race was going on, somewhere nearby there was an outdoor church service going on on the mountain. The churchgoers had paid $14 a head to take the gondola up to the summit. I still would have rather get up there closer to God our way, even though I hate running, I hate sitting still and listening to someone else more. Plus, I bet the churchfolk were getting eaten alive by gadflies.

I took the gondola back down with a family of 3. The daughter was only 14 and had run about 50 miles this week. I wish I were into this kind of thing when I was 14, then I might not hate running so much. I wish my family were into this stuff. I didn't have anyone to share the experience with other than the crazy, suicidal mountain runner, Gadfly Thom, and all the other gadflies. If you haven't figured it out yet, I guess I did have fun after all.

Oh, and the shirt was WICKED cool.