Notes
The big event with David. What a run! We stayed together for the first 20 miles and I had to hold David back for much of the first 15 miles. A beautiful course from Aspen to Basalt along the Roaring River on the Rio Grande Trail. Most of the course through the first 20 miles was an easy 3-4% downhill grade. We had veered towards more carbs in the preceding days with pasta meals, potatoes, pancakes, etc. to carb load as much as possible. Morning of I had a big breakfast of a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats with milk, a banana and a pint of Gatorade at 2:30 a.m. At 4:00 a.m. I woke up and had coffee, more Gatorade, yogurt and a granola bar. I was full and didn't drink anything after that in hopes of not having to pee during the race. As hoped, BM and peeing commenced multiple times before the 6:00 a.m. race time although I started with a full feeling stomach and nerves were active. I started to feel my calves around mile 13 which were probably a little sore still from hiking Great Sand Dune three days earlier. At mile 20 when we passed our families, David and I were both starting to labor, and David I separated at this point. We had stayed under our 7:45 target pace for the first 15 miles and I calculated that we had banked about 2.5 minutes ahead of our 7:49 finish pace. We had to stop and pee along the trailside after the bridge over the highway at about mile 18 or 19 and lost about a minute. (A couple of funny side notes here...David just about fell down the steep embankment while we were wrestling with our woo woos, and then the woman that we had been leap-frogging throughout the course ran right past us while we were in mid-stream. Oh, and we had just passed a sign that said "never trust a fart after mile 17." At the moment though, nothing really seemed funny...) In the succeeding miles, my quads, calves, and hips started to really get sore and tight and cramping started around mile 23. I had eaten granola bars at miles 6, and 12 and at mile 15 started eating one Gatorade chew every two miles. I had four or five swallows of Gatorade at every aid station every few miles. At mile 23 with the cramping, I felt like taking emergency calorie measures and I consumed the last three chews that I had and the Hammer Gel caffeinated Gu. This seemed to hold the debilitating cramping at bay. The slight rise in elevation coming around Basalt after about mile 21 or 22 was absolutely demoralizing and I fought the urge to walk continuously. When I realized around mile 23 that I would need to run about a 7:00 minute pace, to finish with a 3:25, I felt like giving up and TRYING to enjoy the rest of the run/walk. To fight this urge to walk, I tried to channel the immense courage of every person with an illness, or a handicap, or some kind of struggle much greater than mine at the moment and figured that I could make my hallucinating whiny ass run hard through pain for just a few more miles. I tried to sing John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun, some fast paced Van Halen, whatever positive vibes I could use to distract myself. Somehow it worked. I had re-calibrated my goals for a 3:30 finish and was able to make it by more than a minute and a half. What a rush to come into the finish line. I was spent and very emotional. Couldn't wait to greet David and he came in not long after with a new PR by more than a minute. Post race meal was a fantasticly massive salad, a donut and a beer. Had an ice bath and used a foam roller at the recovery tent. Thanks David for joining me on this adventure. What an experience.