mobile home and race report

friday night i ran some errands and then rode out to muleshoe bend park to camp. i was camping at the start/finish line for the first of the capt'n karl's all-nighter series, which was supposed to be "waterfront." let's suffice it to say that there was no water. it looked more like rolling grassy fields, and it was at least a 10-15 minute walk to get to the water. the lake is disturbingly low. so, instead of eating dinner while watching the water, i decided to watch what appeared to be a rather intense storm rolling in. the lightning was pretty incredible.

i set up my tent and was going to brush my teeth when it started raining. so i just climbed into my tent and laid there listening. fortunately my tent is decent and i stayed dry. however, at one point i could feel puddles of water gathering underneath the bottom of it.

i got up saturday morning after not having slept that much and went to help with packet pickup. after doing that for an hour, i headed out to the half-way aid station which i manned for 5.5 hours. the humidity was insane. the course was a 10k loop, and runners would come through the aid station (4 miles into the loop) drenched because they were sweating so much. a number of people dropped out of the 30k because it was just too hot. even sitting at the aid station, i was going through a 24oz. water bottle every 45 minutes (or less).

when the 30k ended i headed back to the main aid station/start/finish to hang out. joe prusaitis was one of the folks in charge, and we sat chatting for awhile about 100-milers, what they mean, how you run them, what they do to you, etc. joe has run more ultras than almost anyone and is a wealth of information.

around 6:15p, i headed to my car to start getting ready to run and amanda mcintosh walked by so i stopped her and asked if she had any leadville pointers. amanda has been the first overall female at leadville a couple times and is a professional ultrarunner. she talked about how she paces and had some good recommendations on cold weather apparel (basically, bring it, don't underestimate how cold it gets there). then as i was putting my cooler by the aid station tent, i started talking to two guys from austin named jason and kirk. turns out that jason is running leadville as well and kirk is pacing him for 50 miles.

when the race finally started several of us fell into a group and i found myself running with jason, kirk, andrew and another guy (who had been planning to do leadville until some family stuff came up). we chatted and cruised along for the first loop, which was kind of fun. it kept my pace in check and it was cool to get to know some new people.

i went through the main aid station a little quicker than them after that loop, and took off on the next lap by myself. during the 2nd loop, night actually started to set in and it was time to turn on the headlamp. at some point i realized that the batteries in my lamp were running kind of low (i had spares), but at that point, claud ran up behind me. we ran together through the end of the second loop.

the third loop was when it started to get interesting. it rained. the rain felt fantastic, but it completely changed the nature of the course. the mud made everything slippery, and the humidity after the rain was noticeable.

as i was filling up my water bottle at the main aid station at the end of my fourth loop, i overheard brad, the race director, make a comment to the effect that i might able to give amanda a challenge. i found that kind of amusing because i knew i was behind her, but i thought i was closer to a mile behind her. at the approximately half-way aid station on loop #5, i rolled in and saw amanda. she looked at me, made some comment to the tune of, 'oh my gosh,' and then bolted out of the aid station. it came as a complete surprise to me to see her.

ultrarunning has been making me realize that at my core i do have a very competitive side. if you put a rabbit in front of me that far into a race, apparently i will chase it. i caught amanda about a mile later and made it back to the main aid station before her. while i was filling my bottles, she hit the timing mat and headed straight back out on the course without refilling anything. i think i've always been the one running scared, but at that moment, i kind of knew someone was running scared of me. if that doesn't make adrenaline scream through your system, i don't know what will.

i took off and caught her again about 0.25 miles later...and then i took off running scared. the course was still slippery and it was frustrating to have to slow down to account for that. i filled my water bottle at the half-way aid station and took off running faster than i thought was normal for already having at least 35 miles on my legs. the course weaves along and has switchbacks (although they're not for going uphill), so i could see other people's headlamps in the dark occasionally. every time i saw one that was nearby, i'd pick up the pace a little bit hoping no one was gaining on me.

i finished in ~8:10. if you do the pace calculations on this, the time per mile is pretty slow. some of the 30k-ers earlier in the day said that their gps's measured the loop as closer to 6.75 miles instead of 6.2 (10k). joe measured the course with a wheel though and that said that course was 6.2 miles. no one really knows. ultras in general are always their stated distance with an error of plus or minus a few miles, though rarely are they minus a few.

joe came over to shake my hand when i finished and he said, what are you second? i thought he meant second female, and i said i didn't know. i thought amanda was first and she was behind me now. when we finally got to look at the results, i was 2nd overall and 1st female overall. the race ended up with a finish rate of 50% (it might have been less).

i hung out for a bit after the race and then drove back to austin. as i hadn't slept in almost 24 hours, i knew i needed to be careful on the road. at one point i was driving through some construction when i saw headlights headed straight at me. i slowed down and pulled between the barrels onto the shoulder of the road. the guy had stopped and he looked very confused. i too was very confused and freaking out thinking that i had just driven down the wrong side of the road. i hadn't. this guy had started going the wrong way up the other lane of the highway. despite the fact that he had stopped, i didn't want to stop and say anything to him because it was 4:45a and i was by myself in a not-so-populated area of texas. moral of the story: be careful driving in the wee hours of the morning. there are crazy people out there.

i slept for about 5 hours and then went to church for a bit. then it was time to pack. yes, that's right. vacation in austin is over. and lucky me, i moved back on the night of the monthly house meeting! i knew i should have waited until today. it took two car trips to get my stuff back to my coop and then a few of my housemates helped me move my bed and shelf. i took people to amy's afterwards to say thanks.

it has been a fantastic summer so far and i look forward to three more amazing weeks. thanks to everyone who has been part of the adventure with me. today, i leave you with the following quote:

"we do not think ourselves into new ways of living. we live ourselves into new ways of thinking"
~richard rohr