Borderline too much...

OK, so Nov. 18th through Dec. 3rd got a wee bit out of hand. A couple months back I was at the Morton Arboretum which is the local hangout if you want to run hills. I was with a few runners in the club and we were plotting out our end of season events. I was talked into Hot Chocolate Chicago in early November and Tecumseh Trail Marathon in early December. This seems reasonable.

About a week later, I was goaded into running a trail race in Palatine, by a club member. He's a tad preachy about how none of the club members have the gumption to wander off of roads or the Prairie Path. I took his challenge and added an 8K trail run to the end of October, 10/29. In addition, I had not yet run a 5K since returning to running and that's the kind of race I am built for so I added the Roadrunner Challenge in early November, 11/12.

So that was three weekends in a row with races and it turns out I did OK at them. The first was the 8K trail run and I finished in 4th overall. This race is stacked with old farts, because despite being 4th overall, I was 3rd in the 40-45 age group. Old folks rock. The next weekend was the Hot Chocolate 15K and I was fine with finishing in under an hour. I was 6th in the AG and 82 out of something like 13,000 runners. That was a fair showing, but it was the first time this season that I did not bring home hardware. At my return to running last October this was not a concern, but as I kept excelling, my expectations grew too. The next weekend was a 5K and I won this overall, by more than 4 minutes, so it was basically a solo effort. I started feeling good about myself and had no real plans for Thanksgiving, so I started playing with the idea of a Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim run. Thanksgiving, because I had no plans, time that I needed away from work and a need to get away. After about 48 hours I pulled the trigger and booked hotel and airfare. Only then did I recall that I was committed to the trail marathon the following weekend. What evs, I was gonna run the canyon.

So I went down and ran the Grand Canyon, 48 miles in one day for my first ultra and it offers some hilly elevations along the way. It was the experience of a lifetime and you can read about it here and here. If you read it, you'll note that I struggled to recover quickly from the canyon; old folks were passing me in walkers. I took 4 days off running after that first ultra and then started back with modest runs on Tuesday and Wednesday the following week. On Thursday night, I was feeling better and ran with my running club, Glen Ellyn Runners. This was a great night, I set out with Todd, Tim and Jared. Todd was very curious about the R2R2R and we chatted while we ran. I was actually doing OK while talking and running low 7s. By the end of the run we were doing 6:40s and the overall was 6:55 pace. I was almost back to normal and just in time to run a freaking hilly trail marathon two days later.

So off to southern Indiana we go. The Tecumseh Trail marathon is known for being exceedingly tilty and having less than perfect traction. The night before the marathon we stayed in a club member's (Sherry) family home. Another clubmate, Francesca, made dinner. It was a boatload of pastas and full of YUM. The rest of us, Tara, Brian, John and myself, just sat back and shovelled in food while sharing great stories.

Race day started well; it was dry, no wind and mid 40s on the way to 50s. This is a point to point marathon so we had to drive to the finish to board a bus to the start. Our driver took two wrong turns, thankfully we had some veteran racers onboard. When we got to the start, I darted off to find some fresh forest real estate to unleash the mornings liquids. With that task done, I chose the warmth of the bus, rather than stand around outside.

When the race director called everyone to the start, I chose to wear compression shorts, a tech tee, a Swamp2K singlet with a lightweight outer shell. I also picked my Adios shoes over my PureConnects. They give me confidence. I had 5 Stinger honeys with me and no gloves. The start is a tad sophomoric; guy stands up, move his lips, but not loud enough to hear and then a horn goes off. It's On!

I was running this race without my Garmin. Those of you who read the R2R2R reports know why ;) I think I went out in 7:15-7:30 pace and that was a lot of adrenaline, but there were 6 guys that shot out even faster. I was told to expect about an hour slower than a road marathon, but was going to run solely on feel today. The race starts in one state park travels through it, some private land and into the other state park where it finishes. This race is highlighted by a lot of run up this hill, so that you can run down it. I doubt we have a level 100 yard segment the whole day. The net elevation is -300 feet so it's a downhill race; please note the tongue planted firmly in my cheek. I think the elevation is like 3500 feet up and 3800 feet down. After about 4 miles the adrenaline wears off and I start to assess how I feel. Surprisingly the assessment is pretty D@mn good. I am in like 15-17th place. and running comfortable to the point where I am not passing nor being passed. This is important, because most of the course is single track and you don't want to get stuck. Shortly after this I start hearing some young folk whooping it up. I'll soon learn that there are 8 kids from Wabash College running the race; 7 athletes and 1 coach. They are having a grand time and yapping up a storm. They are a TEAM; it's easy to see. They are floating up hills but my girth has me quickly catching back up on the downhills.

We keep this accordion pattern up through about mile 16. Don't ever look at mile 16 before committing to this race. It's a beast of a hill, on gravel, but this is nugget sized gravel so you can't even plant your feet levelly. The hill goes up about 600 yards at 12% grade. The it turns and goes up another 3-400 yards. I knew it was in my best interest to walk some of this hill. Blasting up it would only hurt me later in the day. The college kids got a good quarter mile on me here. Fortunately, one of them need a bio break and the rest waited for him so we hooked up again. At about mile 16 you start ascending some pretty steep stuff. So steep that they built switchbacks into the trail. Here I chose to walk one length and run two to conserve energy. This was the first time since the Wabash team that I had been passed today. But even this person walked a bit in this section. From here we're OK til about 18 where the last ugly switchback section is and I employ the same strategy. A few of the Wabash kids were falling back here and I started passing them again. I reminded them to run a few of the switchbacks just to keep the legs warm. At the top of this section it's runnable for a bit and I realize that I am really only able to keep a moderate pace so the younger guys start passing again. We stayed within about 1/4 mile through here as I would still gain downhill, but I was losing ground overall. At we passed through 20, I just decided to go low and slow to finish this day. I felt I was looking pretty good in the AG and was well ahead of what I had planned for. The last 6 miles are in The Yellowwood State Park and like the rest of the run it's quite beautiful. The race is well organized and they have a lot of aid stations towards the end of the race. I had been fine with water since the temps were low and was good about my calorie replacement so I was sore, but never felt like I was cramping. I will say, the hell I went through the week before made this run tolerable. I saw a deer in this section of the run and seeing it bound was disheartening as I felt the earth had a rubberband attached to me to prevent me getting off the ground. I catch up to the last two Wabash runners and their coach. I think he'd just twisted an ankle so he was in walk mode. I encouraged the other two to keep me company to the finish. We chatted about their season and how we were feeling and it really helped tick off a few miles. At about 1.5 miles to go the trail tilts up again; enough that I chose to walk. the guys stopped too and at the top we started back to trotting and they got all the way to run. I never really got back to run for the rest of the race. As I approached the last turn, I saw Francesca, she actually saw me, I was probably bleary eyed. Francesca had volunteered at the 9 mile aid station and was just now getting back to the finish area. It was a pleasant surprise. She cheered me on and I ran up through the chute. I forgot to look at the time, oops. About 10 feet further I was handed an award, 2nd in the 40-45 age group ;) Then some guy expected that I had the energy to lift my foot so he could take off the chip. He was wrong, there was some bending down in his future.

I was done. That was 75 miles of hilly trails in less than 10 days and I was a tad proud of the accomplishment. At the finish, there was warm soup, homemade. Also a number of sandwiches. The lady there had been up since 4 making everything. I think she said the name of her business was The Bread Lady. I was OK with soup and water at this point but the sandwich was too much bread for me at this point. Francesca found me and offered what ever she could to help me recoup. After a few minutes we walked to the car and I got some dry clothes on. I then started out of the finish area to cheer on others in the group. The next person I knew was Mike Theil. He had a heart valve surgery the year before and was deferring to this year. Yup, this guy X years my senior and one year out on heart surgery was about to finish this beast of a marathon in under 4 hours. You all should be impressed by that. As Mike passed I took a few steps to try and run him in, when I realized, "That ain't happening". I could walk, but no more than that. I then wandered back to the finish to greet mike and support him, He already had hot cocoa and a sandwich. I went and got a sandwich too. Mike was 3rd in his AG. We then stood around chatting and waiting for Brian Bottomly. He finished with a smirk and realized today was possibly harder than anticipated. I started getting a tad tight so Francesca and I decided that we'd wait for Sherry, Francesca's childhood friend and Rita, Mike's wife, then we'd take off for the house.

When we got back to the house, Francesca went out for a run and I took two beers out of the fridge. I was gonna walk one beer down the road and one beer back. It felt and tasted great. I then took a shower and got into some comfy pants. I was done for the day. We got a call that Tara had finished, but not John yet and he was past his expected time. The nature of this course causes it to be difficult for communicating up and down the course. A short while later we got the call that John was in. He's a very kind man and he'd passed a woman in her first marathon, who was only running it to honor a fallen soldier. John helped her complete that task. A+ John!!!

Overall Place: 21
Age Group Place: 2
Time: 3:37:57

Once we all got back to the house we had food and wine and merriment. I was feeling rather good for the strain that I'd put on my body over the last month or so. I turned in first as I was really tired. The following morning at about 6:00 I awoke. I couldn't sleep so I did what every person having just run a marathon would do. I ran 5 easy miles. It was still very dark there, but we were so far out in the country that I didn't fear traffic and it was very enjoyable to just plug away some 9 minute miles. The rest of that day was food, driving home and doing homework for school.

I had just closed out what I believe was a pretty good year for my return to running after the 20+ year hiatus.

I went from miserable 9:00 minute miles last October to Qualifying for New York and Boston, winning a road race overall and pulling hardware out of all but one event, and I did an Ultra. The only thing left is to get the rest of my 2000 miles in for the year.

...The Ultra part of the ultra

When last we left our vagabond hero, he had just taken his first misstep….

Part 1


So I had just crossed my first creek on the tops of many rocks and just a few steps on the other side caused me to step down on my left foot upon a rock that moved my left foot under the right side of my body. At this point, my center of gravity shifted hard to my left and I stumbled. I had stumbled a few steps and then was too far off kilter that I started falling to my left. I had bananas in that hand and the camera in the other so I just let myself fall. I’d fallen in a summer sault motion and actually knocked the back of my left shoulder on the rocks that lined the trail. As I fell, I heard something break, and I thought I just broke my camera. I quickly examined the camera and saw it was fine. Crisis averted!

About a quarter mile further I ticked off another mile and my watch beeped. I was curious as to the pace of the mile so I looked down and to my surprise, my trusted Garmin was shattered. My first reaction was the dollar sign lost, but I quickly realized that had it not been for the watch, I might be nursing a fractured wrist.

The next 10 minutes were filled with the adrenaline rush from the fall. During this time, I kept seeing a shine of water from the trail in my headlamp. To avoid blisters I kept avoiding these pools of liquid. Eventually, my luck had run out. I landed in a puddle. After a few more steps, I could sense an icky odor. The odor was the ammonium of mule urine. I splashed myself in it. This odor really lingered and it was awful. After another 10 minutes, I became desensitized to the odor. I was in another section of the trail were I was descending fast. The next section had a deafening rush of moving water and it sounded like it was moving fast, but I could not see it. The water got the best of my curiosity so I glanced left. My headlamp reflected off a rock face that was 20 feet away. So I must have been in a tight canyon with water rushing through. I stopped then wandered towards the rock face wall to see where the water was coming from. As I looked over the edge, the water was 30 feet below in this very narrow small canyon. It dawned on me that I was in danger on this trail. This was the first time that I sensed a fall could be traumatic.

This section finally gave way to a shallower grade and the glow of sunrise. It was becoming light out.  The next landmark is pipe beach. Pipe beach is my first navigation mistake. At every other point on the trail, the trail towards the outhouse was a short trail just to that house and back. So I followed the trail that did not go to the house and ended up on pipe beach at the Colorado River. This is not a bech as much as it is a collection of softball sized rocks on a shallow slop that meets the river. However, I lose any sight of anything that resembles a trail. I had assumed that I would follow this beach to the bridge across the river, but I was wrong, so I back tracked to the outhouse path and for the first time the trail passed by one of these structures and continued onward. About a half mile past this as you trace the river, I met a couple ladies. They were just as surprised to see me as I was them, They asked, “when did you start down?” I said “5:00a”. They were impressed and mentioned that I was making good time. I was emboldened and for the first time saw the silver bridge.

Video coming, sorry

This means I was about to cross over the river for the first time and head into Phantom Ranch. I soldiered on. There were 3 people already on the bridge when I started across. I assume they had camped at Phantom the night before and were just getting an early start on the days hiking. The bridge is narrow, and this became evident when passing another hiker it made me rub the side of the bridge and jarred my handheld bottle loose from my pack. Fortunately it made enough noise that I detected it and was able to pick it up. I had packed all my Cytomax in that bottle and losing that would have been bad. When you cross the bridge there is an old building right there constructed of piled stones. This is an animal shelter. You next cross another little bridge over the end of the bright angel creek. Now on your left you see the tent campers and at this point I can see without my headlamp. I saw this lil deer as well.

This may have been his dad up on the South Rim

It’s daytime. I’ve run about 8 miles and have not taken on any nutrition but a few sips of water, so I need to take on calories and arrange my supplies for the next section of the run. I run further into the camp and see a bench and a young lady crosses the trail headed to what I surmised was an outhouse. I start unpacking for a brief rest. I take off the hydration pack and the two long sleeve layers as well as my headlamp. When the lady comes back to tend to the animals, I ask her if she knew where I could find water and she directed me to a spigot. I filled up my water bottle and put some Cytomax in and topped off my hydration pack. I then tried to stash my extra supplies. I didn’t want to carry all the weight up to the north rim and back. After placing my cache by the building I started to get back into the hydration pack. At this point I saw the young lady watching what I just stowed away and the raven on the building’s roofline. Nothing good would come of this and she snickered. She chided me that the ravens were pretty clever. So I collected the supplies and ran deeper into the camp. I found a place near the last cabin and rewrapped the supplies in my long sleev tech shirt and started out the other side of Phantom Ranch. The next section Is the box. This area is noted by its narrow canyon with steep walls and several bridges that crossed back and forth across the Bright Angel Creek. This is a rather enjoyable stretch of the trail and has some undulating hills. The creek is always near you. About two miles out of Phantom I see a runner coming at me. This young lad is coming fast. I would guess he was running 7:30s. We raise a hand at one another as we pass. I’m betting we was attempting a fastest known time (FKT). Soon after this I turned a corner and was confronted with a bright red wall in the distance. The canyon amazes you at every new view. Shortly after this you see a long skinny fall on your left across the creek.

This is Ribbon Falls and it’s as beautiful as anything else I have seen so far today. 7 miles out of Phantom, you reach Cottonwood camp. This is a small site with no permanent structures, but it does have a pen for livestock. As I pass through a camper hails me. He asks if I saw a young guy running the other way, I said yes and he tells me the guy is running from rim to rim and back. I then let him know I was too. At this point I realized that the guy I passed was at mile 40 while I was at mile 10 so how early did he start?

One of the bridges in the Box area

So out of Cottonwood as quickly as I entered. I was now thinking that I was 14 miles on my own before seeing civilization again, since the north rim is 7 miles away. At this point you are still making your way up the Bright Angel Canyon and steadily climbing. The next landmark is a bridge that crosses the creek and brings you to the last ranger station. This is a nice house, the one that has the basketball hoop. It has a nice view of the creek and the ranger has a well groomed garden as well. I saw a few people resting here and we waved as I passed by. Now the trail seems to really tilt upward and I am running out of steam. Most ultra runners warned me to walk as many hills as possible so I started to adopt this plan. Even when I was in hike mode I was swiftly passing other hikers. Thankfully, I was wrong about not seeing others on the way to the north rim. Soon you start to hear a thunderous noise and this is roaring springs. Roaring Springs supplies all the water to the park and several local business partners of the park. As you journey up the hill you see the falls of the springs in full view. As you head up here you are running on some cliffs that you really notice at this point. The trail is hewn from the walls here to allow for the trail to pass. You keep rising through this section hoping for the Supai tunnel to jump out. This is because the tunnel denotes you are only 2 miles from the north rim. I am starting to suffer through this region, I am going through water too fast, my legs are tired and the air is getting thinner. Then it happened, the tunnel appears. I am close. But I am now in full walk mode. The hill is too steep and I fear I don’t have enough water to really exert myself. This two miles is just L-O-N-G. I pass by the Ochocino overlook. The surroundings are now woods but as I look up I still have 100 feet to rise. Is the rim rising as I move? There is noticeable snow and packed ice as well but it’s small patches on the trail. And finally, the north rim is my next step.

When you read about R2R2R you’ll constantly hear that the north rim is closed after October 15. Additionally, there is no water. When I peaked out, I was surprised to hear motor vehicles. The road was plowed and several cars had passed by. The water station here has a sign stating that water is available at the backcountry office. Sadly, I don’t know where that is, but I am thirsty. I head down the road about a mile and see no buildings. I start to fear that I can’t get lost over here so I head back to the trailhead. I have water treatment pills and figure I can dip a bottle in Bright Angel Creek to get water so I head back for the south rim. On the way up and having fallen so oft on Mt. Charleston I told myself to walk the ice patches. For the first few I did, but then I got brave. Who knows what happened next? Yep, I fell. It was a full on Fosbury flop and had me land crushingly on a rock that took a shark bite out of my forearm.

So I got up and dusted off the shame of the fall to continue down the hill, I was running again, but because I can’t pace myself I run too fast I was under 8 minutes for several miles and knew this would be bad, but couldn’t stop myself.

I passed the Supai tunnel in 1/3 of the time it took to rise from it to the north rim. I am now looked at the box end of the canyon that bright angel kicks you out of to reach the top. Now we’re just reversing ourselves, but you start to notice something this direction. There is a bridge you crossed before the Supai tunnel. On the way back you see this bridge for a long time switching back and forth and only coming inches closer with each pass. The same phenomenon occurs later with that northern most ranger station. His roof had a helipad and it’s noticeable as you look into the canyon below, but again it just taunts you because it’s about 2.5 running miles away. This is very deceiving because your mind is try to convince itself that you’re only 200 yards away until it then tries to determine how am I going to get down that far in just 200 yards? During this section you are in earshot of roaring springs and every once in a while get a good view of it. When I finally got to the station I decided to stop and look for water. He has a bench and prior race reports said that he sometimes puts out lemonade. There was a box on a bench and I was fully out of water so I hoped it was refreshments. However, it was just a box of chalk for travelers to make a claim on the chalkboard. I wrote my name and looked to see if there was a way to safely get to the creek to dip in. There was no way I felt comfortable with, so I moved on. The trail is very runnable again because we’ve descended off the wall, but I am getting more wary without water and don’t want to push it. It’s 4-5 miles to Cottonwood. Fortunately, the trail crosses the creek in this section at grade so I did dip my bottle and drop a tablet in. I then checked my watch because I had to wait 15 minutes to allow the tablets to take effect. I felt better now because water was coming. I passed a family here and the husband mentioned to his wife that I was probably do a rim to rim and then he asked me and I confirmed. He was not impressed but the wife was. I am seeing more hikers and assume they are just wandering out from the campgrounds since the north rim would be a strange objective this time of year. You get another view of Ribbon Falls just before you enter Cottonwood. In Cottonwood I was hoping there would still be campers there with potable water.

Looking south from about Cottonwood

Sadly, everyone had broken camp and I was low on water again so I looked for another place to dip the bottle. I didn’t look that hard because I knew Phantom was only 7 miles away. What I forgot was that I has already run 30+ miles and just 7 miles was not “just”. I was foolish and would have been better served to find water. I kept conning myself that even if I did dip, I would be back in Phantom by the time it was treated, but I was very wrong.

When I finally got back to the box I was in the walk any rises mode. I was too tired to run up even small hills without water and my feet are really getting sore now. I am starting to dream about just soaking my feet in the creek at Phantom. I pass a mother – daughter in the box and see they only have a water bottle between them, so I assume Phantom is close. I asked them how far and they said 30-45 minutes, but if I can run walk it should be much shorter, so I try to mount a head of steam again and trudge forward. I got into Phantom at 9 hours 30 minutes. At this point Rick’s watch battery went dead.

I was relieved to be back at the ranch and went to my cache that I’d stored earlier that morning. It turns out the raven found the bananas, Booo! However the rest of the food was intact. I am really suffering at this point. My legs are putty. I am dehydrated and I am hungry. I head over to the ranch store. This place is really packed. There are 4 long tables in here and three are fully loaded and there are 10 people in line. I first think I’ll grab a seat and rest while the line works its way through. The flaw in this plan was that each customer must have been applying for a mortgage; then line was not moving. The folks at the store have a water container inside with cups so I drink 2-3 cups while sitting and standing in line. The cashier is a chatty fellow and reminds me of Deputy Droop Along from Quick Draw McGraw. He was kind enough, but there was no fire in his belly. When it became my turn I ordered the lemonade. What a treat this is. It'ss sweet and tart and hits the spot. I then head outside and figure out what I can eat and tried the jerky. Fail, jerky is just too hard to eat for the return so I scrapped that. I did eat 6” of slim jim, half a pouch of tuna. I ate two cheese and peanut butter crackers but that was too dry as well. My next task is to refill the water. I drink a full Cytomax while there and prepare another for the last push up the hill.

While I was at the ranch, I saw a group of younger adults who all had full body suits on and was not sure why. Outside I overheard their conversation and they had come by water. I was finally restored enough to chat and started talking with them. They had come in by kayak, several of them. They were on a 13 day tour and the reason they were doing it in 13 days was that kayaks can’t hold as many supplies. Apparently, the raft travelers can go 30 days on the river. My first thought was who gets 30 days off?  This group put in at Lee’s Ferry. This is just below the Glen Canyon Dam, and I had been there before when I visited the north rim. They were going down stream until they got to Lake Mead. I also learned that at the start one of the guys kayaks was 250 pounds. And these kayaks had to be pulled fully from the water each night that camped. This was to avoid a rising river from sweeping the kayak and supplies away.

I stayed in the ranch for 45 minutes and was feeling very recovered. The best thing I did all day was stashing a dry pair of socks here. The change of socks was very rejuvenating. After the rest, I started the jog out of the ranch. At this point, I figure I am over 40 miles and this makes me an Ultra runner. It also makes me tired. At the end of the ranch I cross back over the bridge.

I am contemplating going up South Kaibab, because I want out as soon as possible, and while it’s steeper the shorter length is appealing. Then I start calculating and feel that I’ll still be really close to dark going up that way and then I have to catch a shuttle back to bright angel and I don’t know how late that runs. Plus my mind is not doing math well and I think I have a Chicagolander who will call a search and rescue team if I am not out within 2 hours, and I don’t want the $4000 bill. See how your brain turns to mush when you run too much. I stick with Bright Angel. After crossing the bridge I am seeing new sights that were masked by darkness earlier in the day. There are a couple neat sandy beaches and soon I come upon Pipe Beach for the second time and turn into the canyon wall away from the river. I think this was the last I saw of river for this trip. As I ascend out of the inner gorge I am still seeing new sites. I also am amazed that I actually survived the descent in the dark, there is some ugly footing and severe drop-offs in this area. I don’t know the name of the creek in this section, but it’s the one I poked my head over that morning. I didn’t recall as many switchbacks on the way down, but again the darkness probably messed with my bearings. I passed the creek that claimed my Garmin earlier; there was no remorse from the rocky trail siding. As I passed Indian Gardens for the second time I was still running more than walking but I was running out of steam. The new socks could only overcome so much of a 40+ mile effort.  I really wish I was not feeling so decimated, because this section of the trail is really runnable and your seeing open land as you cross through the Tonto Plateau. I meet a few hikers down here still, but they are scarce as they should be. If you are down here at this point, you are not going to walk to the rim before darkfall. As I transition out of the relative flatness of the plateau onto the final cliff wall to make the final ascent, I am running on empty and ruing the day. The experience has been awesome, but the body is so very tired at this point. I pass the 3 mile house and try to guesstimate the finish time it should be 1 hour if I can just walk at 20 minute miles (3mph). Sadly I have no working watches anymore so I can’t track progress. I am relegated to hiking. Even in hike mode I am passing everyone, but my goal isn’t to beat them it’s to get out of this canyon.

Darkness finally falls at about the 1.5 mile house and I don the headlamp again. I really thought I was done with this when I crossed the Colorado the first time today, but the canyon has exacted a toll on this first timer. I am really envious of the blue shirt that ran past me 7 hours earlier as I knew he was already sipping beer and telling stories of a great canyon day. The tunnels that I should be seeing are just eluding me and I hunch over every couple switchbacks just to rest. I sadly know this is not getting me closer to the rim, and I can't really make out the lights of rim buildings so I am in a miserable place mentally. I come to the first tunnel and it lifts my spirits a tad. I then try to occupy my mind waiting for the second tunnel at it too comes and goes. After this tunnel, I was happy to see it was only one more switchback to crest the south rim. The Last Step; ahhhh.

Oh wait, it’s not over I need to touch the sign and get back to the car. I don’t want to make this extra 50 yard walk, but I must. I pull the keys from my pack and chirp the lock. Amazingly, the car is just in front of me, woot! I could walk around a 1.5 foot tall stone wall to get to it or just climb that wall. I went for the beeline. Then at the wall realized, I could not raise my foot the required 1.5 feet. I am stuck just a few feet from the car. So I sit down on the wall, carry my legs over set them down and I am at the car. I quickly, quickly is relative now, take of the hydration pack and the sensation is heaven, nothing weighing on my shoulders for the first time in 13 ¼ hours. The last 30 minutes of the hike was in the dark and I was just wearing the tech tee, so I got very chilled. At the car, I fumbled to get the phone out and tickle the keys to alert the same people that chose to worry about me that the worrying was over. The messages were short and I started the car seeking warmth. I did not have the energy to change into the clothes that I laid out on the back seat. I navigated out of the park and started down route 64 towards the interstate. I had to get back to Vegas tonight. As I passed the little town where my hotel was I stopped at Wendy’s to get two burgers and a soda. It went down well. I had to choose a drive through as I felt I could not get out of this seat for some time. At Williams, where the Interstate meet 64, I filled up the tank. I then pointed the car at Vegas set the cruise at max speed and shot out. It was an ok ride, I was tired and my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I soldiered on. As I crossed back into Nevada, I felt I was being dangerous so I pulled off into a casino parking lot and took a 30 minute nap. This rest was enough to get me back to the hotel. I walked through barefoot and was going to ignore anyone who has a concern with it. I dove into bed and fell fast asleep.

The next day I woke up. That was a good start. I next pushed my legs over the side of the bed and they were not happy. Their mood did not improve when I applied weight to them. I shuffled to the shower and stood in the hot water for 30 minutes. Now I needed food. Turns out Vegas has plenty of ways to feed you so I hit the buffet. I scarfed down quite a bit then decided I needed to start the healing process. I was gonna walk the strip today and take in the architecture. It was Thanksgiving. I shuffled along looking like the 2000 year old man. In Vegas they now have pedways over most intersections. So you take the escalator up, walk across and take the escalator down. On occasion, the down escalator would be broken. It must’ve been a sight to watch me descend these stairs. I had two hands on the rail with all my weight and old ladies with walkers and canes were passing me. They gave me dirty looks. The rest of the day preceded much the same.

The next day was check-out and travel day. So I loaded up the car and checked out. Today, I wanted to find a poker table and just putter around until it was time to get to the airport. I decided on the Venetian since it had the largest room and most players. On the way I stopped in Casino Royale, they are known for cheap craps tables with 20x odds and played about 45 minutes increasing my bank roll from $100 to $400. Craps is a short run game so at this point I cash out there and head for poker. At the poker table, I am really just here to relax and enjoy a few beverages, but to my surprise I find a really soft table. That coupled with some good hands at the start and I went from my $200 buy-in to $350 very quickly, at this point I thought I might lock it down, but a few guys start picking on my blinds and I am waking up with hands. Within a 5 minute stretch there were two different guys that sat down with $100 and immediately dumped their entire stack to me. So now my stack is hovering between $6-700. I decided I was gonna head to the airport at 2:00p to catch the flight home, and was disappointed when my alarm went off, because I felt I could beat this table all day. So I head to the airport and noticed at check-in that the flight was delayed. Drat!!! I could have stayed at the poker table longer.

Well since I have no driving duties for about 6 hours, I mosey up to the bar and get me a tall, cold beer. Shortly after that a couple headed to Chicago come in; they are in the same predicament. We chat about how the time in Vegas went and how it sucks to get delayed, then we try to figure out if we can get bumped and do one more day. It was a very enjoyable couple hours. Then it turns out that we were all seated next to one another. As an added bonus I had the only empty seat on the plane next to me. We all order a round of beer, chat and fall asleep. The O’Hare landing and car retrieval was uneventful and I bee-lined for home and went to bed. Time to dream another dream.

What did I learn:

• Bring more light or start at sunrise. I think much of the suffering could be attributed to coming down the first hill too slow and pounding on my quads. I traveled slow, because I didn't have the light to be confident.
• I had too much food, and did not trail test the jerky or crackers. So the Slim Jim and banana were a good call.
• No need to bring a camera next time, but I liked having it for the first trip.
• Stop and eat more frequently. I tried to be too efficient and only stop when there was a camp. For instance I should have peeled layers sooner in the day. A shot block or two coming down the hill would have been a good idea. But really I think you need to stop and fix what you need to as soon as possible and not wait. Even though it’s a PITA to unpack and repack, it would be better in the long run, and this is a long run.

What did I do right:

• I chose to cross the Grand Canyon
• I brought dry socks

 In the end, I survived. I still maintain that I am not an Ultrarunner, but I did cover the distance. I am very glad I did this solo, because I feel it was an acheivement, but I'd entertain this again with a group. I definately want to do a 4-5 day hike through here some day.

Hope you enjoyed and if not, read something else.

Total mileage 48
Total Time 13 1/4 hours

Couch to Ultra in 13 months...

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.
Louis L'Amour

Background on me

I was a big fan of Louis L'Amour when I was a wee lad. I was a cowboys and indians fan, but I did not recall many of the quotes that he is attributed with. The first time I saw this quote, I was drawn to it. I love driving to locations rather than flying, because I want to see things; really experience them; try to understand them.

I have logged over 100,000 miles on my motorcycles and I bet less than 5,000 of that was on superslabs. I like wandering the road less traveled. I like seeing old barns that are falling down. I like seeing wildlife in the fields along the road. I like seeing folksy art created by unique people across this land. I like seeing mountains from a far and from up close. It's really neat to see the two distinct views. I have traveled roads that followed rivers just because they followed rivers. When I take a vacation to go somewhere, the end point is known, but little of the route is.

Hopefully, over the next few paragraphs I can tell you what I saw in my travels.

Reader's Digest:

• Flew to Las Vegas
• Ran up Mt. Charleston
• Ran through Red Rock Canyon
• Ran the Grand Canyon (R2R2R in one day)
• Flew home

The Idea and Preparation

I hope that was not enough for you, and if not here's the rest of the story. Well let's start the rest of the story with the beginning of the story. In the beginning, the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil, a more contemporary beginning can be found here. While I was starting back into running, I started searching for things like cool places to run and the Rim to Rim to Rim (R2R2R) was a common result. I was so drawn to this run since my running club tricked me into marathoning. If you want to see some cool R2R2R reports look at these, I sure did:

Davy Crockett

Fastest Known Times

Devon Crosby-Helms

There are hundreds more: Google R2R2R

It's hard to read these accounts and not get the twitch to try and do it. Now the only thing about these stories that worried me is the RUNNING!!!! I am not a long distance runner I am a middle guy and prefer track and short road races over marathons. For months the idea of this run kicked around in my head and I would put it out there  for folks in my running club, but there were no takers. Finally, in early November I decided that I had a lot of vacation time coming, and didn't really have any plans for Thanksgiving, so why not look into this. I did a few flight searches for the week surrounding Thanksgiving and the numbers looked tolerable. There were three options, fly into Phoenix and drive up which is a 3.5 hour drive, Flagstaff and drive which is a 1.5 hour drive or Vegas and drive which is a 4.5 hour drive. Vegas was by far the cheapest and I knew I could find things to do there. Besides that I wanted to run up Mt. Charleston and run through the Red Rock Canyon. Vegas it was; so I pulled the trigger. With the flight scheduled, I am now committed. I then announced my intentions to the running club. I was quickly reminded that I was signed up for a trail marathon, Tecumseh, the following weekend. Ooops!!!

Well now that the decision had been made, I had to start preparing. I have never ultra'd before. Hell I had only run 2 marathons. So I have never been moving on my legs for more than 3:30. I guesitmated my Canyon time would be anywhere from 13-15 hours. This was based upon times I heard from others. In my mind I really thought 10 hours might be possible, heck that's only 5 mph and I walk d@mn close to 4 mph. I later found out this was not a valid comparison.

In order to prep I need to figure out how to get enough water capacity. Asking around the answer was resoundingly, Nathan hydration. Some said the HPL #020; others chose Endurance. I chose the HPL #020. Next how would I get enough fuel. I ended up taking much more than I needed, but I wanted to err high, because I was gonna do this solo and in late November there is no help available past the Phantom Ranch to the North Rim and back. My supplies were originally going to be all gels, drink powder and electrolytes. A few Ultra runners chimed in and said I needed some actual food. So the list grew to banans, Slim Jims, Albacore Tuna, Pop Tarts, peanut butter flavored pretzels and cheese and peanut butter crackers. I was going to carry straight water in the hydration pack and carry a handheld for caloric drink. For the competitive R2R2Rers this was super overkill, but I was unaware and wanted to be cautious.

I was not peaking for this event, and the summer was really bad on my mileage. I am trying to run 2000 miles this calendar year, and with how far behind schedule I was, I really upped the mileage. I went from 0 to 60-70 in 2 weeks and kept it there for the last 6 weeks.

The Trip

I flew out to Vegas on Friday the 18th. It was a late flight, 9:30p CST. I got into Vegas at 11:30p PST. The flight was uneventful. I rented a car for the week, because I was planning on spending a lot of time off strip. I went to the car rental location and found how little patience I have. There were only 3 groups ahead of me, but I swear they were being read the owners manual with how long it took each. Finally, a manager walked out and called me to his window. I had my license, credit card and confirmation ready. We rubber stamped the "sign here" and "initial here" cr@p and within 5 mins I was on my way to the car. I just rented an economy, since I knew I had some big mileage and was not there to impress. Turns out they had no economy cars so I got bumped up twice to a Ford Fusion. I actually liked this car, but it had been ridden hard and put away wet a few times. I was in the hotel and checked-in about 5.5 hours after boarding the plane so it wasn't that bad. I was a tad wired so I played a little craps, lost about $40. There was a TGIFriday's in the hotel so I got a beer and an appetizer, then headed off to bed.

The next morning, Saturday, I was going to try and summit Mt. Charleston. I wasn't going to run hard, but need some acclimation and this peak is 12,000 feet. The north rim of the canyon is 8,000 feet, so this would help me better process the oxygen. The first blocking point of the day, was that the location where I though I had to park was closed. Fortunately, there was another trailhead that linked up to where I needed to be so I took that instead. It was colder than I anticipated so I set out with compression shorts a tech tee and a cotton hoodie. I was off. Very quickly it became apparent that I was going to have issues. The trail started at 7500 feet and there was a lot of packed snow to the point of becoming ice.

I was wearing my Brooks Connect shoes. They are very light, but the tread is fairly flat and offered no traction. I found myself on my @rse several times. After a couple miles on the trail I can down and decided to put in some miles on the road at altitude. There was an observatory in the area, so I just ran its service road. I ended up with about 8 miles above 7500 feet that day, so it was success enough.

The rest of that day was just kicking around Vegas. I lost another $40 gambling.

On Sunday, I wanted to run the Red Rock Canyon. What amazes me about Red Rock is that it is so close to Vegas.

From the Rio I was through the ranger station in about 20 minutes. As you travel out you pass a lot of runners on the road with their camelbacks. Additionally, there are a large number of cyclists en route to the canyon. This area is really beautiful, you're sitting in a caldera it seems surrounded by some significant peaks and the colors are wonderful. Even the beige is vibrant here. The grand loop is a single track trail that roughly circumnavigates the park. The terrain is varied and I traveled counterclockwise so we approach the rounded sandstone walls first. You can often see climbers here.

The trail is up and down and twisty and follows dry riverbeds. The ground is not smooth, but very runnable. In some areas you are running above the road and at other times you are far below it. During much of the first few miles you are below the road and rims so you have rather limited views but you can really see the cool features in the faces of the rock walls. Later in the run when you are above the roads you can see all the way to the mountains in just about every direction. At the back side of the park there is a set of trails in the White Rock area that seemed to wind up into the mountains as well.

Now I have a reason to return. I was struggling in the first few miles of this run, but near the end you get on a fairly flat plain and basically cut across the canyon back to the entrance.

During this section I was really flying and it was the first time that I saw another runner. We passed head on and exchanges niceties. The park is packed with cyclists on the roads and hikers and tourists at the trailheads, but there it nobody off the beaten path, for the most part.

The Strip
On Monday, I decided to get up and just run the roads. Most of what the tourists know of Vegas is the strip. I like the strip but because of it's grandiose architecture no because it's where you gamble. The strip is laid out mostly north south and I-15 shadows it along the stretch of big casinos. I have been to Vegas before so I know how to get around by car and avoid the strip. One of those ways is Commercial Avenue. It's just behind the strip and basically parallels it into the downtown area. I chose to head downtown on Commercial and then come back on the strip. Commercial is also where a lot of the sex stores, gentleman clubs and sex apparel stores are, but on a Monday morning it's pretty barren. On the way downtown I get a little treat, I had passes Rick's Restoration of History Channel fame with his own show and appearances on Pawn Stars. It is in a very unassuming part of town and it's just a small driveway wide entrance that filters back to the shop which is along the railroad tracks near downtown. After that I continued on to the Fremont Street Experience. This is a feature that the downtown casinos put in to draw folks back from the strip to come to the downtown casinos. It's a neat overhead canopy that runs for a few blocks downtown. At night it's the backdrop for a cool light show. At 7:00 am on a Monday morning this place is a ghost town. There were only a few people walking with their coffee and Krispy Kremes. I did see three street sweepers. Vegas is very good about keeping itself clean. Once I got through the downtown area, I headed back up Las Vegas Boulevard, the strip. The first few blocks you are going through bail bondsman row then you hit some basic metro storefronts and finally you get to the Stratosphere. This starts the big time portion of the strip and now I am seeing plenty of runners. The strip has too much foot traffic to enjoy as a runner later in the day and most runners like to run early so it makes sense to hit the strip early if you are running. It's a different experience to see the casinos from the street or sidewalk without the throngs of people. They build 'em big out there and the sheer size makes you feel so small. I ended the run at about Flamingo and the strip and that's where Caesar's is. I walked through the forum shops and just marveled at the stores and the statues and the interior. I had been there before, but it's still just colossal. It's also kinda cool to see a 1/4 inch diamond up close ;) This mornings run was about 10 miles and this was the last I planned on running until Wednesday when I'd attempt to cross the Grand Canyon, twice.

Te rest of this day was going to be spent wandering in the car. I left Vegas heading west and figured I check out the California/Nevada border. I had a tourist map that showed there was a town called Calvada near the border and that was as good a target as anything.

I like solitary roads and this was one. you climb over a pass descend into a valley then turn down a road that seems to go nowhere; the Spanish Trail. About half way down the road there is a roadside marker explaining what the Spanish Trail was.

And it was basically the route the the missionaries took to get from Salt Lake Utah to the Los Angeles area on the Pacific coast. It's high dessert, so there's no grass, but a lot of shrub like ground covering. The ground is beige, but the plants are green. It is pretty in its own way. I then traveled up to the edge of Death Valley and then south the 29 palms, before jumping on the highway back to Vegas. I finished up the night with a sit-n-go no limit tournament where I scored a second place and $600+ from a $80 buy-in. Wow, I'm paying for the trip.

Moving Basecamp
On Tuesday I was going to drive over to the canyon. It's about a 5 hour drive. I got up early and packed the stuff that I needed and headed out. The first stop was Boulder dam, but I took the new bridge they built over the Colorado just downstream of the dam. I was disappointed because the structure does not allow any views of the dam. From here you follow a state hwy to Kingman. It's highway, but the terrain is undulating enough to keep you interested. I stopped in Kingman for breakfast. They have no G1 or G3 connection so I can't download local maps ;( This was annoying because I wanted to explore route 66, but didn't want to without making sure I had enough time to get to the hotel at the canyon. About 30 miles before you make your last turn off the highway to get to the canyon, you enter the Kaibab National Forest. You're at elevation here and you can really smell the pine scent.

You also get a great view of Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona. The run into Tusayan, AZ is a straight shot and you're climbing most of the way. The hotel is in this town and the Grand Canyon National Park entrance is just a mile further.

I drove up into the park and got my pass, then I walked up to the south rim. I had been at the north before, but this was my first stop at the south rim. It's breathtaking and I could write a billion words to try and describe it and there are pictures, but GO THERE!!!

I could very quickly pick out some points of interest like the phantom ranch, it's a small sliver of green along the beige floor of the canyon and with the point of reference it's easy to see the Bright Angel Canyon that you'll be running up as it filters to the north rim. With pictures in hand and awe in mind, I head over to the Bright Angel trailhead to scout out the mornings start. It's pretty neat, the kolb studio is there just perched on the ledge of the rim. There is a water spigot from roaring springs so I draw a bottles worth. It's really good water. I decided to head down just a bit. As I descended I could tell this was steep, uneven terrain and the erosion barriers were going to be a pain. I ran down to 1.5 mile house and back. It wasn't that bad, but I knew that this coupled with 46+ miles would be a bear the next day, so I started tuning down my expectations.

Next, I went to the hotel and checked in then I stopped at "We Make Pizza and Pasta". Turns out that's what they make, so I got a beer and pizza. ate about half and headed back to the hotel. All that's left is waking up and running. I lay out the clothes and fully loaded hydration pack for the morning, set my alarm and go to bed.

It R2R2R Day
At 4:00 the alarm goes off. I forego a shower as I took one the night before and I was anxious. I ate a poptart and a banana. I loaded up the frosted window car and head up to the park. There was nobody driving or moving about the whole trip up to the trailhead. I get a great parking spot near the trailhead, make a few texts so the folks that wanted to worry about me could know when too long was and I slung on the pack. I figured I had two hours in the dark so I strapped my camera to the back of my pack and I was carrying down two bananas for a late afternoon snack. Issue one: where was the trailhead again? While I was close, in the dark and having a new moon, I really couldn't differentiate any cabins I saw the day before. There were about a billion visible starts. There is no light noise here so they really stand out. I was thinking how nice it would be to stare at on my run down into the canyon. So I just headed straight to the rim then walked towards the trailhead. Ok we are there, this is it. Step ONE!!!

I step into the canyon and start my two watches. I had mine which I feel nekkid without and a friend lent me his, because it had longer battery life. After about three steps I here the chime of my camera opening. I reach back and close the camera; before the next switchback it opens again. Ok, I'm going to have to carry it in hand, and now I am worried, because both hands are full, so how do I catch myself in the event of, well let's not think about that right now. I descend and since I am high on adrenaline, I pass the first two tunnels and 1.5 mile house very quickly. Now I am on virgin ground to me. Several times already I have over run the switch back and had to turn around to catch the trail. It' amazing the focus required to keep on the trail in the dark. Moreover, you are concentrating so much on the trail, because you need good foot placement so as not to roll an ankle. I started down with compression shorts (reduces need for glide there) a tech tee and long tech and a light shell. It was 38 degrees at kick-off and it rose almost as soon as I started descending so I felt good temperature-wise. I go past the 3 mile house and come upon Indian Gardens. This is the first light I have seen this morning, and it reminds me to glance up at the rim. It's neat to see the speckles of light in the distance and Oh, yeah the stars are out, but I haven't been able to gaze upon them. At Indian Garden there are signs to ensure you are on the right trail, but I was confused so I dickered through here. You can end up on the lookout point trail, or the east Tonto trail and that would be bad. I navigate correctly. At this point you start heading down into the inner canyon. The trail is sandy, under the surface ankle rollers. But it is very runnable here. The grade isn't as steep as those first 4.5 miles. Ten minutes past Indian gardens I came up behind someone, but I didn't know this yet. They heard my footsteps and jostling pack, so I did not hear them until he shouted out, "coming through." I screamed like a little girl and jumped ten feet. I was not expecting to hear human voices in the pitch of night nearing the bottom of the canyon. We both had a good laugh and on I ran. Just past him I had my first creek crossing. The water is low this time of year and there are several rocks exposed to tip toe across. Once on the other side, I started running again and it happened. I planted my foot ....

Cliff Hanger time.  Stay tuned for the rest of the story...
Part 2 --> http://facshus.blogspot.com/2011/12/ultra-part-of-ultra.html

“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast,
and you miss all you are traveling for.”
― Louis L'Amour

It was a good day...

Today is a day that I have been avoiding since I came back to running as an old fart. I was to run a 5K. It was scary, because this is a race I could excel at when I was a yoot. I was a fastie, not one of you marathoners. So when I run 26.2, 13.1 and even 10K I could always say, "well that's not really my race."

About that long stuff, I did pretty well with it, in all but one race I was an AG placer and I qualified to Boston with a nice piece of change in the bank, but that was still extra credit, because I am a middle distance runner, not a distance runner.

This summer was tough on my training. I gave up a 100 mile lead on the pace bunny at RunningAhead to get stuck 200 miles behind him in about 2 months. About mid-October I decided to get back on the running thing and made a very absurd re-entry into training my last 8 weeks had total mileage of 0, 5, 0, 31, 57, 62, 71 and 68. I say go big or go home ;)

Well Thursday I decide to commit to the race and sign up. I had a great work-out on Tuesday. It was a solo fartlek at lunch with 10 2-min surges at 5:24-5:45 pace and Wednesdays recovery run was not bad. On Thursday nights I try to run with the club, and I wanted to push this as my last tune up for the race. I ran a pre-3 to warm up and build base for the R2R2R during Thanksgiving. The guys all get there and we start out rather easy 7:55 I think. Then it starts to pick up. Scheer-madness just floats off the front and nobody covers him, then within a 1/2 mile Tim, Jared and Dave start to pick up. I decide I'll sit behind this group, because my legs are not really "feeling" it. We get down to 7:15 and it's not easy, but it should be. I was expecting to be going 6:30 and better tonight. Well it's not gonna happen so I sit up and decide to just run long at 7:15-7:30. I take Friday off and try to get to bed early, but slept light. I was up at 3:30a and never really went to sleep.

At 5:30 the alarm goes off so I get some oatmeal in me and take a shower. Then I head over to the race. It's at a little grade school and I went in to relieve myself. To my surprise I see an old teammate. Recently, I have found a lot of college teammates, but this was a high school teammate. Go Lincoln-Way, home of the Knights. Joanne helped with this race the first year and ran last year and was gonna run today. By the way Joanna humbly reminded me she did not organize; she just helped. But last year she was first femal and this year she was third female. Show me your humility now Joanna ;) We chat a bit, but I had an objective and left to find the small room with all the porcelain. During this conversation she says, "you know you're gonna win this right?" My response was, "I doubt that, I'm old"

OK, it's time to warm-up. I decide to run the whole course slowly to warm-up. It was nice and easy and I felt springy. Then I started to the start line and did a few blow-out strides. I am on my toes and feel fast. This is the best I have felt at a start line all year. Today may be good.  Well the gun goes off and my adrenaline kicks in. I led to the first corner (75 yards). This race had a cyclist guiding the runners. While I knew races did this, I have never been in a position to see it. I was in first place, well I am running smooth and it feels fast but easy. As we go through the first mile I look down and see 5:24. "What the Jehu" I am not that fast and I panic so I decide to take the foot off the accelerator. I planned (A-goal) on running 5:50-5:40 5:30. It's just me and some guy on a bike strangely looking back at me a lot. "Do I have snot on my face or something?" We go through the second mile at 6:00. Oops too much let off. I have never run a race with so little competition so I was trying to adjust on my own, and not doing well. OK, I can't allow this progression, so I hit the accelerator again. I know the finish has an uphill finish and it's not gonna be easy, and I have not looked back so I have no idea if some kid has been watching me ready to pounce or not. So I keep driving forward.

Well I get to the finish line and I broke the tape. That has never happened to me in a road race. I have never been the fastest of my friends let alone a whole field. I am used to being top 5/10 but I just won my first road race at 44 years of age and then I heard the time 17:35. Last week I thought 18:30 would be OK, but 17:35. I like that time. Better yet the award is a bobble head runner; how cool is that.

I run through the chute and hear, OMG that's a course record.

I spend the next 30 minutes catching up with Joanne. I am proud of her, she's a teacher with a great spirit and is really hitting her stride in life.

Since I have that big ditch run soon, I'm not done for the day so I hit the Prairie Path and put another 14 miles in.  It was a good day.

My First Marathon - Race Report

Race Result 3:32.40

Overall: 217 out of 4082 • Division: 24 out of 332 • Gender: 174 out of 2249

This was not my goal, but for a first marathon I feel proud to have finished.

Race Report:

It was my first marathon. I had a very good training cycle, and felt good and well prepared. I was concerned about the weather, because my only training run that I bailed on in the cycle was a 60 degree day. Nashville was 65 degrees at 6:00 an hour before the start. it would rise to 79 by the time I finished; high 80's for some of the later arrivals.

I'll sprinkle in racing and personal commentary. I woke up at about 4:30 and made oatmeal in the room. I also discarded the night befores food I knew it would be warm and sunny today, so I lubed the strategic areas (between the legs and feet), put band-aids on top side, put chap stick on and put suntan lotion on. I also bought a bandana the day before, because I wanted to keep the direct sun off my bald head. The start was two miles away and the finish was .75 miles away. The day before a number of people mentioned that the shuttle system from the finish to the start was never smooth and that many people arrived after the start. I didn't want this extra worry, so I decided to walk to the start. It was still dark and for much of the walk I followed the start in reverse. I had half a bottle of Gatorade and set out on the walk. It was calm, until a half mile in I thought I forgot my sunglasses. Turns out I was smart enough to put them on my head as it was still dark, oops.

When I arrived at the start village, the porta potties were empty so I felt it would be a good idea to check the bladder. I forced out a tad, but not much. I then searched out the bag check. Once I had done that, I moved towards my start corral. It was 1:15 before the start so I sat and stretched a bit. I then jogged a 1/2 mile super slow just to remind my legs that they had a purpose today. At 1:00 pre-race they called folks to their corrals. When I first got there, I sat as I didn't think standing for an hour did any good, but by 30 minutes out the corral was too crowded to sit anymore. In hind sight I'd have remained sitting outside the corral and just enter at the last minute. First lesson learned. There might be a lesson that the 1/2 mile jog was not needed, but I don't think that hurt me.

The start was amazing, 35,000 announced (some reports say only 31K) starters and because I started in the second corral I could see almost the entire length of runners and it was amazing to look back 4-6 blocks and still see the street Packed with runners. As the start approached a number of people snuck up through the corrals which I assume is normal. The Elites and first corral went off, then our group meandered to the start. Then the horn sounded for our corral. The start is about 1/2 mile uphill but very gradual. Imagine my surprise that before I topped that hill at the half mile and was passing walkers. I know little about racing, but I fell that is terrible etiquette and very disrespectful to the other runners. At about mile one we bottom a hill and make the first turn to the right. the crowd has already thinned such that we were only about three abreast in the corners so it was a very pleasant start compared to some of the stories I hear. My first 5K was 20:52 which was 6:42 pace. In retrospect too fast. It turns out I was still a rookie marathoner, but I did not know that yet.

The next 8 miles or so are hilly. Nothing to pointy, but at no time flat. I liked this part. It mostly residential and the crowd support was awesome. What I did not realize at this point was that being residential, it was shaded by trees. I was trying for my A. goal which was to flirt with 3:00 hours. It was aggressive, but a great stretch goal. As I was running these little hills in the shaded residential area, I was feeling great, by breath was super shallow had yet to take a reset deep breath. 10K was 41:54 for a second 5K of 21:02. Hey, that's like an even split and the 10 seconds was probably just the race start adrenaline. I'm running a brilliant race, right? So I felt I was running within myself. I would look at my watch on occasion and see 6:30s. I knew this was fast, but it really did feel so easy. I was steadily passing 1st corral folk and they had a two minute head start. (next lesson learned, but not at this point, TOO FAST IDIOT!!!) At 10K I took the first shot block and then again every 3 miles through 12.

I had taken cytomax at every even mile and half the waters which were on the odd miles. I knew it would be hot so I tried to stay hydrated. I did drink better than I had the month before, but I still think I might have been drinking too little, even though it was frequent. The glasses are typically half full and there is some spillage, so there's a possibility that I was not taking in enough. That said, I had the ever so slight urge to pee the whole race so I feel there was liquid in the system.

Funniest sign I recall: "Worst parade ever!" <-- I imagine this is typical but it made me giggle.

One thing I had not realized was the people I was running with and passing were only running the half and at about 10 miles I felt that everyone was picking it up and it didn't click yet. Once it did, within a half mile, for the first time I forcibly slowed, because these folks were getting ready to kick. Also of note is that I still have felt like this was such an easy race and I felt strong and confident. Somewhere between 10 and 12 miles we came out of the shade and the temps were rising, f-a-s-t. I didn't really notice this at the time. By 11.5 the half folk split away for their finish. At this point I looked up and the next runner was now like a block away. This race really thins out. 4087 marathon finishers out of 35,000 total starts. At this point my mind was really having bad thoughts, Wow how nice the halfies are almost done. Ack! you have to run alone now, Hey isn't it getting hot? Wow that seems like a long hill. Ok so I pass the half at 1:30. I felt awesome about that but my mind and legs don't seem to be on my team at this point. I was starting to get soreness, not injury just fatigue and my mind was still having bad thoughts. I felt I should slow to 7:15s, but over compensated and when to 7:30s. Now I am panicking because I didn't realize I had slowed that much and even slowing that much why wasn't this pace feeling easy. What is wrong with me, I run this fast easily on training runs. Well 14 and 16 are the last two hills that show on the elevation map so I figure, just get your @ss over these then you get some breathing room with some flatter stuff for 8 miles. At 17 miles you pass the finish line, something in my head did not like running past this, my head was winning the war and doing all it could to remind me how impossible the task ahead was. I was slowing and couldn't really figure out why. Looking back 30 hours later I think it was the speed at the start, the heat and a weak mind, but didn't really put all that together. About this time I was negotiating and had move to the B goal a 3:10, that might threaten for an age group award, I can be happy with that for a first marathon, right? And besides that's BQ + 10. Easy peasy, let's just coast through the next 8. Well now that the head had settled on the new goal I was very surprised to find myself walking. Hey, legs, I didn't order this, what the Jehu are you doing? Spoiler alert, I am about to fall off the cliff. When I did walk it was hard to believe how quickly my legs felt really bad, I felt the only way to cure this was to run so I did some trot and tried to get a rhythm going again. It seemed like I might be ok, at 19 miles I found a banana, and ate it, it tasted awesome. I also took the first gel I had. I was really struggling and not willing to suffer. My legs were sore and heavy, but I wasn't hurt, why couldn't I keep them moving. mile 19 had more walking, and this walking kept making my decision to walk later easy. As I passed 20, I was seeing my BQ goal falling away as well, Hey, this is doable, let's get a rhythm going, woohoo we're running again, and a half mile later we're walking. At 21 miles, I am thinking 5 miles is easy, now come one you can run 5 right? And then it hit me, I am two minutes off the clock time, because the clock is showing elite times. Hmm, 5 miles and I'm at 2:40, all I need is 8 minute miles to BQ. Yes, we're gonna make it, I start running and find myself at 7:07 pace fairly quickly and it's not feeling terrible, yet. This time I ran almost a mile. But again I just kept cracking and walking seemed ok ;( I was now resolved to settle for the final goal, FINISH!!! Over the last 4 miles I met some great people and they encouraged me and got me running again, and then there were times I would leave those people behind as I was picking up pace. Only to give back the position when I stopped again. I still feel that once I stopped to walk the first time, I opened the door to keep doing it. Hopefully the next time I get this feeling I can move to the shuffle and NOT walk. I struggled up through about mile 25 walk/run/walk/run. At that point I recognized the landmarks and knew the finish was near, I meandered up the last little hill and ten it was downhill to the turn that the stadium is on and I also recalled that stretch was mostly downhill, I started building a head of steam, and was feeling ok, my stride was lengthening and I felt ok, I was a little worried because the stretch bottoms out under an overpass before tilting up to the last turn and I just didn't want to crack on another hill. This time I beat my mind and made it up the hill, and was passing people, It was a hollow victory and I meant no disrespect, I just was building momentum and felt I had to go with it. I then rounded the last turn and there it was "FINISH MARATHON" only 100yds ahead. I finished and some nice fellow gave me a medal and said congratulations. I had some initial thoughts that this day was a total FAIL, but by the time I got through the first segment of the finish chute I realized I finished a marathon, not many people do that. I had just covered more ground at one time than I ever had before. As much as I felt 3:30 was not the desired goal, how many people can even do that. I think we get jaded with our running relationships, because in those small worlds a marathon is common, not easy but common. If you were to look at the population in general it's rare. It's really starting to settle in that I accomplished something. 7 months ago I chose to get off my couch and run, yesterday I ran 26.2 (26.5 in reality) miles. I received a medal and realized that I earned every bit of it.

I will run again and I will BQ, and I will break 3:00 it just turns out, that's not what I did on my first try.

I owe some thanks here:To Beth and Robert, in October you slowed down so much just to get me through an 8 miler. That was my old man distance PR at the time and getting through that day, inspired me to run the next day. Had you not helped that day, who knows if I am here today?To Jessica and Michael, similar to Beth and Robert, you two got me into double digits and beyond. After that first 12 miler that you got me through, I signed up for Nashville, I knew I need a goal. You two were very instrumental in helping me to run and to rest and that fuel during a run was something that I had to learn. That 12 miler kicked my butt and we were still running 8:45s. Some weeks later we did a 15 miler and I recall as we were in the last mile Jessica looked at me and said, "you know you're running 8:06 right now" I just looked at her and said, I felt good today. They really got me focused on creating a training schedule and how many miles and which weeks and so much more. I owe a lot to you two.To "the big dogs" of Glen Ellyn Runners, you baited me on so much to get faster at those Thursday night runs. Tim's 10K course around town had some nice hills and knowing that you would all drop me by mile 2 (colleen's stretch hill) just made me want to try harder, while I never quite got to the point that I could hang with you till the end, I do remember some of those early runs where 7:40 was putting me in oxygen debt, and near the end of this cycle, you had me running that in sub 6:30s. And the runs at the Arb. Those first few runs you left me in the dust, but over time you had me running some rather tuff hills in 7:20 for 15 miles and some days we were down in the 6:30s on these hills. You all pushed, pulled and encouraged me to do better and I think I did.

Julie Woldarski, for keeping me sane during the doldrums in that last month.To Glen Ellyn Runners in general, what a great group of people I really treasure all the relationships I made and how welcome you all made me feel. Unbeknownst to you, knowing that you all would be there every Sunday and later Saturday and Thursday and Tuesday, just made me want to show up at the start line to run and that's half the battle in running. You all encouraged me and continue to do so. Thanks to the RunningAhead (www.runningahead.com) folk who made it fun to track my training and answered all my fool hearty questions. I really like their training log; it supports garmin uploads and eric is always tweaking the site. It's bike and swim friendly too. Eric is trying to make a go of it with this site so drop by look around and see if it's something that interests you.

Some of this was already posted on the http://www.glenellynrunners.org/ board, but I know not everyone reads that, and I wanted to make sure you all know how much I appreciate the encouragement and help from so many of you. I hope I can give this back to you and others in teh years to come.

Couch to BQ in 7.5 months

This story really starts in 1980. In 1980, I was in 8th grade. My math teacher at the time liked to run and I liked math, so logically I joined the track team when he announced he'd be the coach. In retrospect, it was a farce of a team. The distance runners, you know quarter and half milers, would practice by running a mile around the school subdivision. Running at that time merely involved putting on Converse high tops, Jox or Pro-Keds and shuffling your feet while sweating, chewing gum and chatting. I still remember one of the most logical training tips Mr. Brewster ever gave me: "Walk [and therefore run] with your feet going in a straight line, toes pointed forward and feeling all 5 toes on push-off." The straight line was straight out of mathematics, shortest distance between two points. I still think this is an easy and valuable lesson. I also still cringe when I see drastic pronators or the waddling runners.

Our grade school track was a grass field with cones. I think there was an elevation change of like 25 feet. It was fun and we ran against other teams from surrounding communities and we collected little ribbons. Near the end of 8th grade, I was out in the street having a snowball fight with my brother. At one point, a car coming down the hill panicked and hit their brakes. The car slid off the road and hit me in my right leg. The car owner got out and asked if I was OK, and I thought I was. I said "I'm OK." He said, "well good, I'm not,” and sped off. I only mention that to be able to say this: what a fekkin jack-a-lope!!! So I limped inside and was kinda hobbling around the kitchen when my sister noticed I was walking funny. She asked what was wrong and I still giggle at this answer. "I just got hit by a car; do you think I should tell mom and dad?" My mom was a nurse in a prior life but feinted at the sight of blood and was typically un-nurse like when her kids had injuries. My parents had a tough time with me, because this incident wasn't even a top 10 injury growing up. Anyhow, this lil car accident was a bit more serious than I first thought so we went to the hospital.

In the hospital, the doctors thought that I either broke my leg or had a bruise. I then understood why doctors still "practice" medicine. They want to do a stress test which will require general anesthesia and bending my leg sideways. The result was that I had torn some ligaments. The prognosis was that I’d never be a runner and that I might walk with a limp the rest of my life. My doctors were general medicine doctors as sports medicine was in its infancy. They put me in a cast for 8 weeks and sent me on my way.

I recall the day I got out of the cast, I stood up and due to atrophy, my leg just collapsed. I was nervous to say the least. Well, over that summer I got the leg back in shape, and as most kids do I rebounded well. I was over-exercising the troubled right leg and overcompensating for the ligament weakness by overdeveloping the muscles around my knee. At this point, I recalled that Paul Revere lived in Boston; I haven’t forgotten why you are reading this.

So as I entered high school, the leg was not strong enough to play football, a sport I loved and my mother forbid it. I looked on the walls and saw they had a sport called cross country. I figured, “Hey, I ran before,” maybe I can do this. So I again pulled on a pair of Jox and headed to the first team meeting. The coach said we’re doing 4 miles. I thought to myself, four miles? That’s insane. I had only run a mile before that. Well I started the run; I never finished the run and never came back out for practice that season. Were the doctors right? No more running?

That spring I decided maybe I could do track. I chose middle distance. The cross country coach saw me and told the track coach to watch out for me because I quit CC after the one partial practice. He was justified in saying it, but it did light a fire in me. I don’t want to bore you in this thread with all my younger running hoopla, but by the time I left high school, I was running sub 50 quarters, 1:57 halfs and had been sub 4 at the 1500. I had been to the state meet in cross country and track. I held two school records. My college career was pretty good too, I had gone to nationals in cross country and steeplechase, best event ever. During my school running career, I had heard nothing but tragedy about marathoning. Even the finishers had to walk downstairs backwards for days after an event. In high school, my longest run ever was 10 miles. In college it seldom got over that either; I do recall one day running 16 miles with the real distance guys (Tony Vodicka, Joe Golden, Kevin Mikottis). I hated it. I knew I would never run a marathon.

After college, I had no real desire to run anymore; it wasn’t paying my tuition and hell, it’s hard. I was never a “Joy of Running” guy, I was a competitor. I stayed fit playing pick-up basketball, open water swimming and cycling, but running was done. I had always been fairly fit, but in my late 30s I could see that I was struggling with my weight and fitness more and more. I would often tell people I could do everything I could do in college; it just took longer to recover. And due to competitive spirit and mental toughness that was mostly true. Well things just kept getting out of hand. I don’t think I was ever fat, but there were times that I did not like looking at the guy in the mirror, and I couldn’t see the buckle on my belt. I was just never like this.

In January of 2010, I decided I was gonna fix this. I had still been cycling and doing silly things like holding 20 mph on 60 mile loops on gravel with a mountain bike. I liked thinking I was tough, but I couldn’t dedicate 3 hours to exercise anymore. I remembered something my high school coach once said. If you just get the heart rate up for 18-20 minutes a day that’s great exercise. He also used to say anything less than 18 minutes is a waste. Armed with that memory, I thought heck why not just become a runner again. You can just do 3 miles every morning and viola. Day one: Go buy new Nike Pegasus shoes. These were a staple in my youth. I went to run made it to the end of the block and walked. “OK, change of plan.” I live near a great trail the Illinois Prairie Path and I knew that there was some walking in my future before I was gonna run. That winter I would get up every Saturday and Sunday, go to Glen Ellyn, buy a cup of coffee and walk to Wheaton. When I got to Wheaton, I would buy a cup of coffee and walk back. I was OK with this fitness regime. As the winter gave way to spring and spring to summer, I could trot parts of this, but never really run more than a mile or so.  As summer came on, I noticed a group of runner that consistently met in Glen Ellyn and even better they had like 6-8 massage tables for the runners after they ran. I knew this was something to investigate. So I found their website online: www.glenellynrunners.org. By this point I was only running a mile and I looked at their training schedule and these folks were marathoners. Um, NO THANKS!!!. Well the summer came and went and I was still on the cycle more than my feet. In September of 2010, I finally decided I was gonna walk to run and I found a 3 mile loop that every day I would cover. I did the majority of it walking every day, then we did some walk-run, and by mid October I was running 3 miles several times a week.

September 2010: So in the middle of September I can run 3 miles. On September, 25^th I ran almost 6 miles from Glen Ellyn to Wheaton and back. Then the next day I did it again. It was a good feeling.

October 2010: I am running several 3 milers a week and I finally bite the bullet and show up for a run with the Glen Ellyn Runners. Their president, Ken Christie, welcomes everyone, asks if there are new runners or guests and I rose my hand. Everyone was very nice and chatted with me and we started our run. While I thought it was a marathoning club, it’s really all kinds of runners with all kinds of paces and goals. I found a group that I could run 6 miles with and we were running high 8s. I get a little squeamish when I talk about pace. I was a competitive runner when I was young and never ran anything slower than 6 minute pace so high 8s is slower than I want to run. I know there are a number of people who would be thrilled running that pace, and I am not trying to be elitist as I complain about my speed. After a couple weeks I found myself running with Beth and Robert, they were running 8:20s and they had passed the 3 mile mark meaning they were running more than 6 miles. I asked how far and they said 8. I had not done 8 miles in over 20 years so I tried it. They were so encouraging and they would slow to accommodate my pace, but the sneaky thing they did was get me to talk. While my legs were getting in shape, my lungs weren’t yet. They dragged me through and I ran 7 and walked most of the eighth mile, but it was an “old man” distance PR!!!

November 2010: I keep showing up for these Sunday runs and on one run I meet Jessica. She’s running a pace I can handle and it’s 8 miles. I can do 8 miles now, but she starts conversing and asks the whats and whys of a new runner. I find out that she is a marathoner and remind her that I have no desire to do that kinda distance. Within two weeks she and her husband Mike are going on a 12 miler and I find myself with them past the 8 mile turn around and I don’t feel terrible. We’re going 8:45-9:00 and I made it to the turn-around (6 miles) on the way back I though Mike was picking it up and he thought I was, but we were running like 8:20. As we approached an upcoming hill I said I have to back this down if I’m gonna get over that hill. It was at this time we found out that we thought the other was pushing the pace. Anyhow they drug me through the remaining mileage and I now had a new “old man” distance PR. Over the next few weeks I ran a lot with Mike and Jessica and their program was starting to up their mileage, so we did a 15 miler. This run did not go well, but in the course of it I realized that I ran a half-marathon and I quipped that it was my half PR. I did probably jog run the last couple miles but WooHoo, that’s 15 miles, and another “old-man” PR. The club has a habit of invading the local coffee shop after a run, and Mike invited me in, he even bought me coffee and a bagel. We jibber jabbered and I was regaling them with days of yore and how I felt so inadequate lately, because I wasn’t running like 20 year old me. It turns out, I was 23 years older than 20 year old me and shouldn't run like that kid. They mentioned that they were training for an early fall marathon in Georgia. I reminded them again I can’t run a marathon, that’s like 26 miles. You marathoners are crazy.

December 2010: I decide I wanna race and there is a European cross country race in the area. I just love the toughness factor of these kinds of races. This was an 8K run on the most uneven terrain in cow pastures going straight uphill on single track trails and then straight down. There are two creek crossings. It was December 5^th, there was 4-5 inches of fresh snow and howling winds. I averaged 10 minute miles and I was wiped, but again I love those types of events. The following weekend I decide I’m going to run 15 with Mike and Jessica again and this time it wasn’t as hard as the first 15 miler. Whodathunkit? I then did back to back weekends at 15 miles. I was starting to think maybe I can run a marathon, it’s only another 10 or so miles, right? Mike says that based upon my past life and how I’d been running I could probably break 4 hours and I thought that was just crazy. Well I am the guy that needs a goal so I just started searching for spring marathons. I saw the Country Music Marathon and it was in Nashville. At this point, I’ll confess I am a redneck and I love country music and have always had fun in Nashville so what the heck? I signed up for the marathon on December 30^th. I signed up for a 4:00 time. Now I am committed, and there are several definitions that probably apply there. Having signed up, I start researching it; by the way don’t do it this way. My only real goal at that time was to finish but things will change over the next months. The reviews on CMM were not good: Hilly, Back half is boring, poorly organized. These were not good things but I was committed.

January 2012: This month I met another group of Glen Ellyn Runners; I call them the Big Dogs. These guys are runners. As I write this, 3 of them have run sub-3:00 for a marathon and 6 or more are in the 3:05 range. Our club, btw, I joined the club in January, has a Thursday night run and in the winter when the Prairie Path is snowed in we cover the streets. Tim found a 10K-ish path. I showed up for my first run with these guys and they blew my drawers off. We got to the 2 mile mark and they had me in O2 debt running like 7:45s. I muttle through the next 4 and get a finish, but I know this group is faster than I am, but definitely where I want to be. This month I also added a little swimming. As January continues, I am running solo 15, 16 and 18 milers. 18 miles is an “all-time” distance PR. I have eclipsed young me on distance, but I am not making great gains on pace. I can run sub 8:00 but not much and not easy. In Chicagoland there is a big half in Cary, IL each year, it’s called the March Madness Half Marathon. It is very hilly and a great challenge. It’s also very small like 1000 runners and tightly capped. It sold out in about 1 hour. Lucky for me one of the club members ended up signing up twice, he’d asked a friend to sign him up because he didn’t think he’d be at a computer. So he offered me the second spot. Why not, I’ve run a half in training so it can’t be that bad, right?

February 2011: The big dogs are seeing that I can stick with them longer on the Thursday night and Sunday morning runs, so they invite me to join them at the Morton Arboretum. Now the Prairie Path is flat; it’s an old railroad bed, but the Arb, that’s a different story. The Arb is two loops of very hilly terrain. Again, on my first run with the big dogs, they drop me at about 2 miles. But I like this run; I feel stronger and there are glimpses of young me starting to surface. There are times this month where we were running 7:15 uphill during 15 mile runs. I am really improving by leaps and bound through this period, but I’m still not tested. On Febrauary 12^th I ran my first long run, it was 19 miles on the hills at the Arb, I am starting to think I can handle this. At the end, I was not fresh, but I felt I could have still run more. This was absolutely unfathomable just a month earlier. February brought us a warm Tuesday which is traditionally the clubs track workout day in the summer. The guys decided they were gonna run 8 halfs. I loved track workouts as a kid, so why not. I ran the first half in about 2:45 and it HURT. I faded after that to 3:00 averages. This was the first time since a youth that I had really stretched my lungs and while it hurt that day, by Thursday and Sunday I knew a change had taken place. I was having a break through. This whole month I am getting faster and fester but so are the big dogs. I can now cover the Thursday night runs in 7:20-7:30s but the big dogs are in the 6:50-7:10 range.

March 2011: Another great month of improvements. I am chewing through mileage on training runs and they are just getting faster and faster. We had a 10 mile run on the path and we went out to the 5 at like 7:15, at the turn around we decided to bump it up for a couple miles. During these two miles we were running 6:20s. When some of the guys asked for leniency, I was not one of them, we came home in 6:50. I just ran 10 miles at sub 7 minute pace. I am feeling great. This month is also the half-marathon. I am starting to think I can maybe go sub-90 in this thing. When race day comes it’s cold and rainy. I don’t mind this as we’ve been running in it all winter. I chat with a couple of the big dogs and we decide that it’s reasonable for us to go out at 6:45 for the first mile. I’m ok with that. So the race starts. This is my first race where I toed the line prepared in over 20 years. I am so excited. When the gun goes off, I RUN!!! I think there was a lot of adrenaline. My first 3 miles were 6:23, 6:20 and 6:09. Ooops! I would calm down considerably from then on. I ended up finishing in 1:26:20. I felt like a king; strong like bull. With a real race in hand I start to think what I can actually do in a marathon. It’s becoming clear that 4:00 hours was just a bad guess, but what can I run? The McMillian system say 3:02 based upon my half time. That’s crazy, but there’s a month and a half to go; who knows? I finished March with another 20 miler in the Arb only a week after the half and it felt ok. I faded a bit in mile 17 but came roaring back the next 3; I’m feeling ready.

April 2011: Well this is the month for the marathon. To this point I had several long runs 18-20 miles, but they were all so fast that I never had 3 hours on my feet and I was told this was an important preparation item, so I decide to do a 3 hour run rather than a distance run. This was foreign to me, I have a tendency to speed up when I feel sore or tired to get the distance in faster, but no matter how fast you run, the time doesn’t speed up. I ended up running 21.5 miles, but it was not fun; very laborsome. On the other hand, it was done. On April 10^th, we had a beautiful 60 degree day. I loved running on these warmer days as a youth and I had planned on a nice civil 18 miler that day with two other club mates. This was gonna be the last long run before the marathon. This day did not go well. At 12 miles, I was not feeling good and didn’t understand why. My hamstrings were tight, and I just felt I was slugging along. I ended up walking 6 miles home. I have to think it was the heat and while I was taking on liquids, probably not enough. Having a bad run like that was wreaking havoc with my psyche. I didn’t want to have this fail as my last tune up. Worse yet what if the marathon is hot. I had nothing but bad thoughts for a few days. Well the next weekend is Boston, and there are 30+ members from my club going there. On the Saturday, of that weekend there was an inaugural race in the arboretum it was a 10K. I woke up that day and decided I would drive over and if I felt ok, just run the race. When I got to the Arb, I was feeling ok and signed up. This was a much better day than last week. As the race started I had more of the adrenaline thing. The first mile is uphill and I passed through at 5:56 next to the leader. While that was cool I knew I wasn’t in 6:00 pace on these hills so I backed it down a bit. I ended up placing 6^th overall and 1^st in age group with a 39:02. This was lifting my spirits from the previous weeks failure. Our club had a lot of representation there, 2^nd OA female and several other age group winners. The next day I decided I would do another long run, to get the stick of the last one off. Since all the big dogs were in Boston this was gonna be a lonely day. It was drizzly and cool, probably 45 degrees. I ran out 7.5 and back and it was easy and I was going 7:10 pace, as I was coming back to our zero mile mark I saw another runner step onto the trail. I chased them for 3 miles before catching up. It was Megan the 2^nd overall female from the day before. She was doing 14 and would have 6 to go at the zero mile mark just as I did. So we ran together for the remaining 6. This was just what I needed a strong performance before shutting it down in preparation for my first marathon. During the middle of this week I starting seeing the 10 day forecast for Nashville, it was gonna be 70, no good.

My First Ever Marathon:  April 30^th, 2011, I am ready to run, I go through my race day rituals eating dressing protecting stuff from rubs. I have a lengthy race report of the race that we can talk about later but I was feeling good about this marathon. When the gun went off so did I. I was blazing this course, I felt strong the hills were easy the pace didn’t feel too bad, I was on sub 3:00 pace. Oh my goodness, I am gonna run a sub 3:00 marathon, qualify for Boston by over 20 minutes and in my first marathon. Hold up there race fans. After the 10 mile mark, we ran out from under the shade and would stay there the rest of the day. As the temperature rose so did my pace, by mile 19 I had cracked and was walking, I would not run another full mile the rest of the day. I came home in 3:32:20. I had not broken 3 hours nor had I qualified for Boston. I had FINISHED and that is the true goal of a first timer, but my expectations were higher.

May 2011: Ok, so having just run a less than satisfactory race I am panicked, I just invested all this time in a great training cycle and felt I really under performed. The following weekend there was a marathon in Wisconsin and that would be cold and rainy, why don’t I just do that. Luckily 1000 people talked me out of that. My first post race run was a 5 miler at 7:30 and I suffered. How could I expect to do better in a marathon? Ok, let’s just set our sights on some summer 10K and attack it again in the fall? I had planned on running a marathon in Marquette, MI on labor day weekend, so that would have to do. The issue was that I wanted to really attack that one, but without a Boston Qualified run in the bank, I would have to be conservative there. On Thursday, my legs started feeling a bit better and I was convincing myself that Nashville was really just a 19 miler since I shuffled the last 6. The weekend showed a couple more good runs and I was thinking about a hometown marathon. The two week window was better than the back to back week issue so let’s play it by ear. As the week went on, the weather report got uglier, but this was in my favor. On Thursday, I decided I was gonna sign-up and treat it as a training run and if I didn’t have it, I could quit.

May 15, 2011: While most guidance was against it, I felt OK. Yesterday I ran 10 miles of the course and felt pretty good. I’m gonna start the race. It was 37 degrees at the start and drizzling. The first two miles was with a 20 mph wind at our back, then we enter a forest preserve for 21 miles. I kept slowing myself down through 10 miles, I was running well within myself. I was taking nutrients, Stinger honey, at 6 mile intervals. I crossed the half-marathon at 1:32:48. That’s reasonable, over the next 9 miles, I keep gaining speed, all of these miles are sub-7, I keep telling myself, "Keep it up, we can get to Boston." The last two miles was into that 20 mph wind. I finished the day with a 3:05:52. I had just qualified for Boston by almost 15 minutes. Even better because I had to run the two marathons so close I accidently became a marathon maniac 16 days into my marathon racing career. I can now also attack the Marquette marathon.