Monday am: Body won’t let me forgot what I put them through yesterday. Calves, feet, butt, and back all feel like I’ve been in a car wreck. These will heal. My pride will, but it’s going to take a bit longer to do so.
An ultra marathon is nothing to sneeze at. I’m super proud of finishing Saturday’s race. But day-um it’s a kick to the nuts. An 8 hour kick in the nuts, that is.
Saturday, as I remember it:
Arrive at Steele Creek Campground about 0600. Check in, start taping up feet, lubing up my inner ham hocks, between the cheeks, and anywhere else where there will be friction.
0639, The Pre-Race Pipe Rattles. Any runner knows this is a good thing. Always want to drop a 2 before you start. Only problem is that everyone else had the bubbles hit at the same time. Find a line and wait for an open hole (TWSS).
0653, finally a stall opens up. Excellent quick one. Only a 3 wiper too. Things are on the up and up.
0700 it’s on. Now we’ll switch over to mileage references as a reference to time of day from the start would be a bit fuzzy to me.
Mile 0-1: race starts at one end of a huge meadow. Not quite 1 mile from tip to toe, but pretty dang close. Flat. Cruising across a freshly mowed pathway. Still dark’ish out. About 58 degrees or so. SP, Fuse, and me just casually out for a brisk walk. HBC and 321 up ahead of us. HBC is in full Talk While Running Mode. No surprise there. Still don’t know how he does that. At about 0.4 mile mark, SP decides to catch up w/ HBC. Apparently he wasn’t into my rhythmic heavy breathing. Hit the woods, the last I see of 321, HBC, and SP for a while. Fuse was nice enough to stick with me.
Mile 1 – 6.5: Terrain here is lots of slow rollers. In this direction, they aren’t too bad. Fuse confirms that we will run these in the opposite direction on the way back. I study them a bit harder now. Oh man, these are going to suck. Oh crap, this downhill will be an uphill. Ohhh, this is steep. Entering the Mind F phase already. Oh well, just try to keep up w/ Fuse.
Fuse left me at Mile 3.5. Granted, I told him to. I envisioned it going down like out of one of those old WW2 movies. Enter scene:
1st Dude that catches a grenade with his legs, which are now stumps: Go on without me. Save yourselves.
2nd Dude that is saved by his comrade that catches grenade with his stumps: No way Cousin Eddie. We’re brothers till the end. I’ll never leave your side. 2nd Dude holds 1st Dude in his arms until D1 takes his last breath. D2 cries at the loss of D1 and ends up getting shot in the ass as he drags D1’s corpse off battlefield.
Instead it went like this:
CE: I think I need to walk this hill. Go ahead brother, don’t need to hold you up.
FZ: Ok. Later, asswipe.
Reminder, that was at Mile 3.5. Or roughly 35 minutes into what turned out to be my 8 hour day. The Mind F Phase just got really real. Real quick too. Thats 28 miles to go solo. No music. No podcasts. Just CE and his inner thoughts.
All kidding aside, I don’t blame anyone for leaving me. They all should have. I would have and I knew that it was coming. Those cats are all super fast and aint got no time for Slowsies like me. But I am fairly certain that he called me Asswipe as he left me for dead.
Enter 1st Aid Station. Condition: Good.
Miles 6.5 – 10.5: Let me say this first. I love maps. I usually study them w/ vigor before a race. I know every valley, peak, creek, and stabbin’ cabin along the way before I start. Not this time. I probably didn’t know where I was about 75% of this race. That’s Big Mistake Number 1. After the 1st Aid Station, I was under the impression that we were already making our way towards Table Rock. Wrong. We were on the Mountains to Sea Trail headed towards Highway 181, away from TR. I didn’t figure this out until about Mile 9. Speaking of Mile 9, that’s the last time I saw The F3 HKY Gang and they were all floating. Looked like they just bought 1st class tickets on the Gravy Train w/ Biscuit Wheels. It hasn’t even been 2 days since I’ve done this section, and I’ve already blocked this section from my memory bank. Judging from the elevation charts on Strava, it looks pretty bad. Lots of creek crossings. Those are fun. I do know that my body was still feeling good and my pace was great. No complaints really.
Enter 2nd Aid Station. Condition: Still Good.
Miles 10.5 – 16.8: Took off from Aid Station feeling pretty good. Enter Big Mistake 2. I thought that Aid Station #3 was at the top of Table Rock. The folk at AS #2 said it was 6 miles to the next AS. I knew that the Big Climb up to TR was 2 miles. Trail to the top of TR was 1 mile, and then back down to the TR Parking Lot was another mile. That’s 4 miles, so that means I have 2 miles on this road before it starts the Big Climb. Wrong. Because I didn’t study the map or directions, I didn’t know that there was an AS at the bottom of the big climb to TR. So that means I had 6 miles – instead of my estimated 2 – on this gravel road before the Climb. CE keeps looking for a sign to turn up to Big Climb for 4 miles. The Mind F was bad at this point. Lots of F bombs dropping. Feet starting to burn a bit. Also noticed that I wasn’t sweating anymore. Never a good sign. I’ve been drinking tons of fluids too. Better keep an eye on that dehydration thing.
Enter Aid Station 3. Condition: Severe Kinks in the Armor. Feet banged up. Finally, the turn for Big Climb….careful what you wish for Asswipe.
Miles 16.8 – 20: At this point in an Ultra, you’re in a pack of runners of similar speed. They pass you, you pass them. Most will talk and, at a minimum, offer some words of encouragement. You become pals with most. That part of these kind of races is really cool. It helps pass the time and you can briefly forget the misery that you’re both in. During Big Climb, I met Cool Chick1. She stopped just ahead of me to whip out some trekking poles. I said something about buying them from her and we ended up talking the rest of the way up. Can’t remember her name, but she helped push me. And I needed a push. The elevation you gain in 2 miles is the same as what the Bear does in 5: 1500 ft. Repeat: 2 miles, 1500 ft. It’s a ball buster. Knees took a beating and were killing me. More F bombs. Also several F this S’s. F your Moms. F this view. F my knees. Take your pick. In fact, on the way down to Aid Station 4 at the Table Rock parking lot I was going to quit. The only reason that I didn’t throw in the towel is that if you decided to quit, you would have to remain at whatever Aid Station you quit in until 4:00 pm. And it was only 1:00 pm. Then to add insult to injury, I’m sure that they would have put me in something with big pink sirens called the Whambulance and wheeled me in front of everyone for a proper shaming. So add another F that in the mix, and after a shoe and shirt change, I was back on the trail.
Miles 20 – 21.5: This section goes back down Big Climb to the 3rd Aid Station. Knees on fire. More F bombs. Meet Cool Chick 2. We talked the whole way down. From Flat Rock. Amanda. She also pushed me. Her knees were killing her too. She cussed like a sailor.
Miles 21.5 – 25.5: Cool Chick2 and I decided to try to finish together around 7 hours, 30 minutes. We both tried to do the math to figure out our pace but couldn’t. CC2 farted. We laughed. She had a group of F3 dudes that helped her during a bad stretch on BRR, Leg 32. Knees, lower back, and feet were a complete wreck at this point. Beautiful wooded section however. Bending to get under the occasional fallen tree felt like I was trying to fold myself into an origami goose. Like Fuse did at Mile 3.5, CC2 started to pull away, I thanked her for staying with me, told her to go ahead. Pretty sure I heard her mutter what sounded like: “Later, Asswipe”. Once she was out of sight, I peed. It looked like coffee. Dark roast. Barely enough pressure to clear my feet. Probably not a good thing considering that I had drank an estimated 130 oz of fluid. Put a pin in that, make sure you don’t die. Crossed 2 creeks. I sat down in both to try and numb my knees. It helped for about 2 steps until the pain came back. Ran out of water at Mile 23. Starting to get hot. Luckily the pain in my knees made me forget how thirsty I was.
Dragging into Aid Station 5. Condition: Don’t F’ing ask
Miles 25.5 – 31.5: The folk at the AS kept saying “just 4.5 miles to go”. Or was it 6.5? Really don’t remember. I wouldn’t have been able to count that high at this point anyway. Once I got here, I remembered how thirsty I was. Oh, it’s hot out too. Body (and mind) was in complete F You Eddie Mode. Every step I took hurt. In my back. In my feet. In my knees. Those Slow Rollers at the front end of the race turned into the Himalayas. Had to walk most of this route. Clearly my hopes of finishing at 07:30 hours were out the door. There was a glimmer of hope for finishing under 8 hours. F bombs coming out in full force here. F this hill. F this downhill. F the sun. F Everything. F Everybody. Literally. It’s a good thing CC1 and CC2 were way ahead of me. They would not have enjoyed the company of Mile 28 Eddie. He was pissed. Knees on fire. Calves seized up on me. Feet felt like ground beef. Have I mentioned that my knees hurt? Felt like a dirt treadmill that was set to Never Stop. Almost made it through without a fall. Then… BAM! Damn root got me. Fell like a sack of taters. I think that was Mother Natures’ way of saying F you, Cousin Eddie. Think I heard a tree say, “Later Asswipe”
Saved just enough in the tank to make my last mile through the meadow look respectable. Even caught some asswipe that passed me right before the meadow too. My boys 321, HBC, SP, and Fuse gave me an extra loud cheer from their creekside seats. Final time 8:15:23. Done. Watch will tell later me I finished with 62,000 steps on the day.
Post Race: Inhaled a post-race burrito and a Mtn Dew. Grabbed a beer and hobbled down to the creek to hang w/ my brothers and get my core back down from Meltdown Stage. The beer helped. As far as finish rewards go, this was hard to beat. I know at least 2 of those dudes were under careful instruction from their M’s to be home at a certain time, yet they stayed a bit longer to cheer me on to the finish. That meant the world to me. But isn’t that what F3 teaches us? We’re told to Live Third. Put others before ourselves. It’s little stuff like that that I’ll remember most. Like iron sharpens iron, we do sharpen each other.
Now I’m starting to get all sappy. Next month will be my 5th year doing this F3 stuff. It’s a safe bet to say that none of us could have imagined what F3 would mean in our lives before we starting to post together. Think for a minute what you’d be doing if F3 wasn’t in your lives. Yeah, I wouldn’t be hobbling around today because I wouldn’t have even known that such a thing as TRU50 existed. But I also wouldn’t know most of you clowns. And if I did know you, I wouldn’t have spent 45 minutes with you in the gloom every week for 5 years. Or spend 30 hours with you in a van that I helped stink up. Or witnessed dudes losing 80 pounds. Or helped clean up a hoarder’s house. Or helping a brother go through a rough patch in his life, self included. The men of F3 continue to amaze me. Keep pushing that rock fellas. See you when I see you, you bunch of dang HIMs.
Also:
Later Asswipes,
CE
Comments are closed