I was apprehensive about it. Frank Colella once told me that if you don't get lost at least 2 times, then you aren't doing it right. He got lost 4 times his first year. I got lost twice. Not looking forward to that.
Michael Fred asked me about it initially and I told him that I'm not doing it and my concerns. I then decided to do it and updated the MM calendar. He was happy. Sent me a text asking me about it. He's worried too. Maria isn't doing it which makes his stress a little easier to swallow but still it's worrysome. I could see he's dying to ask "the question" but isn't. I finally decided to put him out of his misery. I told him that "we can get lost together if he wants". Immediatly came a very happy response. I was able to mentally see the stress dissipate.
List of attendees:
Hammad said he will drive. Race pickup starts at 6:30. My race starts at 7:30. His race starts at 8:30. I was hoping to leave at 5:15-5:30 knowing he would be a little late. He wanted to leave at 6 am. Stressful for my GI system but ok.
I decide on a pre-emptive strike. Take some immodium just in case. I text Hammad and he eventually answers that he is awake. He's running late. There goes my stomach again...He gets there at 6:10. Stomach not happy. Still, we get there at 6:30 and while Hammad goes to pickup, I go to indoor plumbing. Still more stuff. Concerning but nothing to do.
Meet up with Mike. Eventually Andre strolls by. He's doing the 25K. I make friends with Billy. Billy is doing the 50K while carrying 40 lbs of bricks. Wow.
Talking with Mike and this woman gets out of her car. She looks almost like she is wearing negligie. I realize that she is not. I tell her she left her lights on and she tells me that she left her car on. Still, we are now de facto nameless friends. We end up seeing each other during the race and always greet each other. Cool.
We also see a guy who is signed up for the 50K walking with a walker. How?!?
I see Chip Tilden who because of this race, we friended each other on Facebook. Never really talked to him. It was nice.
We start. Very low key. First is roadway. This is for the extra mileage as well as to weed things out before entering the trails. My legs are burning. I don't know if we are going too fast or it's the streaking buisiness. Down the hill to the cone. Up the hill to the trail head. This is for realsies...
I'm running. Mike Following. We're having fun. Making friends.
We don't get lost. Actually, we almost get lost 4 times. One of those times was pretty bad though. I completly missed it. Also, my footing is pretty good. Every so often, I hear Mike stumbling but I call out and he's ok. One time though, he was next to me and stumbled and I did the automatic arm thing and help him balance. If he was female, you could say I assaulted him. Luckily this isn't the issue and he did not fall.
Mike is pretty happy with this race and pretty happy to be with someone (me) and is pretty happy that Maria is NOT here. It's too easy to get lost or to fall.
Eventually we get to the bamboo forest. I like that section. Unfortunatly the weather being what it was, all the bamboo aren't green. More like the dead straw colored kind. What a shame.
We soldier on. Finally we cross Stillwell. This marks the start of the most difficult sections. It's still doable until we cross Lawrence. That next section from Lawrence to Oyster Bay AKA the turn around is the worst section. We cross Lawrence and start seeing people heading back. Nice.
I then notice something weird. This white guy walking his 2 black poodles. They are off leash and what is he doing? Did I see that or just me imagining? I continue forward even though I look back. This is VERY dangerous as I could easily fall but I need to resolve what I saw.
Yup - That's what I thought I saw. Oi... The course is marked in 2 ways. There are white blazes on the trees and they also marked the course with pink tape taped to the trees. Now the volunteers tied these things on to the trees and will later go back and take them off but for now those things are a God send. So what did I see? Guy was walking around taking those pink tapes off the trees. What?!? I asked him why he's doing that and he replied that he's collecting garbage. I tell him it's not garbage but rather markings and he was surprised that we aren't running with GPS. As if...!
So what to do? Luckily, at the Tesla Hertz Run I learned how to read the blazes at 2am, in the pitch dark... A single square means go straight. Two squares denote a turn. The top one is the direction of the turn. So if you see a square with another on top of it but a little to the left of it then make a left turn. A right turn would have the top square to the right of the bottom one. The whole time I was concentrating on the pinks and to a degree on the white blazes. Now, it's all about the blazes. As we see runners coming back, we tell them about the dude. Everyone has the same response and it's made up of words that I won't use here. I think people are being a little too harsh with the guy. Maybe he just didn't realize and is picking up trash?
We finally get to the turnaround or rather we see it. First you jump from one wood step to another down a hill or mountain. At the bottom is the aid station. As we eat, I tell them about the guy. They are pissed. Again, they ask for his description. "He had 3 dogs?", they ask. "No only 2. I saw the guy with the 3 dogs.", I respond. Guy in charge of the aid station was really pissed. I told him that the guy said he was picking up trash. He tells me that that's not the case. He tells me that "the guy is a tax payer who knows exactly what's going on but doesn't want people to come to his park. He (apparently) does this every year". Wonderful...
We start again. The course, as you might have guessed, goes up those same wooden steps. We climb. And climb some more. We also climb a little more. We start running again in earnest.
Still leading. Still finding the white blazes. We get to Lawrence and make the crossing. Things get a "little" easier. Until We get to Stillwell, can't relax. We get to some of the sand hills. Yeah... Going down sucked. Now we go up. That sucks even more. We trudge on. We cross Stillwell and things do get easier.
I don't remember (anymore) exactly when we see Donald. He's running well. Few minutes later, we see Andre. Nice. I tell him that Donald is just ahead. We forge on. I see Hammad at one point and he looks good too. Cool. Was worried.
I finally see the Stop-n-Shop. Andre, Donald and Hammad always talk about it. I never knew where it was. That aidstation is very Marathon Maniac Friendly. Cool.
We also see and meet a MM doing the 25K. She's new to trail running. Nice.
We get to the turn around. Lap 1 is done. Now to do it again...
We go back at it. We constantly see people. You got the 50Kers either in front of us who already turned back and are now heading back out and those who are in back of us trying to get to the turn around. We also now have the 25Kers in the mix.
We are on lap 2 and get to the Stop-n-Shop again. Donald is there and he cheers us on. He's done for the day.
We wonder if they re-taped the area where Idiot took the markings off. They didn't. It's ok tho. I am on super alert for white blazes. I WILL NOT get lost today...
Somewhere we meet another runner. Miriam is her name and she was supposed to do the 25K. She woke up late tho so she started late at the trail head. We run with her and get to the turn around together. We eat and go back out. She runs ahead but I keep catching her. Eventually she falls in behind me and the train is me, Miriam and then Mike. I keep calling out to him, making sure he's still with us. He is.
Turns out that we know some of the same people so that's kinda cool. The three of us are a good group.
Another runner joins us from behind and it's the four of us. At the Stop-n-Shop, Andre is there. He finished and went shopping. He tells us that we can still break 7 hours. I'm not concerned about the time. We eat and leave.
Almost at the trail head. We have somewhere between a half to three quarter of a mile of road (not trail) to go. We stop at the aid station for a quick sip and watermellon. Our new friend who thanked us profusly for pulling us, doesn't stop. He doesn't say good bye. He doesn't say thanks. He doesn't say anything and it kinda annoys me. Actually it annoys me a lot. I yell to Mike to let's go and that he won't beat us and I take off. Fastest split ever here...I run to him, catch him, pass him and sprint like crazy the whole way to the finish. Big ovation from people to see me fly through. Mike follows with Miriam in suit. Dude is last. They were nice and gave Miriam a shirt and medal anyway. They also included her in the results too.
Broke 7 hours. Broke last time times. Didn't break anything else. Nice.
Here are some smaller things that happened but can't really put them chronologically anymore....
We hung out a little and talked to people. Hammad made friends with a dude named Donald who is a MM. Chip finished and we talked. Finally, we left.
Got home, showered and chilled and of course walked LC. Finally it was time to leave. We were gonna walk to Vaccarros and meet Jeff, Heidi and Adele. Why walk? For active recovery for me.
As we leave the house, we see the neighbors dog, Jessie, walking around in the street. Oi... I call her owner, Matt, who tells me he's at Autozone and can I please put her in the back yard. Now Jessie dog is a sweet young German Shepard. She's huge. She usually barks at every dog and everyone but likes LC. So I tell her to go home but she ignores me. I go to her and grab her collar. She starts pulling. Hard. I'm wearing crocs and both pulling and getting pulled to her house. As we get closer, she pulls harder and harder. She also walks all over the place and finally the unfortunate obvious finally happens. I fall. For 31 ardous miles, I did NOT fall. But 50 yards from the house I do. I credit years of Aikido and to an extent Krav Maga to the beautiful side break fall. It did. No face plant for me with the requisite bloody nose and/or missing teeth. No broken ribs. No bruised side and/or back. None of that... Except... When I broke the fall, I slammed my hand on the ground and there was a nasty rock there. Yup - it hurt. Piece of beef missing from my hand or rather hanging on for dear life. I got dirt in it so chance of getting sick. Hand is throbbing. We walk to Vaccarros.
I wash my hands there and use a band aid. Hand is throbbing. Very scared shingles will come back. It doesn't. Next day, Sunday, I ran with the crew the 11 miles water run. I attacked Park like a pro. I ran well. Good.
Lastly, I guess I should mention the one issue I had. Chafing... My arch enemy. I found that I get chafed on my lower back a lot. To prevent this, I started wearing my tri-singlet and tucking it into the pants. Looks stupid so I wear a singlet on top. Unfortunatly the bottom of the zipper of the tri-top seriously chafed me near the belly button. Wonderful. Yes - the first shower hurt. To not aggravate it the next day with the 11 miles, I did not wear the tri-top. Of course I got chafed on my lower back. Badly. So, in short: Bad chafe on front on Saturday and bad chafe on back on Sunday. Awesome.