| Rules and Information |
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The race is a 70K trail relay race that is point to point. I would do it as a "team of one" or simply put "solo". So why didn't I do it? Because it's a point to point relay. Let me explain... "
Relay run solo or team of one means very little support. Your team supports you.
Point to point means logistical issues. I reached out to the RD and there was no plan for a shuttle for the soloists. This presents a problem. Either you need at least 2 people who hopefully are the same speed unless some thought goes into it or you need rides (favors). With Jamey also doing the 2,016 miles in 2016 this became easier and with Mike wanting to do this, it became a party. I signed up. Jamey eventually signed up. Mike signed up the very last day available for signups.
Info for this race is split across many places and I'm not exactly happy about it but whatever. Oh, another problem about this is that we are going East. It would be so much better if it was going West but whatever.
Elizabeth's dad had knee replacement surgery on the Tuesday before the race. Interestingly enough, my boss' wife had it the day before. She had it at The Hospital for Special Surgery and these guys (from her description) are top notch. My in-laws, being snow birds, decided to do it in Florida in nice temps with a pool easily accessible. Also, Florida being the capital of old people, you'd think they would be experts in it. Still, after everything that happened, I kinda doubt it...
Whereas Judi's biggest issue was vomitting due to meds, Alex's stuff only started. This is a bit TMI but I want to explain the mood of what was going on. He couldn't pee and they decided to drain him with a catheter. Took a long time to finally get it in and drain him. Later he needed it again and after an hour and a half of failure he finally asked for another nurse. Can't believe the pain and discomfort he must have gone through. Meanwhile my mother-in-law tried to sleep in the hospital on the cot but she's not made for this and the next night she went to sleep at home. Unfortunatly the meds cause confusion and he managed to get out of bed at night by himself (big no-no), crossed the room and got scissors. He then started cutting tubes. I kep telling Elizabeth to go down there and she finally agreed. I think the scissors thing was the final straw. Unfortunatly when you try to travel last minute, you pay. You pay big. Cheapest tickets were $ 637. Well, we tried priceline for the first time and a minute later, she had tickets to Florida for $ 250. Coming back was direct. Going there was with a layover in Atlanta unfortunatly. My plan for Saturday before the race was to get up at 9am but now I had to get up early. Oh well.
So I woke up at 4am Saturday morning and went for a small run, breakfast and shower. Took Elizabeth to JFK and came back home. I was supposed to wake Jessie up at 7:15 but I actually got home with plenty of time. I laid on the floor on my stomach and hugged the dog in his bed. Eventually he had too much and left and I kept my head in his bed. Of course, I fell asleep. At 7am, Jessie actually woke up by herself and came down. Cool. I flipped onto my back and told her to wake me up at 8:15 because that's when we had to leave. It was going to be a crazy day. It was. Went to Emergency orthadentist, they took her, then to other errands and it was a busy busy day. Eventually, we were at the ymca so she can swim. The Balsans took her from there and I went home. The day was super busy and kept me busy but things were moving.
I then got the alert. Your Delta flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida is cancelled. Damn... Things weren't going well anymore. All the flights were getting booked. It was either find a flight to Fort Lauderdale, fly to Miami instead and pay for a cab or sleep on the floor at the airport. Last last last minute they got her on a flight and after almost 12 hours she got to Florida and straight to the hospital. She got there and I went to sleep. Slept about 3.5 hours and the alarms went off.
I got ready and then took LC for his walk at 2am. It was pouring. Luckily(?) the storm was heading East so I was hoping maybe it will miss us except for leaving puddles.
Day before the race, Mike bailed out on us. He has to work the next day. Sucks. I miss Mike.
Race start is set for 7am and check in is between 5 and 6:30. Jamey looked at the logistics and we realized we need to leave at 2:30. Yuck.
We caravaned to race finish. The park was EMPTY! No lights. No signs that we are in the right place. Nothing. Ok - we got there super early but still...
I had reached out to David Debrisky and Billy Richards. I was hoping we could do something together but the response to my "You guys all set for this point to point thing with logistics?" was a "YES" and I got the impression that they weren't really open for anything. Oh well. I called David and he told me that I am probably in the right place. Wonderful... I like that. Probably...
I went to the rest rooms and all my thriller films with serial killers instincts were going off. Still, indoor plumbing felt great. From there, we left toward the start. We got there and again, no one there. Eventually someone showed up and we asked him if this was the right place. It was. Cool. We went in search of a rest room and could not find anything. Meanwhile the parking lot started getting full but I spied 2 port-a-potties. Yay...I went. We also checked in. The rest of the time was getting ready.
Finally time to start. Of course, I was the most dressed. I don't care. It was initially white out conditions with snow. I know that doesn't sound strange but 2 days before it was 70 degrees. Damn it. Blizzard conditions with 45 MPH winds. Then it turned to rain. Then it stopped. The coolest thing tho was the start was the Tesla Hertz 100 Mile start.
I made some mistakes here and I will document them as they come...
Stage 1 was nothing terrible. It was the longest leg at 10.75 miles. Being that it was really a relay (300 relayers and 40 soloists), they had minimal stuff at the aid stations. Water/Heed and some pretzels and M&Ms. No coke... Sucks. I drank 2 cups and grabbed some M&Ms. I also ate some food I brought with. There was a girl there, bib #35, who asked where the port-a-potties were and couldn't believe the answer was "use the port-a-bush" and "use nature". She was shocked. Later we saw her and I made sure to ask if she was no longer a "port-a-bush virgin". She wasn't. I'm glad for her. When you gotta go, you gotta go and you don't want to "carry" it with you.
Stage 2 was 8.5 miles and wasn't too bad either.
I was feeling the effects of not drinking and the weather and of course I was getting some serious chafing but I continued. I got the big impression that Dave wanted me to continue pulling as long as I can so he can eventually pull away. I didn't care. Still, end of stage 2 was a welcome relief and not where I expected. Dave stopped to change socks and I told him that I am getting cold and we are starting and he will catch us. He wasn't happy but I had a feeling we were letting him go very very soon anyway so it really didn't make sense to wait. I should say that he was running really really well.
Jamey and I left for stage 3. This was supposed to be the hardest stage. It was 10 miles long and the elevation map was ugly. Didn't take long before I spied Dave and he was sprinting to catch us. I wanted to let him know that we weren't far so I called out to him. What took place was horrible and perhaps a little humorous (now). I called out to him sending a verbal arrow if you will. It took a second for the verbal arrow to reach him and like a slow motion shot where you see the arrow go through the air, you can see him hear it or perhaps better said get hit by it and he fell. It's kinda funny but I don't mean it in a bad way. Still he was ok and that's good. It was his 3rd (that we know of) fall. It wasn't too long after that that I sent him packing. We were clearly slowing him down and that didn't make sense.
That stage sucked. No real other way to say it.
Gotta give credit where credit is due: Billy Richards wearing a t-shirt and shirts and carrying a 45lbs ruck and an American Flag was escorting his friend on his first long distance race. His friends longest distance was 13 miles I think so this was huge. When we were at end of stage 3 and feeding, Billy and his friend popped out of the woods. Wow... They almost caught us. Unbelievable. WOW!
This stage by the way had coke, yay!
We fed and left. If I need to be DFL (Dead Freaking Last) that's fine but I will fight that if I can...
We didn't really know the course and couldn't tell where we were. I missed Sam from the Naked Bavarian because he knew the course and also had a GPS for distance. All we knew was that aid stations are near roads so we were constantly looking for roads as our salvation. By the way, we did have numnerous road crossings and always had people stopping traffic for us. Well, until here. We had this huge road crossing and no one to assist. Wonderful.
Jamey and I were together and both weren't doing so well. I won't go more into it.
We went through some beautiful preserve but I couldn't enjoy myself as much as I wanted. I just wanted to get the hell out of there already.
We finally got to a road and no aid station. Sucks. We followed the road and I kept expecting a turn into the aid station but nothing. Worse, we turned back into the woods. Very sad.
Soon, we popped right back out and saw an aid station. Yay.
Good news... They had coke. I felt refreshed. Jamey sat down. He looked terribly. He had already lost the ability to eat a while ago and couldn't drink so well either.
I asked about the rest of the course and she told us that after about 1/2 the distance, we will get to a "pretty" section. After that, look for a gate and then the road will open up and we will be at the finish. Ok...
More good news... They had vaseline. I showed the volunteer my neck and back and of course her reaction was both priceless and informative. Always nice to see someone react with "OH MY GOD!!!" and "That's gonna hurt!!!".
I explained the situation to her as she put on gloves. The gentler she wil try to be, the more it will hurt me. She needs to just get it on me much like ripping a band-aid off. She said ok and I braced for it. It hurt. It hurt real bad. There's no real good way for me to explain this to you but it hurt real bad. Pretty sure I screamed a little. Still, she was done then gave me a quick hug and then a slap on the butt playfully and told me to get out of here. By the way, while she was killing (helping) me, the RD called. He wanted to talk to her. I was busy screaming and she told the other volunteer that she would call him back. Nice!
We got to a gate and I was happy. Kept looking for the end. Kept looking for the end. kept looking for the end. Where is the damn end? And then we got to another gate. Sucks.
Still, we went on. Finally we saw the restrooms and my car. We then saw the finish line. What a relief. The vaseline volunteer was there snapping pictures. We got our buckles and I looked at the food choices. Not awesome. Didn't feel like having a hero sandwich but I did have some coke.
Billy and his friend soon finished and we congratulated them and asked Dave's friend for a ride to the car. We weren't sure how to get to it, it wasn't clear, and didn't want to walk aimlessly. My chafe was on fire by the way.
I was hoping to have finished much earlier in the day. We didn't. It sucked. We still had to drive to the start to drop Jamey at his car and for me to get my stuff. From there, I had to take the quickest of showers, put on a suit and then drive back East to a Bat-Mitzvah. I knew I was going to be late but I was really going to be late at this point.
Got home and I surveyed the damage. It was pretty bad. Shower was quick and painful. Putting on a suit wasn't great either. Driving sucked. Still, I got to the place and ate. Luckily, the bat-mitzvah family was late so everything started late.
From there we went home and to sleep. Sleep hurt. Do I really need to mention that?
Since I was still a single parent until Monday evening, I took the day off from Job 1 to be able to chauffer the kids around. Lisa from job 2 needed lifeguards and I figured instead of resting, that I would earn some extra cash. I went to work and as soon as she saw my battle wounds, she gasped. Actually. everyone did.
After my shift, I ate lunch and went to REI to buy something for Elizabeth and from there to pick up the kids. Jeremy's tennis game got cancelled due to the rain so we went to Naiomi's for pizza. I overate.
Another dog walk and onto JFK. My Delta app told me that they were landing at terminal 2 so I went there. I parked the car and entered the building as the notification that they landed hit me. Cool. I started looking for them only to be told that they landed at terminal 4. I didn't know they have 2 terminals!!! Then the app said terminal 4. I asked a guy what to do and he told me to take the airtrain. OK - did that and it was easy. Only 1 stop. Using findmyIphone and some whistleing we found each other. Next problem was that part of the air train was broken and instead of going both ways, it was running in only 1 direction. Instead of 1 stop back, we had to go through the entire airport. Nice...
Finally got home and to bed.
Wednesday night shower was the first shower that I enjoyed. Well, 85% enjoyed anyway. Now, over 2 weeks later, I am still not fully healed. My chest and back are almost completly healed. My chafe necklace still has some red scars that haven't gone away. How awesome...
This race beat me up physically and mentally. Not sure what to say more than that. Was it the race it self? No. Probably it was the combination of the race and point 2 point relay (with little support) and the littlest of sleep all combined to do me in. Let's not forget my stupid mistakes which I have done many of.
Later I found out that Vaseline volunteer is the RD's wife. Nice!
Just to give some more credit where it is due: One of the racers had a death in the family and the funeral was set for that day. He could not do the race so instead went and did the course by himself on Saturday, completly without support, in 7+ hours. WOW!!!
On another note, Dave beat us by 30-40 minutes or so, so I guess we weren't that bad...