Breckenridge

I am in Missouri.

More to the point, it is my first 50K. It's August. Hot. I'm dying.

For several months now, I have been "training" for this run. Training is surrounded by quote marks because I have very little idea of how to go about preparing myself for 31 miles. Looking back on it, I should have started every long run by hitting myself on the legs and feet with a hammer, covered my toes in honey and stuck them in a bee hive, and possibly do an hour long cool down inside a blast furnace.

I did none of this. I just ran. Some days more, some days less. I entered this race with a bit of confidence that only going long brings, and some great gear/advice from Great Plains Running Company (more on that in another post, I am in love with that place). So, back to Breckenridge...

Actually, the story starts in Topeka. I had worked the Friday night before the race, and after enjoying three hours of bed I was sitting at the table eating breakfast. It was storming out. Lightning, thunder, and rain to beat hell. On the drive to Breckenridge I was guzzling coffee (electrolytes, shmelectrolytes), blasting music, and trying to see past the hood of my car. The rain was so hard in parts that most of the cars had pulled to one side...SWEET, now I don't have to pick a lane! Two hours later I am in the smallest town in the world. The population sign for Breckenridge claimed 400 or so...I spent nine hours in this town, and I only saw a dozen people, two of whom were associated with the run. It had that "this used to be a charming place until we started eating each other" feel. To the run, then. There are, counting me, four people running this thing. I love low-key, so this was neat. Plus, it looked like my first ultra might be an age group win. I started pretending to stretch, while plotting a way to ensure a podium finish: if the battle for third came down to me and the fat guy in the last few miles, I would wait for a lonely stretch of course and then break his legs. Not really, but those thoughts did amuse me, anything to take my mind off the weather. We gathered at the start, and the guy working the aid station said "GO!". This is one thing I was really enjoying about running: not alot of drama involved. No one cares that you might get struck by lightning, or dehydrate to the point of collapse, or be killed by a mountain lion...just "GO!"
We ran for an hour. Then the rain stopped. The sun came out. There is not a bit of shade on the course. It is 86 degrees.
On the third loop, somewhere around 15 miles, I began making a small move to catch a lady with about a mile on me. Little by little, reeling her in. I was proud of my pacing during this chase, upping the tempo ever so slightly and taking my time chewing up the distance between us. I caught up with her about mile 19. The heat was really beating me at this point, so we jogged together for awhile. And then, it was story time. She proceeded to tell me every detail of how sick to her stomach she had been during her last marathon. NOTHING was spared in the telling. Every physical anomaly you can imagine was replayed in vivid, colorful, horrifying imagery. It wasn't long before I felt quite ill myself. Too weak to pull ahead, I dropped back with images in my head that only a medical professional would be able to stomach.

Walking for awhile to put some distance between us gave me an excuse to exercise some positive imagery. I began by thinking of the obvious "small wins" I had experienced since I started running. I had lost 50 pounds. My life was full, I had more energy for the little things that always seem to crop up, work was more productive...and so on. Thought about Willie at GPRC, all the support I had recieved from him the last few months. Thought about Psycho Wyco and the people I saw there who were such an inspiration to me. The ill feeling quickly left as I thought about the "Mud Babes", a group of female trail runners who will probably take over the world someday. I wonder if the dude wearing the skirt at that race was an honorary Mud Babe. At any rate, thinking about all this helped erase the worst running story ever told and I was able to finish my first 50K strong. I learned a bit about running in the heat. I learned more about my growing infatuation with the local running community and my potential as a part of it.
And yes, I did beat the fat guy, fair and square.