“We were above tree line once again and I could see the 14ers Redcloud and Sunshine. It was awesome up here. The wind wasn’t blowing and the caffeine was kicking in. In a matter of 30 minutes I went from what was my lowest point mentally, to the best part of the entire day. It was great walk / jogging up there above 12,000 feet.”
“I woke up at 1:02 AM when my watch went off. I was already tossing and turning a little. I was ready to go. I put 4 noon, $50 and my phone in a plastic bag and then put in 5 gels. My waist belt was packed. I had my water bottle filled and took off at about 1:50 AM. It was still dark and some people were rolling in from the bars. I took the stairs down and headed out the front door. I took my shirt off right away because I knew I would be sweating so much. I had taken my headlamp and extended the headband to the maximum and then doubled it up so I could fit it on the upper side of my bicep. I put it on flash just to make sure I was visible and no one would run me over. I ran north on Houston and as I got close to the House of Blues saw a bunch of people leaving the bars.”
“At one point I turned off my headlamp and just looked up at the stars. I could see the Milky Way and a zillion other stars. It was so cool. As I approached the Lands End aid station the city of Grand Junction came into view. All its lights in the distance made the valley glow. I then saw a shooting star and wished to have a healthy baby.”
“It was the hardest part of the race. It was about 12:30 AM or 1:00 AM and I didn’t want to take my caffeine tablets yet because the effects would not last until daybreak. I wished that I would not have made that wrong turn back before Carson Lake because then I could get to the next aid station and sleep for at least an hour. I kept thinking about sleep. Sometimes I would close my eyes for a second and it would end up being 10 seconds and I stumbled and swayed from side to side. Other times my headlamp would catch a tree or bush off to the side of me and I would think it was a deer, moose or bear. I was starting to see funny things. Once I saw some branches and saw them as the wire forms of Christmas decorations that people put on their front lawn like reindeer. I thought to myself why would someone put reindeer Christmas decorations out here? It was just branches. It went on like that for the next couple of miles.”
“My stomach had dropped and I felt an immense pain in my right knee area. I didn’t dare look down for fear something was really wrong. Everything was still moving and it only ached. As I had rolled out of the fall, I could hear people around me gasping at the seriousness of my fall. I kept walking down the trail trying to shake off the fall. Once I had gotten about 40 or 50 feet downhill I looked at my right knee and it was bleeding pretty heavily. I wiped off the blood and kept running.”
“I had run up upon a rattlesnake coiled right in the middle of the trail! I was about 2 feet away from him when I heard him, not saw him. It freaked me out. Here I was pushing as hard as I could and not even noticing the snake as it coiled up ready to strike. I jumped back and calmed myself for a second. Then I tried to shoo the snake out of the trail, but snakes don’t know what shoo means.”
“I had to go down an incline and as I was descending my calf locked up 3 more times. Each time I was in excruciating pain and was unable to walk. I would have to rub my calf down just to get it going again so I could walk. The incline was less than 50 yards but it took me about 15 minutes to get down. It was then that I realized that my running / walking days were over for this year. I limped back home and got in at about 6:10 AM. Beth was still there and as I was putting away my hat and gloves she came over and I told her I was done. “Done”, meaning that this year and my running was done. She gave me a hug and I began to tear up.”
“The sun was starting to go down and I looked at the sunset as a metaphor for my running this year as coming to a close as well. I finished this lap and told myself that I was going to jog the entire final lap. It was just past 5:00 PM and time to switch directions and I got my jog on one last time for 2011.”
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