Today I am scheduled to run 38 miles in the canyons. At this distance, my plan is to run up and down three canyons and then turn around do the same thus the Triple Double.
Starting at 7AM I knew this was going to be a long slow day. I loaded up with water, gels, frozen oranges (my newly discovered favorite running food), and PB&J. Once again, starting in Foresthill, the group took off. The run was going great as I finished the first half in less than five hours. After filling up with water in Last Chance, we headed back.
I felt good as I came to the bottom of the Devil's Thumb. Earlier in the run I had commented to another runner that I thought the Devil's Thumb was not too bad. She was obviously surprised by my comment but let it go. This week was warmer than the previous week and I was starting back up the Devil's Thumb later in the day. I saved one of my frozen oranges for the climb and was purposely conserving water for this portion of the run. Well, groundhog day it was. The orange tasted great and did give me a good boost but I was once again chugging my water as if I had a spare water cooler behind me. The Devil's Thumb crushed me this time. As I made it to the water pump at the top, the gal I had made my comment to asked me if it was easier this time...I could only laugh...as did everyone else!
I had another 2.5 mile climb heading into Michigan Bluff and the only thing I was thinking about for the more than 60 minutes of walkign uphill was asking for a ride to Foresthill to skip the final 6+ miles. I was the last runner in our group to come in and promptly collapsed on a bench. A few of the other runners planned to stop so I had my ride lined up. After a few minutes of drinking Gatorade and water as well as an awesome chocolate chip cookie I felt a little better but when asked if I wanted to go on I quickly said no thanks! One person said to me, "if you don't get sick you aren't working hard emough." I smiled and walked around the corner and had a short bout of dry heaves.
One of the gals running with us looked at me and said, "if a bone ain't showin', keep on going." We all laughed but eventually I got up and continued on.
This was by far the toughest run I have ever done. Someone was wearing a GPS watch and said the run was about 12,000 feet in elevation gain and loss...brutal!!!
I know it will pay off for the race but come on!
No comments:
Post a Comment