Battaan Death March. The Sahara. It feels like noon (remark made at 8:30 am). It was the worst day of my life too (quote from fellow ultrarunner Bill Potts that also hates the heat).
Those words pretty much sum up the day for me! The good news is that I actually did pretty well in the heat, especially considering that it's still April and I haven't run in 80+ degree heat and high humidity in quite awhile. Amanda and I were pretty close to my last year's time (with Mical and Lorrin) at about 24 miles. Then we had the dreaded 2.8 mile climb up Apple Orchard Falls, that was really grueling. We started this climb at about noon, we'd been in the sun all day, it had been hot all day, there were hardly any leaves on the trees yet -- after mile 24 was when the wheels started to fall off for me. At least I didn't have to sit on a rock and vomit like one guy we passed, but I didn't feel great, that's for sure. When we finally made it to the top, we'd been out for about 8 hours and now had 5 miles to go, all downhill. Last year I felt elation at this point, this year I just wanted to slog on and get it over with. I didn't enjoy the downhill nearly as much, but Amanda (four days after running a 3:30:55 at Boston) and I still pushed on and passed a bunch of people on the way down. At the last aid station, a guy told us there was a bad thunderstorm heading our way, we'd better hurry. We cruised down the road and at long last got to the right turn to the finish. Horton and our buddy Mark (who busted out a 7:41 finish!) were there to great us! I couldn't be happier to be done. It was a 9:10 finish compared to 8:42 last year, but I'll take it! We both got our finisher shorts in the sizes we wanted (yeah!) and then I quickly dashed over to take my tent down. The thunder and lighting started, Bill, Amanda and I took down my tent in 2 minutes tops and then the skies opened up. We got in the car and begged for air conditioning, then decided to skip the after race food given that it was pouring. We drove on to Burger King and then Dairy Queen for the traditional post race blizzard. Yum!!
All in all it was still a pretty decent day. I got to hang out with WVMTR friends on Friday night, I got to spend all day checking out beautiful wildflowers and listening to great birds. Thanks Amanda for keeping me positive, "march like an ant!" Here are a couple of pictures from our day. I apologize for not taking more, after a certain point in the race your photographer was grumpy and not in the mood. Oh yeah, add two snakes to the snake count Lorrin.
