I signed up for the Ouachita 50
in April, which took place outside of Maumelle Arkansas. This was a beautiful trail that ascended
Pinnacle Mountain in the early few miles, followed by a long down and back run
that traversed Lake Maumelle.
My experience going into this Ultra was
not much; in fact, my training was probably more for a glorified marathon then
anything. However, at this time in my
life my mental game was beyond ready for an event such as this. Cutting
it short, I bit my lip and drove my feet into the ground one after the other to
get to the finish line. By the time I
actually crossed the line, in 11:38 hours, I actually felt as if I could keep
moving. After a few minutes though that
idea was shot into the ground. Once you
stop for an elongated period of time, after running for so long, your legs, joints and even mind start to seize up and declare their weak and feeble
state of being.
This race was an emotional test, one
that drove out tears and words, which I did not realize I felt or
comprehended. My recovery after this
race was slow, I could hardly run for a week or two afterwards, nor could I
comprehend running another ultra anytime soon. At a point in an ultra, your
mind shuts down. You do not worry about
your life back home, or your problems.
The only thing that matters (that mattered to me this day) is the fact
that you believe death is right behind you, swinging his sling blade as to take
your soul to the underworld.
The emotion of my accomplishment of my
first ultra filled my mind and body that day, night, and the following week
afterwards. I felt as if I had
accomplished something so rare that I was unable to think of doing anything but
running. Of course, I couldn’t run due
to soreness, so I picked up the weights and climbed rocks as much as I
could.
Through this process I was finishing
off my semester in school, and was recovering. Going into the summer, I felt as
if I needed another race to strive for, but could not express these feelings to
anyone. I think something inside of me
was actually questioning whether I could ever run a distance so far again.
During the summer months, usually
around the beginning of June, I train with the military for two weeks. I had been running again for some time now,
and by the time my annual training had come, I was running nearly every night,
trying to build up my confidence in my running.
I believe come June, maybe even a little before, I had already started
daydreaming about the thoughts of running not one 50 miler, but two back to
back. My mind was bitten by the bug, the
bug that said, you did something hard, good job, but can you do more?
At this time, I had already looked into
the race called the Arkansas Traveler.
This is a race, ran through the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, 100 miles
of ATV trails. Imagine 3 to 5 inch
rocks, spread apart for 3 to 10 feet...this was a vast portion of the trails in
which the participants would run. Some
trails were in really nice shape, while others had two to three foot drops
spread over miles of road. This of
course is what my mind comprehended from numerous blogs, forums, and
descriptions that I found on the web.
My mind said, hey, I know it is far,
and you have never traveled a distance like this, but hey, you might as well
try, if you do not try, then you will realize how worthless you are. That’s how my brain works, it congratulates
me for my achievements, briefly, and then it quickly turns around and says, now
what more can you do?
Upon my return home from training, I
was given a surprise birthday party with my family. As dinner progressed, my brother in law took
interest in my talking about the AT100.
He looked at me with an earnest eye and said...lets do it. At the time I did not believe him, or at
least thought that it would not work out, as he would probably never mention it
again, but in my head, I knew that he was right.
Screw it, it should be done! The race was to start on October the
1st. The day of this celebration was on
the 20th or so...My birthday is on the 25th but I was leaving for Las Vegas
shortly after returning from my training, so we celebrated my birthday either
before I left, or when I got back...I really do not remember for sure at this
point. All I know is I had roughly 3
months to prepare for a 100 mile race...Cough Cough...I should have prepared
for a year. Ted (my brother-in-law) probably trained more for this race then I
did, he was logging so many miles a week.
I kept to my routine schedule anywhere from 40 to 60 miles of consistent
6 to 12 mile runs. I logged a few 15+
runs, but not to many. For a race of
this magnitude, a consistent amount of long distance days is required for
optimum endurance. Come the month
before, I stepped my game up and got some good long runs in on the trails at my
local park, and decided to myself, I was as ready as I was going to be. No competing, just finishing is what I
decided to do.
So the morning of the Traveler arrives...
No comments:
Post a Comment