Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Bloody 11

Back from the road of the Bloody 11W 111 mile journey race that begins in Knoxville, TN and ends in Bristol, VA just over the state line at the end of 11W. I am again fresh off another defeat of sorts. I did not make the entire 111 miles for reasons I’ll explain later. One day I may find success in journey running, but as of yet it still alludes me. I guess if you aren’t scared, your dreams aren’t big enough. If you haven’t yet experienced the sting of the DNF, you haven’t pushed yourself enough. The defeat still stings each time, but I will be back for another round next year, starting with Vol State again in July. Some people have asked me why I keep throwing myself into this gauntlet time and time again if I keep coming up short. Why do I keep putting myself through the pain and misery of defeat? It’s a hard question to answer, especially if you don’t have any experience journey running, but one I’m going to endeavor to answer in this post. In short, I don’t feel like my attempts are all complete failures. I’ve learned so much from each one that has helped me in the next. Also, I’ve recently found out some medical information that might explain some things, which I’ll be addressing before the next attempt. Until then, enjoy the story and the why of the Bloody 11W.

The Bloody 11W is a 111 mile journey race begun by Lazarus Lake in 2011. When he eventually wanted to go on to start A Race For the Ages, the Bloody 11 was left behind. Not wanting the race to go defunct, the wonderfully sweet Diane Taylor took up the mantle and began race directing. She runs this race entirely through volunteers, with the race being entirely free. It is truly a labor of love for her and her volunteers who go above and beyond on their own time and money to make our lives better out on the course. The history of the Bloody 11W is an interesting one. Known as the most haunted road in the country, the Bloody 11 earned its moniker for being considered one of the deadliest, most dangerous, and therefore most haunted roads in the country. Just keep that in mind as your trekking through the darkness! These days, 11W has luxuriously wide shoulders that are a car width in size themselves. After some of the shoulderless madness that is Vol State, these shoulders seemed a real treat! It’s also an interesting experience in juxtaposition with Vol State because it is not as well known a race, so road angels are few and far between (Thanks again, Shae!) and are mostly spontaneous, which is a cool experience for a journey race.

The race began, as all my journey races thus far have, with a Last Supper at a local buffet, this time the Shoneys down the street from our hotel. We all gathered in a room and had a meal and chatted while we waited to listen to race instructions. As Jan likes to say, Diane spoils us, and does she ever! The rules for the Bloody 11 are a little different than say HOTS or LAVS. For one, crews are encouraged and welcomed. You can get in a car as long as you cover the entire distance on foot. You can even get a car to a hotel and go back to your spot after a rest. For all of us Vol State folks who hadn’t done this race, the first time we got in a car to cool off we all looked around like we’d gotten caught with our hands in the cookie jar. After a briefing from Jan– “First off safety. Be safe.” and check-in much like LAVS, we were off to the hotel to await the coming day.

Dark and early at 6am, we all met at the beginning sign of 11W, took a quick photo, and were off! The morning was humid, but cool weather wise. We knew it would not last, so we all tried to get in as many miles as we could while the weather was in our favor. I quickly fell into rhythm with my new friend Janet and we walked on down the road. We were making pretty good time throughout the first twenty miles or so. The weather was staying overcast and cool and it was possible to really push the pace without depleting yourself which was nice. Sometime in that first 15 to 20 miles, we met up with Drew who was volunteering this year and he asked if we wanted anything. He said he had pickles which I eagerly took. I immediately drained the pickle juice and ate a few pickles. I had no more than finished chewing when suddenly I felt SICK. I mean immediately sick. My face drained of color, I got really shaky for no reason and I felt like I was going to pass out. I went around to the side of the car and then turned to tell Drew I didn’t feel well. Before I could get any words out, I projectile vomited all of the side of the road. I wretched and wretched and wretched until I had nothing left in my stomach.

Drew and Janet were in shock. Janet said, “She wasn’t sick a minute ago! She’s been fine!” and I was right up until I wasn’t. Janet turned to me as I tried to clean myself up and told me she hadn’t been a true friend. It had happened so quickly, she hadn’t been able to get her phone out to video so I could see the carnage. Ha! That’s a true journey running friend. As we all sat there stunned by what had just happened and I tried to recover, we tried to figure out what was wrong. The obvious answer was heat stress, but… it wasn’t hot. I wasn’t in any kind of heat stress. My heart rate wasn’t even running a little bit high. I was sweating, but not enough to elicit that kind of response. I had had literally no symptoms of heat stress before vomiting all over the place. Eventually, I moved on down the road with Janet and we continued trying to figure out what the heck happened to me. I’m still not certain, but due to the duration and specifics of the symptoms, I worked out that I must have had food poisoning of some sort.

After hurling my guts up all over the side of the road, I almost immediately felt better, which is why I decided to continue hoping it was a freak occurrence. As the miles wore on, I just couldn’t eat. I tried to get some liquid down, but even that was challenging. We found all our folks hanging out at a local food spot The Little Dipper, so we went in for some lunch. I could not eat anything, but I sucked down a milkshake. Everyone else though that might make me sick again, but it didn’t make the nausea worse. However, here and at every bathroom I could find, I would have (TMI WARNING HERE) horrible diarrhea. I could not keep anything in my system long enough to digest it. This is why I think it was probably a food born illness of some sort.

We met up with others on the course as we stopped to take breaks in the shade, which is how I caught up with Melissa and met Kim, Gina, and Nena, or as Melissa was calling them “Gina, Nena, and the Santa Maria.” As we plopped our packs down, Gina said, “Welcome to the exclusive club shade. We saved seats just for you!” Janet and I graciously accepted! We chatted for a while and talked strategy, life, HRT, and good pee spots. Eventually we all meandered back out onto the road as our bodies recovered. I’d leapfrog with them over and over as the day and night wore on. It’s one of the beauties of the journey race. You are alone for a good chunk of time, but then, like a moth drawn to the flame, you’ll see a great rest spot, go over to it, and lo and behold, there are others there too! You get so excited to see other people and they are excited to see you and swap stories of the road.

Photo credit Janet!

We trudged on through the heat mile after mile until I knew I was holding Janet back. I told her to go on without me and I trudged on alone, taking more and more breaks in the heat, often stopping to wretch. I didn’t have anything in my system though, so there wasn’t much to come up. At this point, I knew I was in trouble, but I hoped I could pull it out. I will caveat here that I would not have continued on in this state had I not known there were LOTS of volunteer cars I could call if I really needed it, Drew included. Walking into a heat advisory not being able to keep liquid down is not the smartest of decisions I have made, but I made it work and took very small sips such that I could keep some of it down. I was able to get something to stay here and there, but mostly it came up or out. I knew I was getting dehydrated based on the state and frequency of my urine, but I decided to chance it. I REALLY wanted to finish.

I was trudging through the last of the heat when a truck pulled up beside me and leaned over with a glorious bottle of water. “Do you want some water?” he asked. “Yes, oh my God, yes! You are so awesome. Thank you so so much!!” I gushed. He just smiled and said, “It’s hot out here. Stay safe!” and waved as he drove off. That is the miracle of the spontaneous road angel. They swoop in like angels at just the right moment. Right when you need water or a boost, there they are, right on time, like a miraculous oasis in the desert. As I drank the gloriously cold water, little sips at a time so I could keep it down, I mused on what makes a race like this one so special.

A journey race is different from anything else you will ever do in your life. It is certainly different from any other running event. There are no aide stations, no designated places to stop like a stage race, no guard rails at all except for two rules: Keep moving down the road and have some common sense. Ultimately, you are responsible for you. You have to know your limits. you have to know how far you can push yourself, and you have to have some personal responsibility. The road is much different from a regular road race where the roads are all closed for you for the duration. You are actively in traffic and you have to respect the very real danger of that. You must keep your head on swivel, keep your wits about you, and keep an eye on everything going on around you. Ultimately, your safety is up to you. You cannot just “go on autopilot” like you can in many races or you could get very seriously hurt or die. Because of this focus, you will wear yourself out faster than a regular race. That level of focus and attention to detail will eventually wear on you. You have to know when you are no longer safe to be on the road. For most of us back of the packers, we will have to contend with sleep deprivation– everyone does. With back of the packers, we’ll have to contend with spending more time per day on the road with very little downtime. Every minute and mile counts because we don’t have much of a buffer if things go wrong. With that in mind, I trudged on into the darkness.

The number one question I’m asked about journey races is “Aren’t you scared alone in the dark?”. The answer I unequivocally give is no. I find walking in the dark to be almost soothing. The heat of the day is gone and the traffic dies down, eventually to almost nothing. You look up into the sky and can see the stars– sometimes even the Milky Way! Everything in that moment is calm and you can lose yourself in the vastness of the universe. You also run into people here and there as you make your way down the road. I had decided to take an extended break at Clayton Homes to sleep a little bit if I could. Diane, queen that she is, had put out some yoga mats and blankets!! Glorious blankets!! so that we could use them to sleep. Before you ask, yes, it was outside, on concrete. That’s the name of the game here! But the blanket was SOOOOO welcome. As you stop for any period of time and let your body cool down, you begin to get cold. Really cold. You begin to shiver. Shivering is not conducive to sleeping. I lay down between the picnic tables with Melissa and Nena. We all shivered and tossed trying to get to sleep. One by one, we all just accepted defeat and readying ourselves for the night walk ahead. None of us were able to get any sleep.

We fell into step with one another passing the time with stories. The cool thing I realized about this race as we were talking is that it was a full majority of women! That’s a rarity in the ultra-world, although the gap is closing, but it was really cool to just be in the presence of such awesome and badass women all weekend! Eventually we leap-frogged on down the road until we saw a small porch with other runners. Nena and I pulled in for a rest and had a chat with Melissa, Gina, and Kim. As we were chatting, Melissa said, “Haley, have you looked at your foot??” I looked down at my left foot in confusion. A huge growing pink spot was staining my shoe right at the pinkie toe. Apparently, a blister had completely burst and was actively bleeding enough to have filled my shoe. Great. I hadn’t even felt it. I guess that’s a testament to how badly I felt all day with my digestive system, I wasn’t even noticing my feet. After a quick poll, I decided to try to deal with it. When I pulled my sock off, I was horrified. The entire pinkie toe was one bleeding blister. It was bad. I did what I could and slapped a compeed bandage on for good measure. That’d have to do until I could do something more.

Onward Nena and I trudged into the night. We passed a lovely lake, the air finally started cooling off, the company was excellent. Overall, I was in good spirits, even though I was holding back puke for extended periods. Finally, I knew I could not keep Nena’s pace. I was slowing down, and I was going to have to throw up. I didn’t want to hold her back when she was moving so well, so I told her to go on without me and I sat in a turn out for a bit. She reluctantly went on and I turned off my headlamp and looked at the stars. Then the wretching began. I wretched and wretched and wretched. Dry heaving into the night. There was just nothing in my stomach. I called Drew to come get me and take me to a hotel. I figured if I could reset, I might be able to salvage this.

When we got back to the hotel, I fell almost straight asleep after a quick wash off. I set my alarm for three hours and passed out. Only two hours into my rest, I bolted from bed for the bathroom. I spent another hour off and on dry heaving into the toilet. I couldn’t get anything down and my pee was now looking uncomfortably dark. I decided to try to sleep a few more hours and risk it, and set the alarm again. But again I was awoken by dry heaving. I sat around until 7am, and knew I wasn’t getting any better. It would be foolish of me to attempt another day in the heat as dehydrated as I was with no way of replenishing and keeping down fluids, much less solids. So, at around 8am, I decided to call it. I’d gotten 41 miles almost exactly.

I am not all that disappointed at the outcome of this one. I just had a freak accident with the food poisoning or whatever it was. I fought to the bitter end to stay in the race without compromising my safety on the road. I had a really great time and I would definitely be back to do this race again. In the journey race business, hey, it’s all about the journey! The destination is nice and all, and I would love to be able to experience it, but the journey is really the prize. Being out on the road is the most alive you will ever feel. You will meet awesome people who will certainly be the people you’d want to call during the apocalypse. While everyone is out scrambling to survive, we’ll carefully pack our packs, Desitin and tape our feet, and head out onto the road. We will survive and, hey, maybe even thrive! Journey running requires dedication, but it is not a solo sport. It is definitely a team sport! Your team just ebbs and flows with the tide, arriving just when you need them with the right supplies or advice. The amount of confidence I have gained participating in these events is almost too much to put into words. When you have to rely on yourself to get you out of tight spots or problem solve a near insurmountable problem, the lessons you learned during a journey race will be there. Whenever you feel down about the state of people in the world, the kindness you experienced out on the road will be there. Whenever you need a challenge you just aren’t sure you can overcome, the road will be waiting. She’s always there, white line beckoning, calling you to be the person you know you can be, giving you nothing and everything you need. Maybe not a Boulevard of Broken Dreams after all–maybe just A Dream Deferred.

The People You Walk Through Hell With: A Last Annual Vol State Adventure

Well, it’s that time of year again, the Last Annual Vol State Road Race is underway. I was supposed to be there too, and I was for a brief 48 hours before I had to call it at about mile 50. So this race report is going to be short but fun because a lot can happen in 48 hours at LAVS. First off, the details: I am fine and not permanently harmed, but I got a deep plane blister on my left heel that ended up being a race-killer. As a result, I also have injured my right hip compensating for my left leg. I’ll get into the story of what happened in a second, but I just want to say that I don’t feel like this race was a failure for me for many, many reasons. No, I didn’t get to the rock yet, but I know that I have it in me. The more I do races like this though, the more I feel like, for me anyway, the finish is just the grace note. The real prize of a race of this nature is really the journey and the people you meet along the way. So while I’m a little bummed because I had to cut my adventure short, I still had an awesome time and am already working on my next journey adventure the Bloody 11, which will take place in September. Now, onto the story!

All right, dear friends. Let me spin you a yarn. Vol State started as it usually does with the Last Supper Before the Last Supper or the Next to Last Supper where everybody informally comes to the China Buffet in Kimball, TN. Yes, there are lots of China Buffets involved in Vol State participation. This year I had the inside scoop and went ahead and took Tums for the day before the race. That worked well. Then all that was left was to load up on the bus and head over to Union City, TN– a bus ride that takes about 8 hours. I went ahead and took a Bonine for that ride and that really made all the difference in how I felt the next day. Two years ago I was so sick I felt like crap even before starting the race. After a quick trip to the room to set down packs and meet roomies (mine was Katie from Australia!), off we went to the Last Supper, the mandatory race briefing/dinner before the event. We listened to Laz, Carl, Jan, and Sandra about what we should do and not do (umm… hello, DO NOT LITTER), grabbed our flags which serve as our race bibs, and then headed back for some much needed shut-eye before the race.

DO NOT LITTER (And, for GOD’S sake, don’t take your shoes off in public)

The next morning dawned and I had actually managed to get a good amount of sleep, unlike the previous attempt. All right! After morning ablutions journey-runner style, we loaded up on the bus one last time– the last time any of us would be in a car for the duration– and headed for the ferry in Hickman, KY. We lucked out because the ferry had been closed off and on all of June/July because of various problems, but it was open! We all boarded, (don’t forget to pay the ferryman, yo) and headed over to the great state of Missouri. With the lighting of a cigarette courtesy of Laz, the race had begun! I chatted with folks on the ferry, some I knew and some I was just getting to know before we made our way out to the never-ending white line.

A word about morning ablutions, journey-runner style– If you look into the pack of any journey runner who has done even a SHRED of research, you are going to find some common items in every pack. A journey runner lives and dies by Desitin– yes, the diaper rash cream. We will go through TUBES of it during the race. I always joke that the week of the race, the mothers of all the respective towns must be confused as to why there is suddenly a shortage of Desitin. I’m telling you, the stores on course will be PICKED CLEAN. Pretty much Desitin and some tape will cure what ails you. You are also going to find tape and pins of various sorts (I usually carry safety pins). Probably high up on that list will also be various sorts of hydrocolloid patches. This is the jargon of journey racing. What you’ll want to do is to tape up the problem spots of your feet with your tape of choice (maybe Rock Tape or KT tape). Then you’re going to want to SLATHER your feet with Desitin. This race is hot (that is an understatement) and when the sun starts heating up the road, it will be hotter still. That heat will bake your feet and cause blisters. You want to prevent that and Desitin is hydrophobic, meaning you’ll be protected –theoretically– from sweat or rain. You will also find some kind of lubricant that will be a personal preference. I personally like Salty Britches because it is kind of sticky and doesn’t just melt off of your skin. It really works well for me. I had zero chafing this year. You’re going to want to slather that lube everywhere you might chafe (yes, even where the sun don’t shine, though personally for that job, I prefer good old Desitin). After smearing on some sunscreen, doffing your hat and pack, you are ready to paint the town red! Hopefully not with your own blood.

The morning was actually fairly cool and felt nice. As we began ambling our way toward the Tennessee state line, we all fell into an easy rhythm, chatting with friends we knew and making new friends. The conversation is easy. We have so much common ground. What is your plan for today? What will you do about the weather? What kinds of races have you done before? The conversation ebbs and flows as people pull away from you or you them. There is no animosity, just a current of momentum. We will see people come and go throughout the race. There is no need to do anything but go at your own pace. At the beginning of the race, I walked and chatted with the incomparable Diane Taylor and made plans to eventually do the Bloody 11 journey race, which she race directs. We eventually parted and I came across Ironman Billy Collins and he gave me some pointers about where to stop for a little rest in the first bit of the race. Vol State Newbs, if you listen to nothing else I have to say, listen to this: You MUST listen to the veterans of this race if you really want to succeed. Some of these people are a veritable trove of information that you really don’t want to learn the hard way. Listen and learn.

I saw the church Billy had mentioned as a rest break and stopped in the driveway, as I turned around, there was Ironman Billy himself right behind me along with two new friends Spring and Becky. He looked up and saw me and said, “Hey! You remembered!” We sat and chatted for a few minutes with our shoes off before continuing on. I picked up with Spring and Becky and we wound our way down the white line. A note about the areas we are walking: Sometimes there is a shoulder and sometimes the shoulder looks like the below photo, but sometimes there is NO SHOULDER AT ALL. You will be dodging trucks and semis. They will pass you closely. You will have to jump out of the way. That is the way of the race. If you aren’t comfortable basically playing in traffic, you will not enjoy this race. You do get used to it, but you have to be constantly vigilant. To me the hardest part of the race is balancing pain and fatigue so that you can be mentally aware enough to mind the traffic. There are large stretches that require your utmost attention. You cannot zone out.

White-lining it: like redlining, but on the road! Don’t walk on those rumble strips or you’ll be sorry.

Before I knew it, we had made our way into Union City and the one of many angel stations. On principal, I am not going to mention the exact location of any of the angel stations I know about. They are out there and probably more numerous than you realize, but you should find them out for yourself. Also, on principal, you should never expect an angel station to be there and plan on that. They should be fun bonus surprises, not part of your race plan. These folks are doing this out of kindness and are not obligated every year, though some have become fixtures of the race. Just be happily surprised. We all sat at a picnic table outside fixing our feet, eating snacks, and replenishing water. Folks would come and go. A friend Erin showed up and sat down. “I’d ask how everyone is doing, but I already know.” For sure. It was already HOT. The road was already causing blisters. We didn’t even know what was in store for us. I met a new friend, Jenny, here.

I passed by the Stinky Bridge (not as stinky this year, I thought!) and spoke to the race admin to check in. Carl asked about Drew not doing the race again and I said he was being a weenie. He said, “Then you’re the Hardwick. He’s the softwick.” And Laz said my name had good alliteration. I said I used to be an English teacher, so that made sense… Onward I went and eventually caught up with Jenny again on the way to the next stop.

Our plan was to get to Martin and grab a hotel room, sleep for a few hours, and then push on to the Dresden Farmer’s Market in the wee hours before morning checkin. We wound our way to another angel station and propped up our feet to relieve pressure. Everywhere along this course, you will see folks flat on the ground legs in the air on a chair or wall. The constant pressure of walking makes your blood pool and feet swell. This helps them out. We got up and continued dodging cars on the way into Martin. As soon as we arrived, we planned to grab some supplies at Walmart (What luxury!) and then go get a hotel room. There are two hotels on course in Martin. As we walked into the parking lot, we saw two other Vol Staters and stopped to chat. Immediately, we heard the thunder and lightning start up. We all looked around worried.

What are you going to do they asked us. We said we were getting a room. The told us if we didn’t have one already they were all sold out. They had found a room a mile off course and gave us their number. They said we could crash with them if needed. THIS is the heart of this race. All of us were complete strangers at the beginning of the day, yet by the end, we were sharing hotel rooms. It’s a really magical experience. You take care of each other out there. No one is “competing.” Everyone is surviving. We hurried into Walmart just as the bottom fell out. I’m talking torrential, flood-causing rain, lightning, and thunder. It was a huge storm barreling right for us. We got our supplies and headed to the lobby where we met four really nice Australian friends. We swapped plans on what we could do. Neither of us had hotel rooms. Walmart closed at 11, which left us still hours to go before the storm was supposed to be over. We didn’t want to walk in the lightning, so we strategized.

I looked out into the parking lot. There was a sturdy tent left over from the 4th of July fireworks sale still in the parking lot. It was sturdily tied down. I figured that was our only hope. I quietly mentioned that we should sneak into the tent to sleep and wait out the storm. They had tables in there that were empty and would make good make-shift beds. Everyone looked at me like I had lost my mind. I’m explained it wasn’t a good choice but it was the only choice. There was nowhere else to take cover. Jenny and I decided to risk it and went out during a lull. We snuck in the back. The others said they would decide later, and ended up going on to the Econolodge where they’d wait in the lobby. Jenny and I surveyed our kingdom. This just might work. It was cool enough to sleep but warm enough to keep us from getting cold. The tent was sturdy and kept us from getting wet, and miracle of miracles!! There was a port-o-pottie RIGHT OUTSIDE!!! The storm buffeted the tent for hours as we tried to get some sleep, cozy in our makeshift shelter. I did manage to get about an hour of sleep despite the rather spectacular light show.

At some point in the night, I had to make use of the port-o-pottie and checked the weather. There was going to be a break between midnight and two and then it would pin us down again from three to five am. We had to move. Quickly we packed our stuff, guzzled some snacks we had saved for later, and raced out of the tent. We really wanted to get about 40 miles before the morning checkin and the only way to do that was to move now to another location to get pinned in for the next storm. That storm looked like a monster and I did not want to get caught in it. I scouted through the route for a place of refuge when I remembered that Drew and I had stopped at a church on our way to Dresden and it had a big awning. Score! I checked the map and it was in reachable distance in the time we had! Double score! I told Jenny of the place. She asked how I knew about that place and I said I have slept there before! Just Vol State things. Ha!

Both of us started laughing hysterically because of the ridiculousness of the situation. We were having the greatest Vol State adventure! Off we went as if Satan was chasing us himself. We tore through the early morning streets of Martin racing for the church just five miles away (I realized later it was SEVEN MILES because I was on old Vol State mileage which was two miles ahead. Don’t do math on sleep deprivation and fatigue, kids). We booked it through the night. About a mile from our destination the light show started. We got to the church JUST as the sprinkles began. Relieved, we unpacked sleep gear and tried to nap as the storm raged outside.

Inside of my bag shot: This fabric is sour gummy worms

As soon as the storm passed, we had fixed our feet and were off. I had had to pop a large blister on the side of my heel and had what felt like a hot spot on the other heel. It was not a hot spot. I didn’t know it then, but I was developing a super deep blister on my left heel. I popped, taped, and Desitin-ed. We tore off through the streets trying to get to Dresden. About three minutes after we left the church, I felt a drop of rain and as did Jenny. We donned our ponchos just as the bottom fell out. We were instantly drenched with no choice but to push on to the Dresden Farmer’s Market. We squelched our way through huge puddles, jumping at lightning strikes, trudging on through the early morning. By 7:00am, we had reached the farmer’s market. We sat to dry out and evaluate. We had wanted to push on to Gleason, but the rain meant we had to stop again and take care of our feet. I had been limping for a couple of miles, so I wasn’t thrilled about taking off my socks.

When I did, my feel were absolutely ruined. They were macerating and blisters had popped up everywhere: toes, balls of both feet, both heels. But all of this was manageable until I saw what awaited me on my left heel: A HUGE deep blister that I could not pop. I googled, I asked around, I asked Drew what he thought. He told me to text Jan, so I did. She replied and I tried to do what she recommended, but I could not pop the stupid thing. The liquid was trapped in it, which meant I couldn’t get any kind of pain relief. It hurt with every step. I didn’t realize that Drew had been texting with Carl, who suggested texting Jan. When Drew asked Carl what he would do if he got a huge deep blister, Carl replied, “Cry.”

I told Drew I was going to have to drop then. He said keep on going for a little while longer. Just get to Gleason, so I figured I would try to get to Gleason at least. Onward I trudged into Gleason. I went on ahead of Jenny a little bit because I was walking so slowly. I figured she would catch up and then go on ahead. I didn’t want to slow her down. I walked with a new friend Sonia. She was having the same issues, except on the balls of her feet. We winced and limped and laughed and moaned our way to Gleason. It was still raining. Finally hours later, we emerged from our ponchos and started seeing spray paint on the road: “Four miles to Gleason.” We trudged on. “Three miles to Gleason.” “Holy f*@#.” Sonia said. “We’ve only gone one mile. “I know,” I moaned. “I really hate those signs. They are demoralizing.” Finally, after what seemed like forever, we reached Gleason. By that time, Jenny was already inside and I had found a nice little bench. Suddenly, Carl appeared out of nowhere. “Why are you sitting there when you could be at the fire station?” “Carl,” I replied, “I’m gonna be honest. I don’t remember where it is.” “It’s that way,” he pointed and then walked and talked me down to the fire station.

I tried to do everything he said. I rested. I ate. I took of all the crap on my feet to survey the damage and let my feet dry. Again, everything looked bad but was salvageable except the stupid left heel. It was a big angry red blotch with a fluid filled sack deep below the skin that covered my entire heel. The blister had sprouted other sister blisters off of it. I put my feet up on a chair and cried. What was I going to do? How could I fix it? I waited and rested the two hours and took stock. People came over to commiserate. Janet took one look at my feet and said, “I hate to say this, but that looks like a race-ender.” I told her I agreed. I tried to fix what I could. I put on the driest socks I had left and put my soaking shoes back on. Carefully I stood up. The shooting pain was immediate. I couldn’t put my weight on my left leg at all. My right hip was taking the hit and was seizing up. The reality was I had done what I could and it was not enough. I knew my race was over.

I suppose there are those that might say I could have gone on anyway. I suppose I could have, but the risk of damage to my right hip was real. I didn’t want to go out that way–completely broken, battered, and mad at the world. Instead, I had had a great adventure in the two days I was out. I had met some wonderful people. I had overcome problems and found solutions. My training had worked! My body (minus the blisters) felt great! My shoes had kept my feet from hurting (but not blistering… I think I worked my way through that on the ride home). My plan had worked, so I feel like I had at least some measure of success.

Will I be back, you might wonder. Absolutely yes! This race gets in your blood and changes you in ways you can’t imagine. You have gained a new family. Everyone attached to this race from the race directors to the angels on the course to the participants are the kind of people you’d want around in a crisis. They care about the race and they care about the racers. We are family. I don’t know why these things take me longer to finish than others. I don’t know why I have failed twice now even while I’ve been prepared. Sometimes people are just late bloomers. This race is difficult for me. It’s a stretch of what I feel comfortable with and that’s a big reason why I keep doing it. Each time I have learned something new, grown in new ways, and expanded what it means to be able to do hard things. Even if I never reach the rock, the lessons themselves would be a prize worth having. But I suspect sometime in the future that the rock will be there waiting for me, ready to welcome me home at last.

***WARNING*** If you are a curious sort, scroll below to see what my feet looked like right before I called it. I don’t think they look that bad personally, and everyone at the race wanted to see because we are like that, but BE WARNED. The last one in the series is the race killer. Doesn’t look like much on it’s own now does it?

Running, Walking, and Muscular Imbalance

Lately, I’ve had to forgo running for walking as I am currently training for the Last Annual Vol State road race in July. If you aren’t familiar, this is a Lazarus Lake race that spans 314 miles on the back roads of Tennessee. I’ve attempted this race before, but failed at the 113 mile mark, so this year I’m back for redemption. Once you get to these longer mileage races, you really have to take a good hard look at your training. I’m a woman of a certain age now and I just can’t get away with things I could in my younger years. For instance, all the longer mileages I’ve hit pretty much consistently for about ten years now started to catch up to me. I had developed muscular imbalances that took out my first LAVS attempt. I didn’t even know they were there until 113 miles into my trek on the unforgiving road reared its head and took out my achilles.

Photo by Mehelia van der Veer on Pexels.com

I realized that the strength training I was neglecting was crucial. I also needed to find a way to address the imbalances specifically while keeping up my running/ walking. On a side note, my first LAVS attempt I mostly trained by running and this is STUPID. If you are mostly walking this race, you need to train by WALKING. They do not use the same muscles. You will be sorry if you neglect your walking training. Trust me. Other than swapping over to walking, I prioritized strength training. I’m using the IBEX training program for runners and now using it consistently two times per week, but I still felt like I needed a little something extra to work mobility and muscular balance.

In came pilates. I had practiced yoga in the past pretty consistently, and I had used yoga to address mobility before. At a race many years back, I was chatting with a woman and another said she was using yoga for mobility but kept finding herself getting injured. The other woman said, “I’ve yet to find a runner who uses yoga who isn’t constantly injured.” I reflected on that statement and a lightbulb went off. Sure enough, I’d been fighting CONSTANT injuries when I was doing yoga. I don’t know what the deal is. I only have a sample size of one, so if yoga works for you. Great! All I know is that something about the yoga practice makes me susceptible to injury, so I quit and the injuries stopped too. But I knew I needed something to hit that mark and keep me at least a little flexible.

At the end of last year, I noticed pilates becoming more popular online. I’d known several friends who regularly took pilates classes and loved them, so I started looking into it. I found reformer pilates, a form of pilates that uses a reformer machine (like a little pulley/carriage system). The reformer looked fun! On a whim, I bought a cheap reformer on Amazon (more on that later), and began my experiment with pilates. At first, I wasn’t sure about it. After only ten minutes, I began to feel nauseated–like I’m going to hurl. As it turns out, sometimes you need to acclimate to the motion of the machine. If you are super motion-sickness prone, perhaps this exercise is not for you. I tried off and on for a few months and then just gave up and stuck the machine in a corner.

Last month, I was determined to make it work. I really liked the exercise and I thought it was fun, so I set about slowly to see which exercise it was that was making me sick. I found a few new videos online geared toward beginners and started off slowly again, at only ten minutes. Lo and behold, no sickness! I began working pilates in once a week and then twice a week, complimenting my strength training. I began to notice my left side, notoriously different than the right, behaving better! My strength work on the left side was slowly improving and the difference between sides was not so apparent. I’m not a pilates princess by any stretch, but the little differences are becoming noticeable.

I know you are supposed to go to classes and whatnot to get the most out of reformer workouts, but I seriously hate going to a designated class and a one-on-one might as well be torture to me. I’m familiar with yoga and have taken those classes, so I’m just going with it at this point, so your mileage may vary. A word on reformers: I would recommend buying the best reformer you can and not the cheapest on Amazon, or be aware that if you commit to pilates, you’re going to be upgrading. I wasn’t sure I’d even like the exercise, so I didn’t splurge on a reformer right away. Here’s the downsides to doing that. First, the carriage on my cheap machine is not great. It is really too short for my body (and I am not tall, y’all), so I get really scrunched up. When I’m lying flat, my butt is almost sliding off the end of the carriage. I have a long torso. Second, the movement of the machine is just…janky. It clunks in the tracks, not smooth at all. Also, the things just basically feels like it’s going to collapse at any given moment. The footbar is notorious for slipping during footwork and I almost fall off the dang thing.

So I decided to splurge since I knew I liked the exercise and was going to keep it up. I grabbed a Balanced Body Metro IQ home reformer. This little baby has a lot of the higher end bells and whistles but it sits on the ground, which for me, feels safer at home. I haven’t gotten it yet, but I’m anxiously awaiting its delivery and making due with my clunker one day at a time!

Hot Springs National Park

Drew and I have been making our way through some national parks lately (and I realize I have not posted about the others, so I’ll get on that!). We’ve also been slightly obsessively watching a Youtube channel based in Japan all about Japanese onsen. I had become slightly obsessed with the idea of visiting an actual hot spring and then realized there were some six hours or so from our house! After a quick google extravaganza, I booked us into the Maurice room at Hotel Hale in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is technically located within the boundaries of Hot Springs National Park. I figured we’d do some hiking, soaking, and relaxing for a weekend trip.

I had never been to Arkansas before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The drive to Arkansas was… barren. There really wasn’t much to see on the way in. We arrived and checked into our hotel and went on a tour with the front desk. The hotel uses actual keys!! So cute! It also provided cookies upon our checking (just like the Youtube videos we’d been watching!) and a bottle of mineral water which could be refilled upon request. We had to sign a bunch of waivers basically saying we wouldn’t fall asleep in the tub with the water running, we wouldn’t drink the water coming out of the bathtub, and we wouldn’t scald ourselves. The coolest thing about the room was the giant bathtub that had hot springs on tap! The water gets up to 143 degrees Fahrenheit, so being careful not to scald yourself was a good warning.

That night I immediately went for a nice long soak and pumped the water up as hot as I could stand. It was very soft, silky feeling water and was definitely relaxing. The hot springs here do not have a sulfur smell because they are not created through volcanic activity (which is what I originally thought). Instead, the hot springs are created by geothermal activity deep within the earth that gradually heats the water up through thousands of years! They said the heating process took upwards of 4400 years! Because the water is heated this way, it has plenty of minerals in it like magnesium minus the rotten egg smell. It was also fantastic to drink! There are spigots around the town where you can fill up a bottle with the spring water for free. We took advantage of this while hiking and saw plenty of others doing the same. It was really good water!

When we weren’t relaxing, reading, or bathing in our room (which honestly was the best part of the trip), we went out on the hiking trails in the park. I’m going to temper your expectations now. There are only about 26 miles total of trails in the whole park. As someone who recently experienced Yosemite, that’s just… not a whole lot. But I kept an open mind and out we went. The longest trail the park offers seems to be the Sunset trail, which is about nine miles one way. We intersected with it a few times, but did not complete the whole thing (Drew is not in long distance shape at the moment, so we went with his abilities.). The trails themselves were nice, but were mostly gravel or paved, of which I’m not a huge fan. The biggest problem I had though was the traffic noise. Because the city is basically encompassing the whole park, you just can’t get away from it, and it is LOUD. I’m going to the woods to escape the hurly burly of the city, not have to listen to it the whole time I’m hiking. So for that reason, I’d recommend viewing this park as a city experience and not a hiking destination.

The experience on the trails really made me appreciate the conservationists of the past (shoutout to John Muir and co). This park actually predates the other national parks. It is known as the first national protected area, which happened in 1832, but it didn’t actually become a national park until 1921. In the interim, there were not many protections of the natural environment afforded a protected area and so the town sprang up and encroached heavily upon the park area whittling it down to what remains today. The same thing would have happened to all of our other natural wonders if not for the concerted efforts of John Muir and other tireless conservationists who really pushed to save these marvels of our country in a more unspoiled state.

The park does feature hot springs, but there are only really two “viewing” areas for the springs in nature. The rest are capped off by green metal caps to prevent people from getting in them or polluting them. As an aside, this has to be the most graffitied and litter filled national park I’ve ever been to. I’m really glad they capped off the springs to keep them from being spoiled. Also, as I said before the water is up to 143 F and I witnessed countless people at the official spring viewing area sticking their hands into it until they had basically scalded themselves (and letting their kids get scalded too).

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the Hotel Hale, which features nine rooms all named after the original bathhouses on Bathhouse Row, of which Hale was one! It was a true boutique hotel experience and the unique feature of being able to pump the hot springs directly into your room was a big plus. We did not check out any of the other more traditional bathhouses because of our hotel, but if you’d like to, be sure to book your treatments well in advance! We missed out on getting a massage because we’d booked last minute and couldn’t get in anywhere. The most traditional bathhouse– the Buckstaff bathhouse — does not take reservations, so get there when they open if you’re interested in that one. While it wasn’t quite the Sedona-style trip I’d envisioned, I’m glad we checked this park out. It is definitely a park you can see in a short amount of time, and I probably wouldn’t be dying to go back anytime soon, but it was fun to check out!

The Fiery Gizzard

Drew and I decided to pack up and do a little backpacking trip on the Fiery Gizzard Trail. We’ve been trying to backpack along this trail for literal years, even booking sites two or three times that we’d then have to cancel for various reasons, so when we booked the campsite, I crossed my fingers. The week leading up to the trip, the weather looked promising! On Saturday morning, off we went!

Our goal was to hike only a portion of the Fiery Gizzard. As it stands the Fiery Gizzard Trail is about a twelve mile one-way trek over various terrain… I’ll come back to that. We knew we didn’t want to go all the way to the end only to turn back around. We considered starting at the opposite end, but the park website said there was haphazard water availability and to hike in any water needed. Not wanting to schlep all that water along the trail for twelve miles, we opted for a sort of flip-flop route. We’d hike in the 2.5 miles to the campsite and drop off extra water, then continue on to Raven’s Point before turning back around to head for camp. All-in-all, it was looking to be about a 10-12 mile day. I’d been itching to get some mileage under me while backpacking so I was excited.

We woke up bright and early and made our way to the trail head. The 2.5 miles to camp were pretty tame. We’d heard this trail was notoriously difficult, but in this first 2.5 miles we were pretty cautiously optimistic. We dropped off our extra water and continued along on down the trail to Raven’s Point. Then we saw it: the sign.

The sign stated that from that point (just over 2.5 miles now) the trail was extremely strenuous and would take at least 7 hours to complete. Now we were not going the entire way to the opposite trailhead, but the sign gave us some pause. The next thing we knew we were hunting around for the trail (something we’d get quite accustomed to), and we found it….going straight down some steep rocks. The next about half a mile was the absolute most difficult trail I have ever done. The trail was very, very steep and very difficult to follow at times. It just looked like a rock slide, and you were expected to get over it. It was also pretty high up. If you are scared of heights or steep trails, this one is NOT for you. It took us a solid hour to traverse the down and subsequent back up from the river in just about a half mile–mainly because I had to stop every few feet to get the menty-b out of my system before continuing.

Can you see how slanty he’s having to stand?

I have hiked the Grand Canyon, I have hiked steep parts of the Smokies, but let me tell you NOTHING has compared to this little section of trail. I honestly thought at some points, I was just going to keep sliding right over the edge of the cliff. When Drew and I finally emerged on the valley floor by a nice stream, we sat down and evaluated our life choices. We were afraid to continue all the way to Raven’s Point because we knew we did NOT want to traverse this section anywhere NEAR dark. So we decided to soldier on and see more of the trail, but set a hard turn-around point so that we had plenty of time to navigate back up to camp.

Behind me is the trail. Can you see it? Well, neither could I

While this part was tough, the landscape was just STUNNING. It was truly some of the most stunning landscape I’ve ever seen. It made the climb worth it. After this little section, we got back to flat land and chewed up some miles before turning around and making our way back to camp. The trail is a bit of an oddity. Most of the trail we were on was supremely easy hiking, it was just that tiny little bit that scared the daylights out of me and made me very glad I’d had climbing experience and had been doing single-leg strength training.

So if you are looking to strike out and conquer the Gizzard, here’s my little bit of advice. If you are frightened of heights or steep drops, seriously, sit this one out. It is very frightening in little places. There are some points of exposure. Because I am so short (hello, stubby legs), I had to actually hands and feet climb in several portions. I’m talking like I was basically bouldering in spots, y’all. Drew did not have to do this because he is a) tall and b) not afraid of heights. He was able to get around using just his poles. I stuck to slinking down on my butt and bouldering. Whatever works, y’all. I did not use my poles because I felt like they would just get in my way at that point. I preferred just grappling with the rock. If you are planning on being like me and sliding down sections on your butt, sturdy pants would be helpful. Maybe even some gloves (I wished I’d brought mine.) You probably want to do some strength training too. All those pistol squats I’ve been doing certainly paid off here. In sections I felt like I was in the climbing gym! We were carrying practically full backpacking weight while navigating this stuff. In hindsight, I would totally do this trail again, but I would do it with a daypack only to cut some of the weight. At one point my pack slid around on me and tried to drag me off a cliff.

We headed on back up the way we came (going up being infinitely easier than down for me), and headed on in to make camp. Let me just stop for a moment to glory in the awesomeness that is my Gossamer Gear The Two tent. Drew and I usually sleep in our own tents because we have different preferences, so I generally take my GG The Two: overkill for one person, but alas. This tent is a MARVEL. I love it so much. It’s easy to pitch, doesn’t threaten to keel over in some stout wind, and doesn’t condense on me. It even managed to rain overnight and by the time I picked it up the next morning IT WAS DRY. Wonderful. I sleep like a baby in that thing. I have several pieces of Gossamer Gear equipment and I swear I love it all.

All in all, it was a successful backpacking trip and we’re already planning our return to the Fiery Gizzard! I do love a wonderful early spring backpacking trip!

If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small: A Javelina Jundred Race Report

I am just back fresh off a Javelina Jundred DNF. I hate that the race ended this way for me, but I was able to enjoy 42 glorious miles in the Sonoran Desert before I had to give up the ghost. Sit back and I’ll spin you a yarn of the miles and miles and hours and hours I spent baking my brains in the desert.

The day started swimmingly! I woke up at 2am and started my pre-race double check, ate some breakfast, and my trusty crew and I headed to McDowell Regional Park to get the party started. And Javelina knows how to party. There were fire dancers, and unicyclists, men in costumes up on stilts, a lady in a giant sun costume dancing on the top of a truck, you name it, they had it. The first wave started before sunrise at 6am and we cheered them off. I got ready to go at 6:30. I was feeling nervous, but I had a solid plan and I was determined to stick to it. It was pretty cool to start, so I was feeling excited about running! I’d had a cold the week before and up to the race, but the dry air seemed to make it ok? Maybe? I hoped… Before I knew it, we were lining up. I chatted with people while the D.J. hyped us up. Ready or not, Jubliee, the race director, declared, “Let’s f***ing goooo!!!!” and we went!

The first little bit to get to the trail is through the city of tents that had erected to crew our crazy butts, so running out is like running through a parade. People are high-fiving you and just going crazy. Then we turned the corner, and boom, we were out in the desert. I fell into an easy rhythm in the “conga line,” and chewed up the first couple of miles. It took at least three to begin clearing out the clog of folks. This is a very big race, especially for a trail race. I hooked up with a really nice chick from British Columbia and we chatted as we made our way to Coyote Camp. I was feeling great! Before I knew it we’d made it to the camp and I stopped to refill everything before the big trek to Jackass Junction. I made pretty good time out of Coyote Camp, and went on my way the 6.6 miles to the next stop. I was still making good time, but this section is ROCKY in spots. There was a pretty good bit of ups and downs–nothing heinously steep or anything, but you could feel it. I walked all the uphills and slogged on down the downhills. Those jumping chollas were in full on jump mode. I managed to escape them, but I saw a couple of folks having to pull spines out of their feet. Those spikes had gone straight through their shoes.

Just like that, I was at Jackass Junction. It was starting to warm up, but I didn’t feel too warm, and I was feeling great! My plan was working!! Jackass Junction was super fun– they had a kiddie pool and loud music playing. The volunteers went above and beyond trying to help you. It was awesome. I wet down in the kiddie pool, put ice in everything that would hold it, resupplied, and away I went to Rattlesnake Ranch. The stretch in between Jackass and Rattlesnake is CHOICE. Think of the absolute best running surface you can think of and, yep, that’s it. It was FABULOUS. I enjoyed every second of this stretch. Super smooth, slightly downhill, HEAVENLY. Plus the vistas here were just expansive. You could see out miles and miles, nothing but you and the desert. I felt so lucky to be able to play in the desert. I did a quick resupply at Rattlesnake and made my way onto the spur that is unique to loop 1. I had heard it was bad… I had no idea.

I was still making good time, but it would start to change in this stretch. By this time, we were getting on into the afternoon hours, and the sun was unrelenting. It is the desert after all. Sadly for us, this was the hottest Javelina on record. I think the temps were somewhere between 98 and 100, and we’d been told to expect it to “feel like” 20 degrees hotter in the full sun, so it must have felt somewhere in the neighborhood of 118-120ish? The spur section was a different kind of rock or something because it was HOT. I wasn’t feeling that hot still, but I’d touch things and they would literally burn me, so I knew it was hot. I didn’t bring enough water on that first loop because I’d been expecting the heat on the second loop. There was a good bit of climb here. Again, not super steep, but it was steep enough to slow you down. In the burning heat of the afternoon, it was…less than fun, shall we say.

I stopped in the ONE shady bit I could find to find another woman having some heat-related troubles. I checked on the group and chatted a bit. The other woman with her said we were like 1.5 km from the start finish. I perked up and headed on–not worried about conserving my water anymore! I drained it with what I thought was a kilometer to go. It turns out it was 1.5 MILES back. I was without water for about a mile and some change. When I finally did make it back I was PARCHED, so I had to sit for a minute to get my hydration back up. My crew was stellar, getting me ready to go back out and cooled off. Drew looked at me and said, “This loop– just survive.” He did not know how prescient that was.

Off I went on the second loop. I made pretty good time to Coyote once again, but I could tell the heat was getting intense. I refilled my ice bandana once again, resupplied, and sat for a few minutes. Everybody was hesitant to go back out on the section to Jackass. It was going to be 6.6 miles of torture. The next 6.6 miles were some of the slowest of my life. We were all walking. It was just too taxing to run in the heat. My nose started to bleed–like drip blood. I death marched onward and felt a thirst so intense I cannot even describe it. The water I was drinking wouldn’t even touch it and I had to conserve to make it to Jackass Junction again. About a mile out of Jackass, I started coming upon people who were in a bad way, and I mean *bad*. They were on hands and knees projectile vomiting. As we passed, we’d check on them, make sure they were not alone, and continue onward into the furnace. The trail became a soggy mess of vomit as we closed in on Jackass. With about a half mile to go, I too became sick–not like the others, I think, in part because I’d taken a pepto tablet before going onto the second loop– but I was not well. I couldn’t keep anything down except water. I notice my heart rate was doing a weird race/slow way down thing, but there was nothing to do but keep moving.

Finally, I saw the Jackass Junction tent and nearly cried. I tried to resupply and get something to eat, but I just couldn’t swallow. I ended up having to spit everything out. With this crappy development, I pulled into the med tent and told them what was going on. They were fabulous and did a full workup on me, brought me a coke and salt mixture, and had me sit so they could check my resting heart rate. The medic told me realistically in this kind of heat, we’d need to drink a liter of water per mile to be hydrated and that was impossible. Basically, it was a war of attrition: who could best withstand the dehydration. As I was waiting, the volunteers came in regularly with “One coming in to drop. Two coming in to drop. Another four coming in to drop.” It was like a war zone with people dropping like flies. The medics declared me sound enough to continue, but said my resting heart rate was too high and that I should keep an eye on it. If it got worse, I should get checked out at the next station, so onward I pressed to Rattlesnake Ranch.

Somewhere in that next five miles, I must have stopped sweating. I’m really not sure where. The next five miles did me in though. As the sun FINALLY started going down, I saw some road runners (the bird, not people running on the road!), which was awesome, and I got to hear the coyotes yipping and howling in the distance. I just stood there for some time listening and appreciating the beauty of this place. Yes, it was hot and, yes, it was deadly and, yes, I was in a bad way, but my heart was just full of gratitude to be able to witness such spectacular beauty. Finally, I trudged my way into Rattlesnake, and had a rest. I was still having wonky heart problems, but I decided to just trudge the 4 miles back to start and rest there. I was still hoping to continue, and I realistically knew I’d probably only make the 100K, but I was determined to try. I hadn’t eaten anything now in about 15 miles, and I’d had nothing to drink but water, which I knew wasn’t great, but I was giving it all I had. I just didn’t want to start projectile vomiting, and I thought I could work through it.

By now the sun was fully down, and I began to jog again. The respite from the sun was nice, but the ground still radiated heat. I couldn’t jog for very long at a time, but I made ok time back to the start. When I came in and sat at my tent, my crew went to work, and Drew took off my hat. He said, “Your head is completely dry. Did you stop sweating?” I replied that I had about seven-tenths of a mile back. He looked incredulous and felt me all over. He declared I wasn’t sweating anywhere. Then it dawned on me– what I had thought was sweat was actually just ice dripping down my back. I don’t know how long I wasn’t sweating. I looked at Drew and said, “then it’s over, isn’t it.” He sadly nodded to me. I was too dehydrated to even cry. I just hung my head for a minute as the chills overtook me right on cue and tried to will myself well. I sat for about an hour hoping something would change, but I knew in my heart my race was over. As I sat, I looked up the symptoms of heat exhaustion/stroke, and started ticking off the symptoms. I had all the symptoms of exhaustion and was starting on the road to stroke. That sealed it. I didn’t want to end up in the hospital– or potentially dead out on the trail. Parts of it were so remote that it would take a long time to get someone out to me if I did have serious trouble. Drew then confided he’d been seeing medics running out on the course to retrieve people all day and had been worried sick one of the people brought back would be me.

In the end, I gave it my all. I did everything I could, but I just couldn’t overcome that heat. I was certainly heat trained, but not in that kind of dry climate. It was like the air was actively sucking the moisture out of my body, and I just couldn’t keep up. That being said, the race was fantastically run, and I had an absolute blast (nearly dying and all!). I would certainly come back for the 100K (so that I could rest in the heat of the day!) because this course is really a fun one. While I am disappointed I didn’t get my buckle. I’m very grateful I made it out of the desert unscathed and lived to fight another day. I’m also grateful for every minute I got to spend in such a beautiful, peaceful setting. I’m grateful for a body willing to go the distance, and common sense enough to know when to call it. I knew this was a stretch goal for me, so coming up short is just part of the journey. I’ve already found my next 100 mile candidate that is hopefully a little more within my reach, so we’ll see what the future holds! As for now, I’m holding my Javelina memories close and relishing in the time I got to spend communing with the Sonoran Desert. My crew and I decided that this race wasn’t a DNF but a DND: Did Not Die!

On our way out of the park that night, I was sitting dejected, head down in the front seat when something caught my eye. “Is that a javelina???” I exclaimed. And it was!!! It trotted its little piggie self across the road, taking a moment to look back before disappearing into the desert. I feel like it was the desert’s cheeky way of telling me that’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

Decision Not Failure – A Vol State Race Report

I don’t know where I originally heard the above expansion for the acronym DNF, traditionally standing for “Did Not Finish,” but it stuck in my head. As you can probably guess The 2024 Last Annual Vol State Road Race did not end the way I wanted it to, but I did learn so very much in the four days I was out there that I wanted to record it here for my next attempt — and, yes, there will definitely be a next attempt. If you are here looking for advice and answers before your own first attempt, a word of warning: I cannot explain to you what you will experience out there on the road. I don’t think anyone can really prepare you for what the experience will be like for you. Being an avid reader, I feel like I read every race report on the internet before my attempt and none, NONE of them came close to what the actual experience on the road was like. I just don’t think you can put down into words the beast that is Vol State. You have to experience it for yourself, and what an experience it was!

Drew and I parked our van at the gates of Castle Rock and headed out on the bus bound for Hickman, Kentucky. We were lucky enough to sit on the same bus as John Price, which, if you’ve done any research about Vol State, you know that he literally wrote the book on it. I tried to drink from the fire hose, but it was A LOT. I started to get a little scared because I just couldn’t memorize or understand everything he was saying at the time. I remember him pointing out an overpass and saying that was a great place to sleep and thinking how odd a thing that was to say. More on that later…

The bus definitely made me car-sick and the two nights of Chinese buffet didn’t help either. In the future, I think we’d skip the buffets and just go in for the pre-race meeting. Because of the car-sickness and general digestive distress, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep or eat enough either of the two nights before the race. It is CRITICAL that you sleep and eat on these nights. I cannot stress that enough. I thought I’d be able to make it up later, but it became apparent the second night when I was already experiencing hallucinations that I was in trouble.

In what seemed a blink of an eye, we were loaded up on the ferry and heading toward Missouri, then back to Hickman for the start of the race! We were off! We had a plan. I’d spent months meticulously crafting this plan. I knew the ins and outs of this plan like I knew my own name. Drew decided he was not going to stick to this plan. This was fatal mistake number one. As we took off, Drew found a pack of folks walking significantly faster than the planned 3 mph walk we should have been doing. Not wanting to get separated, I followed him. Eventually after about five miles, I spoke up and said we were walking too fast. Drew replied that he was just trying to eat up some miles (ha! At mile 7, my wisened self now laughs…). I just shut up and tried to keep up. The second fatal error I made was also during this stint. There are rumble strips on the roads. You’ve probably heard them rumble in your car and thought little of it. When you walk on them though, they hurt. When you walk on them for hours, they will MESS YOUR FEET UP. I wasn’t thinking about the surface I was putting my feet on repeatedly for hours. FATAL.

We eventually made our way from Hickman, KY to Union City, TN. Already, unbeknownst to me, we were in trouble. My pack was just too heavy. I’d practiced in it at home, but not for the kind of hours I was now putting in. It was causing my footfall to be extra heavy for the shoes I’d chosen to wear and now I was getting hotspots. We stopped to address what I thought were hotspots, but then I noticed that Drew was getting full on blisters. He’d chosen to wear sandals, something I’d really tried to fight against, but he was determined. He was also already blistered by mile 20. Because of the nature of his shoes and the fact that he’d neglected to pack any socks as I’d suggested, the tape would not stick to the bottom of his feet at all. We had to slow down and stop a whole lot to address these issues. I honestly think the tape may have made things worse and caused even more shear instead of lessening it. Side note: if you haven’t already, you should read Fixing Your Feet, basically the Bible of foot care. We are pretty good on blister prevention and care, but I’m not sure you can completely escape blisters at Vol State. Hours out on the really, REALLY hot pavement just eat up your feet and blisters begin to erupt. I made it through pretty unscathed, but not completely immune to blisters. Drew’s feet looked like chewed up hamburger meat.

Drew also realized his lubrication was not working well and he was severely chafed. Instead of having a good rest, we were forced to tromp on through the city of Martin to find a Walgreens where Drew purchased a pair of women’s leggings that he could cut down into “compression shorts.” This also ate up a good bit of time as we dealt with this issue. Now well behind the schedule I’d thought we’d be on, we were forced to pivot our original goal of making it to Gleason Fire Department for our first good sleep. Instead we pivoted to the Dresden Farmer’s Market. Here is where I think my race was lost.

Knowing what I know now, I think it would have been a better decision to go ahead and stop in Martin at a hotel, recuperate, and head back out into the night refreshed. We would have also more easily flipped our days and nights this way to avoid walking in the heat of the day. As a side note, you really can’t avoid it the first day, so factor that into your plans. By the end of day one, we were BAKED by the blast furnace that is the road. But instead we decided to push on to the Dresden Farmer’s Marker. It became apparent that Drew’s feet were well and truly messed up. We slowed to a crawl and we were forced to stop over and over to deal with this issue. By this time, it was night and as the hours crept on, we found a few places to sleep. We slept for fifteen minutes at a closed Dollar General and I literally laid down in some cigarette butts and didn’t even care. Welcome to Vol State. Next we slept for thirty minutes at a church with some other Vol Staters. I didn’t sleep very much at either site. By the time we arrived at the Farmer’s Market, I was cooked. I hadn’t slept very long the previous two nights and now we only really had a couple of hours to “sleep” at the Farmer’s Market before we needed to head back out in the pre-dawn. I had originally thought we’d have made it in time to get a good four hours of rest before heading back out at 4:30am, but we didn’t even arrive at the Farmer’s Market until 3:30am, so in reality, we only “rested” for two hours. I didn’t sleep because the Farmer’s Market is concrete and we hadn’t brought pads and the lights were full blast. Side note: bring an eye mask!

Coming into this race, I knew that one of the unknowns of my race would be sleep deprivation. I’d never really experienced it on a scale like this, so I didn’t know how I would react. Spoiler alert: I did not react well. When I heard others shifting to head out for the day, I got up and began readying my pack and using the bathroom (never, NEVER pass up a bathroom!). We were on track to cover 45 miles for the day, which was about on target for what I was hoping, but we’d slept basically none, which is not what I was hoping to do. When I came back from the bathroom, I saw that Drew was not packing his stuff to go. I knew before he said anything that he was dropping. I was terrified and devastated. I didn’t know how I could go on alone, but that was the only option, so I readied my pack, said my goodbyes, and headed off in the direction of Gleason. I cried for two miles– great big sobbing tears of despair.

I was on my own until Drew could get back to the van and begin to crew me, which ended up being about 8 hours. His parents came and picked him up, drove him back to the rock, and he made his way back to my location. In the meantime, I hooked up with Ann and Kelly Little and we made our way to Gleason. Their kindness in letting me tag along definitely helped me make it as far as I did. As your world gets smaller and smaller and your needs more apparent, a wonderful phenomenon begins to happen. People are willing to help you, even as you wallow in pits of despair. People at the Angel Stations bent over backward to get you what you needed. Fellows racers gave anyone what they needed if they had it. It was the greatest and most profound lesson I learned while out on the road– people will help you. I have always been afraid to ask for help, never wanting to inconvenience anyone. One of the life lessons I took from this race was learning that it is ok to ask for help.

We made it to McKenzie where a Best Western was waiting! The plan was to sleep during the hot hours and make it back out at 7:30 or so to walk through the night. There are lots of benefits to doing this, but, beware! There won’t be any stores open at night, and there are some looooong stretches of absolutely nothing, so you’ll have to be mostly self-sufficient through the night and have already resupplied. I headed out of the Best Western at 7:30. By this time Drew had returned, and slept in the hotel room for a few hours before coming back out to find me. As the sun set and darkness fell, I did initially get a little scared. Tromping around alone after dark is the very thing every little girl’s mother told her not to do and here I was committing to walk around after dark for days. After a few hours though, I really didn’t feel scared anymore, and I remained unafraid for the duration of my race.

When I made it to the outskirts of Huntington, I decided I needed to sleep for 45 minutes. We found a closed business and I plopped down on the ground. I was actually able to fall asleep and slept for maybe 20 minutes or so until I was awakened by a car pulling up. The man asked if we were ok, and Drew replied we were. Before he could explain, the man said, “Oh, she’s one of them walkers” and wished us a good night. I had a little laugh because it made us sound like we were zombies, which was probably pretty close to the truth at that moment!

I walked on mile after mile, hour after hour, and then I began to notice something out of the corner of my eye. There were small black dogs playing at the edges of my headlamp! I was immediately seized by fear. Getting attacked by dogs ranked pretty high up in my list of Vol State fears. I walked rigidly, trying not to attract the attention of the dogs, until I realized…yeah, the dogs weren’t there. I was hallucinating. Doh! Fun fact, both times I have hallucinated during races it has been dogs. What’s up with that? Ha! I made it to where Drew was parked at Davis Chapel and decided I needed to sleep. I curled up on the ground, put on my newly purchased eye mask, and fell almost instantly asleep. I woke up fairly groggy, and I began hearing air horn blasts. I knew what that meant: an actual loose dog.

Drew headed on out to our next meetup point to catch a few minutes of a nap, and I walked into the dreaded dog’s path. I saw it charge up to me, barking and snarling, a brown and white dog that might have been some kind of pit-mix. I had my hiking poles with me at the time, so I took a good swing at it, and began yelling, “NO! GO HOME!” It took a few minutes of yelling at it, including, “I’m not playing with you dog. I will lay you out!” Finally the dog stopped barking at me and went back to its yard. I noticed its tail was wagging like it thought this was play time, so I relaxed a bit after that and was able to use my “teacher voice” then to get it to go home. Inwardly I was thrilled. Challenge complete! I’d staved off a dog attack at Vol State!

Actual Bigfoot, not a hallucination. Also featured intense humidity. I could see my breath when I breathed out!

The hours ebbed and flowed, and I chatted with people as I caught up or they passed me. We had plenty to talk about– the dog we’d fended off, the blisters on our feet, where the good sleep spots were, where we were peeing (yes, off the side of the road mostly. There was NOTHING here.). The camaraderie came for free. We were suffering the same way. We were simpatico. My single-minded goal for the short term was to get to day three. The glorious day three where everything starts to make more sense.

Life on the road

When day three dawned, I was elated! I’d made it to the promised land! I chatted with some folks and gave some blister care advice to a man who told me he’d heard a lady yelling at the dog last night and was impressed because it had made the dog stop barking. I realized he’d heard me! Oops. I made my way into Parker’s Crossroads and crashed at a hotel. I just had to sleep. By this point, it had been several days of spotty to no sleep and I needed to get some kind of quality sleep. I think going into this again, I’d have a much better idea of how and when to get the sleep I needed to keep going, but this was completely trial and error here and I wasted a whole lot of time when I just couldn’t sleep. I should have been walking then instead. We slept for a good part of the day, but my sleep was fitful and not very restful. At least I was able to get a shower and get my feet doctored for the afternoon/night ahead. This night was the beginning of the end, but I just didn’t know it yet.

We were all trying to get to an elementary school, which opens its gym each year for us to sleep there. In hindsight, I probably would not try to push here again. It was disastrous for my race. The previous night’s cat naps really did refresh me, and I felt like I should do that again. Drew’s opinion was that I should push to the elementary school, so I tried to do that. As I walked on and on in the complete darkness, the only source of light my small headlamp on the ground, I began to get really drowsy. I kept wanting to take a break, but Drew pushed me to keep going. I trudged on and on feeling like time was standing still.

I began seeing shadow people out of the corner of my eye. I knew that they were hallucinations, but in the moment they were still terrifying. These tall, slender, pitch black figures stood as ominous sentinels just out of my full eyesight. I began to lean. I had never leaned before during a race, but it was happening now. I was also blinking in and out of sleep. Blink, how did I get here, blink, why am I so far over here? I was literally sleep walking. Not to help with these hallucinations, Drew kept appearing out of seemingly thin air, sometimes super-imposed on one of the slender hallucination figures. At one point, I sat in my chair, and he came over. I asked him if he was real. I don’t have much memory of that, but apparently, my head snapped back and I was instantly asleep. There was nowhere to stop now but the school, however, so I trudged onward. At one point, I sat down on the road, and had to fight the urge to just curl up and sleep there. Now John Price’s overpass statement made so much more sense. I trudged a few feet and sat back down on the road, trudged a few more feet, sat back down on the road. My world a small, sleep deprived bubble of light in the void.

By the time I zombie shuffled into the school parking lot, I’d been leaning pretty far right for miles, and stomping pretty hard as I tried not to fall over from sleep walking. My shoes were literally crumbling, the tread almost completely worn down in the center. It felt like walking on flat tires. I didn’t know it then, but I’d done serious damage to my Achilles tendons on both legs. Coupled with the miles of rumble strip abuse and the continual slant of the road surface, I was in trouble. The school gym was an absolute disaster as well. I had heard promise that it was very cold in there and I actually sleep better in the cold. Well, dear readers, it was not cold. It was super stuffy with no air movement.

I plopped down on my pad and Drew plopped down beside me. He was instantly asleep and started snoring….loudly. I woke him up and told him to go to the van. We all had to get some sleep in here and he was the only one who could sleep elsewhere. He shuffled out, but now, I was fully awake. I tossed and turned on my pad, each movement sounding like a crumpling chip bag. I felt bad for making so much noise, so I took all my stuff and went outside and plopped down behind the van. The dewpoint and humidity must have been much higher that night because I was almost instantly soaked through with sweat and dew. I tossed and turned but couldn’t really sleep. The heat from the pavement seeped up through my sleep pad and I felt like I was sweating to death. Before I knew it, it was time to get back up. I’d been “resting” for just two hours and I’d had no sleep.

I packed up gear and shuffled off into the morning of day 4. I walked alone for a few hours and then met up with Ray and Casey and walked with them for a few hours more. As we chatted away the miles, I began to notice I had an unusual pain in my Achilles tendon. It was sharp and biting, unlike the pain pretty much everywhere else. As we made our way to a rest spot at mile 104, I was pretty well limping. I asked Ray for advice and then did exactly what he said. It helped some, but as I made my way to Parsons, I began limping more and more as the miles progressed. I stopped to ice it a couple of miles down the road, and I began to cry. I knew it was the beginning of the end for me.

I got out my hiking poles and used them as makeshift crutches. By the time I got to Parsons and saw the Parsons Inn, I knew I needed to crash there. We were thankfully able to get a room and I got into the bathtub immediately with some epsom salts in a hail Mary, last ditch effort. I wrapped my ankle and got into bed. I finally slept about four hours. I slept like the dead. When I awoke, I took a tentative step. Maybe the pain wasn’t as bad? I wrapped my leg up with an ace bandage and set off into the growing evening.

As I walked, I felt the twinge of pain again. I stopped to talk to Erin and she said she had something that might help! When I took a step on my newly doctored shoe, I did feel better! I hugged her and went on my way to Linden. The road had absolutely no shoulder and it became clear the people of Parsons were not big fans of this race. I began to notice people purposely turning their cars in my direction as if they were going to hit me. This happened at least ten times on a stretch of about two miles and was absolutely terrifying. I would have to jump way out of the way to avoid being hit. ( I was not even on the road at this point. I was all the way over in the grass as far I as I could get.) Once a man in a truck actually left the roadway to come after me in the grass before veering back at the last minute. I have never experienced such raw hatred as I did in those two miles. I hope this might reach some of them and maybe they feel badly about their behavior. Trying to kill someone with your car is certainly not something I’d want to be remembered for, but this is my lasting memory of Parsons. As I talked to others, this was a common occurrence. Going forward, I would definitely try to get through this stretch in the middle of the night if at all possible so that there wouldn’t really be anyone on the road here at all. I will say everyone up to this point had been absolutely lovely, which made this stretch even more horrible juxtaposed with the great kindness I’d been afforded to this point.

I made it to the Tennessee River bridge crossing and as I got over the crest and looked down, I just sat on the guardrail. By this point, I was dragging a dead leg behind me and didn’t feel like I could continue jumping out of the way of drivers behaving very badly. I sat and I cried. I knew this was the end. I couldn’t keep dragging this dead leg behind me, and I didn’t feel like it was a responsible decision to continue on a road where it was quite possible that I could not get out of the way in time to avoid getting hit by a car. I limped down the bridge to the van and told Drew my race was over.

I have certainly mourned for what could have been. This is really the first race I’ve done where every single thing that could have gone wrong absolutely did. I felt like I was problem solving from mile 5 onward and nothing really went my way. I did learn a whole lot of lessons about this race and beyond that I’ll share with you now (mainly so I can remember it for next year!). Here they are in no particular order:

1. I will be back. Much like the Terminator, I will absolutely sign up for this race again. It is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. I really want to finish it.
2. I will run my own race. You cannot glue yourself to another person. I should have gone on at mile 5 when Drew was racing off too fast and let him go. Trying to time your race with someone else just seems like a disaster. I’m curious how much further I would have been able to go if I’d been able to execute my plan.
3. I will be flexible. There are just problems that will arise. As much as you plan, you still have to be able to pivot on a moment’s notice. Bad stuff happens. I have a better idea now of what that looks like and how to pivot without losing momentum.
4. I will pack lighter. There’s no real need to pack everything and the kitchen sink. I regularly had way too much water. I’d say a sleep pad is a nice luxury though. There’s a lot of concrete sleeping and a pad makes it much nicer. I’d say my non-negotiables would be a sleep pad, eye mask, ear plugs, water, and foot care. Everything else is just gravy… and gravy is frickin heavy. Let me tell you. (I say this as a person who regularly backpacks… my pack was much lighter than my backpacking weight and it was still. TOO. HEAVY.)
5. I will listen to myself. I let other folks dictate my race entirely too much. I figured out by night two what was working for me and I should have stuck to that. Letting other people talk you into something else is a recipe for disaster. Only you can run your race–no one else.
6. I will bring my sun sleeves again. The MVP of all of my gear was my leg sun sleeves. They did some WORK. Everybody was plagued with horrible heat rash, but I made it through unscathed. I also didn’t have to goop up with sunscreen every couple of hours because I had the sleeves. 100/10.

It’s been about a week now and I’ve finally rehabbed my tendon enough to be able to walk on it without pain, so I thankfully managed to escape without serious injury. I’m letting myself recover and grieve the loss of what could have been, but next week, I’ll be back out there, training for the next thing: Javelina Jundred. Here’s hoping it has a more promising ending than my great Vol State adventure.

Pistol 50 Miler: The race that should have gone sideways

I have been trying to get to 50 miles now for the better part of three years, and something has always derailed that plan. I trained basically the entire plan in 2020 for a solo fifty, only to step off the trail on my last big 32 mile training run and twist my ankle, which derailed that attempt. 2021 found me mired in the Covid times and I just didn’t really do much of anything. I ramped up again in 2022, eventually completing the Jackals. With that fitness, I’d planned to go up and do Tunnel Hill 50, but right after the Jackals I got Covid and it took me the better part of the rest of that year to just build fitness back. I was determined 2023 was going to be my year.

I scoured Ultra Signup and Run Signup for a race that looked approachable for me and eventually I found the Pistol Ultra series. With a paved path and 20 hour time limit, I was on board! I *knew* I could finish it in 20 hours without feeling like I was against a time limit the entire run. Time limits are always something I think about, being a back-of-the-packer, especially the first time I run a distance. I don’t want to be stressed into running through an aid station when I really should have taken a minute to check everything out because I’m stressed about time. Plus, I had no idea how long 50 miles was realistically going to take me. I’d only ever run 50K a couple of times before, and nothing beyond that. 50 miles was the great unknown. Training commenced.

About a week into training, I went over to the race website to check something and noticed a fact I’d missed when signing up: this race didn’t start until 8pm. OOOPS. The entire race would be run over night. I figured it would be good training for an eventual 100 and put the thought out of my mind as best I could.

In the weeks leading up to the race, I began obsessively checking the weather, as one does. Two weeks out, it looked pretty good. The lows were generally in the mid-forties. It looked like it might rain, but not a lot. I could handle that. Over the next two weeks of checking I watched the low dip down, down, down, until it was sitting at 23. Yes, 23 degrees F. What was I going to do? Let me give you an aside here– I have terrible circulation and always have. As such, I have trouble regulating my body temperature on a normal day. I once got mild hypothermia at our local marathon when it was 44 and raining. This was not looking good. I went into damage control mode. I read up on everything I could about running in the cold, I pulled every piece of wool gear I had into my race bag, including some pieces I went and bought. I went through the plan with my crew (shoutout to Drew and Stacy for enduring with me out there!)– if it was wet, it was going to have to come off and be replaced and I was going to have to eat a lot.

Finally the day of the race arrived and we stepped out into the evening air. It wasn’t all that chilly yet and I’d hoped to get in a faster loop first just to get it out of the way before the cold set in. We set up a make-shift aid area so that I could grab what I needed and off I went to wait the start. After some brief announcements, we were off! The night was actually not that chilly and I decided to get some miles chewed. I found quickly that the course’s temperature was place specific. The five mile out and back took us past a duck pond (complete with some lake-effect winds), through a cute little glade that really did look like Disney World (by the time I thought to take a picture, it was morning, and the spell was broken), through the town of Maryville, TN, though a lovely city park, then back to start. I found the duck pond and little Disney glade were COLD, the town and city park felt a little warmer and were sheltered from the wind. Needless to say when I came screaming into the start from the first loop, I was soaking wet from sweat. I changed out my hat which was the worst and decided to just let my wool shirt do its thing. (Wool doesn’t lose insulation power from being wet.) Off I went on the second loop.

By this point, the temperature was cooling down. The way out went about like the first, but the way back was COLD. The wind picked up and it felt like a dagger. It cut through my insulated tights and my hips started to lock up. Nothing I could do about it at the time, but I knew I’d have to add more clothes when I got back around. The wind cut through my jacket, but the wool shirt did what it was supposed to and while I was cold, I wasn’t shivering. I decided then that to survive, I’d have to slow it down to a pace I could reasonably run without getting soaked in sweat. I slowed down a bit. When I got back to Stacy and Drew, I put on my insulated running skirt over my tights, refilled and got back out there.

Loop three was absolute torture. It was the dead of night, the temperature had plummeted, the wind felt like it was out to get me personally. My nose began to run uncontrollably and I eventually rubbed it raw. Here it was; I was going to have to get through it somehow. I slowed waaaay down. I was still moving ok, but all of my muscles were just seized from the cold. I started seeing folks in a bad way all around me. I knew I had to keep my core temp up and keep moving as best I could. I began to doubt myself and my ability to finish this thing. When I hit the turn around point on the third lap, I took some pictures: the little park looks so peaceful, but at that moment it felt like everything was trying to kill me.

I wasn’t shivering, which was good, but I was miserable. On my way back toward the start, I saw a bathroom and figured I should make use of it. Miracle of miracles, it was HEATED. I took much longer there than I should have, and then stopped each loop after for a little mid-loop pick-me-up. I ran on back, grabbed stuff for my next loop, grabbed Drew (he paced me for the fourth loop), and hit the aid station tent to warm up a little in the warming tent and get some chicken broth.

Loop 4 dipped down even colder, but Drew was with me, so it didn’t feel as bad. He was actually able to pace me on his bike, so that was a fun thing about this race. By this point, I had dropped down into a death march. Every muscle in my body felt like it was frozen in place. My rice krispie treats were frozen (did you know they can freeze? because I didn’t…). Chomping down on them was like eating brittle glass. My gels had ice crystals in them, my bottles had ice crystals in them (thankfully they didn’t freeze solid). Everything was cold and frozen. I took more time at aid stations, warming up by the fires they had going, eating chicken soup, chicken broth, drinking hot water (which is a miracle when you are cold!), anything I could do to keep the shivers away and keep my core temp up. When Drew and I returned from the fourth loop, I thought that was it. I had begun to shiver. Stacy and Drew asked me what the matter was and I said I was just cold. I went up to the start line aid station and a woman dressed in a lighted unicorn outfit was hyping up everyone. She fist bumped me as I came in and said, “You did it, baby! The hard part is over! Look over there, that’s the sun. When you get out of the warming tent the sun will be up!”

The warming tent was beginning to look like triage at a battlefield. Everywhere folks were on cots wrapped up in space blankets and regular blankets, folks were moaning and shivering, people were just desperately trying to get warm. I met two men in the tent and we commiserated on the bleak conditions. We were each on our last loop. We sat for several minutes until the propane went out on us and one of them said, “Well, I guess that a sign. Thanks, universe.” We all got up to gear up and get out on that last loop. The music was back on as I made my way out, quiet hours now over, the sun was coming up. The unicorn woman yelled over to me, “How many more laps.” I yelled back, “This is my last one! Next time I’ll see you on the other side!” (The finishers chute). “Yeah, baby!” she yelled back, “Go get it!” And with the revitalization of the sun, I ran.

It was a slow, shuffling kind of run, but I was determined. I grimly set my face, grimaced through the pain, and ran with everything I had left toward the turn-around. The sun helped, but it was still bitterly cold. I ran into the 2.6 mile aid station and warmed up for a bit. One of the volunteers asked “How are you doing.” “Cold,” I replied. He said, “Well that makes sense, it’s 26 degrees right now!” (The feels-like temp was a balmy 16.) I chatted with the folks wrapped up burrito-style trying to stave off hypothermia, listened to stories of hallucinations, drank some chicken broth and pickle juice and got back out there. I marveled at how different the course looked during the day. I hadn’t realized what had been all around me because I’d been running solely in the dark. I had to take extra time at the road crossings because cars were back! No more plowing on ahead because it was 3:30 in the morning. A little after the turn around, I met the two men I’d met back in the warming tent. We were trudging up a hill the race directors had aptly named “Heartbreak Hill.” One of them said, “Fancy meeting you here. You come here often?” “I do,” I replied, “Five times as a matter of fact.” The other man piped up “Ten times for me.” We both commiserated. “I never want to see this hill again,” he said, and we enthusiastically agreed.

We walked for a good while until I felt that I could run some more, so I said my goodbyes and shuffled off into the distance. When I hit the mid-point aid station again, I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed one last pickle juice, high-fived some folks, and was off. Against all odds, I had staved off disaster. I was going to make it. Through the sore, tense muscles, I picked up the pace as much as I dared and ran my way on into the finish. When I saw the finish line, I teared up and was full on crying when I crossed it. I went into the tent to get my medal and a woman stopped me to ask my name and age. She said hang on just a minute. When she finished shuffling through some papers, she turned to me and said, “Congratulations! You placed second in your age group.” Now my addled brain did not comprehend so I burst out, “WHAT?” She said, “Yeah, you did! Good job!” And I started full on bawling. She said, “Don’t cry! You’ll make me cry!” and took me over to get some pictures. I was still crying. I cried as we got into the car and began making our way home. Shortly after we got on the interstate, I got a call. I answered.

It was the lady from the finish line saying there had been a mistake and she was sorry. (This was on speaker phone thankfully, because my calorie-deficient brain did not understand.) I thought she said that she had made a mistake and I was actually third place in my age group and not second. I was like, “Oh, that’s fine. Thank you!” She wanted us to come back and Drew said, “We’ll turn around right now.” I was a little confused after we hung up. I asked Drew, “Why did you say we’d turn around? They could have mailed it, I’m sure!” He was like, “No way, I want to see you get it!” I was confused and said, “Get a lesser place?” Then Drew understood that I hadn’t. He said, “No, Haley. You got third place female…of the entire race!” “WHAT?!?!” I shouted and started to cry again. We turned abound and picked up my plaque and took some more pictures. I was still confused as to what had just happened.

I certainly learned a lot during the course of this race. I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. Certainly the resilience of the human body was on full display. To have the fortitude and mental endurance to withstand suffering and come out the other side smiling is just a miracle to behold. When the sun hits after a night out on the lonely road, it just hits differently. No matter how deep and dark the night, the sunshine will always be back to greet you, and what a glorious sight it is to behold.

The Jackal Marathons: A Play in 5 Parts

Hold onto your hats, boys and girls. This post is going to be a long one. Grab some coffee, get cozy, and let me spin you a yarn. I am writing this having undertaken the hardest thing I have done to date and come out the other side victorious! I am the 56th Jackal of the Jackal Marathons. When I began this journey about a year ago, I honestly did not think I would be here at this moment victorious — I had planned my DNF speech for so long, I never thought through the implications of success. Now, looking back, I’m going to record some hard-earned lessons learned about longer stage races for those of us of the less speedy persuasion and some general impressions as well. I tried to record my impressions each night before I went to sleep, except the last race because I was riding in the car back home and I get car sick if I read or write. Ok, here goes!

So young…so full of hope

For those of you wondering, the Jackal Marathons is a five day stage race that takes place mid-late June in Jackson, TN in which you run a marathon for five days on varying terrain–three days of trails, two of asphalt. Elevation varies with the trails, but generally the two days of asphalt are flat, the others…not so much. The first four days consist of a trail one way, then the reverse, an asphalt loop one way, then again, and the last day is a brand new course. I learned of this race from Drew who signed up for them way back in 2018…I think? He didn’t make all five, but he did sing the praises of the race, so I decided 2022 was my year. Then, I proceeded to live in denial for the next year as I began training for the races. I was in such denial that I refused to even sign up for the race until sometime in April when I just basically ran out of time to sign up–it was now or never and I was out of excuses. Though even after I signed up, I still lived in a state of denial all the way up until we actually got in the car to go to Jackson.

Can I just say I have some superb friends? Because I have some superb friends…willing to stand in the heat to see me off on these wacky adventures of mine. They even make signs for me like my own little personal parade!! As we wound our way down the street of my own personal parade route, it started to kick in that I was actually doing this. One sign in particular stuck with me and I ticked off my “points” for each day. We are all big Disney fans, so if you’ve ever ridden Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, you know this sign looks familiar:

This and the other signs helped keep me going when things got tough. It’s kind of hard to be down when you’ve got such a support system rooting for you back home! What follows are my impressions of each race the night after they happened. Enjoy!

Day one: The Jackal Marathon

Ho–lee–Crap. That was a harder day one effort than I expected. I am trashed. I finished the day in about 6:50 — just walking out the last lap, which was a good idea as it was kind of a cool down. It was hot, but not as hot as it will be. My body did not respond well to the heat or maybe I was just nervous…maybe both. Anyway, I felt sick a good deal of today.

The first loop was sort of cool and was fun to run. My watch wasn’t tracking correctly (I learned after the first loop!) and kept telling me I was running way slower than I actually was, so I expended more energy early on than I wanted to. The second loop nearly made me want to quit. The humidity rolled in and was suffocating. I had a few stomach issues as a result. This is when I realized my watch must be wrong.

With the new info, I worked to slow down loops three and four. Then loop 5: this is the loop Drew quit on when he attempted and now I can see why. It’s blazing hot–you’ve been out there for hours, and after this, you still have two more loops. It was all I could do to get back out there. I slowed six and seven — seven all the way to walking and finished it out.

Casualties: one black toenail, 1 blister I popped, and the worst heat rash I have ever gotten. On to day 2– HOW??

Me: questioning my life choices

Day 2: Backass Jackal

Boy howdy. That one was harder than I thought it would be. My legs are still pretty ok, but I didn’t count on the other stuff. The black toenail from yesterday is now much worse because I smashed it into a root today and popped it up, so now I’m having to deal with that. I also woke up with a massive bruise on my right ankle from my shoes hitting me weirdly yesterday. I have lots lots lots of blisters that I’m trying to pop and tape to stay ahead of. I guess we’ll see.

The start of the race was very cool! It was pleasant for pretty much the whole race! Today I let the speedsters go on ahead and just fell back to my pace, knowing I couldn’t trust my watch. That left me alone for most of the race and during the first loop, I missed the turn off back to start and went about 5 minutes out of my way, realized, panicked, cried a little, then got back on course. I finished out the day by walking most of the last loop again, just to ensure I had something left for tomorrow.

Day 3: Asphalt Jackal

Today was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in life. Really. The heat, the bugs, the glaring asphalt all made for a hellish nine loops. The scenery was nice though. We ran around some cool Native American mounds, and, sorry, I didn’t have time to read the inscriptions. Ha! I also saw a little deer bounding around the field having a grand old time. The whole back section of this course is in the scorching sun, which bothered me a little, but I’m getting used to it. The nine loops instead of seven played tricks on me and mentally I pooped out way before anyone else.

I’ve lost two toenails thus far and have more blisters than I can count. My blisters have blisters. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve popped, but I’m becoming good at it. The only problem is my knee, which has started bothering me. It got to the point yesterday that I walked out the last three loops with a nice gentleman and came in DFL. Don’t even care. I finished well before the time limit. Let’s go again tomorrow!

DRAGONFLIES!!!

Day 4: Dragonfly Jackal

Ho yeah! Another one down! I literally cannot believe I have made it this far! I have run four marathons or 104.8 miles in four days. The numbers are staggering.

Today was difficult, but I actually felt better than yesterday– no idea how that happens. My body has just given up, I guess. I’m having what I call the runner’s shakes pretty badly right now, but the finishing temp was 96 today so… My feet are pretty torn up at the moment, but they only have to hold together for one more day.

This one is called the Dragonfly because there are seemingly millions of dragonflies on the course! It’s the same course as yesterday but I swear there were more dragonflies today! (And also biting flies, but let’s focus on the pretty dragonflies!) The dragonflies were magical! Also saw another frolicking deer. Delightful!

I do feel like I’m slowly but surely figuring out what to do– from technique to feet to everything else. This set of races has taught me so much about the sport. When I started these races, I figured I’d make it through one and have to quit. When I hit two, I figured I’d have to quit at three. Now with the prospect of FIVE staring me in the face, I don’t know what to do.

Day 5: Native Jackal

“The final day is the victory lap.” — That’s the words of wisdom from the race director, Josh, as I began my final day. It was absolutely true that the last day was a doozy. A mile of road in the baking sun right up a hill followed by 1.6 miles of some really tough, hilly trail — the Native Jackal lived up to its hype. Not only did I manage to get lost for about a mile on the first loop, I nearly blew the time limit as well and felt like I really had to push to get back on track.

I poured out everything I had and just ignored the pain in my legs and feet while I pulverized them into chopped liver. There were many moments at the beginning where I truly felt I wouldn’t — couldn’t– finish. I tried to keep positive but found myself wanting. Soon I was fantasizing about stopping at loop 4–then stopping at loop 5. Then loop 6…well hell, I’d made it to 6. That was more than half way. There was no way I could stop with less than half the race to go. I gritted my teeth through loop 7. On the 8th loop (the loop of despair, I termed it), I just didn’t want to go on — the despair was real. How could I possibly slog through two more loops? Most of the folks were already finished. The assistant race director Jill (the fastest walker and nicest person in the world!) walked out with me and gave me a pep talk that made me cry. I cried for a quarter of a mile–scaring and confusing two nice ladies who were walking back from their nice lake swim, but I didn’t care. I. Was. Going. To. Finish.

When I crossed the finish line a little over 8 hours after I began that morning, I nearly collapsed. I was too shocked to cry, to laugh. I sat in stunned disbelief. The impossible had suddenly become very possible–a fact my brain refused to accept.

It has now been almost two weeks and my brain only comprehends like I would some great dream, but it is a dream I will cherish forever. I didn’t just gain some medals, I gained a whole new family.

Mind over matter, baby

Lessons Learned from Running a Whole Lot

Now onto the lessons! The most important– You cannot neglect your feet! That mess compounds. I knew this in theory, but now I know in practice. You have to find a way to mitigate the blisters or you will pay later. Almost two weeks later, I’m still paying the price. If I had been more proactive, I would be better off now. I learned about Tinactin (thanks, Leslie and Karl!) to mitigate blisters. Desitin is a godsend for chafing. Also, you have to have a recovery plan for each day and you have to stick with it. I bathed in Epsom salts each night and that was really a game changer. You can’t have all that residual soreness sneaking up on you and some will anyway. My nightly routine was soak, tend my feet, roll out my legs and feet, eat dinner (baked chicken, potato, and veg — I don’t want to see this again for a while!) After all that, I prepped for the next day and pretty much went to sleep.

Lesson two: Sleep is super important, but honestly I don’t sleep well the night of long runs. I never have. Add to that the condition of my feet and it was almost impossible for me to get comfortable each night. I’m paying for the lack of sleep now, but it couldn’t be helped. Get the sleep you can but try not to stress about it. You can only seek to control the factors you can. The rest isn’t worth worrying about.

Three: get your mind right. You’re out here for the long haul; you can’t have negative thinking around you or within you. While it’s true that I kept expecting to fail, in the moment of the race I never thought this. It was a nagging worry, but during the race I told myself either not to think about the finish or that I was going to finish. If you keep thinking you can’t, it will come true. Be prepared with a plan for when the negative thoughts creep in. I turned my thoughts to smaller pieces of the race. “I just have to get to the third loop. I’m almost finished with this loop!” I never, NEVER let myself think in terms of “I have SEVEN MORE LOOPS TO DO.” You cannot think that way. Run the mile you’re in. Do not dwell here in negative land or you will drag yourself under. Someone else’s negative thoughts can just as easily drag you down — focus on the positive!

Finally, use your time realistically and don’t worry about everyone else. If you are not speedy, that is your reality. Don’t spring out from the start and kill yourself with a pace you cannot sustain. You will pay for it later (ask me how I know!). You have your pacing plan: STICK TO IT. You aren’t going to miraculously run a four hour marathon if you’ve only ever run a 5:30, especially on day five. When the speedier folks start finishing, the real work begins. You’ll likely still have many more miles to go, so smile, wave, yell congrats, and see the above lesson.

Also if you aren’t that speedy (really anybody…), you need to, in the words of the great Kenny Loggins, know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, and know when to walk away. Appoint somebody in your crew (or do it yourself!) to be the designated plug-puller. Go over or create a non-negotiable list of when to say when. That list is now sacred. HOLD TO THE LIST. Here is my plug-pull list: 1. Peeing blood 2. Badly injured 3. Really loopy/balance compromised to the point of danger 4. Cannot hold food down at all 5. Heat symptoms/exhaustion/stroke. If I’m not falling under any of the categories on the list, PUT MY BUTT BACK ON THE COURSE. The most important thing is to make this list in the cold, rational light of the before-race times. You will not make good decisions in the thick of it. You must have the discipline to hold to the list.

This set of races was certainly the most challenging, but also the most rewarding, of any races I have ever done. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Running with the same folks over and over builds a camaraderie that I have really never experienced anywhere else. Everyone attached to this race wants everyone to succeed and it certainly shows. You will never meet a kinder, more supportive group of people! If you’re up for the challenge, the Jackals will be waiting. I know I’ll be back for round 2 next year.

The Twelve Days of Vert-mas

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

When Yeti announced the twelve days of vert challenge, I knew I was in! Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE to climb, so I went about finding hills that could meet the 1100 ft. a day challenge. Each day, to keep myself occupied while I was trudging up and down the same hills over and over, I made up a different part of this song set to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Enjoy!

On the twelfth day of Vert-mas my running gave to me…

DAY 12 I’m DONE!

Friend spottings and Dad calls

Ten on trails with trail friend!

Nine mental breakdowns

Eight minutes of chatting

Seven muscle spasms

Six giant lightbulbs

FIVE DAYS OF HILLS

Puppy pets a-plenty

Three loose dogs

Two sore quads

And a watch that would not record the vert!

Happy holidays, y’all!

Overall, the challenge wasn’t too bad and I had a lot of fun! I did get sore, but I made it through the whole twelve days injury-free, so I count that as a win! Now onward to orange cardamom rolls!!