And I was off! I was running the exact same legs as last year but due to a few modifications of the route I would cover 39 miles instead of 37 over my three runs. I had planned to target a similar HR effort as last year but within the first few miles, my HR was about 8bpm's higher then what I had planned. I tried to back off a bit but I just kept running hard so i made a decision....a poor one not to be emulated. What the hell, go as hard as you can and deal with it later. Yeah, that will end well. So along Vulture Mine Rd. a ran, holding in the 6:30's, feeling great. Through the intermediate checkpoint and onto New River Rd. still clipping along, listening to some tunes, and effectively putting myself into a hole at mile 8 or so of a 39 mile race. Brilliant. Part of my foolish thinking was that if I was going to be running so close to my threshold so early in the race, I better at least beat my time from last year. That became my goal. As I closed in on the exchange, I realized I wouldn't make the time and my enthusiasm flagged. All that effort and I ended up 2:45 slower as I handed off to Joe.

I walked over to Nick and saw that the Altitude Adjusted Team van was there and they had a woman running thier second leg. Turns out her husband was supposed to run but got hurt and so she came instead. As i tried to get my head around how I felt about my run, to add insult to injury the guy running the same leg as me came around the bend. He had run 3min back into me cutting our lead to only 5min. That really stung. Not only was I slower but there guy was fatser and I was now a time liability. Great, my run fitness is sad and I have to go up against their best runner, at least we hoped he was, we still had yet to see their Van 2 in action.
Run 1- 1:29:43, 13.52 miles, 6:38 pace, 166HR Average

Nick drove down the road to support Joe while I got in the back and squeezed into my ZOOT recovery tights. I had two PB and J's and a liter of coconut water to help recover. Nick could see I was bit upset and pointed out that I only started run training at the end of December, less then 2 months ago and to expect to be at the same level I was last year was unrealistic. I knew he was right and I had no problem with my race result from XTERRA a few weeks ago where I was a few min. slower then the previous year but being part of a team and feeling the desire to perfrom for them made it much harder to accept. Regardless, I had a lot of work left to do and needed to get over myself.

Joe was running great but their female runner was flying. The sun had set and we arrived at the first major exchange to hand off to Stephen, John, and Elliot. The check point was n a huge dusty parking lot and the three of them had been there for a while and were wearing surgical masks to deal with the dust! It was THAT bad. Elliot looked like a S.A.R.S. outbreak refugee! Joe came in and handed off to Stephen. 2min. later, the gal came in and now we knew for sure we had a race on our hands.

We had a few hours of down time and made our way to Suprise. Reports fro Car 2 were very encouraging. Stephen had ripped his initial run and we were back up by 5min with John out on the course. John ran great but the lead held the same so we knew they had one solid guy in that van and one slower. Now Elliot had his longest run of 14.6 miles to be the final test of the other team and he burried it, 6:25 pace and added another 8min to the lead.

We had spent our time getting some more food at a local Safeway and chilling in the car waiting for their arrival. Elliot arrived around 11:30pm or so and handed off to Nick. We felt confidant that Nick could put in some additional time into our lead, giving Joe and I a huge cushion should we need it. About 12:45am I began my second and most difficult run from Suprise up New River Rd. which was a gradual climb of 444 feet over 12 miles. Doesn't seem like much but when you are tired and it's pitch black out and you can't see the road, it kind of zaps your legs. The route also detours through a very sandy/rocky wash for about a 1/2 mile that's very slow going. I felt ok coming through the first intermediate checkpoint but with 5 miles to go and the climb starting to bite, I began to struggle. My HR was in the low 150's, whcih is about the same it was at this point last year, so that was ok, but my legs were getting heavy. I knew this would be the case and I just had to focus on that little circle of light made by my headlamp.
Run 2- 1:30:17, 12.22 miles, 7:23 pace, 151HR Average

Back into the recovery tights and time to start thinking about getting some sleep. As we drove to the Civic Center in Anthem, I set up a bed in the far back of the Expedition. We arrived and tried to find the other guys only to discover they had gone to the wrong checkpoint. Good grief. We told them to hussle on back as we expected Joe in shortly. I took this opportunity to get in the back and get some sleep.

What I recall most disticly about this time was as I drifted off to sleep, I was suprised we were still in Anthem. i awoke when the car doors opened and i heard Nick and Joe getting in. Gee, I thought, that seemd like a long time. I could hear them talking and caught something about Joe's ankle, which had been injured not too long ago and nick questionoing if he could even continue. Uh, oh. Joe had twisted it in the dark on his first run and it had swollen up so bad he was hobbled...and the gal had caught him on the road. We were 2min down. As there was nothing more to do but get to Carefree and wait, I went back to sleep and managed to get almost 2 hours of rest.

Around 6am I got up and we had a little team meeting. Joe was done. Nick was talking with Stephen to figure out the logistics of hwo to take up Joe's final run without altering the order of our runners. Stephen had managed a huge effort and had put us back up by 2min and then John backed that up with another great effort and added 3 more min. So Elliot had a 7 miler and put in another 8min. giving us almost 12min lead time as Nick took over around 6:30.

So the plan was Nick would run, i would run, then Nick would run half of Joe's leg and Stephen the back half and keep going into his planned run. I was feeling pretty stiff and sore and had a very challenging run to face, 13.3 miles with 9 of those miles going down Dynamite. My quads were going to be hurting. My run began with a climb, short descent and then a short climb and I actually felt decent. As I bagen to run down Dynamite, I just focused on trying to keep my turnover up. I am so familiar with this long stretch of road as I bike it all the time but that only made it seem longer. before i made the mile 7 checkpoint, i knew the wheels were starting to come off. With 5 miles to go, i was shattered. Every step was a physical and mental effort. I never felt in jeapordy of not making it but my pace was slowing and I was terrified that I kmight get caught by the Altitude Adjusted guy who I figured was flying behind me trying to pull their team back into the race. I began to feel very emotional as I struggled and it's about as close as I have ever come to breaking down in tears while running. I was that spent.

As I neared the bottom of Dynamite and the turn into Rio Verd, I was caught by my buddy Erik Svans from the ONE Multisport 12 man team. We had a great battle with them last year for the Ultra race. Erik gave me some nice words of encouragement and as their team car drove by I called out that I was officialy course clutter. The last 2 miles through Rio Verde was a slog and only with a few hundred yards left did I glance back to make sure no one was coming up to catch me but thankfully I was all alone and handed off to Nick.
Run 3- 1:42:50, 13.35 miles, 7:42 pace, 139HR Average

Never again. My biggest concern once I finsihed was that I might have hurt myslef or put myself into a hole right in the middle of my IMSG training. But nothing felt too off and once Nick completed his last short extra stint, we went into Fountain Hills and Nick dropped me off at my house. I was able to shower and get changed, pick up 2 six packs of Fat Tire for the finish line, and met nick and Joe for breakfast. We headed down to the finish at the Tempe center for the Artsand waited for Elliot. Little did we know that he was killing himself on his final leg and because of his HUGE effort, he was running us into 3rd place overall. Amazing. We had defended our Ultra title and had made the top three by a margin of about 6min ahead of 4th and only 5min behind 2nd. Even had I been in better form and Joe had been able to run, it would have been impossible to win as the first team went 20:30, almost 3 hours faster then we did. So we are retiring from the Ultra Division going out on top. Never again...well maybe as a 12 person team for fun. :)

Final Run Total- 4:42:50, 39.09 miles of running over a 19 hour period, 7:14 pace