Ok. This is long, but what did you really expect.
Day started out on time, everything going well, but for some reason I just could not get out of the house on time. I left about 15 min later than I had wanted, so I know I was going to get there later than I wanted, but I could still make it with enough time to spare. Well....that was before my friend on the Salt River Indian community pulled me over to tell me that I was speeding and that my license plate light was out. This is how the exchange went: Do you know the speed limit through here? No. Do you know how fast you were driving? No. I was just following the car in front of me, and wondering why the car behind me was tailgating me, and I was about to start tapping my breaks to get you off my tail. I end up with just a warning, but at that point it didn't really matter, I am screwed. So I take off again, set my cruise control, and get out to the race. Once I get through Fountain Hills and onto the twisty road out to the park, I get stuck behind a line of cars also going to the race, but they obviously had never been out there before, because they were driving SO SLOW and I was screaming at them. This didn't help my anxiety level!! I get parked with 15 min to spare!! I run to the port-a-potty line, and Paulette is nice enough to go check in for me and get my packet. I quickly pin on my number, put water in my flask, tried to hear the RD give his talk, and then we were off. NO time to spare!!! It was soooo cold. The time and temp sign I passed in FH said 32. Out there in the stix, it might have actually been that cold!
Lap 1:
The race starts, we start running and it's like a super crowed 5k or something. We are all stuck on this sometimes narrow trail behind whoever we are behind, and going their pace. Kerri and I start jockeying for a little better position so we can go the pace we want, rather than have it dictated to us by the crowd. About 2 miles in where the rocks start it started to thin out a bit. Kerri pulled ahead of me, and I was jut following this chick who basically matched my stride and I just focused on her. The first half of this loop is SOOO rocky you literally cannot take your eyes off the ground right in front of you. AND it's uphill. I decide I am NOT walking up hills on the first lap, as I just want to bang it out as fast as I can. At the First Aide station (mile 5) I just top off my water, and add water to my second flask that has dry infinite in it. That's it and I am off again. On miles 5-10 I start taking in some of the infinite, and a few sports beans. At aide station 2 (mile 10) I get more water, and just keep moving. During the last 5 miles I finished my Infinite (total of 10oz). I remember thinking I felt pretty good, better than I had 2 weeks ago when I did one loop. At this point I just wanted it to be done!! But today I was feeling good, and had still not walked. Just trying to keep up a good pace. My original goal was to do lap 1 in 3 hours like I had done 2 weeks ago. If I could do that, that would give me 5 hours to do lap 2 if I needed it. Any time I came in under 3 hours was gravy. I was super stoked to look at my watch and see 2:35 as my Lap 1 time. Wow! Sweet!
Intermission:
I went to our club site, and sat down. I wanted to change my shoes. My trail shoes are a bit narrow for my feet, and I thought this might cause me problems on lap 2 as my feet swell. So I took off my trail shoes and gaiters, and put on my running shoes. Not sure it this was smart or not. It ended up being fine, just different. The socks I was wearing were more for the compression on my claves rather than how the felt on my feet. They were too thin on my foot, and provided no cushion between your foot and little rocks that got in. I with I had on different socks!!!
Anyway... So I changed my shoes, got a new flask with dry Infinite in it, ate a Hammer Gel, and stood waiting for the John so I could pee. This all took 10 min. I was debating whether to take my long sleeved under shirt off, but I did not, and I was glad about that later!!!!
Lap 2:
I start running, and it's not really feeling great, and I am not moving very fast, BUT I know I need to run this first part while I can, because once I hit the rocks again, I am screwed. I do the best I can to go up the rocks quickly, and TRY not to walk much, because it's just so hard to start running again once you do. I ran out of water about 2 miles from Aide Station 1. This sucked, but it wasn't hot, so I was ok. I made it, and drank two glasses of water and ate a few things....boiled potatoes, a few pretzels, refill my water, and fill up my dry infinite bottle. I thought I might regret those 2 glasses of water later with a sloshy stomach, but I was fine. Up until this point I had had NO stomach issues. Amazing!! I couldn't believe it! I was trying not to think about it too much and jinx myself, but I was so happy to not be having issues! This is always my downfall!!! Between Aide station 1 and 2 I really started walking/running. I finished my sports bean pack on this stretch. Thankfully along both loops there were always people who talked to me and pushed me along when I really needed it. I didn't think I would ever get to Aide station 2, but I finally made it. I hadn't really been taking in a lot of calories so far, so I needed to eat. If it made me feeling like pooping later, so be it, but I needed to eat. So I get there and grab a glass of water, and take a dry cup and fill it with potatoes, pretzels, a fig Newton, a chocolate chip cookie and a few M&Ms. I take them and go sit in the volunteer’s chair. Ahhhhhhhh.......sitting was heaven!!! Gave my knees a break!! I just sat there quietly eating my little cup of goodies and drinking my water. I was maybe there 5 min. I started running from there, but it didn't last too long. I was falling apart. I wasn't really tired, or feeling like crap, it was literally my body's inability to take any more punishment. From the top of my knees down I was in so much pain. You would think walking would feel better, but it was just different pain then. Running cause sharp pains to shoot up my shins, so I was getting leery of doing that for fear I was doing some real damage. It was funny....my injury site hurt a little in the beginning, but might have warmed up and been ok later, as I never felt it again after about 5 miles, OR the pain of everything else just took over and masked it. Not sure. So the last 5 miles for me were the most mentally excruciating for me. It was KILLING me to get passed by so many people. I kept telling myself I was doing great for having NOT trained, and being in horrible shape, but it's hard. I just wanted to get there and be done, but my legs were done. As I crossed the road leading to the last bit of trail before the finish, I looked at my watch. I had been watching my (Josh's) Garmin all along to see what mile I was at, but I was not looking at my HRM that was keeping track of my race time. I just didn't have the heart to see how much slower my 2nd lap was. But, as I crossed the road, I looked and was surprised to see 5:50. For a fleeting second I thought if I could just totally dig deep and RUN I could make it pretty close to a 6:00 finish and would be stoked!!! But that only lasted about 100 ft as that was all I could run at that point. I then said screw it. Just keep moving forward and you will get there when you get there. It took me 24 freaken minutes to do that last little stretch. Pitiful. BUT I made it. I crossed the line and just sat down in a camp chair someone had by the finish. Had no idea who's it was, and didn't care. I sat. Ahhhhhhhh. After a few min I had to get up and get moving so I could soak my legs in a 5gal bucket of ice water. I had some food, and changed my clothes, and waited for the others to finish. Amazingly I did not have to go pee, AND I had NO stomach issues!! There were a few times on Lap 2 where I was starting to feel a little stomach discomfort, but for the most part it stayed at bay, and I didn't have to wonder off behind a bush for anything!!! WOOT!
Overall I am very happy with this race and glad I did it. Today I am in a ton of pain and can barely walk, but it will pass!! Surprisingly, my injury site does not hurt! Haha! Weird.
So happy to have done this race with Jen, Paulette, Kerri, Dave, Lisa, Sandy, Chris and Josh was our head crew-master!!


Be in shape!!! Train for it!! Hopefully I can do this next year.

The fact that I have been injured since Dec 14, and in that past 2 months I have done one 14 mile run about 2 weeks after the injury, and a 15 mile loop of the trail 2 weeks prior to the race. Add those 2 runs to a teeny bit of treadmill work I have done at HIT while injured, and you get one super out of shape runner!!!


This is a nice race put on by cool people. My only complaint is no port-a-poties out on the course, but luckily I didn't need them.