All in all, I felt great. I started out quick but settled into a slightly slower pace as the grade increased. Around mile 8, I started to feel some distress in my GI. I knew there were port-o-jons placed on the course every three miles so I was going to have to make an urgent pit stop at mile 9. Sure enough, there it was and it was not occupied! Under normal circumstances, I could be in and out in just over a minute. Unfortunately, the circumstances were NOT normal. This being a midnight race, I was equipped differently than usual. Firstly, I was wearing my very futuristic looking Epix Gear 1-piece "Ironman" tri-suit (Hey, I wanted to look like Buck Rogers - this being an ET themed race and all). Now- because I didn't want to puncture my nice tri-suit with pins, I was using my race number belt. I also thought it would be cute to put my headlamp (required by the RD) strapped around my chest (like some kind of robot) On top of this, I was also equipped with a water bottle and a 3 foot long glow in the dark foam tube. I can only imagine how comical it must have looked trying to get all of this crap off and slipping out of a tight, sweaty one-piece suit - not having any place to put it down in a dark, smelly port-o-jon in the middle of the desert at 2 in the morning - all while trying to hold back a torrent of explosive diarrhea! (Damn you, LASAGNA!!) After all was said and done, I ended up taking over 5 minutes to complete the lasagna evacuation. I managed to negative split the rest of the race and still PR'ed by 10 minutes!

I think that should be obvious to the reader - I should have worn a cape and Darth Vader helmet, of course. That bowel-licious adventure at mile 9 cost me the podium! 3rd and 4th place were only a few seconds ahead of me!

My warm-down was a 2 and a half hour drive back to Las Vegas at 4 in the morning - barely able to keep my eyes open.


Poop.


Despite my fecal follies, I really enjoy this race and highly recommend it! Running out in the high desert in the middile of the night under the full moon is a surreal experience and I had a blast (litterally).