http://web.archive.org/web/20060620045057/www.diezvista.itgo.com/cu...

Before the race, I was setting up my Forerunner 305 and just for fun I decided to turn on the heart rate alarm. I set it for 165, not really expecting to go that high. I started the race really slow. The first kilometer was 5:22. At about 1.5km I heard the heart rate alarm for the first time. I slowed down a little more. Then it went off again -- and again. When we hit the first uphill section, my heart rate was about 169, so I started walking. It came down into the mid-150’s and I decide to run again. It went right back up.

I remembered an article that Jennifer had sent me from Runner’s World about Lisa Smith-Batchen and her battle with depression. In the article it talked about how the antidepressants had caused Lisa to have an elevated heart rate. Could I be experiencing the same thing from my Effexor?

By this time, everyone is passing me, and the alarm is getting really annoying. So what do I do? I turn the alarm off of course. It took me 2 hours to finally reach the road near Buntzen lake. By this time I was able to jog slowly, keeping my heart rate in the 150-160 range. As long as I kept my pace slow and walked all the uphills, I was doing ok.

Then the dizziness hit me, and I started feeling really tired. Another guy who I was running with told me I looked really pale. I walked for a little bit and the dizziness was just getting worse. I ended up walking with a guy who had really bad leg cramps, we both said we were going to drop out of the race at the next aid station at the 23km. I started running again and the dizziness started to clear up. I remembered the nice navy blue hoodie I had received at check-in in the morning. I don’t believe in wearing a garment from a race you didn’t finish, and I really didn’t want to throw my new hoodie in the garbage. On top of that, I had taken a DNF at the FatAss 50k on New Years Day, and I really didn’t want to make it 2 ultra-DNF’s in a row. I got to the 23km aid station about 2 minutes ahead of the guy I had been walking with. When he came into the aid station, I told him I was going to finish the race, and off I went.

I actually felt really strong for about 20 minutes. Then I walked up a hill and the dizziness came back again. Whenever I walked, I would get dizzy, and every time I ran, especially downhills, I was getting terrible stomach pains. I felt like I had to puke, but I never puked. I was tired and burnt out from going at 90% of max heart rate for 2 hours at the start of the race, and I really just felt like lying down and taking a nap. But I thought about my blue hoodie and kept going. I went through a few good times, especially when the course was going downhill and I could run. And I went through some really rough times when the course was going uphill and I had to walk.

By the time I got to the 44km aid station, I really felt like I had to sit down. But I didn’t say anything to the people at the aid station because I didn’t want to get pulled out of the race. From there, there was about 1.5 km of steep uphill, which felt like pure death. Then about 3.5 km of downhill, which was a nice relief. Finally there was 1km of flat ground at the end before climbing a huge staircase to the finish line.

I got to the finish with 7 hours and 38 minutes on the clock. It was about 1.5 hours slower that I had planned, but I had made it to the finish, and I could finally wear my blue hoodie.