Sunday - Mystery Mountain Marathon

Pre-Race:

• 04:30 - 05:00 - "Get up Soldier!!" BG was 137 "Awesome". Ate the pre-race meal that works for me (fresh ground wheat pancake topped with "peanut-only" natural peanut butter, dribbled with maple syrup, and some 2009 applesauce I made a month ago). reserved for Friday's only and race days. Bolused the normal dose of insulin before 05:00.
• 05:00 - 05:45 -Since my gear was packed the night before I did a review of gear and ran through the checklist. Good to go. I answered the phone twice before leaving home as nature calls early on race days. Packed the pooch and the wife and I left for Funville at about 05:50.
• 07:00 - 08:00 - As we pull into the park, "Fort Mt. State Park", we see a long line of cars waiting to get past the gate. Registration was suppose to start at 06:00, but the ranger responsible for opening the gate I think slept in a little. Oh well, ends up we didn't start late. The gate opened as I just finish walking to the front of the line to see what was happening...ha. Registration was moved to a larger building this year overlooking the lake and was much more suited then the smaller one used last year. My phone rang again...nature had called one last time before the start. Good that sets me in a good place for GI issues. Picked up my packet and goodie bag. Finished dressing for the race and stretched for a bit. BG check and I'm at 136 mg/dl...."praise the Lord" perfect! My buddy Ed had decided to run the first 12 miles with me....but he left his shoes in the driveway...nice. Lucky for him a fella there had a spare pair that barely fit. Awesome. I was very pleased so far..my friend was able to keep me company and my BG and GI issues were in check compared to last year. We're good to go and head to the start line. Quite instructions, a few pictures, and off goes the start gun. My wonderful wife takes a few snap shots of us as we slug by her in the crowd and I step back and give her a kiss before I leave realizing "I can't believe I almost began the most difficult run of the year without thanking her and getting a good-luck kiss". Duh.

The Race

• Miles 0-11 - The warm-up loop around the lake is always an enjoyable first mile. I'm in no rush and my buddy is running my pace. It's flat and rooty, a little wet, and crowded, but par for the course. Chatty and relaxed every one still remains. Ed and I keep a decent pace passing and being passed by a few speedies who took a wrong turn. Only saw two falls on this race and both were in the first 11 miles. No body hurt so no big deal. We carouse through rocky, rooty, cambered, and wet trails with varying elevation gain and drops...but by far not flat, yet not difficult. In fact, the first 11 miles are like any typical moderate trail run I've done dozens of times. We stop and take a look at an overlook deck that gives us a view of the cloud filled valley that seems thousands of feet below us. That was the view of heaven. Climb a few sets of trail deck steps, trudge up sections of 200-500 ft rocky uphill trail, dance a quickstep downhill many times, and in a blink we're at the half/full split aid station. The Gahuti was good to us. Sweet! Ed's got a mile left, so we say goodbye and good luck and he powers home the last mile passing many around the lake back to the finish. Just before he leaves he got a good look at what I had next. About 1000 ft of pure uphill in the distance of about 1/4 mile following a power line. Now it may be a little less then that, but from my viewpoint it looked pretty big.
• Miles 11 - 18 - The first big uphill after the break wasn't all too bad. It was however only the beginning of my fun. I thought that when I got to the top of that big hill I'd meander around it a little bit, maybe where the radio tower was, and then somehow head down and around the mountain a bit. Silly, silly boy. "Don't you remember talking and reading others notes of the difficulty of this race?" This is where I remind myself that I am a man among giants. So at the top again here I am. I turn right and maybe run 100 feet. I head up a small heavily bouldered hill and begin the ~1 - 1.5 mile downhill. Downhill that is a good bit steeper then the uphill I just did. Now, at this point I'm thanking a few friends I run with for maybe unknowingly giving me a little pre-warning about downhill running. I'd run hard downhill before past a few in our group runs on Wednesday nights and they laughed a little at me, but I knew there was more to that then met the ear. So, during the first 11 miles of the race I had adequately reserved my strength and had only powered down one small downhill section of railroad tie steps. I wanted to play it safe and I'm glad I did. In retrospect...I should have probably taken even longer up and down this section of the mountain and remained even faster and feeling better for other beautiful running sections of trial. Well, by the time I got to aid station, I think it was #5 or #6, my knees were aching and pretty much becoming hamburger meat. Dang it...that's not what I needed...but I wasn't going to let it stop me. At the farthest out aid station on the 301 loop I make the turn around and return to the top of the mountain. At this point I'm walking down hill and doing moderate running uphill. My knees are done for and my feet, which are sporting a pair of Injinji toe socks, are getting a bit sore...but they're not really the problem. It's the knees. Man I haven't seen this portion of the pain cave before.
• Miles 18 - 26.2 - At this point I should note that I was paying very close attention to two other important things. #1 being my BG levels and #2 being hydration and nutrition. In the end, I felt like I paid good attention to this and did the right things, except for forgetting to take enough insulin once after refueling and the BG getting to about 230 mg/dl. In total, I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, 1.5 bananas, 2 nutrition bars, a handful of pretzels, 1.5 oranges, 5 Endurolites, 4 oz. of Hammer Gel, and 7 liters of fluid (both plain H2O and powerade) during the whole run. Moving on...the volunteer at the 18 mile aid station was so right. The next 3.5 miles uphill felt like 5 miles. In fact, it seemed, time wise more like 6 or 7 miles. I power walked...though it probably looked like power crawling, up the distance with some occasional fits running. At the top, and now at the second to last aid station, I was told I had 3.9 miles left. Don't ask about the math here. Those are the numbers I was given. So, I refueled and headed off a little happier...thinking "Man the worst is done. You're headed to the home lane bro. Good job. Now don't stop and keep your feet running or moving quick and for goodness sake, "Don't fall or trip". I ran what seemed like the 2.9 miles I had before the last aid station and came upon an aid station, or what kind of would have appeared to be one, but things just didn't seem right. I made a quick attempt at contacting my wife again, as I knew I was at one of the higher points of the mountain again and signal strength would be good, and left her a message that I felt I was about 1 mile from the finish. Don't take everything you hear for truth Mikey boy. I ran another 1-1.5 miles uphill and came to an opening in the woods that looked familiar. As I got closer I couldn't help myself. I said it out loud like the trees would talk back to me or something..."You've got to be shitting me". I looked around almost embarrassed I'd said it out loud..yet at this point I really didn't care. I was at the top of that beautiful ~1000ft hill I had climbed earlier right at the half/full trail break. Guess what I had to go down? As soon as I got to the opening at the top the volunteers at the bottom start yelling..."Runner...whao hooooooo!!!! Come on down! Come on down!. At this point two thoughts go through this thick skull of mine. One, "they have no idea. They really don't." Two, "This is the most torturous thing you've done to your body every...to date...Mike. Don't do this one again. Once is enough. Now finish this damn thing." At this point my knees and feet were in so much pain...I just didn't care. Not a lick. Crawling down that hill I'm also thinking..."How is it the folks who did this in like 6 hours and came across the finish line smiling did it. I mean this is where I really do feel like a man among giants." At the bottom of the hill I stumble and trip through and somehow do not fall into a small creek crossing before the last aid station. I don't stop. I head toward the lake for the last mile home. There's a babe at the finish line waiting for me and someone better have saved me a bowl of that promised hot chili. I run 3/4 of the loop around the lake. I finish the run across the line to a crowd who, picks up from my wife my name and is screaming, "Come on Mike...good job!" I crossed the line. I cracked. Someone, a girl I guess, handed me a glass. My medal for finishing. I tried to say "thank you", but I couldn't breath in. I felt like a fish out of water. My face felt wet but I just thought it was sweat. I started hyperventilating. I just wanted to hug my wife and sit down. 20 seconds later I was breathing like a human again and headed for the lake. Soke those legs and then get your chili.

That was it. 7 hours, 41 mins, 56 secs, 14,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, 26.2 miles of heaven and hell, and a year of training to do it right...and here I was. I'd won a small victory on the pathway of giants. And that's really what it is. I am a man among giants. I've just not paid attention to the footprints left by them as they too have followed the same hallowed and painful path to where it is they are headed.