K, J, and I drove down and met R at the Sonoita Inn in Sonoita, AZ (pronounced suh-noy-ta). The inn was really nice – looked like it might have been converted from a barn. The rooms had ranch names and branding marks to differentiate them. Many runners stayed there as it was so convenient to the race start – only a 20 minute drive. We ate at Viaggio Italiano. The food was really good, but the service was slow. I find out during dinner that the race is actually 51.25 miles, not 50. hm, add 12 minutes to my estimated time!
Drop bags, 4 of them, had chips (Fritos and Doritos), Coke (90 cal cans), drugs, wipes, and instant ice packs – just in case. And the one at mile 40 had my headlamp. I decided that I’d just parasite light from other runners at the start. Yeah, this strategy was questionable at the Ghost Town 38.5, but it seemed light enough to see at the start, so I went for it. We got to the start a little later than I wanted – totally my fault that we left the Inn 7 minutes late. We park, and walk the ¼ mile to the start area carrying our drop bags and finish bags. I could see alright at this point already, so I wasn’t worried. Start lines are always a little surreal to me at long events. Here, the ultra crowd, well, they’re a laid back bunch. No one is “toeing the line.” I don’t think anyone does a warmup. But the energy is still there, and time moves both quickly and slowly. My memories are like a few
still shots with blanks in between. Drop the bags, check in, pick up our neat cloth and calico trimmed numbers. A trip to the one and only bathroom (?!?) and then a quick photo with the group, and the countdown: “5…4… 3 –BOOM-“ what happened to 2 and 1? Chuckling, we all head out.I find myself next to Judy and Bill. Bill has done this race several times, and he tells me about his favorite parts. I try to take some pictures, but the night setting on my camera requires a tripod. Judy tells me she’ll point out the best places to take pictures, as she’s done the first 33 miles of this course already. Richard moves past us, and he seems in good spirits. We hit the AZ trail at mile 3 (Granite Mountain aid station) for 4 miles, and we haven’t spread out yet, so I’m in the back of a line of runners. We hike the uphills, and although I would go faster, I rein in my antsy-ness and take it easy. Patience isn’t my strong suit, but I’m working on it! I take a few pictures of the beautiful sunrise:
The view is something like NM, but there’s more yucca, and more grass. The course rolls up and down, hardly ever flat.
My watch beeped every 30 minutes to remind me to take an e-cap, and that worked very well. At one point, Judy is ahead of me and I’m alone. I feel so good, I’m suddenly seized with the urge to cheer. Instead I raise
Wasp Canyon Mile 13 aid station, and I get a refill of water, nacho cheese Doritos, and a handful of m&m’s. I head out just behind a guy. We round a corner, and there’s a woman running toward us. She shakes her head a bit, and tells us we’re on the right track. But then, not 30 yds farther, the guy misses a turn. “Hey – hey – go right! Follow the markers!” he looks around, then looks at the markers heading off to his right, and grins and thanks me. Yup, no problem, we all look out for each other! Farther on, I see Judy 50 yds ahead. The course rolls, and I come to a Y – Judy and 3 friends went left, but I see a course marker on the ground to the right. It was really windy, so it could have blown over there… I stop. I look. I don’t see any other course markers. I head after Judy, thinking I’ll keep an eye out for the next marker, and call out if I don’t see one. Just then, Judy and her friends stop and look around – clearly looking for and not finding a marker. I signal that we should turn around, and when I get to the marker that was on the ground, I tie it back on a nearby tree. Whew! No going off course on this race! It’s long enough without any bonus miles! I grinned confidently.(cue ominous music here)
Going up to gunsight pass, the grade isn’t steep, but I walk/run it to conserve energy. I pass Judy when running, and she passes me when I walk or take pictures.
We gain in elevation, and get some really nice views. And then, I can see the notch that must be gunsight pass.
Amazing – I think we could see Tucson from here. Sorry about the wobbly nature of the video; I wish I had paused more and taken it slower at the top. Next time.
Now I am ready to bomb down – there should be a good elevation drop here! Unfortunately, the rocks, scree, and ruts had other ideas, and I picked my way down trying to make the most of a few clear spots. I pick up several pieces of trash here – a dropped gel, a pepsi can. I just want the course to look like we had never been here when the race is over. I’m definitely ready for it when the jeep road flattens a bit and we turn south. The road is much better condition, and running feels easy. We’re headed straight at a snow-covered mountain – and I’d remember that snow later in the race.
Before I know it, I’m at the mile 19 aid station - Helvetia. I didn’t fill my water here. I grabbed a cup of water, and a cup of coke. A few chips, and an orange slice. My stomach was feeling great. No problems whatsoever. I dropped the orange slice on the ground on the way out. Oops. The road continues down hill, and so I’m just cruising along enjoying myself. No one is close to me, and I feel nice and relaxed. The road turns and begins climbing slightly… and my Achilles starts hurting. A lot. Ouch. I stop and stretch. It still hurts. I start hiking, and worrying that it might be bad. I figure my best option is to keep going to the mile 25 aid station, and see how it goes. If it gets worse, I may be hiking the whole way. Which, since I am maintaining about a 16 min/mi pace hiking, isn’t bad. I take a gel while I walk. I hike about 2 miles, and it starts loosening up. I start run/walking, and it doesn’t complain much. I stretch a few more times. The pain is almost gone, and so I start running again, with no ill effects. Weird, but I’ll take it. I think maybe switching from pounding downhill to running uphill was hard on it and my calf muscle. Maybe. The wind has certainly kicked up, but it isn’t nearly as bad as we feared – no 30 mph gusts.
Several people passed me while I was walking, but I have no ego in this race. I want to finish. I want to finish under 12. Where I finish in the placing just doesn’t matter to me. I was behind the time estimates I made at this point that had me finishing in 11. That’s ok, really. And right now, I am so happy to be running again! Into the mile 25 aid station and my first drop bag. I was really looking forward to this – a can of coke and a bag of fritos. I fill my hydration pack 2/3 full. And I hike out, eating chips and drinking my coke. Yum. Now we are headed up a long climb. I take this from a bridge above a stream;
**pic coming**
And, there’s Judy with a friend!
**pic coming**
She’s made up time while I was hiking. We start the climb, and she power hikes strongly ahead of me and her friend. She’s really moving. Then, she starts dancing a little to her i-pod, which I didn’t get a picture of. Too bad! We’re all just out here having a good time! The climb flattens a bit, and we all catch up. I have found a groove, and as the climb increases again, I move ahead. My Achilles is silent, and I feel great again. As I close in on California gulch AS at mile 29, they’ve posted inspirational signs along the road:
“it never always gets worse”
“you are strong!” (stick figure pumping iron)
“you are inspiring!”
“you smell great!”
And:
Of course, I stopped to read! The first line made me laugh out loud. But then couldn’t wait to read the whole thing, so I took a picture, and kept running. At the aid station, I grab coke can #2, bag of Doritos, and down a cup of water. I do not refill. There’s a guy here sitting in a lawn chair watching us runners who tells me he designed the course, so I should blame him.
“The next part is really hard,” he says.
“Don’t tell me THAT! Tell me how pretty it is!” I say.
“well, it is pretty…”
I laugh, and I head out. I’m in such a great mood, nothing can spoil it. Back on single track – the AZ trail. It’s rocky, and I remember Bill telling me this morning that people trip on the rocks a lot. Unlike late in training runs, I’m not having any problems picking up my feet, and run most of this section, even though it’s uphill. A few times I stop myself, thinking that I’ve only done half the race, it isn’t time to go crazy yet. Not time to make myself work hard yet. My feet feel good, my legs feel good, let’s keep it that way. I catch several people in this 4 mile section that I think must have gone out a little fast. As I’m following one woman, I glance down to avoid a rock, and when I look back up, she’s flat on the ground. I run up to her, and help her up. She appears to have just skinned her palm, no other damage. She’s a bit shaken. I pick up her gel, and talk with her a little. She tells me she’s going to sit for a bit, that she’s ok, and that I should go on. She looks ok, so I do. I get into the Granite mountain AS at mile 33, and tell them that the runner in lavender behind me skinned her palm. I get my drop bag, and go to set it on the table… and I miss the table completely. The bag drops straight to the ground. The wind was blowing up the table cloth, and I misjudged where the table was. Whoops! And then I notice than my can of coke is hissing – it’s sprung a leak. RATS! I take my bag of Doritos from my drop bag, and grab a cup of coke, and leave – thanking the volunteers, of course. Without filling my hydration pack. (ominous music swells in the background!)
The course rolls through this section, so I hike and eat my chips and drink my coke. Poor substitute for a can – it wants to slosh. But, still – YUM. After finishing my coke, I go for some water. Hm, a little hard to get out of my pack. I must have closed the valve. I start running, and settle into my stride. I don’t remember a lot of great views here. I try for another drink of water. Turns out, it’s hard to get out of my pack because THERE’S NOTHING IN THERE.
Ooops.
So from mile 36 to 40.5, no water. Well, no water that I wanted to drink. At about 36, we started crossing streams. The first few, I got across without wetting my feet. Kind of fun, hopping from stone to stone. Then, no stones. Ok, well, I guess I get my feet wet. Ah! Cooling! Hm, my shoes are pretty heavy with all that water in them. Oh, another stream. And another… and another… Then, the jeep road is COVERED by the stream. And I remember the mountain covered in snow. More stream crossings. I finally catch up to someone about 1.5 from the aid station, but she only has Gatorade, which I’d rather not put in my pack. I thank her, and keep moving. I’m feeling a little thirsty, but I’m not too worried. I spot another runner ahead, and as I catch him, I ask if he has any water to spare. He did. He gave me his last three swallows – ah, much much better. I thank him profusely. He offers me some of his sports drink too, but the aid station should only be a few minutes away, so I decline. I’m starting to feel pretty warm at this point, and pretty tired. I hoped this was just the lack of fluid affecting me.
The aid station is across another stream, and a volunteer offers his hand as I navigate hopping from rock to rock.
“how are you? need anything?”
“I’m doing great! This course is fantastic! Well, except that I’ve been out of water for 40 mintues.”
“you’re doing awesome. – hey guys, this lady could use a drink!”
I fill up at the cave canyon 40 mile aid station, and down two cups of water. The volunteers are just fantastic, helping at every turn. I grab my coke from my drop bag, grab the fritos, and head out. I turn the wrong way out of the aid station, but before I get three steps, the awesome volunteers have called me back. Ooops! Thanks! I don’t open the coke right away, figuring I really need more water at this point. So I drink and walk up the inclined (not steep) road. Still maintaining a 16 to 17 min/mile hiking speed, so not bad. Pretty soon, I think I’m starting to feel better. I’ve been really good about my salt tabs, keeping with the every 30 min. I drink my coke and eat some chips. Everything seems good to go, so I start running. This was a little hard, after walking for so long. But I persisted, and soon the heavy legs went away, and I found my groove again. Yippee! I pass the guy that has been ahead of me since the aid station – he was walking too. Soon, though, he passes me back, grinning, and says that I guilted him into it. Well, good!
As the road tops out, and starts to head downhill, I pass more people as the footing is really rough. Rocky, boulder-y, almost as bad as gunsight pass. And now my feet are starting to ache a bit, which makes this tough. There are more stream crossings, too. Finally, Bob catches and passes me (just as I was grumbling about the stream crossing, actually.) and I decide to stay with him a bit. We talk over the course, but I don’t remember a lot of the conversation. He asks how far to the aid station, and I look at my Garmin – 1.5 miles. We run and run… we should have been there by now, my Garmin says 46.5… We’re on single track again, and it’s very runnable. Very nice after that gnarly downhill. Finally, we round a corner and Bob hears the aid station. Oh good. I grab some water, and a cookie – which I didn’t much like. The sweetness just hangs in my mouth.
I feel good, so I keep moving. Bob comes right with me. And we cross ANOTHER stream – I felt this was getting a bit old, honestly, but I keep it to myself, not wanting to verbalize a negative thought. Bob says he’s hurting, but I convince him he can do it, and he stays with me. We hit the jeep road together, and get to talking about the finish. We could finish under 11, I think. Wow. I’ve really made good time this last section. And I still feel really good. Sure, a bit achy, but nothing hurts, I can still run. Mile 48, and I CAN STILL RUN! Wow. So I start running. Bob drops back on a hill, and I’m by myself again, running past meadows, and making good time. “wait… have I seen a course marker?” I check behind me, and both Bob and Annette (who had done this race before) were still there, a few hundred yards back. “ok, I must be on track.” And I shut off my brain. Run run run! It felt so good! May watch said 50.8 miles, and 10:32 – I was going to finish under 10:45! I was unbelieveably happy, and focused.
*honk, honk* A truck is honking at Bob, and I hear what I think is the people inside offering him encouragement. “I’m next,” I think happily. Sure enough, I hear the truck behind me, and they honk. It’s the woman I’ve seen at each aid station – her husband was just behind me all day. I wave excitedly.
Them: “You’re off course! You have to go back!”
Me: “BLEEP”
Them: “It’s about 2.5 miles. The trail heads off to the right up a hill. You have to go back.”
Me: “ok. thanks. Ok.”
As they drive off, I just deflate. I sigh. I groan. I start walking back. Oh, but I was doing so well! And now I have to go back? How could I have missed the turn? How did we all miss it? Several groans. I’m pretty sure I hit all seven stages of grief in 10 minutes; Shock – check. Pain – check(or was that pain from running?). Anger – check. Depression - well, kind of. Adjustment – check. Reconstruction – check. Acceptance – check.
Soon after that, I started thinking that - hey, I’ll have done even more miles than I set out to. And the real purpose of this run was to see if I could go the distance. And I already have. So I’m really doing what I want to do in the end anyway. Sure, it isn’t what I thought it would be. But this run, this day is REALLY GOOD. So. Two more vehicles stopped to tell me more about what the turn off looked like, which was very helpful. I walked about 90% of the way back, and ran 10% - because I was a little dispirited. The sun was setting now. I hadn’t grabbed my light from my drop bag at 40 because I was doing so well time-wise – was this going to be a mistake? I spotted the turn, and looked at my watch. I wished I had run more of the way back, because I wasn’t going to be able to break 12 now.
As soon as I got on the trail, and there were other runners around me, I felt like running again. Running made me feel better, and it turned out that after climbing the hill, we entered onto really beautiful, smooth, buttery, graceful single track. The best we had seen all day. The setting sun gave off golden light, and the meadows I ran through were whispering their evening secrets to me. It was a perfect time to be running. I was lucky to be out there. Then, peeking through some trees at the far edge of the meadow, I see a building. A few people cheer as I get closer. A little hill – not even, a hillock – and there’s the finish line. K, R, J, N, K, are there, waiting and cheering me in. That was fantastic to see the group at the end like that.
Woot!
Everyone has already heard that I was off course. When I tell K I did 57 miles, he suggests we finish out a 100K, as I’m only 5 miles off. I say, ok, lets go! but let him off the hook with a grin. He tells me how the group finished (extremely well!!). I grab a hamburger and some chili. Since I went back and picked up the course where I left it, I still got a belt buckle for finishing – plus we all got cacti for finishing as well. Very cool. I made sure to tell the race director that I had a great time, and that the course was well marked and it was completely my fault for missing the turn. I also apologized to the woman who first told me I was off course for, ahem, being rude. She said she just knew I had to go back, that I wasn’t going to be climbing into her truck, because I had to finish.
So, 57 miles in 12hrs 10 minutes. What a fantastic race, and a great day.
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