I LIKE RUNNING IN CIRCLES

Well, Friday night I flew down to San Francisco via very fast hollow tube with sticks on the sides. Linda McFadden picked me up from the airport, and we stayed at the Holiday Inn close by. Wake up call at 5:30 A.M., and we drove all over San Francisco looking for ice. You would think all gas stations would have ice right? Well they do in Idaho. We went to 3 different places and had the toughest time finding ice! Don't worry, Idaho has a ton of the stuff everywhere. Got to the race site at about 7:30, to our surprise, the RD was getting into it with one of the participants, who he disqualified. Got to meet Norm Haines, that was cool. He is a way dirty old man! Well, the race got started at 9:00 on the dot, and the heat didn't take long to kick in either. It got above 80 during the day, making for lots of Endurolytes. I racked up miles, and if it wasn't for the fact that I was a sweaty pig, the race was going well. I discovered what it means to be road trained at this race. No hills or trail to work the legs are very hard!! My energy waned. I started off running 4 laps and walking 1, but after a while it went to running 3 and walking 1. I was really happy when the sun set, and started to cool off. There was a nice breeze, and I started to recover from the heat. I did well for a few hours, and up until about 11:30 PM I felt great. Then the "Hundred Mile Hangover" kicked in at about 62 miles, and I wasn't doing so hot anymore. I started dozing off on the run, and my feet started hurting extremely bad. I took some Ibuprofin, but it didn't help at all. Calling it a night at 64 miles, I crawled into Linda's car and decided to get some shut-eye. Linda hopped in the front seat for about an hour and tried to get her heart to calm down. She was back out on the race course after that, but I stayed inside. It got so cold outside, probably down into the 30s. Sea fog rolled in, and I couldn't keep my core temperature up. It was very cold. I woke up again at about 7:15, and it wasn't so cold outside anymore, so I decided to start running again. Linda had 3 miles to go before she hit 100, and I decided to go and pace her. After I started running, I came back to life. Didn't feel too shabby after a long period of rest. She hit 100, and I kept going. Running faster and faster, shouting encouragement to all the other runners. I did my last mile in 8:21, my best lap of the whole race. Some of them came in under the wire to hit 100, it was really awesome to see people bust a gut in the last hour. I sure did, and am also glad that I took a break. Should be able to recover now easily for 48 hours of fun at Ultracentric. I post pics here shortly from this race.