After 7 hours and 9 minutes, Day 2 is complete and I have
5 more to go. I wasn’t sure how today was going to go when I woke up this
morning. I was stiff and sore but I felt ok. After stretching in bed for a
couple minutes, I got up and got ready.
Rise and shine, good morning San Tan!
I got to the trailhead and got all my stuff ready. It was
a little colder than I anticipated but I knew it would get warm later on, so I
enjoyed the good weather while I had it. The start of today’s run was odd
because my heart rate didn’t seem to want to get up to where it usually is.
Once I noticed this wasn’t a fluke, however, I took advantage of it and had a
good first loop.
The trails I took at San Tan Regional Park weren’t bad.
Each loop had about 1100 feet of elevation gain so there were no huge climbs or
anything; just some rolling hills with an occasional longer ascent. The first
loop was a good shakeout to get everything loose. By the end of it, however, I
definitely could feel that I had run 30 miles the day before.
Loop 2 was the most difficult of the day. I went the
opposite direction around the San Tan Trail (clockwise) and there was a little
more climbing going that direction. When I got to the halfway mark, I gave
myself a little pep talk and was able to raise my spirits up. The difficult
part about today was not so much the physical endeavor, but rather the
loneliness. I wasn’t lucky enough to have people available to crew or run with
me today, so it was a completely solo day, besides the occasional person on the
trail, and a constant cloud of gnats surrounding me all day.
I had a realization today about the mentality that it
takes to participate in endurance sports. There’s a drive that endurance
athletes have that allows us to keep going when things hurt, or when we are
tired. This inner voice that says, “keep moving forward” is crucial if anyone
wants to take on a long distance event. However, what I realized today is that
this voice is like a muscle and it needs to be exercised and maintained. During
the last month or two of my training, I had allowed this voice to atrophy and
diminish. I had been relying on my abilities and headphones to grind through
the long runs, but I hadn’t needed to use that inner voice to help me through a
long workout in a while. In fact, when I had needed it during some of my more
difficult long runs, I failed to use it and instead allowed my thoughts to be
negative and sabotaging. Today, I found that voice again. I had no other choice
because without anyone there to push me, it was either find the voice, or quit.
I have come too far to quit.
Between loop 2 and 3
The third loop was hard because I was very tired, but I
felt better than I did during the second loop. The best part of the whole day
was at about mile 28.5 when I took my phone off of airplane-mode and
immediately got flooded with text messages from the Racelab crew, cheering me
on and encouraging me. It was exactly what I needed with only a mile and a half
to go and it pushed me through to the end. I can’t thank my team enough for
providing me with that, even on a lonely day.
Now I’m recovering again. I took an amazing ice bath,
showered, ate a late lunch and now I’m going to kick back and watch a movie
with my partner-in-crime and best friend, Katlyn. She made me homemade Nutella
donuts, by the way… Seriously, best girlfriend ever.
Tomorrow I’m at Usery Mountain Regional Park, starting
bright and early at 5:30AM again. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to hurt…
but I’m going to enjoy it! Thanks again for all the support and for sticking
with me through two days now. Only 5 more to go and then we have to look for
the next challenge…
Seriously though... look at this donut.
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