I went out real, real slow ... stayed in the back third of the pack. John, Linda, Ken, Mike and Will were soon gone. But after a few miles I caught up to John and stayed with him for a while. I slowly pulled away. We spent the rest of the day playing 'see you at the next station' ... I'd get to a station first, but he'd show up before I left. With that whistle of his I always knew he was close by.
I was stopping for a good 5 minutes or so at each station. Things went well for the most part. I was relying heavily on the Perpetuem, and that seemed to pay off. No stomach issues, and I didn't need much solid food at the stations ... typically a small potato and piece of banana were all I wanted. After a while the gel made me gag, so I stopped using that all together. Took salt tablets regularly. It was a hot day.
It was great to see the friendly faces of the Corvallis crew manning the Charlton station. I sat down and chatted a while. Todd, Dave, Scott, Clem and Gaby were all there ... pampered me silly. All the volunteers were great, all along the way.
Scaling Twins was a bear ... the heat was getting to me ... thought of quitting at that point. When I got to the Twins station, I found Ken and Linda there ... so I figured that the conditions must be tough on everyone. Dennis gave me a lot of encouraging words. Melissa sat down with me and gave me a nice pep talk too. Those two really helped my resolve to keep going.
The very toughest part of the course was Maiden Peak. 3.2 miles of up, up, up. Not even nice switch back. Just up. I was taking baby steps the whole way. But at this point, there was no going back, and I had no intention of quitting. The run down the peak, on Leap of Faith, was a blast. I was pushing fast and hard as I could, feeling no pain. I heard foot-falls all the way, keeping up, behind me ... they followed me all the way to the next station. It turned out to be Mike :)
The run from the last station to the finish was an easy downslope of about 10K. I was alone the whole way ... and I felt surprisingly good.
I finished in 14 hours, 24 minutes ... not quite the 14 hours I was hoping for, but good enough for a cap. I've got a few small blisters, and will lose a toe nail. Otherwise feeling pretty good today.
Can't thank the Mac Forest People enough ... for all the help, advice, support, encouragement and training runs of the past year ... no way I could have pulled this off without them.
Runners on Mount Fuji
View from Mount Fuji (compliments of Olga)
Maura, Caroline and Tate ... traded places with these three ladies the whole way.
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