We were woken up throughout the night as the wind and rain
slammed against the tent. Luckily, however, our tent withstood the storm and at
about 5:30 am, we were woken up by Tess, who was going around instructing
everyone that because of the bad weather, the final stage was canceled. With
this announcement, we were all immediately awake for the day.
While there was a bit of initial relief that we wouldn’t have
to run in the storm, I was also a bit disappointed and upset, as it seemed like
an anticlimactic way to end the race, especially since I was ready to try and
make up the few minutes necessary to move up a place. Still, after chatting
with my tent-mates for a while and realizing we were done and could head back
to Vegas for a party, my anger quickly passed.
For the next hour or so, we all sat around eating our last freeze-dried
breakfast of the week. Knowing that we were now done, I also used this time to
remove the tape that was preventing all my chaffing from my sides and back and
throw out anything that I no longer needed.
Unfortunately, after I had done all of this, the talks then
started around camp that were, in fact, not actually done; rather, we were
going to have to run somewhere (just so the organizers could get their pictures
of participants crossing the finish line for next year’s advertising purposes, at
least that is my view of the situation). Yet, no one knew what was going to
actually happen. As a result, I was once again unhappy with what was going on: either
we were running, or we weren’t, but someone needed to make up their mind. And I was pretty pissed that my actions
during the prior hour were made with the assumption we were done.
Now knowing that we were going to have to do some form of
running, I quickly went to the medical tent for anything they could give me to
wrap my body so I couldn’t be in excruciating pain from my backpack rubbing against
my open tears on my back and sides. Luckily, they had a large ace bandage that
I was able to easily just wrap around my entire body (This ended up working
exceptionally well, actually).
Finally, after about another hour, the announcement was made
that we would run a 2 mile out and back on a dirt road. Our time would be added
to our total, but it wouldn’t count for purposes of overall rankings. With the
announcement of the distance we were going to be running, I was pretty happy. I
knew I could go all out for 2 miles without falling apart, and no matter what,
I should be done in less than about 16 minutes tops, even with a backpack on. And
so we made our way to the start line.
For this quick sprint, I also decided it was a good time to
listen to music, which I hadn’t really done all week. I also figured if I had
to run, I might as well treat it as a workout and get something out of it.
After all, in my view at least, there is really no such thing as just doing a
WOD without pushing myself. So I put on my
heavy playlist (I think Korn was the first thing that came on) and got ready to
go all out for 2 miles.
After the go signal, Phelim and I took off across the field
to the dirt road we were going to run on for a couple miles. As we reached the
road, Phelim fell back a little, and I just kept on at a steady pace. The whole
way to the turnaround I felt good, going just hard enough to not burn out my
legs and lungs. When I got to the turnaround, I was a bit distracted by my
music, so I started to actually go out of the way a bit. After about 30
seconds, I quickly realized that I should turn around, however, and I was
headed back to the finish.
As I ran back past everyone, I was slapping hands with
numerous people, as we all knew we were almost done. Then about half way back
to the finish, Ken and Micky practically jumped on my back, as I didn’t hear
them coming. They must have gotten a quick sprint in to catch up, and from
there, we decided we would all just finish together. Finally, about 200 meters
from the finish, we were stopped by some of the volunteers who were there to I
guess filter us into the finish so we didn’t all arrive at the same time (again
for advertising picture taking purposes). As the volunteers radioed to the
finish to let them know we were coming in, there was no response. And no
response again, which started to get a little annoying since we were simply
brought to a complete stop.
Finally, after about 2 minutes of waiting, with other
runners starting to come up behind us, they let us proceed to the finish, and
the three of us crossed together. After, a few hugs and getting our belt
buckles, I immediately headed for the food tent to get pizza and a soda.
I don’t usually eat pizza, especially at 8 am, but I was
starving. I think I ate maybe half a pizza in the next 20 minutes. Vanessa also
had a $4 surprise donut that she had gotten for me at a small local bakery.
Unfortunately, it was the worse donut I ever ate, and I threw out about half of
it.
And thus the race was over!
To summarize, looking back, it was a great race that really fun and offered
a very challenging landscape. The views were exceptional and the terrain was greatly varied. With the exception of the weather conditions and higher
elevation, I think this race was much tougher than the Gobi, the primary reason
being that the long day was in the middle of the week and was extraordinarily
difficult for a 50 mile stage or even standalone race. The amount of sand we had to run through also made the going extremely difficult. My equipment choices worked out great. And I did better than I expected. As always, I learned a lot, and there are definitely things I would alter for my next stage race. But these changes are really just minor tweaks that would improve my overall performance and how I feel throughout the race.
In the end of the day, I’m glad I
did it, and I made some great longtime friends along the way!
My full body wrap:
And we're off:
The prize:
And we're finished:
(We started at 8:30. So minus the 2 minute stop, we do in fact finish in under 16 minutes, as predicted)
Celebratory Pictures:
The awful donut:
And a pistol for the heck of it after Vanessa challenged me after having run 170 miles this week. I was successful: