My "Ultra" World: CFE-Based Training, Competing, and Always Learning: G2G 2014 Race Report/Reflections (Part 7 - Saturday September 267, 2014

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.

For about the next hour, we stood around cheering people into the finish and taking various group and individual celebratory pictures before heading to the buses back to Kanab and, ultimately, back to Vegas. It was really great to see how happy everyone was when they crossed the finish line, especially those that really struggled with injuries or whatever throughout the week. Many people also began to talk about how we should all stay in touch, etc. And as is usually the case after finishing a race like this for many of us crazy people, the talks also already started about what the next race was going to be. And how we should plan to meet-up for more races in the future (which is already actually happening for about 10-12 of us in next year).

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!

Now on to the next challenge…

Final preparations before running: