Race Report Part II

Where were we? Oh yes, downward…for a very long time. Down through beautiful old growth forest, past enormous ferns, down through peaceful arches created by ancient trees. Down, down, down, it seemed we would never reach the bottom of the trail. In fact I think we went below sea level, underground, I’m sure I passed a school of fish and a mermaid or two. When we were almost at the exact center of the earth, it was time to climb again.

The beauty of trail runners, which I know I have mentioned before, is the value they place on food and drink. Before this second climb, we took time to refuel. I enjoyed copious amounts of M&Ms and almonds. Frankly, I have no idea what Alexa, Cassie and Richard ate, as I was having an angels-singing moment with my M&Ms. Never before and never again have M&Ms taste so good.  I’ve eaten plenty since, and I just can’t recreate that flavor, no worries, I’ll keep trying.

This next climb involved switchbacks, which I thought would make things easier. There are actually a lot of optical illusions and unhappy misreads that happen with switchbacks. First of all, depending on the angle, there is a good chance they do not look nearly as steep as they are. It’s not until you actually turn the corner and see what the trail is expecting of you, that you know the truth. Second of all, even with that knowledge there is always the naive hope that the next slope isn’t as steep. It always is. If that is not defeating enough as you are going up, if you stop and look up you see people above you and then people above them, and then people above them, until all you can see are clouds and perhaps the castle of the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. One of my strongest memories from that climb is of Cassie. Every time she turned a corner of the switchback, she’d stop, put her hands on her hips, assess and then heave a deep sigh and head on up. I don’t even know if she realized she did it, but I found it endearing and strangely comforting.

At some point we finally reached the top.  I still don’t know if the effort and struggle had an impact on my perception or not, but I am pretty sure that the summit was the most beautiful place I had ever been. If heaven is a place, I caught a glimpse of it. The day was sunny and perfectly clear. From the overlook there was a beautiful view of the beautiful snow-covered dormant volcano- Mt. Baker. There were low hanging clouds that seemed to embrace the mountain.  Next there was a layer of clear blue sky and another layer of puffy clouds hanging in perfect patches above the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean. As if being at the top of this beautiful mountain with a bird’s eye view of this beautiful planet wasn’t enough, there were friends everywhere. People were calling to each other, shrieking to each other, everyone was snapping photos, and I was constantly being wrapped in (sweaty) hugs. Nancy, Lori and Lori each hugged me as if it had been years, not hours since we last saw each other.  There were people waiting on us-“can I fill your camelback? Can I pour you a drink?” More food, more friends, laughter and reunions. Euphoria defined.  The atmosphere was filled with beauty, love and accomplishment, but we weren’t done. Not at all.

Cassie, Alexa, Richard and I regrouped and we were off. We each had moments of connection and of being in our own heads.  I was a little apprehensive, as I knew we had about five miles to go and they were almost all downhill. I didn’t know what that would look like, but I did know a few things. The weather was ideal, the ground was dry, I had friends with me who knew my fears, and frankly, Alexa had so much faith in me, I felt completely safe. Yes, I was uneasy, but I wasn’t truly afraid. And, if you have been following this journey of mine, you know this is an accomplishment!

We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. We were totally goofy at times and serious at others. Cassie had a big fall and hurt her ankle. A little while later she wobbled it again. Man, that girl was tough. She ran cautiously, but never complained. [The next day we saw her on the ferry. Her ankle was five times its normal size. It was black, blue and every known shade of purple]. Alexa, who is a nurturer re-tied Cassie shoes to give more support. I remember this moment so clearly. Alexa and Richard were both gathered around Cassie while they tended to her, I noticed this patch of green grass with a hot yellow sun shining on it. I was so drawn to it and even though I don’t tend to lie down in the middle of a race, I went over and stretched out like a cat and just soaked it in. It was January, but it felt like May. The day, the race, the conversations, the sun, the accomplishments, the knowledge that the end couldn’t be that far away-soak, soak, soak. And then (dang it) Cassie’s shoes were secured and we were off again.

My memories are a bit scrambled, my chronology not quite right, but I know that at some point between the summit and the finish I had one opportunity for a meltdown. My camelback had a very short straw and I spent a great deal of my run hunching over and struggling to get the right amount of water. I dealt with it for so long and for so many miles and just like that, it suddenly became too much to bear. I know this sounds dramatic, but when you have miles and hours behind you and you are tired (and don’t forget) fighting a fever some things become overwhelming. Alexa discovered that the straw was zip tied to the pack. Cassie grabbed her pocketknife and sawed away at that zip tie. The fact that she was holding a sharp knife quite close to some sensitive body parts did not faze me. And though so simple a fix, it seemed life changing. I think I talked about what a difference it made for a very long time. And, Cassie was so excited to use her new (pink) pocketknife! Everyone was happy. (except maybe Richard, who just thought his three girl companions were a little weird).

Ask someone about the Orcas course and they might tell you that the end of the race was the worst part of all. I can’t agree, but I understand where this comes from. At some point, maybe a mile or so before the finish, the trail ends (or so it seems) and you can see the main road of the state park. It looks like you can just run across the road and you will be at the finish, but instead of going across the road, you go left, back into the woods and-as if you haven’t climbed enough, you have to go uphill again. And you know the finish is right there, but it won’t show itself. You just keep going up and up. Finally you get to a point where you wrap back around to the main road, cross the road and-wait for it, wait for it-go up ANOTHER hill turn left and then finally finish.  These last few hills are torturous and, let’s just say it, a little mean on the race director’s part. But as soon as you make that turn from the last hill onto the grassy area that houses the finish, every bit of pain and struggle is erased. And so I found myself running through the finish, hand in hand with my good friend Alexa. I was high fived by James, the race director, who incidentally high-fives every single person to cross the finish. There was a cheering section waiting for us, Nancy, Lori and Lori, David and Kelly, Karen and a tearful eyed Susan.

Race reports have never been my specialty. It’s hard to convey the accomplishment, the beauty and the camaraderie. I’ve tried my best. It was so challenging, so breathtakingly beautiful and such a triumph. Orcas 2015? Bring it!

 

 

 

 

Race Report part I

Two days before the big race I came down with a fever. A real one. Because I was worried that people would think I was chickening out, I took a photo of my thermometer reading 100.8 and texted it off to a few friends. I was so frustrated. Two days until the race and I saw myself sitting on the sidelines. For some reason this was unacceptable. I had come this far and worked this hard only to be betrayed by my own body. Uh, no.I purchased and took more cold medicine and more aleve than I want to admit. I went through two bags of cough drops and chewed many, many, many milligrams of vitamin C. On Saturday morning I woke up feeling awful, got dressed anyway and, along with ten of my friends, headed to the start line.

My plan had always been to run to the first aid station and evaluate my situation. This plan was originally made based on my initial fears of Orcas. On Saturday morning the only fear I was feeling was fear of knocking my immune system for such a loop that I would be bedridden for a week. Sometime during the first mile or two I decided that once we hit that aid station I would throw in the towel. My breathing was ragged, my legs were lead, and there was no way I could be as tired as I was and still make it through the race. We had started in a large group and no one else was having trouble breathing, no one else was showing any indication of exhaustion. My goodness, two miles into a 15 mile race and I wanted to curl up under a cozy blanket and sleep for a week.

But still, I moved forward.

Alexa who was setting the pace, had us walk even the slightest of hills. I could tell that this was too much walking for some people in our group. For me, it was perfect. As the miles stretched out the alternating between walking and running was a godsend. And as the day unfolded our group thinned out. By the first aid station around mile five, there were only about six of us. We came up a small hill and at the top we were greeted by our friends Karen and Susan who were working the aid station. I was elated to see them. I had been feeling well for while at this point (when did things change? I’m not sure) and knew I would carry on.

We refilled our camelbacks, ate a bunch of great snacks and used the “bathroom”, which just meant we grabbed some toilet paper and squatted behind the small outbuilding that marked the aid station. We said our farewells to aid station workers and friends who had just arrived at the station (in a race of fewer than 400 people there were more than thirty Dirty Girls and Dirty Dudes running Orcas-talk about representin’!). We were briefly on the road and then back on a trail. It wasn’t even five minutes when we realized the race had changed, the mountain climb had begun.

Up until this point we were run/walking on terrain similar to trails we had run before. We were up and down rolling hills and switchbacks. Nothing we had done had indicated what we were about to do. It is so unfortunate that neither my writing nor my photography skills can express the steepness of this part of the climb. Everyone, even the chattiest of us, was suddenly quiet. We were all hunched over, and looked more like a group of chimpanzees than upright humans.  The majority of people were grabbing on to limbs and branches as they climbed. Soon people were picking up sticks to help them balance. I was determined not to fall behind and not to lose my friends. Even when people were grabbing sticks, they didn’t stop moving. I think we all feared that if we stopped we would not have the capability to start again.

I grabbed the first stick I saw and tried to rely on it to help me up the hill. It was wiggly and hollow and looked like a witch’s stick. My friend Lori and I used our last bit of spare strength to laugh at this ridiculous excuse for a walking stick. But we didn’t laugh long; we couldn’t risk using that energy. Again, I can’t explain the steepness of this portion of our climb, but in a sport that I usually consider great for all shapes, sizes and ages, I found myself worried about perfect strangers as I watched them struggle up the mountainside. There was a man who stopped because he was “seeing stars”, and an older woman who was overheating due to an unexpected appearance by the sun. This was the hardest part. We were all so focused and determined that there wasn’t much room for anything else. I wasn’t a coward nor was I champion. I just was. There wasn’t room for much more than being, than existing. The climb was on.

 This was the part that made each one of us say we would never do Orcas again. Never, ever, don’t even think about it. However, this portion was really just a tiny bit of the race. Though it was extremely challenging, it was over in a reasonable amount of time and we were soon back on the downhill.

As you know the downhill was my biggest fear and my pace was extremely cautious. Our group shrunk again, as two of our friends cruised downhill at a faster clip and were soon out of sight. We were once six, but now we were four, navigating along switchbacks and going down, down, down. We hadn’t reached the summit of Mt. Constitution, and I knew we would be summiting as part of our race, so downhill was absolutely, positively, the wrong way to go. With each downward footfall I found myself filling with dread. Not because this downhill course was particularly technical or challenging, but because I knew that soon we would have to go back up, up, up…