.

I’m going to trick myself out with one of these things, get to the top of the highest dune, and not only will I look like the rockin’-est death-metal guitarist all of Western Africa, but I’ll just soar to the finish line.  And I’m definitely going to have that thumpin’ hip-hopera theme music going behind me, too.

.
When body part anger ignites, trouble begins. It’s all I could picture on Sunday’s run.

What the hell happened? Everything was ducky just the evening before. I ran, with the pack at 12 pounds and it was if the road rose up to meet me. Actually, no. The road never rises up anywhere near me. But it was less painful than normal.

I figured Sunday would be the same, just a little longer. It was not. It was all I could do to get my calves to help the rest of my legs get me forward. It went something like this:

Calves: This sucks. I’m stopping.

Brain: Oh poor you, no one has ever had it as bad as you. Such a tragedy.

Calves: Excuse me?

Brain: I’m just saying.

Calves: Saying what? That I’m a nag?

Brain: That’s all you DO is nag! “I hurt, I’m sore, you’re using me too much, this ice is too cold…”

Calves: You don’t know! You think I can just go and go and go and there’s no consequence– you have no idea what pain is!

Brain: I know exactly what it is! I’m the #&*#!@ nerve center of this whole place! You think I don’t know?

Calves: But you never listen! It’s like I’m talking to a wall! I feel like I’m living alone sometimes! You don’t pay attention to me, you never thank me, you– you hate how I look… “Oh, my calves are so ugly, they look like a ham hock”– you said that! To other people! Out loud! You think I like hearing that? Hearing that everyone thinks I’m ugly?

Elbow: I don’t think you’re ugly at all.

Calves: (dismissive) Thanks.

Brain: I’m sorry– I’m sorry about the ham hock remark. I didn’t mean it. I was angry. But you don’t pull your weight around here! You ever hear Back complaining? You know how much the Back does *every day*?

Calves: Yes! Yes I do hear Back complain! You completely abuse Back!

Brain: Fine. You know what? Fine. Fine with me. You just do your thing- you crap out on me if you want. Crap out on all of us– Foot will have to make up for your work, but hey– you’re sore, right? So you just take a break while the rest of us work.

Calves: I will.

And that’s why I had to walk the rest of the way. It was totally not my fault.

This is how I now shop. Go into Duane Reade to get one Odwalla Bar or something and wind up cruising the snack isle, cel phone in hand for quick and easy calculating, checking out the labels of only the most unhealthy of snacks.

.
I heard back from Roebling’s slaves, the fantastically coiffed Kevin Dresser and Kate Johnson of the make-me-writhe-with-jealousy- in-the-face-of-such-talent Dresser-Johnson design duo.

Well, as I love all things Brooklyn Bunny, I contacted them in the hopes that they might allow me to sport their wonderful BB logo. Well they just got back to me and the answer is yes.

I shall write more later, as I’m certain you all are holding your breath with anticipation that is, if you haven’t already committed hari-kari out of shame for having whatever wimpy sponsor you do– Budweiser, IBM, Extreme Virgin, CleanTeen, Viagra, the country of France, whatever.

And yes, it might take me three weeks to finish this race, and yes my fiercest competitor might be Doris, the camel that picks up the trash, and yes I might cross that finish line on hands and knees– but know this:

You don’t have Brooklyn Bunny, and I do.

P.S. I haven’t broken the news to General Patton yet. Not sure how he’ll take it…

.

It’s confirmed. Sue Holliday, in what is actually a bit of a surprise to her, is in fact registered for the 2008 MdS. (She entered via the Spanish organization, and apparently they were a little, shall we say, Mediterranean about contacting her in a timely manner).

Sue was the first place female finisher up in the North Pole. I finished just 4 places behind her, for 5th placed woman. (Out of 5.)

But she did MdS in 2006, a.k.a Armageddon year. And anyone who made it through that year can make it through 2008.

Oh yes, and she just got back from the Antarctic, where she did the Antarctic Marathon (also set up by Richard Donovan and also with the amazing William Tan participating.)

.

.

some of the links aren’t totally done, but getting there…… click image to experience the wonder….

.

click for full size

Where’d Bill go? The most prolific poster on our forum has fallen silent. After getting sick at Rocky Raccoon and finishing in a “disappointing” 8 hour something finish, (including a ten mile walk) he got dreadfully ill.

SIDE TANGENT: Don’t you hate it when people say they’re so disappointed in their performance, when they kicked your ass? It’s like my friend who’s always calling herself fat and she’s 15 pounds lighter than me. So what does that make me? A Winnebago? So if 8.5 hours is “disappointing” for the guy, what am I at a 11.5 hour finish? Gorked?

Anyway, Bill got wildly sick and was lucky enough to stay in Huntsville, TX (home of America’s largest statue of a ((debatable)) American Hero) for 3 extra days before heading home to Canada. What happened next is anyone’s guess because he’s strangely silent.

Theories have been flying about like presidential candidates. He works in a hospital– maybe there has been a rash of moose gorings up there in Vancouver. Or perhaps he just can’t live with his “disappointing” finishing time and is right now passed out under a bridge with a bottle of Thunderbird in one hand and a Clif bar in the other, lying on a wet, urine-stained Gossamer Gear NightLight™ Sleeping Pad (3/4 Length).

MdS-ers are murmuring amongst themselves: “Is Bill going to pull out of MdS?” I could hear the sounds of wailing and gnashing of teeth straight through the computer. From what I’ve divined through the electronic grapevine, a certain subset of female Rocky-Raccooners are crushed by the thought. The topic was dropped.

So if you happen to be strolling the streets of Vancouver and see a sad man in bedraggled capris, his Adidas Evil Eye Explorer lenses cracked, gaiters trailing behind him like toilet paper stuck on a shoe and mumbling something about a “disappointing finishing time” — be kind to him. Throw a few coins in his cup, smile at him, and tell him that speedy bastard Ted Archer is out of his mind with worry.

Sorry, but I had to post this.

This is Ted Archer, winner of Rocky Raccoon and fellow coachee of Lisa Smith Batchen.

Here is his pot. This was his first place prize.

Note the lack of any “Rocky Raccoon” identification.

Also note the lack of any indication that he won.

Which means that putting it on the mantle will not only not inform his guests that he stormed the Rocky Raccoon Endurance Trail Race on his very first 50 mile run, but will also make them think he’s got the hideous taste to showcase this thing on his mantle.

But Ted looks pretty impressed with it, no?

.

I was taking my flight home from Rocky Raccoon and wanted to sleep. Badly. Very badly. But the inevitable happened: chatty neighbor.

So just tell him you’re tired. Or just make it obvious by not engaging in the conversation until he gets the hint. Except…

He was an incredibly sweet elderly man. Add to that that he was coming home from his brother’s funeral. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his late brother’s wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s. I was just waiting for him to tell me he was called up to serve in Iraq, or that all of his children were eaten by a giant squid just last Tuesday.

So of course I talked to him. And he was actually very interesting, but fatigue yields to no one, no matter how fascinating. And when I started nodding off and drooling on myself he kindly let me sleep.

Well apparently I dreamed about ducks. Maybe because I saw ducks on the lake at Rocky Raccoon.  I actually think it was ducks and cats both. I’ve read that you only dream when you’re in a REM state– the deepest stage of sleep. But rather than a solid snooze, I was teetering half in reality, half in dreamland. Awake enough to know I was on a plane, but asleep enough to drool.

Which is probably why I was able to quack. Actually, it wasn’t that I said the word “quack.” I actually quacked like a duck– that throaty honk. “Quaaank”. And yes, the man heard it and looked at me. I kept my eyes closed though.

And this is definitive proof that ultra-running causes brain damage.

I finished (the 50, not the 100). Yes, the Rocky Raccoon Endurance Trail Run was a sonofabitch. But what put it all in perspective was watching, as I was chauffeured back to the hotel, the headlamps of the 100 mile runners bobbing up and down as it became increasingly dark. It looked so lonely. And looney.

My official time was 11:07:45.40 though I had no idea while on the course even though I had a watch. Inner dialogue went something like this:

“My watch says 3:08.. okay, I turned it on a half hour into the run, so add 30 minutes, that’s 3:38 and uh, we started at- wait, no- we started at 7:00 AM, so add 3 hours and that’s 2:30 with the extra half hour- wait, no- wait, okay… wait- I don’t need to know what time it is. Right. So it’s been 4 hours, and I’ve run a loop and a half so that’s 17 plus.. half of 17… which is.. um, okay, 16 divided by two is 8 so add that to 17…” (ad nauseum)

However fast I was going, I finished smack dab in the middle of the pack at 73rd out of 142 finishers. Which is better than I expected but… 11 hours just seems… I dunno.

But I learned a lot. Like…

• too much Gatorade will do things to your system too scatological to write about.
• Baked potatoes are manna from heaven.
• Roots will trip you if you don’t pay attention.
• Too many gels will also do unpleasant things to your excretory system.
• Ultra runners are really nice.
• Some ultra runners are strange.
• And just because you bring 3 iPod shuffles doesn’t mean that ALL THREE WON’T CRAP OUT ON YOU. Which is exactly what happened.
• Huntsville, Texas has a public electric chair.

But I suppose the biggest thing I learned is that I’m one judgmental bastard. Looking around at the starting line, I checked the other runners out. And not all of them looked fit. Mind you, anyone taking a look at me knows I could stand to cut back on the pop-tarts. But some of these runners.. some of them looked like sportily-dressed manatees.

“My God,” I thought. “How are they going to finish this? How can they possibly carry so much weight over so much terrain? And they can’t possibly be fit. What are they going to do? Float across the lake?“

Well, that manatee just kicked your ass. And she did it with a smile. She blew by you.

They say that the last acceptable prejudice is the prejudice against overweight people. It’s true. I actually remember when I was little, my friend’s mom said “I can’t stand fat people.” I think I was only about 8, but even then I knew it was unfair and wrong of her. (Turns out the same woman has an eating disorder. Surprise surprise.)

But when it came down to it, I wasn’t much better.

Overweight people are judged — no matter how “tolerant” people think they are — to be just too lazy to lose the weight. If they could only show some discipline. Fox can’t make it more than a few hours before reporting that “OBESITY IS AN EPIDEMIC” and crying that if we don’t all immediately waddle onto the treadmill and stay there until we’re svelte then the terrorists have won.

I’m not claiming that weight has nothing to do with personal choices, or that those of us who have an overabundance of marshmallow on the insides of our thighs are powerless against it. What I am claiming is that for some reason weight is viewed somewhere between compulsive nose-picking and Tourette’s Syndrome on the negative attributes scale.

Ultra-marathons require fitness, stubbornness and– from what I gather– the mental tenacity to push yourself waaaay out of the comfort zone. I don’t care how much extra weight you’re carrying– when you’re zooming by me after 45 miles of running with enough energy to shout a “Good work! Keep it up!” to me as I step aside to let you pass, then I’m sure as hell not going to call you anything but more fit, more tenacious and more disciplined than I am.

Another lesson? When a 71 year old finishes 100 miles in only a few more hours than you finished 50, you start to re-think the whole greatness-of-youth thing, too.