2nd Segment of a three part Series.
SEGMENT TWO: TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP
We had just completed our first full segments of the race. We loaded up Jon at Snowbasin and we headed out to go to South Weber to shower and have dinner at Michael's home and hopefully catch a little bit of sleep. As we drove down the Snowbasin road we passed Heidi and cheered her on. I felt some pretty good admiration for her. She was running a pretty hard leg. It first climbs about 350 feet and them drops nearly 1800 feet down into Mountain Green, a distance of 8.5 miles. This is the second longest segment of the entire race. If your knees are going to give out on you, it would probably be on this leg.
We arrived at Michael's well after 10 p.m. We dropped Darin off at his house, who also, lives in South Weber and George crossed the street over to his house. We all took quick showers and then, Michael fed us a pasta dinner to load us up on some carbs. Darin's wife dropped him back off with us and George stayed over at his house. It was about 11:30 p.m. when we finished. We decided that we needed to leave to get back on the course at 12:30 a.m. So, Lisa and Darin crashed on some couches and Jon and I grabbed our sleeping bags and laid out on the floor. I was too afraid to fall asleep fearing that for some reason I wouldn't wake until morning and totally miss our next legs. So, I laid in the dark trying to recover the best that I knew how. At 12:30 a.m. George met back up with us and we loaded up and headed out. As we drove to Morgan, we played a little phone tag with van #1. The phone coverage was a little spotty. When we got to just below east canyon, we found out that they were about 7 miles out. We followed the narrow windy road up to East Canyon Reservoir. The travel was slow and go with all of the runners on the road with their support vehicles.
We found it quite amusing to watch the tail lights bobbing back and forth with their reflective vests. You could sure tell the different running styles by watching the movement of the lights. Here as well, there were some unique decorations. Their were some people who had adorned themselves with Christmas Lights. It was all quite entertaining. Another neat thing was that after dark, racers could have pacers either on foot or bike. So, there were also quite a few bikes on the road now with the runners. This also was a long segment with some pretty intense climbing.
We arrived at the next major exchange at East Canyon State Park. Here again was a swarm of people and cars. We decided that the race had to have bought out all of the campsites for the night. Could you imagine trying to camp with over 7000 people milling around all night long. We made brief contact with van #1 and found out that they had lost their runner. Great. This was the same runner that had passed out on his previous leg. We hoped that he hadn't ended up in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere. I had a bunch of Freebie gift items that I had received from a Triathlon that I ran in a couple of years ago, that had some electrolyte pills and some hammer gel. I popped a few electolyte pills and suck down on the hammer goo, which actually tasted ok. I was hoping that the energy would hit at the right time when I hit my next leg.
The temp was in the mid 40's and windy as we waited for our runner exchange with Lisa. Our guy finally made it and Lisa was off and running again. This was her toughest leg. It was short, only 3.8 miles but with a total elevation gain of 626 feet. She flew up the mountain at her usual 7:45 pace. She ended up with 17 kills on that leg.
George then had to run down hill for 7 miles with a vertical drop of nearly a 1000 feet. He kept a great pace going that hovered between 8:00 and 8:15 until he got to the last mile or so which was more flat. I am sure that after running for 6 miles down hill. The flat probably felt like you were running in quick sand.
My leg was up next. I put on a thin sweat shirt because I was feeling a little cold. It was just after 3:00 a.m. and I was shooting to finish my 9.6 miles in 1 1/2 hours. I put the headphones back on and cranked the music. This time I decided that I better not shoot out so quickly as I did the time before. When George arrived, he looked pretty tired. We made the exchange and I headed out. I slipped into a nice quick pace and felt really good. I actually really enjoy running in the dark and the temperature in the mid 40's felt just great. I find that when I have done long runs that I run faster in my later miles than in my beginning miles. This was the case here. I immediately, began to pass people. Each time that I passed someone, I felt like I kept going faster and it felt good. The sturgeon only stopped every couple of miles to check on me, which is what I wanted. It felt good to just zone out and run without any major distraction. At about the 2 1/2 mile mark, there was a guy that blew by me as if I was standing still. All I could say was, "what the..." Later I realized that it must have been the BYU cross country team who actually finished the race in a little more that 17 hours. Not much later after that there were a couple of other guys that passed me but they were not going quite as fast. It made sense that the Elite running teams should be making there way through the ranks to us by about his time. My first difficulty came as I rounded the corner from the town of Echo to head up the canyon just a little way. The grade was nothing but the headwind was terrible. the wind must have been gusting from 30-40 miles an hour. It was hard on everyone else as well, as I passed a few more people. We then passed under the interstate and headed back out of the canyon with the wind at our backs. Nothing like a little wind beneath your wings. As I rounded out of the canyon I started to make the climb up onto the dam at Echo Reservoir. I was now at the halfway point. This hill was a little painful, but I gritted it out thinking that it was only going to be a short while. I left a few more kills behind. At this point I passed a few people who were now walking. There continued to be a few ups and downs in this section, so I was still having a hard time shaking off the pain from the hill climb. Eventually it passed and I was feeling pretty good again. As I neared the mile to go mark I started to pick up the pace again as I anticipated getting to the end. As I rounded the corner going into Coalville, I saw several more people ahead of me. I wasn't going to let some one finish ahead of me again like I did on the first leg. The last block and a half I pushed it into a near sprint and passed all of the people that were between me and the finish line.
I saw Darin crossing the street over to the exchange point and could see that he had not seen me coming. So I started yelling out his name. He finally caught sight of me and had the look of terror in his eyes, like, "oh crap, I'm not ready". I handed him the bracelet but he was fiercely trying to get his watch timer reset. I think we blew a whole 5 or 6 seconds there. I looked down at my watch and I had finished in 1 hour 15 minutes or about a 7:50 pace. I finished the leg with 23 kills. I also had been passed by 4. I saw none of the rest of my group, so I wondered around aimlessly for a minute or two until I saw Lisa. I loaded up and we headed down the road towards Darin.
We caught up with Darin after he had passed his first mile. His leg was 7.7 miles. the Darkness was slowly dissipating as it was now just morning instead or night. Darin plugged along at a good pace, but he looked like he was in severe discomfort. He kept a constant pace through the whole time. By this time, George was sound asleep in the back. I was antsy and was afraid that I was going to stiffen up. So whenever we stopped ahead of Darin, I got out and walked around to keep my legs lose. Darin finished his leg with a 8:10 pace.
Michael next took off on his 7.3 mile leg that had over 500 feet of vertical climb up past Rock port Reservoir. He ran a nice solid leg and finished with an identical 8:10 pace to Darin's. It was light enough for his leg that he wasn't required to wear a headlamp and only needed reflectivity. He had one small incidence where he was passing a lady at the same time as another guy who almost ran Michael off the road. Michael flashed a few gestures and gang signs, I was pretty sure, but he denied that it wasn't anything other than raising his hands in aspiration.
Jon took off on our final leg of the middle section on a slow easy pace. He had 5.2 miles to run and a 450 foot climb. By this time we were seeing people that looked like warmed over death running on the road. Most people were fine, but there were those that looked like their knees were about to blow out and they were hobbling along with out any cartilage. Jon finished his leg in just over 9 min miles. Here again, he didn't look winded at all and it appears that he could have kept on going for another 200 miles this way.
We then finished out our middle legs at the Kamas high school.
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