Sunrise, Sunset

Sunrise sunset, sunrise sunset,
Swiftly fly the years,
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears.

I'm not sure why I never did Sunburn Solstice in the past, maybe it was the time of year, or maybe it was the small loop. After my 1 mile loop 100 miler, I have definitely changed my opinion to prefer shorter loops.

I had free race entries to use from volunteering, and I chose the full solstice, running from sunrise to sunset. Somehow I thought, "15 hours is not much longer than 12 hours, and..." I don't know, it somehow didn't seem that long to me and I suddenly realized WAIT! it is a really goddamn long time to run!

The Burly crew before the carnage.

I had no particular goals heading in, except that I would like to run an ultra distance. I thought it would be theoretically possible to run 80K, but I was absolutely not mentally prepared to run 80K. 

Stepping outside at 4:45 am, the air was fresh and thankfully not disgusting humidity soup. The first 20K went by fairly quickly. I would describe the trail as "1.5 track" - not wide enough for people to pass unless they were right on the edge, and with a long out and back section plus super speedy runners on the course, I was constantly jumping out of the way as people came up from behind and towards me, and this made me very, very anxious.

Trying to feel better with Harry hugs.

I sat down for quite awhile, and the thought of having to dodge people for 12 more hours made me want to cry. I thought about calling it quits, but that also made me want to cry. But I just couldn't make myself get out of the chair and keep going. I had some phone and text conversations with Audrey and Greg, and decided that the best course of action would be to find someone to keep me company and to distract from the constant people dodging. I asked X to run with me, but he was racing with his relay team and couldn't. I asked Nancy, and she said yes.

Nancy: the ray of sunshine who
managed to get my butt moving.

Audrey showed up for a visit and did another loop with me. Then I did a few loops solo and hit another bad spot 40K in. I wasn't particularly tired, injured, hungry, overheated, or anything like that, I just didn't feel like continuing. X came over and said Mikaela would run with me if I wanted. Now having only met Mikaela about a month ago, I'm a bit leery about running with someone new. But I said yes.

She kept me going, at whatever pace I wanted...one loop at a time...thank you!

I saw Brian and my stomach felt pretty bad at that moment...maybe I shouldn't drink Fireball. Maybe I should drink Fireball because my stomach felt bad!

I definitely didn't feel worse after Fireball.

I had a semi-fleeting thought to hit 71K for 44 miles, but decided it was best to not push myself to hit distance goals. The loop was not quite 4K, so I crossed the finish and wanted to hit 60K on my watch. I crossed the finish line at 59.36K and 59.5K in, my vision went black, I got seriously nauseous and I had to sit down right there. It's like mentally crossing the finish made my body shut down and say, "fuck you, we're DONE!". After Mikaela got me some water and Audrey returned for another visit, I did manage to hit 60K on my watch.

I will say that this was definitely the worst race I've ever had mentally, although you could argue that I was mentally strong for having managed to pull myself out of the dumps twice. I don't think I did anything wrong except not being prepared to run for that length of time, and the out and backs really threw me off. Anyways, not an "A" race for me..now a few weeks until Tally 12 hour night.