| Old Pueblo 50 Mi Endurance Run Page 6 |
| The final stretch: In retrospect, I should have taken more food from this aid station. Leaving the last aidstation, Mr Pink shorts was on my tail again. There was a baby climb, then we crossed a dirt road and then a decent climb out of a gulch (Kentucky Gulch?) up to a ridge. Beginning this climb I saw two runners ahead of me. The climb did not seem difficult, just time consuming. Reaching the ridge , I went into a slump and my elbow and knee were no longer numb.… the trail meandered around. I came upon Geri and another person walking the trail in the opposite driection. I figured I’d covered about 2miles since the last aidstation. I asked Geri "How much farther to the finish"… she replied "3-ish miles". Not what I wanted to hear. I could not believe I had only gone a mile since leaving that aids tation. Looking at my watch, I knew it was going to be close. I could now see to my left in the distance some metal shimmering in the sunlight… it was the group of vehicles parked above Kentucky Camp, the finish. The trail was not heading in that direction which was mentally tough to deal with, so I just stopped looking over there. I was tired of fighting for the sub-11. I wanted to stop and walk it in. The little voice in my head was telling me I wouldn’t make it so why try. I remembered meeting up against these voices last year at Bandera 100km. I gave into the voices and gave up on my goal of finishing before midnight. If I had kept on trying , I could have made it before midnight despite being cold. I did not want to fall prey to that mistake again. I emptied out the water bottle in my waist pack to lighten the load, and started running again. I was running 20-30 steps, walking10 in this section trying to keep going. The trail finally dropped off the ridge. I caught up with two people walking… a man and a woman. I thought one might be a pacer, but not sure. They let me around them and I said thank you. Then the woman started running with me. It was not until she said to me "I still can’t believe how you can run downhill on rocks" that I realized she was the strong uphill runner I had leapfrogged with earlier in the run before I fell. I told her I had not recognized her, and that I felt on the edge of delirium. She explained that the runner she had been walking with had gone out too hard trying to set a new course record and was in bad shape. She herself had gotten off course in one section. She started talking about how unsettling it was to be able to see the shiny cars and the trail was not heading in that direction. I really did not want to go there mentally, I was just managing to hold on as it was. Just then we came to yet another gate, and I said "well, not anymore it looks like we are finally making the turn left!". Saved by a simple gate and turn in the trail. We ran some more together, and she told me that she thought ultrarunners were insane…..she said she was from Tucson and the person she had come with had probably finished 2 hours earlier and was waiting for her (in retrospect I think the friend she was referring to was Pam Reed). There was an uphill, and I stopped to walk… she said that she did not understand this ultrarunning thing about walking up hills and she ran tick-tick-tick up the hill. She said if there was another downhill coming up that I’d catch back up with her, and we laughed. The uphill broke what little bit of rhythm I had going. I was Hurtin' Murton. My knee was hurting going up the hill. Reaching the top, the trail entered a field and meandered forward. How much further I wondered, as I watched the runner disappear around a curve in the trail. The little negative voices returned with a vengeance: "You are not going to make it under 11hours, you should just walk it in from here. It won’t hurt as bad if you walk". So I walked some, then I felt guilty for giving in to the voices. So I started to run again. I had to keep trying . It’s not over until it is over, and there was still time on the clock, although it was dwindling quickly. A woman was walking opposite direction on trail and asked me "do you think you will make it in before 5pm?" I replied " I am trying to". She must have read my mind. It was a constant battle with the negative voices. It sure seemed longer than 4miles to me. I’d walk some then run some. I knew each step I could run instead of walk mattered. I heard noise behind me. It was another runner, a woman with dark hair. I stepped out of the way to let her pass by. I would later find out, from reading her race report, that she was Andrea Feucht from New Mexico. I watched as she disappeared around another bend in the trail (she would finish in the nick of time for sub-11: 10:59:53 !). Finally I reached a gate and could see the buildings of Kentucky Camp on top of a hill. One more gate to open and close. My watch read 10:58;something. I felt like crying. It was coming down to the stupid wire. I wished my knee and body would stop hurting so I could run hard. I felt better than this at the end of SD100. As I approached the first building (which was on top of a hill) I could not see where the trail went, and some spectators pointed me in right direction. Part way up the hill, my watch clicked over to 11hours. At least I did not have to hear a horn blow in the background. I continued up and around the building and met up with a little boy carrying a stopwatch. He told me to run as fast as I could to the finish and he would time me. I wanted to tell him it did not matter. 11 hours had passed. But he was really serious about his job, so I spared him my take on the whole situation and ran. The finish line was finally in sight. I crossed at 11:01:20. The finish line was a welcomed sight for very tired eyes, a hurting knee and elbow. I was really happy to see two familiar faces greet me at the finish line: Tom Crull and Pat Coates. Tom was standing by the race clock, and he got a mouthful of my rambling and frustration . My disappointment was short-lived though, because I was done and could sit down. In the big picture, I had been close enough to 11hrs to call it even. Tom said I looked a mess and he took my water bottles, knee brace and waist pack from me. Pat had been working at the 33mi aid station, so she knew about the cuts/abrasions from my fall. Tom and Pat got me to the first aid folks. Thanks to Tom for his help at the finish, and also for telling me about OP50 a year ago now and encouraging me to enter the 2004 event. |
| I only slept 3 hours that night. I woke-up at 7:15am and could not go back to sleep. So I packed up my stuff, went for breakfast and had time to drive through the West section of Saguaro National Park before my flight departed back to Houston. I had no muscle soreness in my quads which made me happy.. they are getting stronger for downhills. A few days after the race, Wayne sent me the data from the GPS he was wearing during OP50. The data lends some credibility to my belief that the last two stretches of trail were longer than stated (6mi and 4mi respectively): location altitude cumm ascent cumm distance 0 mile 5143 0 0.00 3 mile 5509 626 2.98 7 mile 5190 1255 7.34 13 mile 5009 1762 12.88 19 mile 4124 2691 19.38 25 mile 4337 3486 24.32 29 mile 5181 4476 28.77 33 mile 5580 5463 32.95 40 mile 5296 6420 39.66 46 mile 5302 7205 46.15 50 mile 5146 7653 50.56 On Monday and Tuesday, four more bruises appeared on my right side. On Wednesday I had a bad headached and neckache (not sure if that was a delayed response to the fall or not). On Saturday, a week after the event, I was able to run 13miles with no pain in the knee joint. So I believe that the knee and elbow joints were spared any permanent damage. Although the skin is still not back to normal, I expect it to be healed in another week.. I will return to Arizona next month for Zane Grey Highline and hope not to leave any blood on the trail this time! T H E E N D (Back to main trail running webpages) |
 |
| Old Pueblo Buckle (photo by Wayne Coates) |
 |
| Photo from Sunday's visit to Saguaro National Park: |
| Even though I missed my sub-11hr goal, I am glad that I did not give up trying to achieve it (like I had done at Bandera 100k last year when I became cold in the final 10mi). I venture to say that I learned more at OP50 about myself because of the falling incident, than I would have if the incident had not occurred. I am satisfied with the 11:01 finish; I worked hard for it. So the fall did not completely corrupt my self-contrived test. Had I not fallen, I think I would have finished around 10:30-10:40. I had not let anyone at any of the aid stations deal with the elbow or knee.... I just wanted to keep moving during the run. Now that I was finished, the volunteers could do whatever they felt was necessary to take care of the injured areas. My knee was bloody (I think the brace protected the knee somewhat from the impact). The elbow was worse... blood was down the back of my arm to my wrist. there was gravel embedded in it. The first aid folks treated and cleaned the cuts at the finish line, but could not get all of the gravel out of the elbow... so the decision was made that I should go to hospital. Before leaving for the hospital, I had a chicken sandwich , chili with saltines, soda and coffee.. I sat at the same picnic table as Britt. I fully expected to see Britt enjoying a rotisserie chicken as he had after Ouachita, but he was just sitting there bundled up in warm clothes. He broke 10hours at OP50 , which had been his goal. Pat Coates drove me to a hospital ER in Tucson in my rental car. It was still daylight when we left Kentucky Camp, but dark when we reached the hospital. It was a long night.. We did not leave hospital until 3:30am.... 4.5 hr wait time just to get to an exam room. I got a tetnus shot, x-rays taken of elbow and knee, and cleanup of the cuts. There were no broken bones (I did not think there would be) and no bone chips . Pat then drove me back to my hotel room, and her husband Wayne (who ran OP50) came and picked her up at my hotel at 4am and brought me my dropbags. Many thanks to Pat and Wayne for their help. I enjoyed OP50. I thought the course was fun. It would have been even more fun had I not taken that fall, but such is life. The buckle is beautiful. I more than got my money's worth from the experience. Thanks to Duane and Julie Arter and the volunteers for putting on a well-organized and fun event. (Click here for Full results) |
 |
| Photo: Linda talking to Wayne Coates after finishing (photo by Pat Coates) |
 |
| Photo: Pat took a photo of the elbow before it was cleaned up by the First aid folks at the finish line area. |