Javelina Jundred recap..part 2

One thing I remember, in the heat of the day I was coming in at the end of loop 2, 31 miles and I saw everyone running with Popsicles!! Yeah, so yummy, cold, and full of life, I wanted one!! but not in 2-3 more miles, Now!! what a cruel thing and as I got to the Jeadquaters I kept telling myself to find them but I was in such a hurry to change and get going I totally forgot about them and I was about a mile down the road when I remembered!! DAMN IT!!! I was so bummed! I also remembered that coming back on the 2nd loop we hit the 26.2 marathon mark around 6 hours 30 mins and I gave a big YAHOO!! 1st marathon complete!! Sick I know, but exciting.

Back to the night time. As I left the for the night, again on the counter-clockwise loop, that sucks, I knew it would be just a long grind it out walk and I would attempt to run some being as it was not hot. I walked for a while and saw a few runners coming in, one runner, walking really slow was Form. I stopped to ask how he was doing, he replied, my feet are shot! Burning, aching, pain! Being as he had brought everything for his Garmin but the Garmin itself he had no idea how far he was from the Jeadquaters, which he was about 2 miles and at his current pace it would take him an hour or so to get there. In his current condition and explaining what he felt I told him it was not a good idea to keep going but that is only my advise, it would prove no good to him as he later pushed on from the Jeadquaters. As I approached jackass aid station, they had some chicken soup going on so I sat down with some other runners next to a heating lamp, ate my soup, ate some other things I had picked out.

The sitting down part had now become a task in itself. The famous last words were upon me, Don't blow out your Quads! and sure enough, as the day wore my quads started to give to the downhills and now that it was night I was having a tough time running period. I could walk with a 16 min pace and felt okay. As I finished up my food, the aid station crew had refilled my pack and hand held and I was off back in to the night. There were a couple of runners that had already left and although it didn't even cross my mind to try and stay with them or catch them I slowly started to reel them in on the trail and as I approached them I would quicken my pace and try and blast as fast as I could past them, my own little way of keeping me going without a pacer. By now I was just about on the back side of the uphill grind and many lights were heading my way. As they would pass we would exchange encouragement but the most thing I was sad about in the back of my mind was that I didn't have a pacer and I could really see the added benefit-value in that. This trail is not too technical so that made it just a little okay without one but overall it's a plus to have! As I hit the flatter part of the back side of the trail heading to coyote camp aid station I tried running but again my quads just didn't have it and now even the slightest downhill sections were making them achy and I was starting to twist my body to maneuver these grades. Once I was powering uphill I was okay, I was rockin', I was in the zone, my training for this type of stuff had paid off and I was happy with that. As I approached the next aid station I knew in the back of mind that the once thought of going for the 100 miler or anything about 100k mark was simply just that, a thought. I knew that based on my training and issues leading up to JJ100 that I was in the best position to stop and not push into the red zone and create recovery problems I just didn't need. This was my plan from way back when I signed up and I knew that I had to hold tight to it and not tank myself or my quads any more than they already were.

Once I reached the aid station, still 5 miles from the end, I took a quick look around to see what food I wanted because I was freakn' starving, again! There is only so much you can eat at one time when out on the trail so this time, I had 5 miles till the end and I needed some sugar. Surprisingly enough I had only taken about 4-5 cups of coke during this whole time and no red bulls or energy drinks and was feeling good. I wasn't tired but my quads were shot and my shoulders were also aching from carrying my pack for these 16 hours so far. I quickly hear a voice I recognized and it was Courtney, a crew/pacer member for GeekGirl and I looked at the runners sitting around and saw GG sitting on a chair. I went over to see how she was doing and she had said that her knee, stomach, and some things were hurting/bothering her. Courtney came over to ask how I was and I whined about my quads but then proceeded to enjoy the sugar buffet of 8 Oreo's, 2 cups of Coke, about 25 Peanut-M&M's, and 2 small brownies. No wonder I didn't need energy drinks! haha!! I also took some more chicken soup and sat down once again and ate it all up. Then as I was leaving so was GeekGirl so we all left at the same time. We walked together for a short distance and then I pressed on as GG was still having pain to her knee which was slowing her down. In the last couple of miles I could see the headlamps from a long way off and at some points it can seem discouraging but in others it's so cool to see where you are heading at night. This is the rocky section of the trail that earlier in the day I had passed Form on but now it was just a walking and don't bust your ass section of the trail. I finally cleared all the rocks and was texting in to Dez to let her know I was close and I would be finishing about 11:43 pm being as I was now on a 17min/mile pace.

As I got close I could feel the same familiar pull I felt each time coming in at the end of the loop. I was so excited to be there and this time be done! I told Dez to meet me at the timing mat so she could see me finish and turn in my chip. As I made the last few hundred yards I knew that this was it, that I was going to stop and part of me was sad and down but I dismissed that as I realized I just accomplished 62 miles, great training, didn't get hurt and I how much work I need to do for HURT. I crossed the finish line at 17 hours 42 mins. One thing I made certain was that I didn't go over mid-night and I kept my pace to accomplish that in the last loop. As I took my chip off and told the staff I was dropping at 100k, they marked me down, handed me my 100k Buckle and listed me as a DNF, but it was so not right because I did Finish! I finished exactly what I came to do on the day I signed up for this race!

After quickly grabbing some pizza and few more snacks, Dez and I made our way to the crew area and disassembled everything and packed up some things. At this point I really didn't know Form had went back out on the 4th loop and Dez informed me what time he left and based on calculations it was going to be a Long time before he was there. Looking back, we should have left to the hotel so I could change and shower, rest for a while then head back out but by the time I hit the passenger side seat I was out like a light. I fell asleep so fast and rested for about an hour. Then I had to use the bathroom so I went to the shower/bathroom at the camp site, taking my clothes to change and some shop towels I had to wash my face. When I walked in it was a single type shower and there was soap there so I quickly decided I was jumping in and using my shop towels to dry off with. The Best Shower Ever!! After cleaning up I walked outside the shower and there was S.Baboo standing by his car, Hey!! I said. I went over to chat with him on his race and GeekGirl had come out of the shower area and was ready to head to the hotel. They took off and I went back to the car where Dez was resting. We waited for a while longer, slept some and then Courtney came over to tell us Form had finished. We quickly found him or he found us, don't recall and we headed out to the hotel. By this time I was so tired and achy throbbing legs I just wanted to lay down in the bed.

On the ride to the hotel I would learn that Form took 6 hours 40 mins to walk that 15 mile-ish loop!! OMG I said.. it took us 6 hours 30 mins to run 26.2!!! I give it up to the guy as I cannot imagine taking that long to walk 15 miles with a bum foot, You da man Form! Once we got to the hotel I hit the bed and went right to sleep but it was restless as my legs were just throbbing and sore now. By morning time I was totally stiff and as I moved around it actually wasn't too bad. I mean the first few steps were tough but then once moving I was okay. As we packed up and headed out around 10:30am we stopped and grabbed food and headed back. It was great to have Dez drive simply because I just didn't want to have to think and pay attention to the road. When we hit Flagstaff I noticed that my feet had swollen up like sausage links!! I quickly put my compression socks and we headed back to Vegas.

Today, all the swelling has gone down and my feet are back and now I just have soreness to my lower legs and feet.

Now let's talk about my gear.

I purchased some 2XU compression shorts and calf sleeves to use and try for this run,

as well as get some insight if these would be good for HURT. Bottom line, No! Although the compression shorts felt good the seams in the crotch area rubbed, even with BodyGlide, luckily it wasn't bad but just enough to annoy me for part of the run. Now the Calf Sleeves. I was excited to use these as in the past on a training run I ran in my CEP Compression socks with my Injini's and it worked for a while but my toes just got to compressed, so using just the calf sleeves I was ready. After the 1st loop all was working well and they were fine but on the second loop, about 20 miles in, I notice something pinching or stinging the back of my right calf. As I investigated I notice the top of the sleeve was super tight as I had puffed up and now that damn thing was too tight, but the big thing was that these sleeves have some sort of plastic/rubber along the inside lining, most likely to prevent them from sliding down but either way this damn thing pinched my calf's and actually cut into my skin. I rolled down the sleeve to my ankle and ran that way till loop 3 and then I took them off. When I did take them off I noticed the left calf had been cut and pinched and a small pinch blister had formed!! WTF! I was kind of pissed as these are supposed to be awesome and in there defense maybe I should have got a bigger size but overall the inside plastic/rubber thing sucks no matter what size.

I did purchase a new hand held, Amphipod.

This hand held is actually pretty cool in the fact that it feel comfortable and works easy within the hand, I have a standard round bottle and it's annoying after a while, like it's work to hold on to but this Amphipod is pretty comfortable. The down side to this design is the rubber strap on the bottom, it simply falls off the bottom of the bottle if there is no pressure on the strap from your hand. I figured I would super glue the damn thing next time and get a thermal cover to help keep things cool but otherwise I liked how it worked and will be taking it to HURT.

At the race site Ink n Burn was there and I wanted to get one of there new shirts so as soon as I got there I actually went there first and I got this:

I actually ran in this shirt for a while but then I changed out simply because I had snagged the sleeve on a tree branch.

Nutrition recap to follow and other random stuff.

rockon'