The G Running Diary

JJ 100, Part 4: The End of the End: 11/13/03

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Things got hard. Really hard. The sleepiness returned with a vengeance. It was disappointing that I couldn't make that stay away. It came back twice. When I was that tired, my pace was about a mile an hour. There is always a bright side though--the hallucinations really kicked in. I let that entertain me. I saw runners lying by the side of the trail with their feet sticking out. There was a high heeled shoe in the trail (that was a horse poop), a black cat, a coyote sitting in the middle of the trail, waiters holding trays above their heads, a floating newspaper. Some were colorful, like the big red bench full of people sitting and standing on it, including a girl in a big purple dress. The scary one was some kind of tall palm-ish looking thing that became a ghostly woman that then changed into a skeleton. The thing that was different about these hallucinations was that it was hard to make them go away. Even runners coming toward me started to look like alien beings or horses or something. That made me laugh. I thought that might seem rude to the other runners, but I was too tired to explain myself.

During the night you have to remind yourself that the morning will come. In a way that's bad, because it means you are running out of time, but even if you feel as bad as you can feel during the night, the morning can fix it all. I saw the sky turn reddish orange, and suddenly it clicked. I was awake again and ready to run. I may have even yelled "yeehaa" or something. I felt so much better. I reached the aid station at 85 miles in full daylight. I made a calculation (yes, more bad math). Actually, they calculated for me. It was 25 hours into the race and I had 14.5 miles to go. The only cutoff in the race was that you had to be done with the 6 loops by 28 hours. That meant I had 3 hours to go 5.5 miles. But then I was thinking. That means only 2 hours to do the last 9 mile loop. That was no good. So I took off running. I ran through the rocky part that everyone hated and I ran through the sand and I ran across the road and through the parking lot to the aid station table and the area where Don was casually hanging out with some buddies. I already knew that he had finished under 24 hours. He'd been done for a while. I quickly got water and something to eat, dumped my flashlight, asked for my sunglasses and was off again. I was sort of mad that I wasn't done yet. I was still running. I was passing people who were walking along at nice paces. The rocky section seemed to take forever, even though I ran that. It's easier to avoid the rocks if you can run, because you don't step as deliberately. You tip-toe.

Then the bikers came. It would have been really annoying, except that instead, they all said cool things to me, like you are awesome, you're my hero, and (the best) you are bad ass. Ten of them passing me going up on the rocky trail. Ah well.

Two non-race runners told me I was 25 minutes from the aid station. As if I'd believe them. I think they turned out to be right. I had pretzels and got a full bottle of water. The last section was basically all downhill on the Tonto Tank Trail. I was hungry and feeling kind of nauseous, but I knew I could hang on until the finish. The pretzels tasted like vomit. Nice. Anyway, I took little walking breaks, but kept going. I wanted to finish under 29 hours. I passed a few people. The Tonto trail intersected with the Pemberton trail to return to the finish. A guy in front of me was walking. I passed him saying, "come on," and he seemed to wake up. He started running, caught up to me and passed me. Then I passed him. I realized we were racing to the finish. What a way to go. I felt like laughing. After all that hard night, here we were. I wondered where exactly the finish would be. It turned out to be right when you hit the parking lot. We tied at the finish. That was good.

Then I was hungry, thirsty, and felt kind of crappy. I wasn't sure if I was hot or cold, but boy was I glad to sit down. Don made me a sandwich and I had Mountain Dew and whatever else I could find. 28:36 was not too bad. I got my Javelina puppet, which is an amusing finisher's award.

Don and I took showers at the campground and then meandered to the airport for a 5:17 pm flight. It wasn't really until the next morning when I saw how bad my feet were. The slight blister I had noticed with 9 miles to go was actually a hole in my foot. The minor pain on my second toe (with 90 miles to go) was a giant puffed up blister and semi-detached toenail. Both big toenails look like they are going to drop off, and I didn't notice that at all. After patching up my feet, they don't hurt and will heal quickly. Now more than ever I am wishing I was still out there. Maybe one of these times I will run a hundred miler and never come back...