I woke up around 3 AM this morning for a trip to Clear Springs Mississippi to run the trails. Susan, Jeremy, Holly & I had run there in January when training for the Mountain Mist 50K. When I heard Susan & company were heading up there to ride mountain bikes, I decided to go too. It was about a 2.5 hour drive from my house, so I wanted to make the best of it. The plan was to run two – 10 mile loops at a purposeful pace.
I got there early, loaded up my camel bak with Ultra drink and stashed my phone, some S-caps and some peanut butter and honey sandwiches in the pockets. I had a big ziploc full of ice which I decided I would dump in my Camel Bak on the second loop. I mean it’s 6:00 in the morning right? It can’t be that hot.
I headed out on the loop and noticed a few things very quickly. First, it was hot……..already. And very frickin’ humid. I was soaked by 2 miles in. Second, without someone in front of me I had to clear the entire trail of spider webs. That sucked. And finally, the entire woods had been scorched.
The park service had done a controlled burn about a month ago and there was a lot of charred remains everywhere. Unfortunately, it did not scare away all the bugs because they were ridiculous! I was getting bit all over the place. Oh well, as long as I stayed moving they were not too bad.
One problem I ran into was that the “controlled” burn decimated a bridge on the trail. All that was left was some burned pillars. Oops. I had to take a straight down and straight up path to get around it.
I finished the first 10 mile loop and was not too bad. The now hot liquids I had been drinking did little to help my hydration status, so I was anxiously awaiting something cold. I downed 1.5 bottles of ice cold water and loaded up my gear for the next loop. All the ice I had went into the camel bak as well as a bladder full of Ultra. Not Michelob Ultra though that may have helped immensely.
When I headed out for my second loop, my head was not in it. My motivation was seriously lacking, but I knew I didn’t want to spend all that time to just go run 10 miles. So I pressed on. About 1 mile into this loop I heard a loud buzzing right behind me. I must have spun in circles 4 or 5 times trying to locate the sound. At one point I thought my Camel Bak had exploded, but it is not pressurized. Eventually I figured out it was a bird or animal in the tree above me.
By the time I was close to 3.5 miles into this loop it was time for a decision. If I go on, it is 6.5 miles back to the truck. If I turn around, it would be 3.5 miles. Should I exercise my sense of perseverance and determination or actually think things through rationally. On the “keep going” side were the facts that I was here to train, we had nothing planned for the afternoon, and I am training for a 100 mile race! On the “turnaround” side were the facts that I was on the trail alone, it was hot, I was dehydrated (even though I drank constantly), and I just didn’t feel it.
For once, I used the rational approach and turned back. I texted Christine (one of the few areas I could get a signal) that I was heading back to the truck, and told her it could be a while. So I headed back. Now that I made the decision, I just had to go the short 3.5 miles back to the truck. Easy right?
Nope. By now I was not feeling great and having to walk quite a bit. I had a few episodes of dry heaves which I can’t quite explain except my stomach didn’t like something. I was catching more and more roots with my feet and had a few near face plants on the trail (no black toes yet as I type this). And the bugs were getting better at catching a slowly moving object. And then I almost stepped on a cluster of yellow jackets on the ground. Seriously?
Do you know how far a bug will follow you down the trail while trying to bite you? I figured maybe they were like dogs who will chase you on the bike until they get to the edge of their territory and quit. Nope. Bugs will follow you forever. FOREVER!
This one particular bug followed me for over half a mile. And just when my level of red assery had reached its peak, I rolled my ankle on a big downhill (painful as I type this). And this was a downhill that was bad enough that they marked it in the woods! I mean think about it. Someone must have been going through the woods and said, “That is a bad hill. Let’s put up a sign.” I managed to make it down the hill favoring my left ankle with the stupid bug following me.
After that, it was just a huge uphill and .75 miles back to the truck. I ended up with about 17 miles which would have to do. The intensity of this run compared to our 20 mile run on the same trails in January was vastly different. I can see now that my training in this heat is going to be worse than I even imagined. Some changes to my training plan may have to occur to shift more training to the fall and winter.
What it boils down to is that I do not survive to show up on the starting line of the race, then it is all pointless.
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